Arguments
Skeptical Science launches PDF
Posted on 10 March 2013 by Doug Bostrom
Skeptical Science author team members have dripped the sweat of their brows and left a lot of elbow grease on their desks performing methodical explanations of climate science as they correct common climate-related misperceptions. Many of these treatments are available with multiple levels of detail, suitable not only for a casual introduction to a given topic but also for people with a strong sense of curiousity (or stubbornly intransigent verbal sparring partners).
Such an investment of work is worth exploiting more comprehensively. In particular it's often the case that we'd like to be able to email or otherwise transmit information in a form that not only doesn't require the recipient to visit a website but can work entirely (gasp!) without the aid of the Internet or even any electricity.
To this end we're launching PDF versions of the vast Skeptical Science climate science misperception rebuttal collection. These will be available alongside the print-friendly online versions of the myriad and ever-increasing writeups covering the gamut of climate fallacies and mental traps littering the landscape.
While each rebuttal PDF includes embedded links to supporting online material for use in a PDF viewer, the PDF versions are also crafted to be better suited as autonomous information vehicles operating on their own, divorced from the Skeptical Science website or the Internet. They're well-suited to be printed as handouts or classroom materials, emailed as monolithic reading material, or used for other purposes where wading into an entire website is either impossible or not desired.
As with all material found on Skeptical Science that is not encumbered by copyright beyond our control, these PDFs are freely redistributable via the Creative Commons copyright,
Find PDF versions on rebuttal pages alongside the online print-friendly versions, as shown here:
Skeptical Science rebuttals are periodically revisited and revised; as rebuttal revisions happen, rebuttal PDF versions will be updated alongside their more "live" counterparts.
Going forward we'll be exploring other avenues of dissemination for Skeptical Science output. Stay tuned!
1) In http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm the PDF is cut a little: it tells us that
Mods, in this article, there are numerous occurrences of the term 'PDF', meaning 'Portable Document Format', but these have become mouse-hover hot-spots(?) leading to the definition 'Probability Density Function'. I guess there is an automatic parser which embeds these hot-spots, but it seems to be a bit aggressive.
Thanks for the heads-up, Jonas. It looks though some other PDF versions have the same quirk-- namely the last few letters of the last word cut off. We'll it out.
Are SkS going to release any PDF's on why the Global average mean temperature hasn't risen in 15 years according to the Uk Met and the Hadley centre?
1997 - 14.37C
2012 - 14.45C
(which I might add is lower than Hansen's pre 1988 Global average mean temperature of 15C). Oh wait.....I thought the GAMT was 14.5C. Never mind.
Are SkS going to release any PDF's explaining, according to your own 'trend calculator', HadCrut4 from 1850, shows two distinct and almost identical warming periods of ~0.5C and two distinct cooling and almost identical cooling periods of ~ -0.4C, each of around 35-40years to present?
Are Sks going to release any PDF's with the evidence that proves, without NOW occuring on their own 'trend calculator' using HADCrut4 1850-2013?
snafu, if you want proof without any doubt, you are wanting religion, not science, which means you are in the wrong place.. If, on the other hand, you want reasonable projections based on the available evidence, you are in the right place. Which will you choose? I think double-posting may not the only thing you have trouble with at SkS.
Snafu, try the "search" box to learn more about the topics you're wondering over. This thread is a housekeeping announcement and isn't going to be a productive place for your sense of curiosity, or much of a useful soapbox for that matter.
snafu... I would think you could do better than that! Try Aug 1998 of +0.83C and Jan 2012 of +0.32 (GISS LOTI). Yikes, we're headed for an ice age in the next 50 years! (/sarc)
Are you guys familiar with 'Personal Brain' software? If so do you know if anyone has built a brain around your material?
TB, I thought about it, but it would take a pretty huge chunk of time -- too much for me.
I've got Personal Brain software, and I agree it would take a huge amount of time, and this sort of mind mapping is intensely personal. How one person sets it up isn't how someone else would feel comfortable navigating- that's why they call it Personal.