Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

(That's what the UN and their various agencies proclaim, as justification for assuming control of the world's economy…)

The other one, I have to say is spotty at best and I have a suspicion he just might be a corporate shill--- much of "Junk Science" seems to make me wonder about that blog.

Watts is on the payroll of the Heartland Institute, which itself is funded by polluting industries.[1]

Results of analyzing the SurfaceStations data did not match Watts's expectations; a NOAA analysis of the Surface Stations data showed "no indication from this analysis that poor station exposure has imparted a bias in the U.S. temperature trends.

"Leipzig Declaration" signatory
Anthony Watts is listed as a signatory on the "Leipzig Declaration", which said "there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide. In fact, most climate specialists now agree that actual observations from both weather satellites and balloon-borne radiosondes show no current warming whatsoever."

The signers of the Declaration are described as "climate scientists", although they include 25 weather presenters.[30] An attempt to contact the declaration's 33 European signers found that 4 of them could not be located, 12 denied ever having signed, and some had not even heard of the Leipzig Declaration. Those who verified signing included a medical doctor, a nuclear scientist, and an entomologist. After discounting the signers whose credentials were inflated, irrelevant, false, or unverifiable, only 20 of the names on the list had any scientific connection with the study of climate change, and some of those names were known to have obtained grants from the oil and fuel industry, including the German coal industry and the government of Kuwait (a major oil exporter

my training is better suited to this topic.

You can't explain to kindergarteners that the sun is just one of billions of stars to their satisfaction either.

You have no training.

You're scientifically illiterate.

The climatologists do have scientific arguments supporting their contentions — which observation has refuted. For some reason, you don't like that result and, hence, call people (including scientists…) who don't agree with you nasty names.

Well, there actually is an overwhelming political agenda: World government, and -perhaps- the demise of capitalism.
This, of course, sounds like a "conspiracy theory" and rightly so! But it's been a goal of so many groups for so many years that their persistent connivance and support of the CAGW crusade seems merely the next stage of their battle…

Oh please. For of, might I reiterate that I never said 97% was correct. However, the methodology used to attempt to debunk that was worse the methodology used to obtain that figure. It was so bad that at least one skeptic had to redact his counter survey and admit it's the majority opinion of climatologists. The counter studies played fast and loose with the articles they included to the point in which op-ed pieces written by people with no scientific background at all were thrown in as a desperate attempt to arrive at a lower figure.  

As far as losing funding goes, that's just silly. Anthony Watts, a dropout with no credentials at all on the subject, received funding. Climatologists that should be expected to know what they're talking about would have little trouble securing a grant from a group motivated to disprove anthropogenic climate change. Even failing to directly secure a grant, there would still be a market selling the work to conservative/right-wing publications. Nobody is prevented from getting his work published. Unfortunately, the quality of the skeptical studies remains sub-par at this point even relying on outdated and disproven notions.

The skeptics' main culprit for climate change is solar activity. The sun does go through 11 year cycles of increased and decreased activity, That's the average length of cycles, not that every cycle is 11 years. Not a bad notion and it would be silly to dismiss the sun's role in global temperatures. However, before the current period of lower activity, even the sun's activity was insufficient to explain the rise in global temperatures and the temperatures continued to rise even after solar activity decreased. Some tried to point there would be residual heat from the period of increased activity, which is true enough but at the same time silly considering the sun's activity couldn't explain all the global warming when the increased activity period was at it's height. Hence, the best counter-theory is objectively wrong and not for political reasons but scientific ones based on empirical data. The other theory blames cosmic rays, which added a whole 0.07 degrees Celsius to the average global temperature, which amounts to 14%.  So again, we have a natural source of warming but no other explanation missing 86%.  Further, the authors noted that CO2 indeed plays a significant role. There might be other natural causes, but I doubt they'll be able to close that gap. Further, nobody is saying that all climate change is anthropogenic anyway.

Neither of the theories was silenced or excluded from publication and the authors did not have resort right-wing ragpieces. Full Text of the solar activity study in Cambridge Journals And here's the link to the cosmic ray's theory . Who was shamed and driven from the scientific again? As usual, in the scientific world it's about factually correct and incorrect, not about politics. Again, though, the cosmic rays theory isn't incorrect, just insufficient to explain the majority of warming.

Aw, do we not have answer to the fact other causes of climate change do get considered? I also wonder how many of the genius skeptics ever, even once, stopped to think that some same scientists they deride for suggesting most of the current climate change is manmade are the very ones that discovered that the climate changed without human intervention in the past. Those folks cleverly suggest there are natural climate cycles. Some of the general public, especially GOPers, consider that a good argument. The rest of roll our eyes and say "No shit, Sherlock. Now where's your data to suggest the current climate change isn't manmade?" and walk away to the sound of crickets. (again though, the cosmic rays guys did have data to say those that not all of what's happening now is anthropogenic and admit to CO2's role)

Ity is a small passing point compared to the global situation but it has just been reported here in Scotland that there still 73 snow patches in northern Scotland from the winter of last year. They did no disappear at all during the summer.