There are a significant number of respected economists who propose that were the government to fund universal health care and Social Security, while eliminating FICA, the economy quickly would emerge from recession to prosperity — but these scientists are written off a kooks, not by evidence but by intuition.

Perhaps these scientists are wrong, but the debt hawks never want to evaluate. They just know in their bones, “debt bad, surplus good and please don’t bother me with facts.” Even worse, many debt hawks (for instance the Concord Coalition) owe their salaries to this belief. For certain, they don’t want to hear counter evidence. Again, this is similar to the climate controversy, where many scientists owe their salaries to the “man-causes-global-warming” point of view.

Rather than talking about a scientific “consensus” (which sounds so settled), we could refer to a “majority,” which leaves open the opinions of the minority. In science, the minority often is proven correct.

A chart, motivated by the above graphic (though not as pretty) can be found at http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/the-federal-deficit-debate/

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Too bad – this is actually pretty similar to the ‘academic’ consensus around securitisation that was one of the proximate causes of the credit boom and collapse. In both cases, there has been an over-reliance on ‘whizz-kids’ using computer models to predict outcomes. As you have alluded to wrt the financial crisis computer models, GIGO. Same applies here

The real trouble with AGW is it is not a falsifiable hypothesis. Not by measuring surface or atmospheric temperatures anyway or their proxies. While you can fashion a historical record for this and for CO2 atmospheric concentrations, and look for correlations, correlation is not causation.

Maybe we should release 20 billion tonnes of CO2 all at once into the atmosphere over, let’s say Washington DC – and measure the change in local temperature and CO2 concentration this causes at multiple weather stations simultaneously over days and weeks. This would give us a clearer idea of the radiative effect of CO2 on the atmosphere. That would be real science

The (failing) hunt for correlation between CO2 concentrations and temperature is not really science.

You should check out Eschenbach’ ‘smoking gun’ article at wattsupwiththat
You will learn that there are 3 global temperature records, CRU, GISS and GHCN. All get their raw data from GHCN. All adjust the temperature record for local factors by their own methodologies. This is the set of databases upon which the ‘peer-review consensus’ is made.
The Climategate emails and computer code, coupled with denial of FOIA requests to others – these mean something – that we can no longer rely on their methodologies without checking them first. The peer-review process failed to check this out. We have to look at what they have done to the raw data, openly and transparently, for every weather station used. And whether or not there has been fraud/ falsification of data

If their records still stand after this process, so be it. But it needs to be done

If the data series used as the basis for the models are biased to produce warming, then so will the models using this data and those relying on them. It does not take a massive global conspiracy, just the effects of
CS Lewis’ The Inner Ring (Making good men do bad things) http://ridedirt.com/mb/index.php?topic=170.0

@Robert Carruthers:

‘“Before citing the GISS or any other long term termperature series please read:

http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/gistemp-a-human-view/

It rather makes a mockery of them.”

Sure, mockery is supposed to replace any serious argument based on facts.’

Since you obviously have not read the piece, I’ll copy key comment below. Read the article to see the basis for the comment:

“I must admit, it has turned out to be more (and worse) than I expected when I started this journey. But a job once started must be carried to a conclusion…

As to motive and goal of the GIStemp “designers”. On the one hand, I cherish Hanlon’s Razor and try desperately to find a way to attribute this mess to stupidity rather than malice. For a long time I could make it fit. It just took a lot of stupidity.

Lately, and most especially with the world wide thermometer deletions, seeming timed in just such a way as to continue a warming trend in the product even in the face of a cooling reality, peaking just as Copenhagen looms… I find the quantity of stupidity needed to “do the deed” and the exquisite timing of the arrival of that stupidity, first in the code, then in the thermometer counts after the code was released and could no longer be ‘tuned’; I find it begins to approach infinity…

And frankly, given the extreme views publicly expressed by Hansen as a public person and NASA ranking manager; and his blatant advocacy for breaking the law, trespass, vandalism, and civil disobedience to promote that agenda: I find it increasingly hard to presume he would be above putting bias into his work product in the furtherance of his stated political goals when he has stated vandalism is a viable moral behaviour.

And finally, the places in the code that are parameterized and show clear tuning (places where a knob can be turned and the result observed, that now have the knob pegged at a position that shows more warming…) those places are ‘footprints in the snow’ showing what the designers were thinking and doing.

So, reluctantly, and against my will, I find myself forced to inspect ALL of Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

And I find stupidity inadequate. And more so every day and every page of code examined and every change of thermometer locations discovered.

“The truth just is. -emsmith”

And there is only so much you can ignore before you must decide that the truth just is, and accept it. However reluctantly.

BTW, I think you have come to have a decent understanding of GIStemp, given your comment. And that is why I call GIStemp “A Data Fabrication Program”. It must create data where there are none. It has no other choice. The data are not there at the start, and are there in the product.

And the way it fabricates those data are tuned. The code has clear parameters chosen to do that tuning. (In the code listings, look for the FORTRAN key word PARAMETER. Also look at the values passed in at run time from the scripts to the programs – like variously 1000 km or 1200 km; or sometimes 6 zones, sometimes more…)

Hansen wrote most of it (and manages all of it); and he has a stated public agenda promoted with vigor and has advocated for folks doing public malicious acts in promotion of that agenda.

Motive. Capacity. Opportunity. Behaviour. Effects.

It’s all there but the email logs and meeting notes. And there is no moral compass to prevent “the deed”.

So while I’d want to subpoena some records and do a formal investigation before bringing charges, I think there is plenty of probable cause to support doing that investigation.”

Humans account for only 3% of all annual C02 released into the environment. Wipe humanity from the face of the earth and you will only be able to reduce C02 by 3%. What is the point of spending trillions to reduce C02 by a very small fraction? See the data at: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

The data is not being hidden, though it would make a better story if it was.”

I’ve frequented the site, seen a lot of what you’ve linked to. However, much like the printout of an EKG for a person admitted to a hospital for an M.I. , I’ll leave it to the experts for interpretation.

Now…. if the issue at hand has been identified and we all agree upon the problem needing to be addressed, then the question … from a cost/benefit perspective … is ; ‘what is the best way to proceed?’

I’m open to a ‘democratic’ process in resolving these policy question.

But the facts? They’re not open to popular vote.