Regardless of the overall standard, there are still some very knowledgeable people who contribute to these pages. Anyone who asks genuine questions can still get good answers, though it helps to have some knowledge of physics and maths in order to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Yes, in some ways. However, you fight this greenie mentality with truth and pure science. Even James Hansen couldn't fight that and had to retire and go into full time communist activism. A place in which he knows his way around.
This site was obviously set up by Yahoo to promote AGW or ACC and sponsors several greenies on this site. In other words, global ignorance. This site has routinely allowed its promoted partakers to call true scientists liars with impunity. Yet let one of the true scientists call someone a liar and you get your question or answer pulled. According to community standards you can't call someone a liar. But this only works one way.
But there are enough true scientists on here to show these greenies for what they are. There has been a lot of good information disseminated on this site to over come the corrupt Al Gore thinking.
>> illustrate a group of people feeding on their own ignorance. Pseudo Science and their promotion of their belief systems makes finding any real information hard for a average person like myself. <<
That does not sound like an average person. In fact, it sounds exactly like a person who is, "feeding on their own ignorance. Pseudo Science and their promotion of their belief systems."
Yes, clearly it does. While it is very easy to look online, there is a lot of wrong information posted online, and many blatant lies. I would suggest that if people want to find reliable information about climate online, they should look for .edu or .gov sites. And I would only trust the .gov sites if it's an agency, and not some hack politician's site like Inhofe or Bachmann.
It would be even better to take courses at your local university, or go to the library and check out textbooks on physics, atmospheric science, oceanography, etc.
I have given up answering these questions on Yahoo, or elsewhere. Except for this one, because you have linked to me for many years, Miles.
Basically, it is a waste of time. Cultural location has far more to do with belief in Climate Change than anything else. Presenting science or refuting "scientific" claims long disproven (such as any significant connection between Cosmic Rays or Solar Output and Global Temperature - the current top article on Climate Depot) is useless and only leads to frustration.
See any of the work done by Dan Kahan at Yale, in his Cultural Cognition Project: http://www.culturalcognition.net
The problem is not the sites, okay many sites are one sided, but there are enough sites to cover both extremes with sensible stuff in the middle,
The problem is people only read what they already believe in, and tend to avoid conflicting views (even me, I try to read skepticalscience but it's hard)
What worries me is that education is one sided now, in my day we were encouraged to think, discuss different theories and aspects of any subject.
In a conversation with an AGW believer he told me he had learned environmental studies at undergrad, and so was well versed in the science, I asked him, at any time in during those studies, did they mention that the warming effects of CO2 diminish with concentration, well it took a time to get an answer, but no they did not mention it, so it is obvious that even his university education was one sided and biased.
YES. Yahoo Answers is often Yahoo Ignorance feeding Ignorance.
Better sites:
For general science: New York Times, Economist
For more technical science: Nature, realclimate
Exposing denial: ClimateProgress, desmog, skepticalscience.org
General info: Believe it or not WIkipedia is fairly good more often than not. They make mistakes and are often skewed, but rarely deliberated sabotaged by deniers (as YA is, massively). On Wikipedia they are stopped.
You might try wattsupwiththat.com. The site has links for all.....not only skeptics but also those who have unquestioning belief in CAGW.
I tend to drop in on 8 or 10 of them on a fairly regular basis.....read what they have to say and form my own opinion.
Pseudo science is way more fun than the real thing. It's like Faux News is way more entertaining than the real thing. Ignorance is bliss they say but the grumping I hear and read seems to prove otherwise. A lot of the problem is teaching political correctness and how to take a test rather than imparting real knowledge.
Looking for actual science related material on any social media website is like trying to find the gold nuggets amongst the pyrite. Since you are looking for science based information then you must limit your searches to websites based on actual science.
NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) - http://www.noaa.gov/
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) - http://www.ipcc.ch/ - While the IPCC does not do any of the science itself, it does report on what the science tells us concerning our changing climate.
There are many universities that will have scientific data available for reading as well.
You should look for studies that have been published and have withstood the peer review process.
You should avoid any expressions of opinion as being a fact. But, I sense you already know this. You should also pay close attention to anyone trying to lead the thought of the conversation by their implanting their words as to if this is the reality of the conversation. Words such as the word "advocate" being used when the proper wordage to be used would be "has recognized". Always be skeptical of those that claim to merely be skeptics. When one denies the overwhelming evidence shown to them, this does not qualify them as a skeptic. Neither should their claim to skepticism be honored when their skepticism is based on such generalities as, "It is not going to be as bad they say", "It is not warming as fast as they said it would", "We do not yet know enough to draw such conclusions", "My gut instincts tell me ....." or anything that contains the words Al Gore, liberals, one world order, government or redistribution of wealth as a reason to be skeptical of the science.
In your pursuit of the golden nugget buried within the mountain of pyrite, good luck.
A quick glancing overview of the questions and answers here illustrate a group of people feeding on their own ignorance. Pseudo Science and their promotion of their belief systems makes finding any real information hard for a average person like myself.
Perhaps some suggestions to better sites.
Climate Depot
if facts do not change deniers, more facts won't either. They are not even skeptics. Real skeptics would double check facts presented by WUWT and FOX news.
http://www.c3headlines.com/global-warmin...
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a0105...
Look who the top contributor is and what he stands for! Dana Knuckleheadiccelli!
