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Global Cooling

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  • 08-02-2008 11:23am
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 216 ✭✭


    I am confused.:( One day the earth is warming up and the next it is cooling. The science was settled according to the EPA lecture I attended in the Mansion house on the 5th Feb, now this.

    http://en.rian.ru/science/20080122/97519953.html


«13

Comments

  • Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,792 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Perhaps you should educate yourself as to the difference between an individual's opinion and a global scientific consensus.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,772 ✭✭✭Lennoxschips


    Ah yes, 2007 was a similar year to 2006, ergo, global warming must be false.

    Hmmm.... a crappy argument.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,625 ✭✭✭AngryHippie


    only smarties have the answer.....





    Or so they would like you to think !!!!

    ;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    Global Cooling is so 1977

    Mike.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 216 ✭✭rigormortis


    Professor John Brignell;

    "There is no scientific theory linking carbon dioxide to the “runaway” global warming that is the basis of the calamitous predictions. The contribution of the gas to the making of a comfortable planet by the greenhouse effect is well understood, modest and self-limiting. It is only turned into a terror by computer models. These are worthless; depending as they do on extensive guesswork about the ill-understood mechanisms and interactions involved in climate, and involving so many tunable parameters and feedback factors that they could produce any desired result by appropriate tweaking. A quarter of a century ago, before science came under firm bureaucratic control, such models would have been laughed out of court."


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  • Registered Users Posts: 13,270 ✭✭✭✭fits


    Ah yes, the old 'I believe Scientists... as long as they agree with my intuition'.

    Broken record.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    mike65 wrote: »
    Global Cooling is so 1977

    Mike.
    Yes, I remember it well!

    All those images of polar bears roaming the Yorkshire moors, glaciers in the Thames etc

    Claims that the populations of northern Europe would start migrating south and fighting for land in the Mediterranean region.....

    It was rekoned that it would happen within 50 years!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 216 ✭✭rigormortis


    fits wrote: »
    Ah yes, the old 'I believe Scientists... as long as they agree with my intuition'.

    Broken record.

    Broken record? I have not seen a newspaper, magazine or tv report in the last two years without being hit over the head with this "global warming" rubbish. Maybe you want to pay for my "carbon offset" when the laws are shortly introduced.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    Professor John Brignell
    If my memory serves me correctly, John Brignell is not a climate scientist. I think he is also retired?
    Maybe you want to pay for my "carbon offset" when the laws are shortly introduced.
    Listen Casey/Zippy/MrTaxMan/Rigormortis (have I got them all?),

    You can bang on about this all you like, but it doesn't matter how many times you say the same thing, you're not going to be taken seriously unless you produce some hard evidence to back up your claims.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 216 ✭✭rigormortis


    djpbarry wrote: »
    You can bang on about this all you like, but it doesn't matter how many times you say the same thing, you're not going to be taken seriously unless you produce some hard evidence to back up your claims.

    I have done plenty of research. You dont have to look very far to come to the correct conclusions. I tend to look at the overall picture, who benefits from these global warming claims?

    How about this for evidence;

    [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
    with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
    water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill ...
    All these dangers are caused by human intervention
    and it is only through changed attitudes and
    behaviour that they can be overcome.
    The real enemy, then, is humanity itself
    ."
    - Club of Rome,
    The First Global Revolution,
    consultants to the UN.
    [/FONT]
    [FONT=Arial, sans-serif][/FONT]


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  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    How about this for evidence;

    ...Club of Rome...
    :rolleyes:

    Been done to death already:

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=54900907&postcount=266


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 216 ✭✭rigormortis


    [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]"...we need to get some broad based support,
    to capture the public's imagination....
    So we have to offer up scary scenarios,
    make simplified, dramatic statements
    and make little mention of any doubts....
    Each of us has to decide what the right balance
    is between being effective and being honest.
    "
    - Stephen Schneider,
    Stanford Professor of Climatology
    lead Author of many IPCC reports
    [/FONT]


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    ...we need to get some broad based support,
    to capture the public's imagination....
    So we have to offer up scary scenarios,
    make simplified, dramatic statements
    and make little mention of any doubts....
    Each of us has to decide what the right balance
    is between being effective and being honest."
    That's some nice selective quoting. How about we look at the full thing:
    On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
    http://rpuchalsky.home.att.net/sci_env/sch_quote.html

    And by the way, that quote is nearly 20 years old.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 216 ✭✭rigormortis


    djpbarry wrote: »

    And by the way, that quote is nearly 20 years old.

    What has that got to do with anything? The whole thing is double speak. What our friend considers good for humanity would be a lot different from my personal views. Once again can people not trust their own judgments anymore?


  • Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,792 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    ...and rigormortis earns himself another ban.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    cab looking it up but New Scientist article said that the extra CO2 in the air means the next ice age is probably not going to happen for another 250,000 years or so.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 48 66o66o


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    Perhaps you should educate yourself as to the difference between an individual's opinion and a global scientific consensus.

    I find it very amusing to call it a global consensus. Thats like saying if 10 people in a room are talking and 5 have one opinion and 5 have another, well the ones with the most power will just ask the others to leave.
    there problem solved. Everybody now agrees and has only one opinion.

    I find it amazing that there are so many climatologists in the world these days. It seems its the hot career path to take, (no pun intended).
    but yet everybody has the correct opinion on Climate change....

    I hate when i hear people consistently going on about carbon, even when people are talking about methane they call it carbon. soon oxygen will be called carbon and we'll be charged for breathing.. and we seem to getting away from the fact that carbon is not even the most influential green house gas.
    that honour goes to.................................. Water Vapour. amazing isn't it.
    second is ................................................ water particles in the air (clouds)
    third ... carbon.

    ok back to the global warming consensus thing..
    have you heard of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
    well there's a professor there called Richard lindzen he has some conflicting ideas to the consensus and shock horror, it;s not recently
    educated in Global weather patterns and climate change.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen
    many more scholars similar to this but they seem to loose funding as soon as they oppose the special interests. but i'm sure a simple google search should be able to direct you in the right direction.

    Also The Mann Graph has been disproved but is still touted in general news etc... as being fact , it is also being used by the IPCC to convince the general population, that are unable to develop an opinion for themselves that this is fact when to be honest it is not fact at all.
    I know people say its the best we have and we have to go for it, well i say in the middle ages we believed the earth was flat and that was the best knowledge we had then, but we were wrong. But i hear you say technology is much more advance now of course we know how all of this will turn out... that's a seriously naive approach to this.

    quick google search finds me this....
    http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/13830/

    look this is still up for a lot of debate but yet so much money and careers are to be made from it that legislation is being but through that will screw us for a lot longer than this will last.. I'm all for a more renewable sources of energy in fact i'm pissed at the fact that we don't already have them but i think its wrong to tax the people when there is no alternative in place. it seems like the most illegal unethical tax to enforce.
    instead the government should have greater incentives for businesses and organisations to produce more energy efficient machines/cars/etc.. instead of taxing us on the only thing we can do...
    Or at least sort the public transport system.

    Also another thing i read someplace was something like...
    "" its very egotistical of humans to think that the climate as it is , is actually the best for the planet,in previous times it has been a lot warmer and had a larger diversity of life, was that a better climate than now , or because we live in this time it automatically means we are in the best climate period of the earths history""

    although if your a creationist the earth is only a few thousand years old so i suppose it probably is the greatest time in our earths climate history!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    Some truth in that of course, we are only concerned (if we are) cos it'll muck up the basicly comfy status quo. We might'nt like higher averge temps or more exciting weather but some other species will thrive in it. *Gekkos For Global Warming*

    Mike.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    66o66o wrote: »
    ...even when people are talking about methane they call it carbon.
    Possibly because methane is a carbon compound?
    66o66o wrote: »
    ...we seem to getting away from the fact that carbon is not even the most influential green house gas.
    that honour goes to.................................. Water Vapour. amazing isn't it.
    second is ................................................ water particles in the air (clouds)
    third ... carbon.
    :rolleyes:

    Wow. Thanks for that.
    66o66o wrote: »
    well there's a professor there called Richard lindzen he has some conflicting ideas to the consensus and shock horror, it;s not recently
    educated in Global weather patterns and climate change.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen
    No, he has criticised the likes of the IPCC for the manner in which they communicate their findings; he does not disagree with the general consensus, i.e. that man is very likely responsible for the recent rise the average global temperature.
    66o66o wrote: »
    many more scholars similar to this but they seem to loose funding as soon as they oppose the special interests.
    Such as?
    66o66o wrote: »
    The Mann Graph has been disproved...
    No it has not. From the 2006 report of the US National Academy of Science:
    The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world.
    http://books.nap.edu/execsumm_pdf/11676.pdf
    66o66o wrote: »
    ...but i think its wrong to tax the people when there is no alternative in place.
    You're not being taxed and there ARE alternatives.
    66o66o wrote: »
    ...instead the government should have greater incentives for businesses and organisations to produce more energy efficient machines/cars/etc.
    They do:
    http://www.sei.ie/index.asp?locID=6&docID=-1


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,045 ✭✭✭Húrin


    I have done plenty of research. You dont have to look very far to come to the correct conclusions. I tend to look at the overall picture, who benefits from these global warming claims?
    Nobody. Global warming is generally a sh!t deal for us. But that does not mean it isn't real.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 476 ✭✭cp251


    Posted this on another thread after Hurin accused me of being a 'Marxist' and 'sinister' for daring to defy the 'consensus' on climate change.

    Here is some light reading for Hurin and other enthusiasts for global warming. (Shamelessly lifted from another forum)

    http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/iWeb/Global%20Warming%20Politics/A%20Hot%20Topic%20Blog/438A03B9-976A-41EB-8849-B54B15413494.html

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/01/science/01tier.html

    http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/01/06/br_r_r_where_did_global_warming_go/

    There are plenty more where that came from. Some opinion, some by scientists, some by mere observation.

    A couple of more cold winters worldwide should see an end to the climate change hysteria. The 'inconvenient truth' may not be what Mr Gore believes after all.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    cp251 wrote: »
    There are plenty more where that came from. Some opinion, some by scientists, some by mere observation.
    Can we have some science, rather than opinion columns?


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,164 ✭✭✭cavedave


    I am a global warming skeptic. But I am skeptical of nearly everything so do not take that personally.
    rigormortis
    A quarter of a century ago, before science came under firm bureaucratic control, such models would have been laughed out of court

    I do not overly trust computer simulations. I do trust speleotherm analysis, atmospheric co2 measurement and temperature measurement (you do need to check these for mistakes like any evidence).

    The most convincing argument I have seen that man made global warming is occurring is in these few pages here.
    http://www.quaker.org/tqe/2007/TQE158-EN-GlobalWarming.html

    TempModelFit.png
    Originally Posted by rigormortis
    Maybe you want to pay for my "carbon offset" when the laws are shortly introduced.
    I am skeptical of carbon offsets too. But I acknowledge the mechanism did work for Sulphur in California.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 476 ✭✭cp251


    As you wish. Here one for now. More to follow when I can find them.

    http://www.springerlink.com/content/g28u12g2617j5021/fulltext.pdf

    Meanwhile here are more lies from the Washington Times. When are these people going to joing the consensus?

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20071219/COMMENTARY/10575140


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,443 ✭✭✭✭bonkey


    cp251 wrote: »
    A couple of more cold winters worldwide should see an end to the climate change hysteria.

    I doubt it.

    http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/

    According to NASA, the global average for the year put 2007 as the second-warmest on record.

    Its notable that the articles questioning the figures have relied on the argument that a portion of the year, in some places was colder than usual....ignoring the reality that in many of those places, the annual average was still up, as was the global average.

    Its also notable these critics seem to be the only people who seem to fail to understand that global warming refers to an overall annual trend. It does not claim that for any given day, week, month, or even season, in some select part(s) of the world, that the temperature will be above the previous averages for that shorter period, in that/those select part(s).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 476 ✭✭cp251


    Despite my sophistry in using the cold winter of 2007 in my argument. It's actually irrelevant as to whether 2007 was the warmest on record or the coldest or just like any other year. It's the long term trend that counts. There is plenty of evidence of a lack of a global trend towards warming if you seek to find it. But the issue is not whether we are going through a period of warming, temporary or otherwise. The argument is as to whether we caused it and whether we can do anything about it. I personally don't believe the current 'warm' period was caused by humans. In this I am not alone but for a long time I thought I was. But there is a growing band of skeptics.

    Even if there is a cooling tendency for the next ten years, the enthusiasts will point to the supposed longer term warming trend and warn us that the temporary cooling period is merely a reprieve.

    Not everyone buys into this as seen below:

    http://www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/story.html?id=164002

    Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations

    Dec. 13, 2007

    His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon

    Secretary-General, United Nations

    New York, N.Y.


    Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

    Re: UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction

    It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.

    The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.

    The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line by *government *representatives. The great *majority of IPCC contributors and *reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts.

    Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports:

    z Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.

    z The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.

    z Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.

    In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is "settled," significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed (see http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_timetable_2006-08-14.pdf) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.

    The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions, ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2 trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is irrational to apply the "precautionary principle" because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term future.

    The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems.

    Yours faithfully,

      Of course all of these people could be dupes of the oil companies and big business, or they could be serious scientists who failed to fall in line with the famous 'consensus' and refused to be silenced by the assertion that the debate is settled. The problem though is that many want human caused climate to be real. They need it to be real, their careers depend on it now. The last thing the need are the skeptics buzzing in the ears. Many ordinary people I speak to now are absolutely convinced that we humans are causing climate change. They have been brainwashed. When I tell them of my doubts. They look at me as the way the Pope would look if one of his Cardinals told him he didn't believe in God.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,443 ✭✭✭✭bonkey


    cp251 wrote: »
    Despite my sophistry in using the cold winter of 2007 in my argument. It's actually irrelevant as to whether 2007 was the warmest on record or the coldest or just like any other year.

    So basically, you're saying that you knowingly used an irrelevant argument to try and convince people that you're right?

    Seems like a strange strategy. One would think that using relevant arguments would seem a far safer strategy.
    It's the long term trend that counts. There is plenty of evidence of a lack of a global trend towards warming if you seek to find it.
    I disagree. There is no question whatsoever but that we have experienced a warming trend. What the various critics have argued is that the trend is nothing exceptional, or that there is no reason to believe it will continue, or that it is peaking or that it has already peaked.
    But the issue is not whether we are going through a period of warming, temporary or otherwise. The argument is as to whether we caused it and whether we can do anything about it.
    That should be the issue, but we can only get to discussing that once all parties agree that there is a trend.

    A good example of this is the changing stance of the Bush administration over the last 7 years. They started by saying they did not accept the evidence for the existence of global warming. Then they finally accepted that that stance was untenable, and changed to saying they accepted that there is global warming, but did not accept that man was a significant contributor. Now, they've mostly abandoned that stance, instead focussing on disagreeing with any steps proposed, on the grounds that they do not accept that these are the right steps.
    Even if there is a cooling tendency for the next ten years, the enthusiasts will point to the supposed longer term warming trend and warn us that the temporary cooling period is merely a reprieve.
    I love that you classify those who disagree with established scientific consensus as "skeptics", but those who agree with it (including those who did the science as "enthusiasts".
    Not everyone buys into this
    No-one with any modicum of information on the subject has ever suggested that everyone buys into it. This is a classic straw-man which many of those who disagree with the global warming theories trot out time and time again.

    Regarding the letter that you copied...its just more of the same - taking swipes at every possible angle which can sow doubt or confusion.
    Of course all of these people could be dupes of the oil companies and big business, or they could be serious scientists who failed to fall in line with the famous 'consensus' and refused to be silenced by the assertion that the debate is settled.
    Hey - you're presenting the letter as something credible. Why don't you go find out how credible the signatories are, rather than just appeal that they might know what they're on about?

    I also find it endlessly amusing that virtually every time a debate like this arises, we get link after link, with articles appearing from sources ranging from the United Nations to the mainstream media accompanied by a suggestion that these very voices are being silenced.
    The problem though is that many want human caused climate to be real. They need it to be real, their careers depend on it now. The last thing the need are the skeptics buzzing in the ears.
    Logical non-sequitor.

    While what you call skeptics are "buzzing in their ears", their jobs are guaranteed, as they need to continue to defend their position and supply more and more evidence.

    And once that step is passed, and we start asking "what can we do", guess what? Then many of them are out of a job, because they've nothing more to offer. They'll have already developed the models which can be used to evaluate strategies - models which are accepted as being capable. At that point, a whole new set of fields come into play...fields which the climatologists simply aren't qualified for.

    Sure...we'll continue to improve our climatological models, so not all of htem will be out of a job. But y'know what....before the whole Global Warming thing arrived, that was the case too.

    The notion that this is some sort of scientific con to grab funding is simply laughable. It shows a serious lack of understanding (or willful misportrayal) of how scientists work.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,443 ✭✭✭✭bonkey


    cp251 wrote: »
    Many ordinary people I speak to now are absolutely convinced that we humans are causing climate change. They have been brainwashed. When I tell them of my doubts. They look at me as the way the Pope would look if one of his Cardinals told him he didn't believe in God.

    If this was the seventies or eighties, you could rewrite the above as follows:

    Many ordinary people I speak to now are absolutely convinced that smoking cigarettes causes cancer. They have been brainwashed. When I tell them of my doubts. They look at me as the way the Pope would look if one of his Cardinals told him he didn't believe in God

    You can believe what you want. Suggesting that those who disagree with you are "brainwashed" just because they disagree with you doesn't help your cause.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    cp251 wrote: »
    As you wish. Here one for now. More to follow when I can find them.

    http://www.springerlink.com/content/g28u12g2617j5021/fulltext.pdf
    So what is the significance of this study?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 15,443 ✭✭✭✭bonkey


    More importantly, if climate scientists are just con-artists out to protect their jobs, why are these guys credible?


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