The skeptics I know of are not cherry-picking. In fact, they have been pleading and begging for data sets denied them by organizations that flagrantly defied FOIA laws and requests. Meanwhile, as evidenced in the climategate emails, as well as public statements from russian data collection groups, it is the proponents of CAGW that were cherry-picking. I agree with you that credentials don’t make one’s statements true. For example, I think Einstein was wrong (a whole other thread and topic.) By the way, his degree from Princeton was honorary, not awarded through academic achievement. In fact, he failed out of Polytechnical Institute in Germany. He didn’t have much use for doing homework or even attending classes, preferring to sit around and concoct his “thought experiments.”

You say that the process of Global Warming is complex. And it may very well be complex. If it is so, then how can we give any credence to the theory that human CO2 output, alone, is responsible for current warming? You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Especially as the supporters of CAGW have yet to explain how they expect CO2 to drive positive feedbacks into water vapor and how they can ignore that water vapor is a negative feedback system. The supporting scientists in the IPCC report themselves admit to not knowing enough about the water vapor signature.

Are there some skeptics that might a bit unhinged? Probably so. That does not, however, invalidate the questions raised by skeptics. To do so is polemic, not scientific.

To the corn debate. I live in north Texas and I am literally surrounded by farms that raise corn, milo, and animal feed grain (short cycle, prone to at least two harvests per year.) Corn needs some water, usually rain or irrigation. But it also needs heat with unmitigated exposure to the sun. That is, you have to clear the trees off the land to get enough bare acreage to grow corn. Any hayseed farmer can tell you that. Of course, he got is corn education from working the land for decades instead of reading political tracts and garbage from people that never spent one day turning soil for the next crop. But hey, that’s just reality, as opposed to the unicorns of socialism.

Stupid. All this means is that the planting band for the various crops moves north or south. While it might matter if the band for something moved down into Mexico somewhat (“Cooling”), it certainly doesn’t matter if it moves up into Canada (“Warming”), for cryin’ out loud.

Suggestion — look into the 130+ year history of the “citrus line”, the line north of which one does not grow citrus due to the chance of a hard freeze (during the 20 year productive lifecycle of a citrus tree) killing the citrus tree.

Hint: In the 1880s, on the east coast, it was in Georgia. During the supposedly warming 80s it moved south of Orlando, and has never moved back north of it.

You want a long-term measure of climate, that sort of thing is one of the most obvious.

The verbiage contradicts itself. The headlines say that historical famines are associated with cold weather. The small print says that hotter fields mean lower yields for corn. The graph seems to say that it doesn’t matter either way. Whatever is happening with the weather, we should remember that we are motivating farmers to produce more corn, so they can make ethanol to put in our auto fuel. Since land is finite, the farmers will push hard to get more bushels per acre. Talk to the farmer who recently put a gps based system on his tractor, with sophisticated mapping systems that will enable him to put just the right amount of fertilizer and water on each small portion of his land. Innovations like that have had an influence on the yield per acre.

I didn’t see anything about your training or credentials in your “About Us” section, Richard – where did you do your research? I did find this on MySpace: “I have been spending time working on my hobbies, and figuring out how the weather really works, much to the chagrin of the camp of modeling based forecasters.”

Sounds Freaking Amazing.

You need a better graph for food that regional US corn yeilds to show that corn production has an increasing trend due to warming. (Or at least chane the label). Corn in the US particularly benefits from all sort of modern innovations (GM, crop rotation, fertalizer improvements, land use).

Yes A food in A region has increased. I don’t know how much that region has increased.

Therefore, showing increase in corn yeilds under that title (indicating you know the increase is because of temperature is a correlation causation mistake.

And an obvious one at that.
March 21, 2010, 7:19 pm

http://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Crops_County/cr-yi.asp

Looks like the usual range of growth, other years by comparison could be found on this same USDA site, if you would be interested in showing an animated set of maps, showing changes in harvested amounts and areas of interest. Any and all crops of significance seem to be available here
http://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Crops_County/index.asp
How much more data do you need to look at with a graphing or movie animation software application?

A little advertisement for yourself there Richard? Your site was inaccurate for today, by the way. Yesterday, possibly, but not today. Just what this CS needs…
March 20, 2010, 10:11 pm

These maps are not a forecast? They are the maps generated two years ago from the last 3 repeats in the cyclic patterns, talked about in the text sections. That they have any similarity to today’s weather, just shows that the repeating patterns are really there. If you read the whole site text you will see I am not selling anything, (no commercial content)just elaborating on how this repeating pattern could/should be incorporated into how “They” forecast the weather so that “they” can make it work right. I am just suggesting how to fix the current problem, so what remains will be the CO2 component, in the context of how important it really is in the whole scheme of weather and by extension climate.

If I give a way to solve for all of the main variables, then the formula for the CO2 problem becomes that much clearer. I thought that was what we all wanted to know? The knowledge of the workings of the resultant interconnectedness of the whole set of variables, was what I was interested in. Should it not be the goals or aims of Climate Scientists, if they are really thinking scientifically?

Hailed as “the big new idea to save the planet from runaway climate change”, this set up a global fund to save vast areas of rainforest from the deforestation which accounts for nearly a fifth of all man-made CO2 emissions.
http://just-me-in-t.blogspot.com/2010/03/measure-your-gullibility.html

Yes A food in A region has increased. I don’t know how much that region has increased.

Therefore, showing increase in corn yeilds under that title (indicating you know the increase is because of temperature is a correlation causation mistake.

And an obvious one at that.