I have argued against Anthropogenic Global Warming,...
Climate denial is unusual in the scientific community
I will point out the flaws in Mr. Merrill's arguments: This debate is entitled: "Climate denial is unusual in the scientific community" To that end, Mr. Merrill offered a simple challenge, but no definitions or ground rules for the debate. Because of that failure I offered definitions to clear up the "Anthropogenic Global Warming v. Global Warming" debate, and offered some of the arguments of AGW Alarmist and several Sources that argue against those claims. The rest of Mr. Merrill's writings largely ignore the argument, taking us from 20 points of contention to only 2. I then thoroughly deal with those 2 points of contention in Round 2, and reintroduce one previous point from Round 1, because Mr. Merrill did not address it. In Round 3, Mr. Merrill then, admittedly, misrepresents some data while dealing, again, with only 2 points of contention. Seeing Mr. Merrill's unwillingness to deal with the great many issues affronting AGW Alarmists, I provide several links that deal with his original claims; there being a lack of support for AGW Denial, and I reiterate one specific point of contention, and then deal with 22 of his specific claims. Mr. Merrill then changes tactic and provides some excuses as an attempt to deal with the Politicization of Climate Science. Mr. Merrill also provides 8 sourced quotes from AGW Alarmists/Activists. I replied with 9 sourced quotes of AGW Deniers and I point out a group of 13 ACTIVIST Scientists, 8 of whom worked on the report for the IPCC, and I gave a list of 10 Scientists who have left various groups (including the IPCC) over AGW "Science". Mr. Merrill does not deal with any of what was presented in Round 4, but instead, in Round 5, opts to try to convince the audience; using logical fallacies and confusing the definitions of Anthropogenic Global Warming and Global Warming. I believe I have show there is great support for Climate Denial in the scientific community; that the AWG Alarmist community is corrupted by politics and activism. Mr. Merrill wanted a 20:1 ratio of scientists; AGW Supporters v. Deniers. Someone would have to verify the actual count and remove the duplicates from all sources, as they undoubtedly contained duplicate researchers, but lets just make this easy: Mr. Merrill started out with 25 AWG supporting sources with a total of about 200 Authors. This is an average of 8 AWG Supporting Scientists per source. In a sample of 21 of my links (from Round 2), I found 29 peer reviewed papers including about 150 authors, for an average of about 7 authors per paper. This nets nearly a 1:1 (8:7) ratio of scientists who do and do not support AGW. Based on that alone I met and beat Mr. Merrill's challenge. This only leaves Mr. Merrill to deal with the 20 points of contention, of which he only tries to deal with 5. I believe I understand why Mr. Merrill refuses to deal with all the points of contention, or any of the support for natural and normal Global Warming: In the 4th round, I provide an additional link to this peer reviewed study, http://oss.sagepub.com... , which shows that a great many scientists are skeptical of AGW (I did not use this in my assessment of the 21 links in Round 2). I already pointed out how Mr. Merrill failed to deal with ANY points made in the 4th round. Therefore, the only conclusion I can make is; the support just isn't there in the quantity (and/or quality) Mr. Merrill would like or need to prove his assertions. In other words, his lack of dealing with the points of contention is proof his original assertion is wrong. Unfortunately for Mr. Merrill, I was not arguing against Global Warming, as he asserts (Logical Fallacy: Straw Man). As I presented, Global Warming is a natural and normal process that we experience coming out of the last Ice Age (we are in an Intraglacial period, which Mr. Merrill also ignores). I have argued against Anthropogenic Global Warming, Climate Science Alarmism and Activism. I have provided an abundant number of sources against it, including several links to the data itself. And a great many scientists who are "AGW Deniers" simply by doing research that denies the Establishment's supposed "consensus". Review of the Points of Contention: Mr. Merrill claims: There is little support in the scientific community for AGW Denial: Claim proven false. CO2 causes Atmosphere warming: Claim proven false; Warming precedes CO2. Ozone: Ozone is repairing, not causing AGW. CO2 is warming the Oceans: Claim is Unclear, but the evidence, as provided, isn't showing Oceanic Warming. There is no Alarmism or Activism in the Climate Science Community: Claim proven false. Claims Mr. Merrill does not deal with: CO2 levels have been higher in the past than they are today: Claim proven. CO2 levels are beneficial: Claim proven. Earth has natural mechanisms for dealing with increased CO2: Claim proven. Climate Change is not adversely affecting Cyclones: Claim proven. Climate Change is not adversely affecting Wildfires: Claim proven. Climate Change is not adversely affecting Arctic or Antarctic ice: Claim proven. Climate Change is not adversely affecting Polar Bears: Claim proven. Climate Change is not adversely affecting Sea Level: Claim proven. Climate Change is normal and natural: Claim appears to have been proven. There is a difference between "Anthropogenic Global Warming" and "Global Warming": Point proven. There is no "consensus" among scientists on this subject, regardless of IPCC claims: Point proven. There is uncertainty, regardless of IPCC claims: Point proven. There are other theories, largely ignored, for the observed Global Warming: Point proven. The rest of Mr. Merrill's Round 5 post was a poorly formatted table, where he, again, misrepresents the data, for instance: Example 1: Organization: heartland.org Authors / Researchers: 1 Scientific Accreditation: N AGW Acknowledgement: Y Heartland is a strong opponent of AGW, and proponent of Natural and Normal Global Warming. Therefore they do not "acknowledge" AGW. Did Mr. Merrill misread? Example 2: Organization: National Interagency Fire Center Authors / Researchers: Organization Scientific Accreditation: Established AGW Acknowledgement: Off Topic Unfortunately for Mr. Merrill, this is very much "on topic" as the claim by the IPCC and Climate Alarmists is how AGW will make conditions more amenable to more fires that do more damage. The Observations do not support this conclusion. And the list goes on. I estimate I have about 2000 characters left in this reply, but I will not torture the readers with a full accounting of Mr. Merrill's latest attempt to avoid the discussion. This list as provided shows one of Mr. Merrill's greatest flaws: he takes things in a vacuum. Each point, in and of itself, is NOTHING without the rest of the information provided. For Example: CO2 concentrations are increasing. History must be observed: what has happened in the past? Has CO2 ever been this high? Does CO2 cause warming, or does CO2 come after the warming? Biosphere reactions must be observed: what happens when CO2 increases? What happens to plants? What happens to animals? What happens to the atmosphere? What happens to the oceans? Yet, with each point of contention that Mr. Merrill attempted to deal with, he is unwilling or unable to take into account all the information available. Therefore his arguments are very narrow in scope and shallow in content. In any case, Mr. Merrill, it is unfortunate that you spent most of your 50,000 characters avoiding the discussion. I was hoping to see new evidences, new information; and I was really hoping for a detailed and supported argument about the lack of support for AGW. Instead, I find myself disappointed by the avoidance, the abundance of Logical Fallacies, the lack of an actual argument, and the failure to follow good debating decorum. Good luck to you in whatever further arguments you decide to undertake; from my experience here, you are going to need it.