Well, Patrick, glad to hear you're such a font of knowledge.
Could you please explain to us why you're more qualified than the committee appointed by the National Academy of Sciences to review our state of knowledge regarding global warming a couple of years ago?
This committee was formed at the request of the Bush administration, who came to office believing, as you and Andrew state, that global warming is a "crock" or "farce".
The committee included NASA researcher John Christy, once poster boy for the "global warming is a crock" crowd, based on his interpretation of satellite data that was once touted as not only contradicting ground data but also touted by the Right as being "more accurate". Well ... ignoring for the moment that his original published paper had an embarassing computational error in it ... it turns out not to be true.
As Christy and the other National Academy of Sciences committee members reported to the Bush administration:
1. data measured on the ground is accurate.
2. global warming is real.
3. anthropogenic sources of so-called "greenhouse gases" are contributing to that warming.
Now who am I to believe? Patrick? Andrew, who above says "I am no scientist"? Or a committee that includes the leading critic within the profession who himself signed on to the statement I summarize above?
Andrew - if I seem annoying it is because I'm genuinely annoyed at people who will on the one hand cite a science fiction writer (Jerry Pournelle) as an authoritative source on global warming (I assume that's why you linked to him in your "crock" statement made months ago), while ignoring real scientists like those appointed by the National Academy of Sciences.
As a member of an Open Source software project you're probably aware that your activities have been described by some as being "communistic" and "anti-American". Are you? I'm not. I would think this would cause warning alarms to sound off when you read a source like Pournelle's page that implies scientists studying climate change are only interested in establishing a socialist form of government in this country.
