Threatening to report people you disagree with is against YA rules, so I have reported you ****** and hope others follow suite. If you don't like questions fair play, but don't respond just to pick a fight.

PS your avatar is extremely disturbing, I hope you don't work with kids.

First, I take issue with you calling this a "scientific study." I only think that applies if you're talking about it being a study OF science--it certainly does not advance scientific knowledge by any stretch of the imagination. As I've said before, I find studies like this to be a waste of time

I think it's clear that the goal of the study was to combat misinformation about the scientific consensus. There is so much propaganda out there that many people persist on thinking that scientists are split on the issue of AGW. Those of us in the field know that it's a very large majority of scientists that believe AGW is real and a serious problem. It doesn't surprise me that they would work under the assumption that the study will provide further evidence of what everyone in the field knows already. Presumably if they had obtained different results they would have changed their plans--people often have to do that when they look at the data. Realistically, though, what they would find was not in doubt. If Nate Silver could give odds of 92% that Obama would win the presidential election, the odds that the results of this study producing the results it did were up there in the 99+% range.

I don't see Caliservative chiming in yet to say that the paper should be judged on its merits, rather than through use of an irrelevant ad hoc attack on John Cook. If people have problems with the methodology or content of the paper, why not attack it on those grounds, rather than by mudslinging about a "marketing plan"? Oh, probably because it's easier to sling mud and hope that something sticks.

That being said, once again you seem to be condoning the use of illegally obtained private information. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you in the cyber-security business? Do you really see this as ok?

EDIT for Caliservative: Oh, "We" have done that, have "we"? Did you submit a response to the journal, or are you just keeping it to yourself? Just saying something does not make it so, no matter how much you would like to believe that it does. I already said the paper was a waste of time--in the real world of science, there simply are not that many people rejecting AGW. I don't really need a paper to tell me that--I go to conferences, read textbooks and papers and talk to other scientists. Whether you think you can poke holes in the paper or not, the overwhelming belief among earth scientists is that AGW is real and is a problem.

Again I see that you're using your favorite logical fallacies--an appeal to authority (Michael Crichton) who uses a red herring argument, while you assume your conclusion and expect us to accept it without proof, and you tacitly support ad hominem attack on John Cook et al

97% of me says to laugh with you Mike!

Is it therefore a 97% consensus that CO2 has created much more biomass (as a percentage) on the planet than it has caused warming?

---------------------------------------...

pegminer - A serious problem? Here we go with the alarm bells again. That's an opinion based on an agenda. There's no doubt that the U.S. has been in a cooling trend as of late.

As to the question Mike poses I might add that something so critical and vital (since your alarm bells are ringing so loudly as a climate scientist) shouldn't have to rely on people keeping secrets. It's Government money we are spending on it. Or should I say borrowing? All of the research and anything pertaining to it (including the scientists themselves) should be subject to public scrutiny. Who cares if they have been hacked. It's public money they are using therefore transparency is a must. It's like Obama being the most transparent President when we are finding out how diabolical his whole administration has been and is being. Climate science isn't above any scrutiny and as a matter of fact is subservient to "We the People". Screw you and all of your other cohorts arrogance!

My question is posed here on this question. "Is there a 97% consensus that elevated CO2 levels have caused an increase of biomass by 5% to 10%?"

You're right. It reads like a coherent, intelligent version of Heartland Institute marketing plans, with the additional exceptions that it doesn't involve discussing things that are violations of U.S. federal tax laws but does involve research results that have actually been published in a peer-reviewed forum. Those bastards at Skeptical Science! They are trying to use actual research in the shaping of public policy. It would be much better if they were like THI, or the Cato Institute, who use the more effective approach of injecting disinformation and lies into the discussion of public policy. Of course, you like the latter more because it's what you do, and birds of a feather, as they say.

And you know their study that shows how you skeptics are prone to conspiracist ideation? You just did it again. You honestly can't help it can you? It's who you are, paranoid and scared. It's why you can't understand the science.

(As an aside, did you notice how THI never went after the leaker of the documents in court? Kind of like they thought it might be better to just let the matter die. I wonder why they did that?)

Because, like all of the other papers purporting to document the 'consensus' (Oserkes, Doran, Andregg, etc.) the paper had no scientific merit...it *was* part of the marketing plan. The entire premise of demonstrating the presence fact a consensus as some kind of proof is a fallacy (ad populum) from the get-go.

As Dr. Crichton said, "this is not how science is done, this is how products are sold."

@pegminer

We have analyzed the paper on its merits. It doesn't have any. If you were the scientist you claim to be, you would have rejected it outright.

Since you asked, Cook et al should have been rejected outright because 1) it is an argumentum ad populum, and 2) because the methods used to select and classify the papers were scientifically bankrupt.

See http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/05...

Your assertion of a scientific consensus based on your observations at meetings is even more bereft of scientific rigor than the Cook paper. By making such demonstrably invalid arguments, you have exposed yourself; whatever your credentials, you are not acting as a scientist, but rather as a political hack. If this is what they taught you at graduate school, i.e. that an argumentum ad populum is a valid argument, then you have a good case for demanding your money back.

****** always hollers when things go against his agenda. He has a real capacity to shed tears then stab one in the back. In one question, in particular, he didn't like the fact that he couldn't tell evidence from a claim. He brought up how is demeaned his dear father after he passed away. (I never knew his father) The next paragraph he calling lair and every other derogatory name he could get by with. Ha! Ha! Would his father be proud of actions like that, if he were alive? I'm sure he was genuine enough to be embarrassed by his son's actions.

He is all bluff. Notice his answer didn't follow Y!A guide lines. He didn't answer, he just ranted. That is well codified in the guidelines.

In direct answer to your question (Notice how I always follow Y!A guidelines): This environmental crises has always been a PR campaign. I know I have stated such many times over. Even knowledgeable 'saviors of the earth' have acknowledged that.

Quote by Stephen Schneider, Stanford Univ., environmentalist: "That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have."

It is a traditional boiler room tactic. It amounts to, "How much lying can we get by with today?"

Based on your last 500-600 fake questions, the "marketing plan" amounts to

1) "Read" Wattsup

2) Pick an anti-science croc there that hasn't been tapped for awhile (or if feeling especially lazy, like today, just take the latest): http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/04/qu...

3) Lightly alter the wording and reformulate it as a question, using a moderate amount of sarcasm, a liberal amount of fallacious logic, and a minimum of scientific understanding

4) Paste here

5) Repeat ad infinitum to satisfy paranoid fears of environmentalists hiding under one's bed

Edit to ******: Your Avatar is so "disturbing," indeed so very alarmunistically alarming, that I shiver in my Sarah Palin designer boots for the future of soccer in England:

1. 

Way to go Mike, you link to hacked data (including private email addresses, full names and IPs) in what is yet another lame attempt by you to spread misinformation.

I've reported this question as it clearly constitutes a violation of both the Law as YA's community guidelines (and I urge others to do the same).

If you want to address the issue, fine. But there is no need to link to hacked data with all the personal details contained in them (no matter how much WUWT and Poptech disagree).

Edit @ OM:

<>

Would that make you linking to illegally obtained personal info less of a crime?

A violation is a violation, dear Mike, no matter what 'the other side' has done in the past or will do in the future. And as I explained before, you could have brought this issue to everyone's attention without linking to it, ie by copy and pasting relevant portions of forum-posts. Sagebrush can help you in case you do not know how to copy and paste.

Edit @ pasper2:

<>

I never threatened to report him. I reported him straight away. There's nothing in YA's rules against doing that, it is actually encouraged when illegalities are committed.

<< If you don't like questions fair play, but don't respond just to pick a fight.

PS your avatar is extremely disturbing, I hope you don't work with kids.>>

To which my answer is: If you don't like questions fair play, but don't respond just to pick a fight.

Edit @ Sage:

<>

You are a psychopath Sage. Seek help. Unlike you, I do care about people I know nothing about nor do I try to hurt them via their recently deceased family members.

Here is the scientific study I am referring to: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article Received 18 January 2013, accepted for publication 22 April 2013, Published 15 May 2013

Here is the marketing plan:

"This thread is for general discussions of how to market TCP (began in this earlier thread) and make as great an impact as possible. Various surveys find that a disturbing proportion of the public don't think scientists agree about global warming so I suggest our goal be to establish "strengthening consensus" as a term in the general public consciousness (that goal can be a topic for discussion if required).

To achieve this goal, we mustn't fall into the trap of spending too much time on analysis and too little time on promotion. As we do the analysis, would be good to have the marketing plan percolating along as well." http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3724697/2012-01-19-Marketing%20Ideas.html

2012-01-19 10:49:41 Marketing Ideas John Cook

Boy, it's a good thing the results of their study turned out to show that 97% of climate scientists want to keep their job, isn't it?