Marc Sheppard of AmericanThinker and Joseph Romm of Climate Progress have been engaged in a back-and-forth on the subject of global warming. Yesterday, AT published an article by Marc Sheppard replying to Romm.  Romm had originally responded to Sheppard after Sheppard had declared Marc Morano the winner in a recent debate between Morano and Romm.

I clicked on the link to Romm's response bearing the catchy title "Yes, the science says on our current emissions path we are projected to warm most of U.S. 10-15°F by 2100, with sea level rise of 5 feet or more, and the SW will be a permanent Dust Bowl." I read his response. Then, I posted a comment providing my own humble rebuttal. I double-posted this rebuttal in the AT comments section for "The Planet Cools While Romm Burns" (April 17, 12:02 PM).

Here is the text of my rebuttal:

Romm writes:
 
Through most of this decade, we have been exceeding the most extreme emissions scenario, A1F1, and that means we are headed toward 1000 ppm.
 
Yet, through all of this decade we have been cooling, not warming. This empirical fact was not predicted by the models, all of which predicted continuous warming due to increasing CO2 emissions. Hence, the models are seriously flawed.
 
Romm also writes:
 
… the rate of rise of carbon dioxide concentrations has accelerated — and continues to do so under all high emissions scenarios the IPCC looks at. This is another basic prediction of climate science, which is already coming true. Global warming is not linear!
 
Since the models are now known to be seriously flawed, serious flaws in any associated CO2 positive feedback model cannot be ruled out.
 
Also, associating "global warming not linear" with accelerating emissions is circular reasoning. Correct deductive reasoning would be: if accelerating CO2 emissions are occurring, and increasing CO2 causes warming, and warming is accelerating, then global warming is non-linear.
 
The association Romm makes assumes accelerating emissions are causing non-linear warming. However, in view of the observed decade of cooling in spite of an alleged[?] decade of accelerating emissions, the assumed cause/effect is, at the very least, not established, and at worst, completely bogus.
 
Obviously, a cause/effect relationship is passionately believed. At one time, many experts passionately believed Ptolemy's model, and why not? Ptolemy's model predicted the observed lunar, solar, and planetary positions quite well. Then, came Galileo's simple, straightforward telescopic observations; phases of Venus correlating to lunar phases, moons orbiting Jupiter, Jupiter rotating on its axis, sunspots indicating solar rotation, all implying a different model. The experts of the day were wrong, and a minority was right. And until Kepler came along, the old model remained a better predictor than the new model, despite being based on incorrect assumptions, and therefore, wrong.
 
Romm is very fond of citing literature supportive of his passionate belief, and dismissive of anyone who questions the authority behind that literature. However, even renowned authorities can be wrong. Isaac Newton passionately believed that no clock could ever be built to withstand a sea voyage, and hence, successfully provide longitude. Yet, a humble self-educated clockmaker named John Harrison built and tested just such a clock. This is not an isolated incident. History provides many examples. Bringing such history to bear, Romm's continuous reliance on authority is insufficient to convince anyone willing to exercise sound logic to seek truth, even when truth refutes a passionately held, and common belief.

Steve Says:
April 17th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
OK, I just read a rather lengthy and well reasoned rebuttal of Mr Romm from a guy named James. Posted today just minutes ago. I hit refresh to see if there was a reply to this post and, voila’ the post is gone. Disappeared. I smell a rat. Star, look for your post to mysteriously vanish if it doesn’t toe the line.
Anyone care to address the issue of dissent being removed from this blog?