Very interesting 80~minute film on the science and politics of climate change. It decidedly puts forward the sceptical case, that global warming is a real phenomenon but has nothing to do with human activity and CO2, that the Sun is actually responsible for it, that there's a ~conspiracy~ to keep developing countries shitty and dependent and all sorts of other exciting things... I am currently watching part 6 of 8.
Youtube Link:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=u6IPHmJWmDk&mode=related&search=
It was shown on (I think) Channel 4 (UK) last week, and is being shown again on More4 at 22:00, tonight.
I am Al Gore and I disapprove of the ideas put forth in the post above.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Whwgq3Y59WE&mode=related&search=
They talk about Al Gore and his film in this bit.
The effects of the sun on the atmosphere are well known and are taken into account by climate scientists.
Sure, global warming might be a natural process that has nothing to do with us, and it might not affect our continued existence on Earth at all.
But do you want to take that chance?
Better safe then sorry, I say.
>>5
Your assessment should also take into account the risks of stopping the use of fossil fuels etc.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/
A comment on the above:
> I haven't seen the show, but if it's true that they present the cooling from the 1940s-1970s as a mysterious flaw in the anthropogenic-global-warming hypothesis, that's remarkably dishonest. It's also remarkable that they're still pushing the supposed discrepancy between surface and tropospheric warming not long after the last major piece of evidence for that was explained away as a math error.
To steal somebody else's line, that's probably about as risky as when we stopped using child labour in industries.
And >>5, there's no scientific debate about whether "global warming might be a natural process that has nothing to do with us". Everybody who actually knows about climate and studies it know that this is not the case.
The "controversy" exists only in the media, not in the science.
>>6, those risks are only economic, no?
Suppose a worst-case scenario where the world economy takes hundreds of years to recover; isn't that better than making ourselves extinct?
>>8, I understand there actually are a few climate scientists who don't agree as to the extent of global warming's effects. Keep in mind, the majority is not always right, especially not in science, and it can be hard to get funding for politically unpopular research. That said, I think it's definitely these skeptics who have the burden of proof.
I haven't watched this video yet, but will next time I get 80 minutes.
"Few" being the operative word. Those who disagree are simply very loud, and tend to seek out the media who like to report controversies.
Among the vast, vast majority, the question is not whether global warming exists, because it is well known that it does, nor whether it is caused by man, because it is well known that it is, but rather whether it is already too late to do anything about it. At least this is what actual climate scientists tell me (as opposed to the media circus).
And remember, it is hard to get funding for research into the geocentric model of the universe too. This does not mean we need to keep an "open mind" about it.
>>11 Among the vast, vast majority, the question is not whether global warming exists, because it is well known that it does, nor whether it is caused by man, because it is well known that it is,
Bullshit.
Which part is bullshit? Can you point me to a sizable group of climatologists who would disagree with my statement?
> if there is no debate, it's not science.
Now, this is the bullshit. How much debate is there that the Earth orbits the Sun? Is it "not science" because nobody is "debating" this?
Science is not about opinions or debate. Science is about facts.
Does anyone else find it odd that these climatologists can't tell me whether it will rain a month from today, but they know that the Earth's temperature will rise by 2.3 degrees over the next 100 years?
Here are some other predictions of O NOES IMMINENT DISASTER, TEH END IS NIGH, REPENT! from the usual suspects:
-----
The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population. -- Reid Bryson, "Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man", (1971)
The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer -- Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb (1968)
I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000 -- Paul Ehrlich in (1969)
In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish. -- Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)
Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion -- Paul Ehrlich in (1976)
This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century -- Peter Gwynne, Newsweek 1976
There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food production could begin quite soon... The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologist are hard-pressed to keep up with it. -- Newsweek, April 28, (1975)
This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000. -- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976
If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age. -- Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)
Here's an environmentalist quote that I find absolutely fascinating:
"...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 climate change. To do that, we need to get some broad-based 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..." --Steven Schneider of the so-called "National Center for Atmospheric Research," which is a political lobbying organziation that does no actual research
Envirowackos have absolutely zero regard for objective truth. Everything that comes out of their mouths is to push their radical reactionary political agenda, to bring society back to some idyllic pre-electricity, pre-technology past that never was, where everybody stood around and sung "Kumbaya" and no one interfered with the habitat of the Endangered Farting Lousefly by tilling the soil to grow food.
I believe NOTHING they say. Not one word, not even "a," "an," or "the." They LIE.
> Does anyone else find it odd that these climatologists can't tell me whether it will rain a month from today, but they know that the Earth's temperature will rise by 2.3 degrees over the next 100 years?
Not at all. I can't tell you the exact speed and direction of every little eddy in a river, but that doesn't stop me from knowing that all the water in the river is going to end up in the sea.
This is only odd if you're trying hard to blind yourself to reality.
> from the usual suspects:
Please elaborate why the people quoted are relevant when talking about the opinions of the entire scientific field of climatology.
If you just dig hard enough, you can find people saying any dumb thing. What makes these people "the usual suspects"?
> Envirowackos
You should not be listening to them in the first place. You should be listening to scientists. And they all say global warming is real and very dangerous.
>>>> Does anyone else find it odd that these climatologists can't tell me whether it will rain a month from today, but they know that the Earth's temperature will rise by 2.3 degrees over the next 100 years?
>>Not at all. I can't tell you the exact speed and direction of every little eddy in a river, but that doesn't stop me from knowing that all the water in the river is going to end up in the sea.
>>This is only odd if you're trying hard to blind yourself to reality.
Bullshit. I'm not asking about every little eddy. I'm asking whether it's GOING TO FUCKING RAIN. Yes or no. If they can't predict climate one month in advance, how is it that they can predict climate a century in advance? Someone's in denial here. Someone's got a religious faith in DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM, we're all DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED. A hundred years ago you would have been one of those nuts with a sandwich board sign strapped to your chest that says "REPENT, THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH," ringing a bell and annoying people on street corners.
Remember, kiddies. Any evidence, apocryphal, anecdotal, or made-up that supports the "global warming idea," supports it.
Any data that has no bearing on it, supports it.
Any objective, empirically derived scientific data which contradicts it is a test of faith, which means that more studies and more funding are needed. (Cha-ching!) Quick, "renormalize" the data!
And anyone who disagrees is "trying to blind himself to reality" and therefore unfit to have an opinion.
>>You should not be listening to them in the first place. You should be listening to scientists. And they all say global warming is real and very dangerous.
"Scientists" like Steven Schneider, amirite?
This isn't science because there is no data, and there is no way to test these DOOOOOOOOOOOOM claims empirically. If it can't be empirically tested, it doesn't even rise to the level of being a hypothesis. There's only speculation, and it's completely politicized. When you can tell me daily global and local average temperatures for the last 10,000 years down to 1/10 degree, then maybe we can speculate about climate trends. Until then, we have nothing but a bunch of loud kooks spouting pseudoscience and pushing a radical political agenda.
> Bullshit. I'm not asking about every little eddy. I'm asking whether it's GOING TO FUCKING RAIN.
Whether it rains or not is exactly one little chaotic eddy in the bigger system of the atmosphere. It doesn't matter how much you yell about it, this basic fact is not going to change.
Let me ask you, if we can't predict if it's going to rain next month, does this mean we absolutely can't say whether it's going to snow next winter in the north?
> "Scientists" like Steven Schneider, amirite?
Scientists like scientists. This is not some personal cult, and I have no idea who the hell that is you're talking about. You seem to be terribly worked up into some kind of us-versus-them attitude here, which is frankly pretty ridiculous. You're not showing any sign of being interested in facts, just personal attacks and your own superiority.
So let's keep it to the science here, and leave the personal issues out of it, OK?
> This isn't science because there is no data, and there is no way to test these DOOOOOOOOOOOOM claims empirically.
We aren't testing it right now?
>>18
...so, you can't answer my points, then?
They have been answered again and again, and I see no reason to do so one more time, as you're showing no sign that you will accept any criticism of them. You're far too wrapped up in name calling and grandstanding to listen. If you were ready to listen, you would most likely have listened already.
If I am wrong and you are actually willing to learn something, I suggest doing some reading on the subject somewhere other than political websites. http://realclimate.org/ is generally considered a very good resource.
I could also show you a simple mathematical example of how a chaotic system can be entirely unpredictable in the short term, but have easily predicatble long-term trends, but that would actually take some work to prepare, and before I do that, I'd really like to have some indication that you are actually interested in learning something from that and that I would not be wasting my time. Can you give me that?
More specifically: Look through ttp://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/index/ for things that seem to be of interest, and read them.
A quick glance finds this, which seems very relevant to your arguments: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/is-climate-modelling-science/
Also, it looks like there's no need for me to do what I suggested in >>21, as realcliamte has done it for us here, much better than I could:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/chaos-and-climate/
Was that all? No more snarky comebacks? No more personal attacks?
So, you have nothing at all except more DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM propaganda from the SAME FUCKING PEOPLE who were fearmongering about an impending Ice Age thirty years ago?
Well, I've observed global warming in my area. We had about a month of cold weather in st. louis. December averaged 70 degrees, and two months later we're back at 70 degree weather.
There's no way that this is a normal weather pattern. I'm not saying doomed, I like warmer weather. I'm just saying the 70' in december in the midwest ain't normal.
> Now, this is the bullshit. How much debate is there that the Earth orbits the Sun? Is it "not science" because nobody is "debating" this?
actually, according to general relativity, it's just as valid to say that the sun orbits the earth as it is to say that the earth orbits the sun.
> Science is not about opinions or debate. Science is about facts.
science is about determining what is fact through research and debate, not simply asserting opinions as fact and claiming that any ideas that don't agree with your opinions are "bullshit".
> actually, according to general relativity, it's just as valid to say that the sun orbits the earth as it is to say that the earth orbits the sun.
That is a completely irrelevant argument.
> science is about determining what is fact through research and debate, not simply asserting opinions as fact and claiming that any ideas that don't agree with your opinions are "bullshit".
Through research, yes, but not through "debate". Theories are suggested, tested, and falsified (or not). Rhethoric never enters into it, and neither do opinions.
> Well, I've observed global warming in my area.
That's not really the case. Extreme weather conditions like this warm winter can't really be attributed directly to global warming as such. To once again get back to realclimate.org:
As we are fond of reminding our readers, one cannot attribute a specific meteorological event, an anomalous season, or even (as seems may be the case here, depending on the next 2 months) two anomalous seasons in a row, to climate change. Moreover, not even the most extreme scenario for the next century predicts temperature changes over North America as large as the anomalies witnessed this past month.
So did you actually read any of the provided links yet?
> That is a completely irrelevant argument.
then why did you bring it up?
and actually it's not all that irrelevant. you presented your opinion as fact, just like you're doing with global warming.
> Through research, yes, but not through "debate". Theories are suggested, tested, and falsified (or not). Rhethoric never enters into it, and neither do opinions.
and just how are we supposed to determine whether or not a theory has been falsified, if not through debate?
also, how do you explain things like http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20073 and http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=851?
> then why did you bring it up?
I did not. I was speaking of the geocentric vs. heliocentric view of the universe, and I was hoping that people would understand the context. The fact that general relativity can be constructed in rotational reference frames really has no bearing whatsoever on that argument, and certainly does not in any way confirm the geocentric view of the universe, which you would have to imply for your argument to make any sense.
> and just how are we supposed to determine whether or not a theory has been falsified, if not through debate?
By performing experiments that show that the predictions of a theory do not hold? This is not "debate".
> also, how do you explain things like http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20073 and http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=851?
First, I do not bother reading about science on political websites.
As for the articles, I see nothing whatsoever about science in the first one. It's just complaining about the media circus, which it might be confusing with actual science. It's hard to tell, because it's obviously pushing an agenda itself.
The second one names a few papers, but without knowing the context of those I have no idea if their conclusions are at all reasonable (and one is led to suspect that they aren't, because once again they are pushing their own agenda). A quick search through realclimate finds no obvious references to that, so barring a statement by an actual scientist I have no opinions on that.
It also talks about satellite records, but the only source for this is a person at a "conservative think-tank", so that is not exactly science.
> if their conclusions are at all reasonable
how exactly would you determine that scientifically?
i don't think the conclusion that global warming is occurring is reasonable based on the evidence that i've seen.
> It also talks about satellite records, but the only source for this is a person at a "conservative think-tank",
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd06oct97_1.htm
"Unlike the surface-based temperatures, global temperature measurements of the Earth's lower atmosphere obtained from satellites reveal no definitive warming trend over the past two decades. The slight trend that is in the data actually appears to be downward."
> how exactly would you determine that scientifically?
I would not, I do not have the competence. I would go with what the actual scientists say, as I have been doing so far.
> i don't think the conclusion that global warming is occurring is reasonable based on the evidence that i've seen.
And you haven't seen even a tiny sliver of the evidence, because you are not a climate scientist. So? How much evidence have you seen that general relativity is correct? Plate tectonics? Evolution? Do you not believe those either?
> http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd06oct97_1.htm
Note that that webpage is ten years old. The science has not been standing still for all that time. And from what I can tell from current discussions, the lack of warming was a misinterpretation of the data. Some related discussion here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=170
To highlight the conclusion:
Since the satellites now clearly show that the atmosphere is warming at around the rate predicted by the models...
> And you haven't seen even a tiny sliver of the evidence, because you are not a climate scientist.
actually i am, but that's completely irrelevant.
> How much evidence have you seen that general relativity is correct? Plate tectonics?
quite a bit, actually.
> Evolution?
i'm reserving judgment on that one until i see some real scientific evidence for or against it.
> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=170
so a liberal think-tank claims that nasa misinterpreted the data and i should just believe them?
also, i notice that they don't say exactly what the problem was or how it was fixed and the only reliable sources they refer to are 404'd.
> liberal think-tank
Where are you seeing a liberal think-tank, now?
PS:
>> because you are not a climate scientist.
> actually i am
In that case, what have you published?
> realclimate.org
I'd be interested in seeing any argument that makes the slightest bit of sense for why it is either "liberal" or a "think-tank".
Here, let me quote the site introduction for you:
RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.
If you are going to claim they are lying when they write this, please provide some proof.
> i prefer to remain anonymous on anonymous boards.
> and like i said before, it's completely irrelevant.
Than you should not have mentioned it. As it stands now, I will assume you are lying.
>i'm reserving judgment on that one until i see some real scientific evidence for or against it.
Okay this is going to be a little off topic, but how can you be on the fence about evolution? Evolution, on the micro scale is a fact. If evolution did not occur, then we would have eradicated disease a long time ago, because the bacteria that are responsible for the diarrhea which causes mortality in children, would have become extinct as our immune systems learned to recognize the surface protein markers of bacteria and eradicated them before they could infect us. We would only catch the rhinovirus and influenza once in our lives. Outside of the microscopic world this still applies. DDT was not just phased out of use because of environmental debate, but also, most pest insects, including mosquitoes, have developed a resistance to DDT. Our modern pyrethroid insecticides as well, are also becoming more and more ineffective as the insects' immune systems evolve to defeat synthetic chemicals.
In addition, we have observed human artificial selection. People have bred the wold into the hundred of breeds recognized by the AKC, and Darwin created his theory of evolution partly based on observations of pidgeon breeders who bred the birds into different forms. This part is undeniable fact.
The part that is debated, is whether a new species can be created by evolution, that is speciation. This is highly implicated. Japanese snails have been observed with varying chirality of their shells, making it easier for right shelled snails to mate with right shelled females, and the same for left-shelled snails. In addition, separate "species" of Hawaiian drosophila, or fruit flies, are capable of making viable offspring, but strong behavioral barriers prevent interbreeding. In both these cases, it fairly clearly demonstrates that barriers to interbreeding can indeed evolve without making a species extinct, high implicating speciation as being of evolutionary origin.
> I'd be interested in seeing any argument that makes the slightest bit of sense for why it is either "liberal" or a "think-tank".
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=think%20tank
> think tank
> n. A group or an institution organized for intensive research and solving of problems, especially in the areas of technology, social or political strategy, or armament.
i'd be interested in seeing any argument that makes the slightest bit of sense that says that the purpose of that site is not "intensive research and solving of problems".
and "liberal" is obvious from the content of the articles.
> Than you should not have mentioned it. As it stands now, I will assume you are lying.
i only mentioned it because you claimed that i wasn't.
you're free to assume whatever you want. just don't expect anyone else to accept your incorrect assumptions.
> Okay this is going to be a little off topic, but how can you be on the fence about evolution?
i know several biologists who are skeptical of what you call speciation. the reasons they give for their skepticism seem valid to me, but i'm not a biologist.
Although it is true that global climate change is the result of eccentricity, obliquity and variation in the tilt of the earth's poles, the thing is, so-called greenhouse gases are of concern, because we know that gases in the atmosphere cause energy to be "trapped". The earth tilting to absorb more radiation in a concentrated area from the sun (the cosine law), as well as an orbit which places the earth closer to the sun leads to a rise in temperature. However, to deny that gases in the atmosphere have any effect on earth's climate is silly.
Gases like all matter, react differently to radioactive energy. For example, if a gas appears dark, we know it is absorbing a lot of the light spectra. If you ever harvested salt using seawater and black construction paper on a hot day, you know that dark colors tend to absorb light, and transmit it as heat (as there is always energy "loss" emission as various other em waves) Gases, like all matter can also reflect or transmit em waves as well. Ozone is probably one well accepted gas that has the effect of reflecting much of the harmful radiation in the atmosphere, as well as absorbing the earth's reflected rays. Greenhouse gases work similarly; they absorb even more of the earth's reflected rays. Because of the laws of thermodynamics energy in must be equal to energy out, as energy and matter are neither created nor destroyed. So, the CO2 molecules must re-emit the radiation in some form, usually lower energy, and at the low energy end, below the light spectra (which is the spectra the sun primarily emits) is infared, or heat. In essence, the greenhouse gases tend to trap energy in the atmosphere longer, leading to a rise in temperature. (The energy does eventually escape) The most damning proof of this is to simply take a spectral image of the earth's emitted spectra, and compare it to that of a perfect black body of equivalent size. You will notice a spike at 10^3 micrometers, followed by a deep trough. This could not be caused by simple orbital patterns. Something is trapping the spectra above 10^3 micrometers.
Like what, exactly? If not speciation, there's really only one choice. God. And God, if anything is an even more difficult point to prove, let alone scientifically.
> i'd be interested in seeing any argument that makes the slightest bit of sense that says that the purpose of that site is not "intensive research and solving of problems".
> and "liberal" is obvious from the content of the articles.
Let me just quote the description of the site again, with some highlighting for the reading-impaired:
> RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.
There is no research going on. No solving of problems. It's all commentary. Or are you claiming news agencies are engaged in politics, economics and sports when they report on these matters?
As for calling the content "liberal", are you seriously suggesting that reporting on science has a political slant? What is this, The Colbert Report? Does reality have a well known liberal bias? Or is it just that anybody who disagrees with you is automatically painted as a political opponent in your mind? This is why I doubt you are a scientist of any kind: You are mixing up science and politics, and that is something your average scientist is very wary of.
> i only mentioned it because you claimed that i wasn't.
And then you immediately claimed it was "irrelevant" just so that you wouldn't have to back it up. Obviously it was not irrelevant enough that you could just let it slide, huh?
So it's time for the good old line: Post proof or retract the claim.
To continue this train of thought, CO2 is only a small part of our atmosphere, even at projected levels, I believe estimates put CO2 level at .023% of the atmosphere. However, the thing is, CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas. Methane, CH4, Nitrous Oxide N2O are also greenhouse gases, both primarily produced by ranching and farming, respectively. Given the population increase and increased needs of food, in addition to expansion of industry which produces CO2. However, if the absorbed reflected spectra is affected quite significantly by current levels, it should be reasonable to see that such effects might increase. Of course the question is, exactly, how much.
I thought this was a great program. I wish more people would see it. I've been sceptical of the global warming scare for a while now, and I clear and well-researched scientifically-sober explanation of the data is extremely refreshing.
It's funny how hysteria like this breaks out. And we consider ourselves a well-educated public. Hah!
Thanks for posting this!
>>46
if you actually look at the content of the site, you'll see that the description is hilariously inaccurate.
Unfortunately, the program is neither well-researched nor scientificall sober. I'll just repost the link:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/
I've look at the contents of the site, and it seems quite accurate. Or were you trying to say "if you look at the contents of the site, it disagrees with my opinions"?
Also, since you are not posting proof, should I take it you are retracting your claim of being a climate scientist?
> I've look at the contents of the site, and it seems quite accurate.
there's a lot more on that site than just "commentary".
>>52
links?
You're grasping at straws. Give it up, Mr. "Climate scientist".
Hey!!
I'm angry, I just read that this film uses all kinds of distorted, obsolete, and omitted data. What a let-down. This is totally dishonest and hypocritical. I wish the media would LEARN TO FACT-CHECK!!!!!
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2355956.ece
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2326210.ece
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2347526.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2032575,00.html
> "The original Nasa data was very wiggly-lined and we wanted the simplest line we could find," Mr Durkin said.
i lol'd
Well, if nothing else, the movie has been a good lesson in the kind of dishonesty involved in this debate, hasn't it?
>>41 Okay this is going to be a little off topic, but how can you be on the fence about evolution?
Surely you can't be shocked that a global warming zealot is scientifically illiterate.
http://www.earth4man.com/ has many very good articles about "acid rain," "global warming," "the hole in the ozone layer," and all the other phony doomsday fearmongering and propaganda we're being spoon-fed by the left-wing media on a daily basis.
Uh, the person who doesn't believe in evolution was an ANTI-global warming zealot, you know?
> http://www.earth4man.com/ has many very good articles
Very good they may be, but they're a bunch of op-ed without a single citation. This is the science board. Please post scientific articles.
I know, I know, but hey, might as well crush his ego on two different fronts.
>>60
Global Warming is junk science in the first place. It belongs on /politics/ rather than /science/ anyway.
Where you wish to attack it without the inconvenience of having to back up your claimns, no doubt.
Funny, you're going to have to back up that claim that it's junk science as well. Not easy, as the term "junk science" has no agreed-upon definition. Did you mean "research that does not meet the Daubert standard for science that can be used in United States federal courts?"
I'm pretty sure his definition of "junk science" is "in disagreement with my political prejudices".
Dude, those links are totally exaggerating. That only applies to the most radical environmental activists (who I agree are totally dangerous). Your average environmentalist on the other hand is just concerned with getting humans to live prosperously without doing irreparable damage to their environment. The mass industrialization is a young technology, if handled badly, it can do a lot of damage. We know this.
Just cause you believe in a sustainable means of exploiting your environment doesn't mean you're an anti-capitalist commie.
I'll repost that relevant quote:
"...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 climate change. To do that, we need to get some broad-based 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..." --Steven Schneider
These are people who, thirty years ago, decided that the WORLD was COMING TO AN END, man! Because of CAPITALISM and POLLUTION, can you dig it? Down with AmeriKKKa, man!
What I'm saying here is that these people are fanatics who latched onto an idea decades ago, that America is the Devil and the world is doomed by our sin--and if objective empirical truth makes them laughingstocks, they will just come up with another ad-hoc hypothesis, and another, and another, and another, and another, as many as are needed to keep pushing their lunatic-fringe political agenda.
Thirty years ago they were claiming that pollution was causing another Ice Age. They were wrong, and perhaps did not get the mockery they deserved. Now the very same people are claiming that something called "global warming" is taking place, still due to industrialization, still the fault of the evil, unspeakable West.
They are demonstrably unable to predict climate two weeks in advance, but they claim to be perfectly capable of predicting climate a century in advance. That this is preposterous on its face does not shame them a bit.
And if you want to get down to data, well, there's not a whole lot of data to be had here. The Earth is at least four and a half billion years old. We have detailed climate data (for tiny urbanized areas) going back, maybe, to World War I. There is additional information--not even data, really--derived from core drilling in glaciers and fossilized tree rings, which require a great many unsupported assumptions and ad-hoc hypotheses to give any information at all about what the Earth's climate was like, say, two thousand years ago. (Quick! Renormalize the data again!)
(continued in next post)
(continued from previous post)
Here's some more data. To the miniscule extent that any accurate climate data at all exists for the 19th Century, there seems to have been a slight warming trend from 1800 to 1900. There is slightly more data for a slightly greater warming trend from 1900 to 1940, then more data for a rapid, measurable, significant drop in global temperatures until around 1975, then, depending upon who "renormalizes" the climate data, there may or may not be a barely-measurable rise in temperatures between then and the present day. Does any of this correlate at all with global industrialization? Well, no. Does any of this correlate at all with carbon dioxide emissions? Well, no.
More data yet: the single most significant absorber of infrared radiation in the Earth's atmosphere isn't carbon dioxide, which in fact absorbs very, very weakly, but water vapor, which not only absorbs infrared radiation far more strongly, but is also present in vastly higher concentrations, measured in multiple whole percentage points (varying considerably with local weather conditions, of course; Wikipedia suggests 3% as a reasonable ballpark figure), as compared to CO2 at four one hundredths of one percent. Quick, someone put tarps over the oceans!
The idea that we even know what is normal for the Earth is laughable. The idea that humanity's insignificant efforts are capable of affecting it are doubly so. No doubt when and as contradictory data piles up so high that the Steven Schneiders of the world can no longer ignore it, they'll next make the claim that building cities is changing the Earth's orbit, and we're all DOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED to a fiery decaying orbit into the Sun unless we go back to the caves. More studies are needed!
Finally, to be more serious, none of this fearmongering even rises to the level of being a hypothesis, because none of it makes any predictions that are empirically testable. Occam's Razor cuts anthropogenic climate change away and the null hypothesis holds until and unless there is empirical evidence that is not interpretable any other way.
> These are people who, thirty years ago, decided that the WORLD was COMING TO AN END, man!
Please provide quote of any significant portion of the entire field of cliamte science saying this thirty years ago.
> What I'm saying here is that these people are fanatics who latched onto an idea decades ago
Are you saying an entire field of science is "fanatics who latched onto an idea decades ago"?
> More data yet: the single most significant absorber of infrared radiation in the Earth's atmosphere isn't carbon dioxide, which in fact absorbs very, very weakly, but water vapor
Ok. By this same logic, a ten-meter rise in sea levels is totally insignificant, because the sea is over ten kilometers deep! A ten-meter rise is less than a tenth of a percent, and totally insignificant!
> The idea that we even know what is normal for the Earth is laughable.
You are projecting your own ignorance. Just because you don't know doesn't mean nobody else does.
If anyone has latched onto an idea here, it's you. You're simply parroting old, old arguments that have been debunked again and again, but you refuse to listen to anything that doesn't support your own pre-conceived notion. And just what is your hangup with this "Steven Schneider" character?
>>Please provide quote of any significant portion of the entire field of cliamte science saying this thirty years ago.
Leaving aside that this is a field of politics, not science, scroll up and read >>14 and >>15 again, and you and your copy of "Hooked on Phonics" get back to us.
>>Are you saying an entire field of science is "fanatics who latched onto an idea decades ago"?
No, because these are loud fearmongering kooks who get a lot of media coverage. This is politics, not science.
>>Ok. By this same logic, a ten-meter rise in sea levels is totally insignificant, because the sea is over ten kilometers deep! A ten-meter rise is less than a tenth of a percent, and totally insignificant!
Keep beating that strawman. Watch that straw fly!
The facts remain: water vapor makes up one hundred times as much of the Earth's atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Water vapor absorbs vastly more strongly in the infrared than carbon dioxide does. 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by water.
>>You are projecting your own ignorance.
No, I'm highlighting yours.
>>Just because you don't know doesn't mean nobody else does.
Too bad the ones who claim to know can't even tell me whether it will rain two weeks from now, eh? And the same ones who claim to know were demonstrably, laughably wrong thirty years from now, but they're still riding that DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM hobbyhorse.
>>If anyone has latched onto an idea here, it's you.
I've latched on to the idea that objective truth is preferable to bullshit, yes. And I've latched onto the idea that fearmongers are not to be trusted with power.
>>You're simply parroting old, old arguments
I'm speaking the truth, which refuses to go away just because it is politically inconvenient for fearmongering extremists.
>>that have been debunked again and again,
By whom? Certainly not by you. In the scientific community there is considerable debate over whether there is enough evidence to support any of these claims, though it is politically incorrect to mention this.
Is this the part where you wave your hands vigorously and declare victory?
>>but you refuse to listen to anything that doesn't support your own pre-conceived notion
Listening to environmentalists was how I found those quotes.
>>And just what is your hangup with this "Steven Schneider" character?
He's a "leading environmentalist" who was wrong about Western Civilization DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMING humanity by changing the climate thirty years ago, he's wrong today, and he comes right out and admits that it's all lies, fearmongering, and propaganda. "A balance between being effective and being honest," indeed. I never thought that honesty needed to be balanced with anything, especially when we're talking about objective scientific truth, especially when we're debating radical policies that would pretty much gut the whole of industrialized civilization.
Are you done now?
> Leaving aside that this is a field of politics, not science
> No, because these are loud fearmongering kooks who get a lot of media coverage. This is politics, not science.
We are on the science board. We discuss science. And this is most definitely science. What exactly do you think the field of climate science is doing? It does exist, you know.
Now please back up your statements with actual science. You claim that:
> I'm speaking the truth
> I've latched on to the idea that objective truth is preferable to bullshit
But I don't see you backing this up with any references to actual science or any kind of "objective truth". I have, repeatedly.
> Keep beating that strawman. Watch that straw fly!
Just because you do not understand the argument does not mean it is a strawman. The point is this: It does not matter what the total value is. What matters is what happens when you change it. If it is a balanced system, small changes can have big effects.
Your body's temperature is balanced at 310 kelvins. A tiny increase to 315 kelvins, and suddenly, you die. Did it really matter that the change was small compared to the total?
It's funny that you accuse me of making strawman arguments, when your own water vapour argument is a complete and utter strawman itself. As is this one:
> He's a "leading environmentalist" who was wrong about Western Civilization DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMING humanity by changing the climate thirty years ago
Apparently your argument is that because some guy said something that was wrong thirty years ago, and entire field of science does not exist.
> By whom?
By scientists. I have provided an ample amount of links to read about this, but you are not interested in learning anything that goes against your prejudices, are you? You seem to be much more interested in ranting and raving, and certain don't seem to have actually read the earlier replies dealing with issues you repeat again now, such as:
> Too bad the ones who claim to know can't even tell me whether it will rain two weeks from now, eh?
See >>23.
Summary of >>70 for those who can't be bothered to read it:
On the science board we discuss science. If you want to make claims, back them up with references to actual science.
I think it's quite obvious that this thread is over.
--- snip here ---For a guy who claims to be interested in objective truth and not bullshit, you sure aren't.
You want to know something? I don't think we're DOOOOOMED. I might purely intellectually know there's a chance things will be bad, but deep down I don't believe it. I think everything will work out in the end because that's what it always does, and it's much more comforting to think that.
This doesn't mean I'm going to think every scientist who says different is a liar.
Oh, I've been talking about actual science. I've been talking about things like Occam's Razor, and the fact that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, the fact that extraordinary mass industrialization and increases in carbon dioxide levels worldwide between 1940 and 1975 coincided with measurable and significant decreases in global average temperatures for three and a half decades, and the inconvenient fact that a non-falsifiable claim doesn't rise to the level of being a hypothesis.
When I mention the fact that there's one hundred times as much water vapor in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, and water vapor absorbs vastly more infrared radiation than carbon dioxide, I am accused of attacking a straw man, of all bizarre things.
When I mention that the claim that predicting the climate tomorrow is difficult, predicting the climate two weeks from now is impossible, but predicting the climate a century from now is quite doable, is counterintuitive to say the least, the response is sputtering outrage and flat accusations that I must be "in denial," which is, I guess, a trendy insult among the emo kids this year.
When I mention the fact that environmental extremists have been fixated on this rather nihilistic idea that Western Civilization has DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED humanity for decades now, and while the ad-hoc hypotheses they push from year to year may change but the central idea, and obvious political motivation, remain unchanged, I am accused of speaking unscientifically.
If I bring up that 160 scientists the Leipzig Declaration, 4000 scientists (including 72 Nobel Prize winners) signed the Heidelberg Appeal, and the 17,000+ scientists and engineers who have so far signed the Global Warming Petition at OICM.org (all of which question the politically correct conventional wisdom being pushed by environmentalists), no doubt I will be accused of the fallacy of "appeal to authority."
But what does that make you, since you've been claiming for 70+ posts that this has all been debunked long ago by SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSCIENTISTS, who of course can't be named, and no details can be found, but trust me, I know what I'm doing, it was all debunked, okay? You're just in denial, maaaaaaaaan!
>>74 For a guy who claims to be interested in objective truth and not bullshit, you sure aren't.
Takes one to know one. Cry more, emo kid.
> When I mention that the claim that predicting the climate tomorrow is difficult, predicting the climate two weeks from now is impossible, but predicting the climate a century from now is quite doable, is counterintuitive to say the least
I can't predict whether a coin flip will result will be heads or tails, but if I were to flip a coin 1000 times and record the data, I can predict the end ratio of heads to tails will be near 1:1 with reasonable accuracy. This is a gross oversimplification and a poor analogy, but the point is that while ''discrete events'' may not be predictable in a chaotic system, this does not mean ''long-term behavior'' is not predictable. For more information, google "chaos theory."
Also, since he won't cite his data, I will:
> the fact that extraordinary mass industrialization and increases in carbon dioxide levels worldwide between 1940 and 1975 coincided with measurable and significant decreases in global average temperatures for three and a half decades
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh%2Bsh/index.html
Judge for yourself.
> But what does that make you, since you've been claiming for 70+ posts that this has all been debunked long ago by SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSCIENTISTS, who of course can't be named,
I've linked you the references. It's you who refuse to read them. Come back when you have, and address what is said in those, and maybe we can talk. This name-calling and quesstion-dodging has gone on for long enough.
Please, just take one of the realclimate posts, and try to show some actual science that refutes it. Not name calling, not writing "DOOOOOOOM" over and over again, not attacking the messenger, not vague references to Occam's Razor that you do not really understand, actual science. With references. Can you do that?
I guess he couldn't.
I'm not surprised.
What annoys me about the Global Warming argument is how little people have read up on it before putting forth a semi intelligent argument. Most of the points that people raise are redundant.
"So what, worst case scenario is a 5-6 degrees increase in temperature."
Protip buddy: 1 fucking degree Celcius change in your body temperature is enough to kill you. 5-6 degrees increase will wipe out entire species of animal.
"Water level rising a few meters is not so bad."
Have you noticed how much of our population lives on the coast? Do you realise that it only takes "a few metres" to submerge a city?
And if you haven't noticed already, the only parties playing down Global Warming are the US and the big corporates. Question is, who would you trust? The petition signed by numerous Nobel Prize winners or the people who want to protect their short term profits?
>The petition signed by numerous Nobel Prize winners
You mean this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidelberg_Appeal
As that one does not mention global warming, according to that Wikipedia article, probably not, huh?
No, rather this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Scientists%27_Warning_to_Humanity
>And if you haven't noticed already, the only parties playing down Global Warming are the US and the big corporates. Question is, who would you trust? The petition signed by numerous Nobel Prize winners or the people who want to protect their short term profits?
You know, us humans also produce CO2, and a lot of ammonia just by living. That's really bad. Hey, i think the government should tax us for sporting and eating so much, because those two increase our metabolism, which yields more greenhouse gasses than absolutely necessary. You wanna downplay that huh, kiddo? do you even know how many people there are on this tiny planet? 6billion - that's 9 zeroes behind the 6. So that makes a real impact, just think about it.
(actually, I'd trust the big corporations here, because there you have tons of people who actually know about dealing with information, and are employed only to make decisions that use such information appropriately. That's more than I can say about the Nobelprize winners. Besides, I'd take the ideas of an average corporate employee about global warming just as serious as those from an economics, psychology, biology, mathematics... etc, laureates. Neither are professionals in the global warming discussion, that's why.)
Questions
1) Do you think humans are able to control the climate by regulating greenhouse gasses?
2) Do you think humans are able, now, to effectively adjust the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, so that global warming can be halted?
>"So what, worst case scenario is a 5-6 degrees increase in temperature."
>Protip buddy: 1 fucking degree Celcius change in your body temperature is enough to kill you. 5-6 degrees increase will wipe out entire species of animal.
Thanks, "buddy." I take it your entire family is wiped out when they leave their airconditioned car to step into the hot summer day?
finally
>What annoys me about the Global Warming argument is how little people have read up on it before putting forth a semi intelligent argument. Most of the points that people raise are redundant.
(laughing my ass of rolling on the floor cramping my stomach oh wow the irony W00T!!)
> You know, us humans also produce CO2, and a lot of ammonia just by living. That's really bad.
Is it? Show us some data that shows that CO2 emissions directly from humans are significant compared to emissions from industry and transportation. Or were you just making yourself a strawman?
> Besides, I'd take the ideas of an average corporate employee about global warming just as serious as those from an economics, psychology, biology, mathematics... etc, laureates. Neither are professionals in the global warming discussion, that's why.
And what about those who are professionals in climate science? They all say global warming is real, and a big threat. Most of the Nobel prize winners you hold in such low regard are not saying that they are experts and therefore you should listen to them. What they know is that they can trust those scientists who are experts, and who are pretty much unanimously saying this is a huge problem.
>You know, us humans also produce CO2, and a lot of ammonia just by living. That's really bad. Hey, i think the government should tax us for sporting and eating so much, because those two increase our metabolism, which yields more greenhouse gasses than absolutely necessary. You wanna downplay that huh, kiddo? do you even know how many people there are on this tiny planet? 6billion - that's 9 zeroes behind the 6. So that makes a real impact, just think about it.
So, what was your actual point of this? How did that link in with US and big corps downplaying Global Warming again? Your maths is certainly impressive, but you fail to address the original point made.
>actually, I'd trust the big corporations here, because there you have tons of people who actually know about dealing with information, and are employed only to make decisions that use such information appropriately.
They're employed to make a profit, not to give a damn about environmental consequences. If they had it their way, they would build a nuclear reactor in your backyard for the sake of a little pocket money.
>Thanks, "buddy." I take it your entire family is wiped out when they leave their airconditioned car to step into the hot summer day?
Oh yeah, because they have air conditioning in rain forests and South Pole. A 5-6 degree increase in temperature is not just one or two hot days in summer. It's an average, meaning a significant change in climate which will wipe out ecosystems. Ice caps will melt, water levels rise, etc etc. And for your information, it doesn't take that much to change your internal body temperature. Think heat strokes. Those are only caused by a change of less than 0.5 degrees Celsius.
>1) Do you think humans are able to control the climate by regulating greenhouse gasses?
There is substantial evidence of carbon emissions causing changes in climate over the years. That answers your question.
>2) Do you think humans are able, now, to effectively adjust the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, so that global warming can be halted?
Obviously not. But just because it's gone past the irreversible stage, it doesn't justify the continuing increase of carbon emissions. If you're dying of lung cancer from smoking, you don't keep on smoking if you want to live longer.
>What annoys me about the Global Warming argument is how little people have read up on it before putting forth a semi intelligent argument. Most of the points that people raise are redundant.
>(laughing my ass of rolling on the floor cramping my stomach oh wow the irony W00T!!)
Considering the lack of substance to your argument, that goes for you too.
haha, big lol at the envirofreaks up there
build a nuclear plant in my backyard? please, its one of the cleanest energies available... Not in my backyard, but certainly in the country yeah.
so if I'm dying of lungcancer, I'd stop smoking? Like that's gonna help! I'd enjoy my cigarette even better (I prefer cigars actually, more class)
If anyone other than >>81 thought that >>81s points are not to be laughed at, please stand up. Then go to your cuddleparty, and first turn of your computer.
I, personally, would wholeheartedly approve the building of a nuclear plant in my backyard. It might be a little small for one though.
>>88
You answer the analogies that I used, not the actual points that I made. When I raise a point about how companies don't give a shit about anything except for profits, you're not supposed to talk about how you like nuclear power plants. Ditto with the emissions point. Stop being so evasive, picking at trivialities and address the actual point.
You attack >>81 for silly points, but the fact is you've said nothing of substance that can rebut them.
>Then go to your cuddleparty, and first turn of your computer.
Reverting to personal insults. It shows what a convincing argument you've made.
Only corporate types advocate nuclear power as clean. Definitely not the same type of oil, coal, gas, auto and manufacturing corporate advocates, who claim global warming is lies, along the lines of (a) "Hey it's cold today! That disproves global warming!", (b) "You don't know what the weather is tomorrow! You can't say you know anything" and (c) "Shucks, you're just all being negative Nancies. Think positive!" (These are to a degree strawmen, but the arguments themselves are fallacies.), though.
Very conveniently you ignore other clean sources of power. Although each does have minor to major problems of their own (major probably being large hydroelectric dam's environmental impracts, pollution from geothermal, and disposal of silicone sandwich plates for solar, minor being the problem of finding viable places to put electric windmills), other sources of clean energy can be managed, to reduce issues.
Also, stopping smoking does actually help reduce the problems caused by smoking up to the point where you've contracted serious terminal illness. You see, the thing is, you're analogy makes the assumption that we're already doomed and can do nothing about it, and that we should do the danse macabre (How's that for a gloomy, "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!" attitude here), rather than the idea that it's possible to avert disaster; and that there's hope to change.
>Let's try again. Show us some data that shows that CO2 emissions directly from humans are significant compared to emissions from industry and transportation.
>Or else, admit that you're talking out of your ass.
I'm sorry. I thought it was actually extremely obvious that I was talking out of my ass on this particular point. Especially since I advocated a tax on exercising and eating, if I recall correctly. While you're at it, though, why don't you look up some data on the significance of emissions from industry and transportation, when compared to natural sources? (Protip, the movie 'the great global warming swindle' discusses this too. Conclusion: not very significant) Yeah.... isn't it fun to tell other people to look up data, and to read whole books? (Read Marx, Schumpeter and Riccardo to see why I am right - like hell you'd do that, right?)
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>>91 you are right about the ad hominem. >>81 had it coming, though.
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>>92 I am actually convinced that global warming is real. The movie which started this thread of, actually acknowledges global warming also. I'd like to state one of its conclusions here: Al Gore, in 'an inconvenient truth,' shows how there is a strong correlation between global warming and the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. That's real data, and I think its relatively trustworthy. However, what the 'great global warming swindle' remarks about the relation between global warming and levels of CO2, is that we should look at the direction of causality. According to that movie, CO2 development lags behind global temperature, indicating that a warmer earth causes more CO2 in the atmposphere, not the other way around. The lag is a couple hundred of years.
I find that a highly relevant finding.
Another finding is that, according to the same models which are used to predict the future climate, changes in the temperature of our earth (I mean overall increases in climate) should be observed most drastically in the higher regions of our atmosphere, which is where the larger amounts of greenhouse gasses are supposed to trap more sunlight. Measurements of temperature at these heights have been conducted for ages, by means of simple weather balloons. 'The great global warming swindle' argues that the measurements are in conflict with what the climate models predict.
Again, I find that highly relevant: these predictions come from a central part from the climate models, which is the role of greenhouse gasses. These temperature data indicate that there is a fundamental flaw (not just a small mistake) in the model.
I am aware that some people featured in the movie were happy about the way they were portrayed, and about the way their comments were included in it. However, to my knowledge, only the oceanographer has made complaints about this. The two reasons for doubt which I posed, have for as far as I know, have not been challenged by the scientists who posed them in the movie.
It should be obvious that, if human caused CO2 emissions are insignificant to global warming, there is no reason at all to cut such emissions.
I hope this soothes the commenters who criticized my sloppy style. I do think I posed relevant arguments here although I did not pose contra arguments to all criticisms. The arguments above, causal relation between CO2 and global warming, and counter evidence to climate models, are the ones that I can support best. I must say that I am glad that there is debate on this issue though.
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Bah, comment field was too short, so here's the rest.
p.s. >>92, You are right in considering that I take a fatalistic approach toward the terminally diseased smoker, and that is indeed not a stance that I want to make toward my own, or others' futures, but I'd like to comment here that once you've contracted a terminal disease, most often the quality of your life already sucks so much that 1) smoking or not smoking doesn't matter that much and 2) so what if you die earlier - what of life is there to enjoy that you'd want to live another day for it?
> I'm sorry. I thought it was actually extremely obvious that I was talking out of my ass on this particular point. Especially since I advocated a tax on exercising and eating, if I recall correctly.
Well, yes. So you have nothing to contribute to the discussion. Why are you talking? Nobody is impressed with strawmen. If you want to make an argument, you will have to provide some actual facts, and not just grandstanding and rambling.
> While you're at it, though, why don't you look up some data on the significance of emissions from industry and transportation, when compared to natural sources? (Protip, the movie 'the great global warming swindle' discusses this too. Conclusion: not very significant)
Here's a protip for you: As has been stated many times already now, the movie is not reliable, and misrepresents and misinterprets facts.
And has also been explained numerous times in this thread, it doesn't matter if man-made contributions are small compared to natural ones, because it's the change that is important, and its effects, not the total value.
Please go back and read the thread, and especially read the linked pages.
if the change is small, then it doesn't matter. If you eat at burgerking everyday, then cutting down from supersized menus to normal size will still make you horridly obese.
And I acknowledged that the movie has not handled all contributions properly. I said though, that some important facts in it seem to have been handled correctly, and those facts i have named in my secondlast post. please, >>95, abandon the name 'anonymous scientist,' because you know bollocks about science.
> if the change is small, then it doesn't matter.
> If you eat at burgerking everyday, then cutting down from supersized menus to normal size will still make you horridly obese.
It may well, however, prevent or delay your upcoming heart attack.
Pretty stupid analogy.
>>97 the analogy also fails to predict who will win the next presidential elections. what a crappy analogy.
I went to read >>70 I think this is the relevant point you refer to.
>It does not matter what the total value is. What matters is what happens when you change it. If it is a balanced system, small changes can have big effects.
That is correct. However, do small changes really have a small effect? Even then, such small changes, to be significant, have to be relatively large when we make them: Purely hypothetical, if Humans contribute 5% to CO2 production next to natural sources (and I think this is already large) then reducing total CO2 production by half a percent still requires a 10% change in human caused emissions. Do note, that humans then still contribute 4% (actually, slightly more) to total CO2 production, which in a environmental system with a very unstable balance (as many environmentalists like to pose it) might still be not enough.
By the way, since you speak of a balanced system, i suppose you understand that the system will likely find a new balance at a different temperatures depending on the new amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere (although I actually adhere to a temperature->CO2 level causality). It is then interesting to see if the new temperature at the current rate of emission might be acceptable.
> if the change is small, then it doesn't matter. If you eat at burgerking everyday, then cutting down from supersized menus to normal size will still make you horridly obese.
Sorry, counter-examples only count one way. If you say "all small changes have small effects", I can refute this by giving an example of a small change with a large effect, but it is not enough for you to give a single example of a small change with a small effect to refute me.
This is very basic logic. You really ought to understand at least THAT much if you're going to be in an argument at all.
> please, >>95, abandon the name 'anonymous scientist,' because you know bollocks about science.
And you know more? You haven't made a single scientific argument yet. All you've done is pull numbers out of your ass like the mean anything, such as this:
> However, do small changes really have a small effect? Even then, such small changes, to be significant, have to be relatively large when we make them: Purely hypothetical, if Humans contribute 5% to CO2 production next to natural sources (and I think this is already large) then reducing total CO2 production by half a percent still requires a 10% change in human caused emissions. Do note, that humans then still contribute 4% (actually, slightly more) to total CO2 production, which in a environmental system with a very unstable balance (as many environmentalists like to pose it) might still be not enough.
This means nothing, especially when the numbers are completely made up, and you have no understanding of the processes involved. If you want to make an argument, reference some real data and real research, please.
I've provided at least some references for my argument, but you have obviously not read them, and neither have you given any yourself.
>>99 I reckon I know a little about science, yeah. But ok, how 'scientific' I am should never be an argument actually, so I'll refrain from alluding to peoples scientific attitudes.
>This means nothing, especially when the numbers are completely made up,
Actually, it is not meaningless, since I am trying to show the limits of the observation that in a balanced system small changes can have big effects. I explicitly state that the numbers are hypothetical only. I am thus discussing the properties of a balanced system, which does not require any real data because we´re talking about a theoretical construct anyway.
Which is a different discussion from the one about the data, about which I did actually posted in >>93, although my referencing at this point remains at 'the great global swindle.' Do note that I am glad that you do reference, but unless you can shortly summarize your reference, I'm not going to look it up - takes too much time. This may seem lazy, but I don't have the time to read pages upon pages of stuff of which only a small part might be relevant to your argument.
> Actually, it is not meaningless, since I am trying to show the limits of the observation that in a balanced system small changes can have big effects.
You may be trying, but you're not succeeding. A single counter-example can never show a limit to anything.
Try applying your own example to the body heat of a person. For a person with a body temperature of 36 degrees celsius sitting in a 20 degree celsius room, you have 293 kelvins natural temperature, with an additional 16 kelvins "man-made" temperature. An additional increase of 2 kelvins will make you sick, and 5 kelvins will kill you.
>>101.
My body also has a balancing system. When it gets hot, it will transpirate more, which allows my body to remain at regular temperature even in places where the temperature is higher than my body temperature. In the same way, the earth has balancing mechanisms although they work a bit slower than the body. One of these would be that, with a higher temperature, more water evaporates into the air, which shields the earth from sunlight and thus additional warmth.
Anyway, you said >A single counter-example can never show a limit to anything.
I beg to differ. I can agree with you to the point that a single counter-example cannot ever show WHERE the limit is, but a single counter-example can surely show that there ARE limits. If I were to give an example of this, would you argue that its just one example and therefore invalid?
>In the same way, the earth has balancing mechanisms although they work a bit slower than the body. One of these would be that, with a higher temperature, more water evaporates into the air, which shields the earth from sunlight and thus additional warmth.
Actually, that’s not really how it works. When sunlight passes through the Earth’s atmosphere, it warms the surface of the Earth. The Earth then radiates the heat back into the atmosphere, which mostly escapes into space, but most of it gets absorbed by the atmosphere. Likewise, as the atmosphere is heated, it will radiate heat back towards the ground. Such absorption and radiation of heat is due to the relatively small amounts of water and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This trapping of heat is called the greenhouse effect. It’s this blanket of heat around the Earth that makes the planet livable. However, if we were to add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the Earth would start to warm a little and cause water to evaporate from the sea. More water and CO2 in the atmosphere will increase global warming.
More water in the atmosphere will not actually shield the Earth from sunlight. This is because the radiation of the sun is of shorter wave length than that of the Earth. Hence sunlight just passes straight through the atmosphere.
*but some of it gets absorbed by the atmosphere..
> My body also has a balancing system.,,
That was not the point. I was not likening body heat to the heat of the planet. It was merely an example about numbers, and how a small change compared to a large total can be very important.
Please re-read it with this in mind.
> Anyway, you said >A single counter-example can never show a limit to anything.
> I beg to differ. I can agree with you to the point that a single counter-example cannot ever show WHERE the limit is, but a single counter-example can surely show that there ARE limits.
No, a single example can show that a certain value is within the possible limits, but it can never show that there are limit, nor what they are.
Say, I have a hundred bucks in my wallet. Does this tell you how much money fits in my wallet?
> If I were to give an example of this, would you argue that its just one example and therefore invalid?
No, but there is no valid example. Once again, this is very basic logic. You can disprove a general statement by a counter-example, but you can not prove it.
I was actually talking about clouds, but ok. Perhaps the heat reflected by the clouds remains trapped in the atmosphere or is mainly absorbed by the clouds anyway.
And when I talked about limits, I wasn't talking about values. It surprises me that it is interpreted in this way. I was talking about theoretical limits to the (balanced) model, and I do hope that we can talk about the limits of the model since its so central in the debate about what the causes are about global warming.
Anyhow, I posed this earlier:
>I am actually convinced that global warming is real. The movie which started this thread of, actually acknowledges global warming also. I'd like to state one of its conclusions here: Al Gore, in 'an inconvenient truth,' shows how there is a strong correlation between global warming and the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. That's real data, and I think its relatively trustworthy. However, what the 'great global warming swindle' remarks about the relation between global warming and levels of CO2, is that we should look at the direction of causality. According to that movie, CO2 development lags behind global temperature, indicating that a warmer earth causes more CO2 in the atmposphere, not the other way around. The lag is a couple hundred of years.
>I find that a highly relevant finding.
>Another finding is that, according to the same models which are used to predict the future climate, changes in the temperature of our earth (I mean overall increases in climate) should be observed most drastically in the higher regions of our atmosphere, which is where the larger amounts of greenhouse gasses are supposed to trap more sunlight. Measurements of temperature at these heights have been conducted for ages, by means of simple weather balloons. 'The great global warming swindle' argues that the measurements are in conflict with what the climate models predict.
>Perhaps the heat reflected by the clouds remains trapped in the atmosphere or is mainly absorbed by the clouds anyway.
The clouds that form in the lower part of the atmosphere do shield the surface of the earth from solar radiation. However, the clouds higher up, reflect and radiated heat from the Earth back to the Earth. But to rely on this balancing process when Global Warming increases, is a rather capricious thing to do. The behaviour of clouds is just too unpredictable to decide whether they will cool or heat the Earth during Global Warming. If the temperature were to increase, the low lying clouds (which shield radiation) may actually evaporate into higher flying clouds (which trap heat radiation). If this were to happen, it will actually add to the effect of Global Warming. It could happen the other way and reduce Global Warming, you never know. But yeah, as I said, we don't know enough about clouds to make a certain decision about how they will react to temperature rise.
Well, >>108 has sort of the gist of it, but it's not that we don't know enough - it's that you can't make a simple statement like "increased heat means more clouds means more reflection". The whole system is incredibly complex, and you can't really tell just from intutive reasoning what any given change will do.
Which is why you create models, and run simulations, and try to find models that fit past data and use them to extrapolate into the future. Which is what the entire field of climate science is doing, and they nearly unanimously agree that global warming is happening, and will only get worse from here.
Strawberry Panic said it, it's not true.
Meh, if we can stave off the next ice age, I say good for us.
The problem, I think, is that the media does have an agenda, and a lot of the people who view this media take all their reported news as facts. A great example, not to get too off topic: the war in Iraq. How often, honestly, do you hear about operations that go right there? You always hear about the bad. Because people want to hear about the bad. And the media is happy to oblige.
From what I understand, the weather and climate that we've experienced for the past 200,000 years, according to core samples from the polar ice caps, has shown an unusual pattern of stability. Before then, there would be vast changes in temperatures and weather patterns in small (geologically that is) periods of time, the last time anything was this stable was during the dinosaur times. And that all happened before mankind even existed. Plus, look at the geothermal activity of the planet. I forget what it was called, but there was a volcano that erupted during the revolutionary war that put out more pollution in the atmosphere than the entire combined equivalent of human history, the major contributor of the so-called "year without a summer". I regard these things as clear evidence that mankind is not a real significant contributor to global warming.
I think that the planet is changing once again, and these changes are affecting our lives. More and more, people are noticing small changes in their lives, like plants growing out of season or hurricanes stronger and more numerous than before. But how long have these people lived? 70 years, less? Thats a hundreth of a second in geologic time. People are not used to change, and have been since the dawn of man, yet we have adapted. The planet went through that ice age from the 1300s to the 1800s, we survived that just fine. And the planet did that all on its own.
The problem is that the media loves to report doom and gloom, its part of their job, so they conveniently report the facts that support their agendas and leave out the important ones, such as the fact (note the word "fact") that there really is no concensus on what is causing global warming. Mankind is bound to be a contributor, but not the CAUSE. So as long as the media continues this trend, people will believe it. And more and more, political sanctions will lead to exploitation of the poor, all in the name of "preserving our planet".
No, the problem is that some people (to some extent, rightly) distrust the media, but then swallow anyboy else's agenda without question as long as it is in line with their ideologies. That would be you, >>113.
For instance:
> From what I understand, the weather and climate that we've experienced for the past 200,000 years, according to core samples from the polar ice caps, has shown an unusual pattern of stability. Before then, there would be vast changes in temperatures and weather patterns in small (geologically that is) periods of time
This is mostly nonsense, and you obviously picked it up from somebody spreading lies and disinformation, without questioning if it was true or not.
> such as the fact (note the word "fact") that there really is no concensus on what is causing global warming.
This is also a blatant lie. The entire field of climate science is unanimous in stating that global warming is caused by humans.
>This is also a blatant lie. The entire field of climate science is unanimous in stating that global warming is caused by humans.
Proof please?
>>115
Hello, and welcome to the real world.
Supplying more info for you!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson
"I'm not saying the warming doesn't cause problems, obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it. I'm saying that the problems are being grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from other problems that are much more urgent and important. Poverty, infectious diseases, public education and public health. Not to mention the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans."
Of course, global warming causes increases in poverty and infection diseases, and kills off living creatures on land and in the oceans.
I hope the US presidential elections is soon over. I really want this global warming madness to stop. It's effecting every country out there.
It's not like the US elections are causing it. The US was like the last country to jump on the green-train. Frankly, while I don't know what we can do to prevent the damaging aspects of global warming, it's good that people are paying attention to the condition of their planet and that they're willing to reduce emissions and find healthier, sustainable ways of producing energy.
> It's not like the US elections are causing it.
Do you realize how much hot air is expelled into the atmosphere by American politicians and pundits?
10, or maybe 5 years ago (in the US, at least) that viewpoint might have been valid, but not anymore. There just isn't any room to significantly oppose the green movement in this matter. It's becoming an international priority to regulate emissions and control energy use.
You sound terribly outdated.
>>123
Humans think they are greater then they really are. Even burning the rest of the trillion tons of oil underground, we won't make a dent. Global warming is a political tool and nothing else.
>Global warming is a political tool and nothing else.
Troll detected.
how so?
I have never seen anyone argue that global warming is not happening. The only argument is whether or not humans are responsible for it, which doesn't change the fact that we're going to have to deal with it somehow. (Of course, if humans aren't the cause of global warming, we are taking the entirely wrong approach in trying to prevent it.)
You are ignorant and a fool. You have an entire field of science saying your are wrong, yet you still cling to your silly belief. You are the one who is being deceived by politics.
Actually, there's quite a number of people who say it's not even happening. They are just as wrong as the people who think it's not certain if we're causing it or not. We are, it's a near certainty.
There are people who say it's not happening. Some of these are the same people who said it in the late 80s the first time global warming was an imminent crisis. Some of those are the same people who said that global cooling wasn't happening either the decade before that when an ice age was the imminent crisis.
The entire field of science is not convinced that global warming is happening, or that it is caused by humans, or that an increase in carbon dioxide causes an increase in average global temperature, or that an increase in global temperature leads to those images of terrible devestation you see on TV.
> or that an increase in carbon dioxide causes an increase in average global temperature
What effect is an increased level of measured carbon dioxide in the atmosphere supposed to do, other than increase global temperature? That'd be defying a great deal we've observed about the compound.
>>131
It would increase greenery. More oxygen.
I'd like to ban soda pop since i believe the CO2 bubbles they have is a great contributor to global warming. Probably a liter bottle of coca cola has more CO2 in it then the exhaust from a whole day of car driving.
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm
Just providing one example of the dissenting views I mentioned in >>129
If you took all of the CO2 from a coke, and made it all in one container and drove 10 miles in car and took that CO2, what would be bigger?
Fail.
>>132
I suppose I should have emphasized "measured carbon dioxide". That word is crucial.
What you measure is independent of how many plants there are. There can be many plants, or there could be none; either way, the ratio of CO2 in the atmosphere is higher. As a result, temperatures go up.
As an aside, this also means that plants and ocean systems are unable to keep up with our current rates of CO2 production. If they were, homeostatis wouldn't have been disturbed, and the ratio of gasses in the atmosphere wouldn't have changed.
*stasis
I'm afraid I didn't understand any of that, >>137. :(
> The entire field of science is not convinced that global warming is happening
Sorry, the entire field of climate science is. All the "global cooling" stuff is pretty much anti-global-warming propaganda and has little basis in reality. An ice age was never considered an "imminent crisis" by climate scientists. It was only ever circulated as an idea that never got any real consideration outside the media.
As for >>133, if a paper starts out with an outrageous lie like this:
> The empirical evidence actual measurements of Earth's temperature shows no man-made warming trend.
I'm not going to pay all that much attention to it.
> I'd like to ban soda pop since i believe the CO2 bubbles they have is a great contributor to global warming. Probably a liter bottle of coca cola has more CO2 in it then the exhaust from a whole day of car driving.
"Probably" nothing. Perhaps you should educate yourself about some facts instead of making idiotic shit up?
The mass of released carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuel is roughly 3.6 times the mass of the burned fuel. Let's (conservatively) say your car burns about 10 kgs of fuel in a day. That makes 36 kilograms of released carbon dioxide.
Do you really think your soda bottle has 36 kilograms of CO2 in it?
>>141
lol, it's people like you who perpetuate CO2 doom around. It's nice that you actually considered to answer that very obvious shit joke post. Shows people what you guys are actually are; scaremongering dipshits.
Dude how can 1kg suddenly become 3.6 kg?
Basic conservation of matter violated?
>>140
I DISAGREE WITH CONCLUSIONS BASED ON DATA SO I WILL IGNORE THEM AND THEN ACCUSE EVERYONE ELSE OF DOING THE SAME THING
Oh, I see, because I correct people who speak falsehoods, I am a scaremonger. Thanks, that makes perfect sense.
"The empirical evidence actual measurements of Earth's temperature shows no man-made warming trend" is anything but a "conclusion based on data". Pretty much all available data disagrees with that conclusion. You're going to have to try harder than that.
>>146
I like how you subtlely beg the question. Really, I do. You've got data that indicate that both the average global temperature of the Earth is increasing, and that it is the result of man? That's impressive. I could see why you would completely ignore an argument against your view, since it's wrong for opposing it. I guess whole studies on how the data is unreliable or misinterpretted or how carbon dioxide levels trail behind global temperature trends are completely worthless, because they don't support your views.
So, do you have any copies of some available data that will even show me a correlation between human action and average global temperature, with some indicator of human action leading? Since that's what you're saying anyway. I've got a background in statistics, I'd like to examine this info myself.
No one has ever mentioned human made CO2, they all say reduce carbon emissions by cutting back on this, turning down that, but they never discuss the implications of 6 billion people exhaling this so called pollutant gas.
Does the Global Warming party think that maybe Hilter and Saddam weren't crazed dictators, maybe they were ahead of their time, by slaughtering millions of people they were actually reducing carbon emissions.
I have not had the time to plow through this yet, but if someone would like to see the references to the conclusion that we are likely the source of global warming, take a gander here: http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Pub_Ch09.pdf
And if someone would like to see the references to the conclusion that we are likely NOT the source of global warming, take a gander here:
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.6
A report by the IPCC, written by dozens of scientists, supported by thousands of references, versus some unknown author without any references? I particularly love the hand-made graphs (how very rigorous!). s.9.3.3.2 in the chapter of the IPCC report in >>151 addresses the issue of solar forcing as well, as do other parts.
So, surely you're joking, Mr. >>152.
> You've got data that indicate that both the average global temperature of the Earth is increasing, and that it is the result of man?
Ok, I'll admit that I missed the "man-made" in the original statement, which makes it less of an outright lie and more of a misrepresentation of the argument.
Let's look at the rest, then. I see much is made of how the mean temperature supposedly has not been increasing at all according to satellite MSU measurements. Unfortunately, that's not actually true: Turns out the data is very hard to interpret, and when done correctly, temperatures have been increasing: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=170
So much for that argument. There are more arguments made, but I really don't feel like wasting time disproving those too. I'm no climate scientist, and this stuff doesn't come easy for me.
> No one has ever mentioned human made CO2, they all say reduce carbon emissions by cutting back on this, turning down that, but they never discuss the implications of 6 billion people exhaling this so called pollutant gas.
Any CO2 produced by living organisms is part of the carbon cycle, and not part of the problem. The problem is solely the carbon that was previous locked down deep underground that is now suddenly being quickly released into the environment.
>>156
No it's not.
CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. It doesn't even absorb solar photons of the wavelengths you would want, as much as you want. It's released because there is global warming, that's it. It does not affect it. It does not speed up global warming. It's a side effect, just put this in your mind. Mars would be fucking 100C instead of the fucking freezing weather that is killing Opportunity if CO2 was a greenhouse gas.
And 154 was me. And it was not spam.
Unfortunately, even though you really, really wish that was true, none of it is. Please get equipped with a clue, and leave the debating to people who do not live in some kind of fantasy world.
Hey check out what they say about climate change on http://www.cubicao.tk ... they say:
• 2ND WISEST HUMAN COMMANDS humanity to SPREAD TIME CUBE far and wide, across the entire human population of Earth, before the impending armageddon of natural-resources depletion, deforestation, oil-depletion crisis, global warming, also global economic and ecological crisis, and nuclear waste, nuclear bombs, cannibalism, nuclear holocaust. Spread Time Cube before the Armageddon.
• 2ND WISEST HUMAN commands the entire human species—a species more technologically advanced, powerful and destructive than ever before—to heed the CUBIC PROPHET/WISEST HUMAN, DR GENE RAY, and heed the PROPHECIES OF DR GENE RAY THE GREATEST THINKER AND WISEST HUMAN, in order to redeem humanity.—For we must save humanity before it destroys itself.
• 2ND WISEST HUMAN has created the CubicAO website, a website that is helping people to become better-equipped to resist the singularity conformist evil of modern 1-corner civilisation. It contributes to the ethos of the pro-Cubic anarchic REVOLUTION!
• 2ND WISEST HUMAN commands humanity to accept Time Cube.
No, pirates.
Here's something that has been bothering me for a while (such as in http://4-ch.net/science/kareha.pl/1182487164/7): What is the deal with libertarians and global warming? Why do they seem to dogmatically deny it exists or is a problem?
How about a little experiment? Would you people in here tell us all two things: Do you think global warming is a problem, and are you a libertarian (or at least generally supportive of that view)?
I'll start: Yes, and no.
i dont know if it is a problem, and i'm somewhat of a libertarian.
Yes, and no.
I don't know whether it's a causation or correlation (probably the latter). One possible confounding variable is that most libertarians appear to hail from America. We all know what a fine, fine media echo-chamber it is over there.
"We report, you decide," &c.
the general response i've been greeted with if i hint at my doubts of global warming on campus has been some combination of shock, appallment, and disbelief. i've argued that i havent directly seen any evidence, i've only heard of people making claims, and i haven't seen their data, and knowing that there are both scientists who agree and disagree with the claim, the words of some don't have any particulary value for me over the words of the others.
i favor libertarianism because i've some background in economics, i value personal responsibility and liberty, and i think government programs are inefficient and often immoral.
Skepticism is a good attribute, but there appears to be an almost overwhelming stack of evidence supporting the existence of global warming that's primarily caused by anthropogenic forcing.
I am not a climatologist, a chemist, a physicist or even a biologist. To reach their level of understanding in their vocations I would need about a decade. That's time I do not have, so I must therefore defer to the experts.
And there's a lot of literature that the experts seem to have supporting their arguments. Given what I know of the pure sciences, their arguments are plausible (e.g.: no violating of the "laws" of thermodynamics) and the hypotheses reasonably follow. The alternative is that they are clueless (unlikely), they're on some kind of social bandwagon (unlikely), our observations and models on a broad range of pure sciences are completely off-mark yet nobody has noticed (risible) or there's some global conspiracy of scientists going on (risible).
The other side hasn't presented much. It appears to consist of internet kooks with hilarious graphs, the usual vacuous sound and fury of the media, or entities that have a vested interest in the status quo. So far as I know, there have been no peer-reviewed articles published in respectable journals that present any strong case agaist the conclusion drawn from all the other observations; feel free to enlighten otherwise.
I think the problem here is that while you have not seen nor sought evidence for anthropogenic forcing, you haven't done so for the opposite either. You simply don't know. Therefore the correct response to "Do you think that global warming is primarily caused by humans?" is "I don't know." not "I doubt it."
>>165
doubting imo has always been the same as admitting uncertainty, not claiming the negation is true. it connotes exposure to seemingly contradictory evidence though.
i'd seen a BBC documentary from many years ago about global warming where they had attacked the credibility of the claims supporting the theory. as far as i know now, the accuracy of the claims hasn't gotten significantly better, but still continues to be the main support.
i'm not sure whether it was right, but i've seen a graph of atmospheric carbon levels and measured average global temperature, where the carbon levels seem to increase after the temperature increases. i suppose, more accurately, what should be said in describing it is that the fluctuation of carbon, in relation to the fluctuation of temperature, appears to be shifted ahead in time. this doesn't really conflict with the idea that carbon increases cause temperature increases, unless theres areas on the graph where temperature makes some erratic change in direction and then later in time carbon does the same, but i don't recall.
plus i have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that claims of what will happen years in the future are very weak, considering we fail at predicting weather a month away. i know long term climate and weather are different, but still, i'm not sure how much to believe claims of what's going to happen even if we are warming the world right now.
i don't have a personal agenda, but i haven't really been convincinced by evidence, either because of lack of exposure or lack of belief in the validity of certain things. i have heard a lot of people who should be reliable just making claims that they've done studies and the studies indicate blah blah blah. that doesn't particularly affect my opinion, and i don't think it should, since it's just a person talking, not evidence being shown to me.
so i sort of have to make an expected outcome judgment about what i think should be done based on probabilities i dont know and outcomes i don't think anyone knows.
all the uncertainty combined with general apathy regarding the issue leaves me in a position where, if some organization told me the fate of the world relied on people funding organizations like theirs, i would likely keep my money, because i am currently willing to accept the risk.
Fair enough.
I'll just point out though that given how important this could potentially become, doing some research on it is definitely in order. I've been slowly grinding away at this: http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
Also, what the media says isn't of much interest. As a libertarian I'm sure you agree. They have a tendency to use convenient sound-bites and come with no references or peer-review -- other than that rare breed of bloggers with critical thinking, if you can call them peers. As primary material they're usually best ignored.
Most of those doubts could be easily cleared up if you actually made the effort to go out and educate yourself on the topic. None of the are in any way original, and all of them are refuted over and over again, even in this thread. Look at the realclimate links, for instance.
"Admitting uncertainty" where uncertainty exists is good intellectual practice, but that does not mean one should question every single thing. That is just as intellectually dishonest as claiming knowledge of truth where none exists. If you truly have a skeptical mind, maybe you should try being skeptical of the motives of those who wish to cast doubt on global warming, too? You can't just pick and choose. You have to put everybody up to the same level of questioning, and if you do, you will quite quickly see that the claims of global warming deniers collapse quite quickly.
If someone asks me my opinion on it, I tell them what I said I tell them. I'm not going to go research it in depth and find out for sure because I don't really care. My opinion on the matter isn't influential or important anyway. I disagree that questioning everything is bad practice, and I don't see how you could possibly equate it to claiming truth where there is none. They're practically negations of eachother. I'm not picking and choosing, and everyone is up to the same standards of questioning from my perspective. You're twisting my words and arguing against things I haven't done.
The point of the "questioning everything" bit is that if you question, say, plate tectonics, or the germ theory of disease, or universal gravity, you're pretty much a kook, and not really a healthily skeptical individual. There are people who disagree with all of those, too, but that's certainly no reason to question the scientific consensus on them.
And if you haven't bothered to inform yourself of the issues, wouldn't it be more honest to say that you do not know enough to take any kind of stance?
To give an admittedly overly dramatic example, would you say you have some doubts about the holocaust, because you haven't seen any evidence of it (let's pretend you haven't, even if you have), and that there are both people who deny it and who believe in it?
you're only a kook to people who assume you've been exposed to convincing evidence. i.e. people who assume skeptical questions have already been answered for you. whats the difference between saying "i dont know, i havent seen sufficient evidence to convince me either way" and "i dont know enough to take a stance"? i do have some doubts about the holocaust, even though i believe it did happen, because i've never seen evidence that could completely convince me that it did. like, if i were on a gameshow where i had the option to decline to answer, and the penalty for being wrong was death, and they knew with certainty, i would say i wasn't sure and decline to answer. there are a lot of uncertainties in life that we just assign answers to for various reasons without complete knowledge of. i wouldn't bet my life that humans are causing global warming or that global warming would be catastrophic, but i wouldn't bet my life that it's the opposite either.
> you're only a kook to people who assume you've been exposed to convincing evidence. i.e. people who assume skeptical questions have already been answered for you.
what
It's perfectly reasonable to ask for evidence. What bugs me about so many self-professed skeptics is that they aren't looking for evidence, because they have no intention of changing their mind.
Holocaust denial is one of the big ones in that area -- no amount of photographs, documents, eye-witness accounts, confessions of nazis, etc. will ever convince them. That doesn't mean that I can't reasonably say "I'm not sure" if I've never looked into the matter myself. If I live in North Korea or Iran where I'm not seeing or hearing the evidence, then I should be a skeptic. It isn't consensus that makes truth, and if all I read and hear says "everyone believes X", that means nothing. I should demand evidence.
People often have agendas for "consensus facts", and therefore will try to convince everyone that the cosensus swings their way. Secondhand smoke having a harmful effect is great for those who want to ban cigarettes (Secondhand smoke actually is harmful), and Marijuana being a "gateway drug" is great for those who want to keep marijuana illegal (this one is more debatable). When I hear that everyone agrees, personally my radar goes off, because there's a good possibility (especially if there's an agenda attached) that this "truth" may not be so much "truth" as "truthiness".
> People often have agendas for "consensus facts", and therefore will try to convince everyone that the cosensus swings their way.
You should remember, though, that while a consensus among the general population might not mean much, it's quite a different thing with a scientific consensus. Not that those aren't ever wrong, but they carry a whole lot more weight, and you need some serious evidence if you are going against those.
More serious than the "global warming theorists just don't want to rock the boat" arguments usually brought up, which are just plain silly.
Freeman Dyson (!) says it's probably bullshit:
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge219.html#dysonf
I know I'd trust him over any UN stooge.
Freeman Dyson is not a climate scientist. Most scientists are just as clueless outside their field of expertise as any layman.
Why are you putting him up against a "UN stooge", and not against a real climate scientist?
I've read it before. Well, skimmed it, more like. It's full of inaccuracies. Here's just a few of the general ones:
> The best scientists like to arrange things in an experiment to be as unpredictable as possible, and then they do the experiment to see what will happen. You might say that if something is predictable then it is not science. When I make predictions, I am not speaking as a scientist.
This is complete nonsense, and I would have expected better. The entire point of science is to predict. Experiments are set up to be as predictable as possible, and are then used to judge if those predictions were true or not, and thus if the model that created those predictions was useful or not. Science is nothing but predictions.
I really don't know where on earth that idea even came from.
> The science is inextricably mixed up with politics.
Well, no, the science is not. The science is science. The politics follow from the science, and the other politics fight the science, but the science is still science.
> Everyone agrees that the climate is changing, but there are violently diverging opinions about the causes of change, about the consequences of change, and about possible remedies.
There aren't really any violently diverging opinions about the cause of the changes among climate scientists. Everybody knows it is man-made. There are disagreements about the consequences and possible remedies, and those are mostly about whether it is already too late to do anything.
>>The politics follow from the science
Do they? Or is it the other way around, to the extent that there's any science here at all?
Steven Schneider. Confirmation bias.
Let's assume the science follows from the politics. Consider:
I don't think it matters why a scientist pursues an avenue of research (curiosity, they're paid too, politically inclined, et cetera), provided they actually do science. Unless scientists are performing poorly designed experiments or actively trying to subvert the results, you'll still get results.
Science is science.
> Do they?
Yes. You'd need some pretty extraordinary proof if you want to call an entire field of scientists liars.
Why don't we just let global warming hit? It won't be in my lifetime, so I don't care.
>>182
I take it you don't plan to have children.
It probably won't happen in anyone's lifetime ever.
>>181 an entire field of power hungry leftist stooges, you mean.
Aug 17
"Arctic sea ice shrinks to record low"
"There was less sea ice in the Arctic on Friday than ever before on record, and the melting is continuing, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported."
"Several years ago he would have predicted a complete melt of Arctic sea ice in summer would occur by the year 2070 to 2100, Serreze said. But at the rates now occurring, a complete melt could happen by 2030"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070818/ap_on_sc/low_ice
You have proof of them being that, then? All of them?
>>186
Why would you even bother replying to a dumbass post like that?
HOLY SHIT THERE IS NO CONSENSUS AFTER ALL!
http://www.dailytech.com/Survey+Less+Than+Half+of+all+Published+Scientists+Endorse+Global+Warming+Theory/article8641.htm
Comprehensive survey of published climate research reveals changing viewpoints
In 2004, history professor Naomi Oreskes performed a survey of research papers on climate change. Examining peer-reviewed papers published on the ISI Web of Science database from 1993 to 2003, she found a majority supported the "consensus view," defined as humans were having at least some effect on global climate change. Oreskes' work has been repeatedly cited, but as some of its data is now nearly 15 years old, its conclusions are becoming somewhat dated.
Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently updated this research. Using the same database and search terms as Oreskes, he examined all papers published from 2004 to February 2007. The results have been submitted to the journal Energy and Environment, of which DailyTech has obtained a pre-publication copy. The figures are surprising.
Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."
The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of consensus here. Not only does it not require supporting that man is the "primary" cause of warming, but it doesn't require any belief or support for "catastrophic" global warming. In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.
These changing viewpoints represent the advances in climate science over the past decade. While today we are even more certain the earth is warming, we are less certain about the root causes. More importantly, research has shown us that -- whatever the cause may be -- the amount of warming is unlikely to cause any great calamity for mankind or the planet itself.
Schulte's survey contradicts the United Nation IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (2007), which gave a figure of "90% likely" man was having an impact on world temperatures. But does the IPCC represent a consensus view of world scientists? Despite media claims of "thousands of scientists" involved in the report, the actual text is written by a much smaller number of "lead authors." The introductory "Summary for Policymakers" -- the only portion usually quoted in the media -- is written not by scientists at all, but by politicians, and approved, word-by-word, by political representatives from member nations. By IPCC policy, the individual report chapters -- the only text actually written by scientists -- are edited to "ensure compliance" with the summary, which is typically published months before the actual report itself.
By contrast, the ISI Web of Science database covers 8,700 journals and publications, including every leading scientific journal in the world.
6% of papers refute the current hypothesis, and that is somehow not a consensus? That's beyond weak.
Here's a hint: Every paper about climate science is not going to be saying "oh by the way climate change is true!" Because it'sa consensus, it is assumed to be true and needs not be explictly mentioned!
Please think a little before spouting off nonsense like that.
Oh, so the other 93% (including the 48% of neutral ones) count as supporting it JUST BECAUSE YOU SAY SO?
THAT is beyond weak.
Science is not about assuming things are true you dipshit.
I'm not the one making any claims about what they do and do not support. It's that article that claims that they don't support the consensus view, which is obviously nonsense.
And of course science is about assuming things to be true. Every model is built on explicit and implicit assumptions. Once there is enough evidence that a model seems to be true and useful, it is assumed to be true except when explicitly attacking it.
Once again, please think.
I'm already thinking. I wish you would try the whole thinking thing sometime instead of parroting IPCC bullshit. You might like it.
I followed you all the way up to "which is obviously nonsense" part. You are very clearly too biased in the OMG MAN DESTROYS EARTH direction to read anything objectively. Open your mind and think about this:
Science is not about assuming something is real. Science is about systematically finding out what's real. There is a big, big difference.
A real scientist would not call someone skeptical about his pet doomsday scenario a "global warming denier" and insist on silencing that skeptic. The Priests of Scary Global Climate Change do it all the time. Hell, YOU do it all the time.
A real scientist would freely share the algorithms in his doomsday simulator so that other scientists can test and verify his findings or fix any logic errors that may be found. The Priests of Scary Global Climate Change hide their weather sim code and insist that everyone believe their findings. Clearly, it worked on you.
A real scientist wouldn't shriek about little things that support his doomsday scenario (such as reporting an antarctic ice shelf collapsing), while ignoring or denouncing anything that doesn't fit into his agenda (such as the heavy snowfalls in central Antarctica that more than make up for the ice shelf's mass).
A real climate scientist doesn't sweep the Medieval Warm Period under the cover while doing his math, ignore the facts that the 1930s were hotter than now, and the world (as much of it as they take temperatures of, anyway) was hotter in 1993 than it has been since.
You've been duped.
> Science is not about assuming something is real. Science is about systematically finding out what's real. There is a big, big difference.
To be a pretentious nut: Pigmaei gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident.
If what you said was true, scientists would never have advanced beyond being hit on the head by a proverbial apple.
As to the rest, I'll reserve judgement, although I'd be delighted to be pointed at some peer-reviewed articles on the topic.
> I followed you all the way up to "which is obviously nonsense" part. You are very clearly too biased in the OMG MAN DESTROYS EARTH direction to read anything objectively.
What I am is entirely irrelevant, but I'll answer anyway: No, I am not. I am anything but. I have explained this before, but I was ignored then. I support all kinds of technological progress by mankind. The only thing I care about here is the science, and that science is clearly saying that we'll be in trouble if we keep doing what we are doing.
> A real scientist would not call someone skeptical about his pet doomsday scenario a "global warming denier" and insist on silencing that skeptic.
A scientist would call a person who does not believe in plate tectonics a kook. Similarly, he can criticize a person who does not believe in global warming even when presented with proof of it.
> A real scientist would freely share the algorithms in his doomsday simulator so that other scientists can test and verify his findings or fix any logic errors that may be found.
This sounds like some kind of silly thing you have read about on the internet. Let's have some sources on that.
> A real scientist wouldn't shriek about little things that support his doomsday scenario (such as reporting an antarctic ice shelf collapsing), while ignoring or denouncing anything that doesn't fit into his agenda (such as the heavy snowfalls in central Antarctica that more than make up for the ice shelf's mass).
> A real climate scientist doesn't sweep the Medieval Warm Period under the cover while doing his math, ignore the facts that the 1930s were hotter than now, and the world (as much of it as they take temperatures of, anyway) was hotter in 1993 than it has been since.
You're correct about these, though. Real scientists don't do any of that. As such, I don't know why you bring them up, seeing as how nobody does it.
> A scientist would call a person who does not believe in plate tectonics a kook.
Ironically, the guy who came up with plate tectonics was consider a kook for half a century.
Global warming 'is good and is not our fault'
By Sophie Borland
Last Updated: 12:02pm BST 14/09/2007
Global warming is an entirely natural phenomenon and its effects can even be beneficial, according to two leading researchers.
Recent climate change is not caused by man-made pollution, but is instead part of a 1,500-year cycle of warming and cooling that has happened for the last million years, say the authors of a controversial study.
Dennis Avery, an environmental economist, and Professor Fred Singer, a physicist, have looked at the work of more than 500 scientists and concluded that it is very doubtful that man-made global warming exists.
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They also say that temperature increase is actually a good thing as in the past sudden cool periods have killed twice as many people as warm spells.
Mr Avery, a senior research fellow at the Hudson Institute, an independent US think-tank, said: "Not all of these researchers who doubt man-made climate change would describe themselves as global warming sceptics but the evidence in their studies is there for all to see.
"Two thousand years of published human histories say that the warm periods were good for people.
"It was the harsh, unstable Dark Ages and the Little Ice Age that brought bigger storms, untimely frost, widespread famine, plagues and disease."
In contrast, they say there is evidence that wildlife is flourishing in the current warming cycle with corals, trees, birds, mammals and butterflies adapting well.
In addition, sea-levels are not rising dramatically and storms and droughts have actually been less severe and frequent.
The authors claim that the change is not man-made because the most recent period of global warming took place between 1850 and 1940 when there were far less CO2 emissions than today.
They claim to show strong historical evidence of an entirely natural cycle based on data of floods on the Nile going back 5,000 years.
Evidence is citing showing records of Roman wine production in Britain in the first century AD.
Prof Singer, a specialist in atmospheric physics at the University of Virginia, said: "We have a greenhouse theory with no evidence to support it, except a moderate warming turned into a scare by computer models whose results have never been verified with real-world events.
"The models only reflect the warming, not its cause."
They also say that natural temperature change can be caused by fluctuations in the sun.
The authors spent months analysing scientific reports and papers for their book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years.
Their aim was to undermine claims made by Al Gore, the former US vice-president, in his film An Inconvenient Truth, that shows the extent of man-made global warming.
Stop trying to bring sense into this.
>>196
Dennis Avery = Hudson Institute.
Hudson Institute = "dedicated to thinking about the future from a contrarian point of view", according to its literature.
Funded by Eli Lilly and Company, Monsanto, DuPont, Dow-Elanco, Sandoz, Ciba-Geigy, ConAgra, Cargill, and Procter & Gamble.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Institute
"Now we here at the DeSmogBlog know that “think-tanks” like the oil-backed Hudson Institute already has many pre-concieved notions about the science behind global warming, but this is blatant misrepresentation of the conclusions of a scientific conclusion."
desmogblog.com/news-alert-hudson-institute-and-dennis-averys-scientific-spin-on-andes-glacier-study
"environmental economist"... well, at least some economists have progressed beyond stating the environment is an externality.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0706/S00026.htm
World climate predictors right only half the time
Friday, 8 June 2007, 10:25 am
Press Release: New Zealand Climate Science Coalition
Media release (immediate) 7 June 2007
World climate predictors right only half the time
"The open admission by a climate scientist of the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Dr Jim Renwick, that his organisation achieves only 50 per cent accuracy in its climate forecasts, and that this is as good as any other forecaster around the world, should be a wake-up call for world political leaders," said Rear Admiral Jack Welch, chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.
Yesterday the coalition published an analysis of seasonal climate predictions by NIWA over the past five years which found that the overall accuracy of the predictions was just 48 per cent.
Defending the Niwa record, Dr Renwick said his organisation was doing as well as any other weather forecaster around the world. He was quoted by the country's leading newspaper, the New Zealand Herald as saying: "Climate prediction is hard, half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don't expect to do terrifically well." Later on New Zealand radio, Dr Renwick said: "The weather is not predictable beyond a week or two."
Admiral Welch said that these statements warrant immediate attention by governments around the world. "Dr Renwick is no lightweight. He was a lead author on Working Group I of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report, and serves on the World Meteorological Organisation Commission for Climatology Expert Team on Seasonal Forecasting. He is presumed to be au fait with the abilities of the official governmental climate prediction community round the world.
"All round the developed world, governments are being pressured by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to accept the integrity of scenarios of future climate behaviour agreed by their own climate bureaucrats, but these bureaucrats are the very people that Dr Renwick now tells us get it right only half the time. Worse, he tells us they are unable to predict weather beyond a week or two, yet in conjunction with the IPCC they presume to tell us what to expect over the next few decades.
"The link between climate and weather is well known: climate is determined by averaging weather variables over an extended period (usually 30 years) at one place or for a region. How can there be any faith in climate predictions by officials who admit they are unable to forecast the weather beyond a week or two?
"Perhaps now, governments will pay heed to those many independent climate scientists around the world who have been challenging the exaggerated projections by IPCC officials, and those political zealots such as Al Gore who use those predictions to mislead the ordinary public.
"In the light of these revelations and recent strong evidence that the sun not carbon dioxide controls the climate, the new Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki Moon would do the world a great service by creating an opportunity for the world to hear from the independent scientists who disagree with the IPCC's blaming mankind for climate variability that is natural and historic. There is no scientific justification for some of the extremist economic and social penalties that a minority of zealots are trying to impose on the people of the world.
"This is a matter of grave import and urgency for poorer nations who will suffer most from the proposed penal measures, " said Admiral Welch.
The most pervasive greenhouse gas is water vapor, responsible for 95% of the greenhouse effect. CO2 ranks in at a mere 3%. Manmade production of CO2 is a mere 3.5% of the total CO2 in the atmosphere. Evil Capitalism's contribution to the greenhouse effect that will kill us all? About one part in a thousand.
You may stop freaking out now.
>>201
[citation needed]
Those numbers are all pulled from the IPCC report apart from the water vapor number*, although, for some odd reason, the IPCC report seems to discount or ignore water vapor's humongous role in global warming.
Almost as if they had an agenda...
> Almost as if they had an agenda...
Almost as if you're paranoid...
Right, because CO2, good for about 3% of the greenhouse effect, is going to cause grevious harm to the whole world by raising the temperature up 2 to 5 degrees over the next hundred years.
Even though that's never happened before.
Even though previous hot times proved to be really good for life.
Even though we're actually about 2000 years overdue for another ice age.
Even though any given CO2 molecule would be lucky to last five years before being eaten by a plant or sucked up by the ocean.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...
Easy way to solve the excess CO2 problem. Add a tenth of an inch of fertile topsoil to every farm. That should lock it up good.
>>205
For god's sake you don't know a single thing about gas exchange, economics, the requirements for human life, or the fact that a single species already nearly wiped out most all life on earth eons ago (and that was motherfucking bacteria).
> Even though that's never happened before.
stupid
> Even though previous hot times proved to be really good for life.
abysmally stupid
> Even though we're actually about 2000 years overdue for another ice age.
waste-of-oxygen stupid
> Even though any given CO2 molecule would be lucky to last five years before being eaten by a plant or sucked up by the ocean.
proof-i'm-involved-in-a-turing-test stupid
..
> Easy way to solve the excess CO2 problem. Add a tenth of an inch of fertile topsoil to every farm. That should lock it up good.
Sounds like something Chairman Mao would come up with.
I don't know whether to laugh at you, cry for humanity or just be quietly embarrassed on your behalf.
> Right, because CO2, good for about 3% of the greenhouse effect
Ozone is 3%. CO2 is several times higher.
As for water vapor, that's quite the nasty thing, isn't it? We don't control the amount of water vapor, but we're pulling up carbon from the ground and dumping into the atmosphere, which increases the global mean temperature.
If we raise a global temperature by a few degrees, it means the atmosphere can hold more water, and evaporation increases. More evaporation means more water vapor. More water vapor means higher temperature. And...
Jolly good show, old chap. That's some charming amplification you have there if I do say so myself.
> going to cause grevious harm to the whole world by raising the temperature up 2 to 5 degrees over the next hundred years.
Do you know what happens to a person whose body temperature is five degrees above or below normal? It's a medical emergency. It can even kill them.
Now please consider that a lot of life out there is used to fairly constant temperatures and lack any form of thermoregulation. A deviation of a few degrees will result in mass death and the destruction of entire ecosystems.
> More evaporation means more water vapor. More water vapor means higher temperature. And...
More evaporation means more water vapor. More water vapor means more clouds. More clouds means more sunlight reflected back into space. More clouds means more rain. Turns out water vapor regulates itself pretty effectively. You might not have noticed this if you live somewhere where it doesn't rain much.
> Do you know what happens to a person whose body temperature is five degrees above or below normal? It's a medical emergency. It can even kill them.
Do you know how a greenhouse works? You put plants inside this big room made mostly of glass, and it gets really hot inside. Now what is a greenhouse for? What happens when you raise plants in a greenhouse? Do they die quickly from the higher temperature?
> Now please consider that a lot of life out there is used to fairly constant temperatures and lack any form of thermoregulation. A deviation of a few degrees will result in mass death and the destruction of entire ecosystems.
Fascinating. Good thing the earth isn't a human body.
Gee, it's also a good thing we don't have regular summers and winters every year, or everything would be dead by now from the constant excessive temperature changes every year.
When's the last time the temperature was up a few degrees for a long period? Oh yeah, the Medieval Warm Period. That time of worldwide devastation where people grew crops in Greenland and various northern European countries, and wine grapes grew in Britain, thanks to the horrible retreat of the arctic circle.
Evidence has been found of the Medieval Warm Period affecting Taiwan, China, and Japan as well. Ironically, a lot of that evidence was found in Kyoto.
http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm
It would be a disaster if the Brits started making wine again, given how awful most of their Haute British Cuisine turned out.
>>207 You are exactly the kind of person that Stalin called "useful idiots." Keep your mouth shut. Grownups are talking.
> You are exactly the kind of person that Stalin called "useful idiots." Keep your mouth shut. Grownups are talking.
ideological-blog-comment-spam-repeating-robot stupid
> ideological-blog-comment-spam-repeating-robot stupid
Your eloquent argument has swayed me sir. I have revised my feelings on the matter. Clearly, global warming is real and the world is going to spaz out and wipe out 80% of all life unless we all do what the activists say.
>the world is going to spaz out and wipe out 80% of all life unless we all do what the activists say.
Straw man fallacy.
>>213 Dork.
>>215 global warmer.
So, I still haven't seen any evidence out of you for why you claim that an entire field of science is lying.
Mmmm'kay. Be good and try to read the whole thing before denouncing it, alright?
AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW
9 September, 2007. Supplement page 8.
Global warming sceptics fuel hot debate
Mark Lawson
The ranks of the doubters are legion and speaking up as the climatic change debate rages, writes Mark Lawson.
Despite being scorned, derided and accused of links with oil companies, the climate change sceptics are still out there and, although the greenhouse lobby will never admit it, occasionally scoring major points. They may also be more numerous than the greenhouse lobby or politicians believe.
One example of this scepticism breaking to the surface is a dissenting minority report issued by a group of federal government backbenchers as part of a parliamentary committee investigation into viability of geosequestration (burying carbon produced deep underground).
The report by four MPs - three Liberal and one National - declared that the evidence that humans were altering climate was “not compelling”, but it was largely derided by the media.
A much more serious, if not devastating, attack on greenhouse claims concerning likely future temperature increases was the recent release of a paper entitled Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts.
Written by J. Scott Armstrong, a professor of marketing at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and Kesten Green, a visiting fellow at the business and economics forecasting unit at Monash University in Melbourne, the paper assessed, as forecasts, the temperature projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change earlier this year. It found little to approve.
In the paper prepared for the International Symposium on Forecasting 2007, Armstrong and Green conclude, “the forecasts in the report were not the outcome of scientific procedures. In effect, they present the opinions of scientists transformed by mathematics and obscured by complex writing.”
The paper also points to one of the recognised rules of forecasting, namely that “unaided judgement forecasts by experts have no value. This applies whether the opinions are expressed by words, spreadsheets or mathematical models. It also applies regardless of how much scientific evidence is possessed by the experts.” A group of experts is little better.
Kesten Green told The Australian Financial Review that there were plenty of examples of experts being wrong, both individually and collectively, about their own area of expertise. Albert Einstein, for example, famously declared that atomic power was not possible. Other examples are in the treatment of stomach ulcers and head injuries, where the medical establishment held to treatments which harmed rather than helped for many years.
continued next post...
But in the greenhouse debate it is incorrect to say that there is overwhelming agreement or that there is no doubt about the science behind it, he says. For every aspect of the theory which the greenhouse lobby declares has been settled, it is possible to find eminent scientists who strongly disagree. “It is a case of where a statement is repeated
often enough everyone takes it as fact, and the media has to bear much of the blame for this,” he says.
The Armstrong-Green paper is particularly scathing of one IPCC approach - a cornerstone of its work - of fitting models to match historical results and then claiming the model is accurate enough to make forecasts. They say the approach has been shown not to work in forecasting.
A number of distinguished scientists have spoken publicly against the prevailing orthodoxy that the IPCC forecasts are correct. One of the more vocal local dissidents is Bob Carter, a research professor and former head of the School of Earth Sciences at James Cook University in Townsville. He says that there is no established theory of climate as there is, say, of gravity and planentary motion, which can be used to make predictions.
“We have a hypothesis that increases in carbon dioxide increase temperatures, but that hypothesis fails all tests. Global average temperatures are known to have varied little since 1997 - just moving up and down - but in that same period carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 15 parts per million or 4 per cent.”
Stewart Franks, an associate professor in hydroclimatogy at the University of Newcastle, says the alarm over climate has grown sharply in the past 10 years, “but in that time temperatures have been stable, so it's a case of never mind the evidence”.
He says the greenhouse effects of the atmosphere's water content (known as humidity at ground level) and of clouds are many times greater than that of carbon dioxide, which still counts as only a small part of the total atmosphere. Yet very little is known about the mechanisms behind variations in humidity or cloud cover.
Despite sceptical voices there is also no doubt that many eminent scientists are on the side of the IPCC. However, a recent paper by David Henderson, formerly head of economics and statistics at the OECD and now visiting professor at the Westminster Business School in London, argues that part of this support is due to those eminent scientists trusting the IPCC to get it right. But he also argues that their trust in the panel is misplaced, as it is taking a very one-sided view of global warming.
His paper states that one major example of that bias is the dispute over the Hockey Stick graph. This was an early piece of research indicating a direct link between industrial emissions and temperatures (its shape was that of a hockey stick), which featured prominently in its reports. However, two Canadian statisticians discovered a major flaw in the statistical analysis which made it valueless. After a great deal of dispute the issue went to two high-level committees of eminent statisticians which both confirmed the flaw. Although the hockey stick has been dropped from the panel's documentation, he says the panel has never admitted any error, made any comment on the committee findings, or announced any review of its processes to prevent such problems from recurring.
Henderson says the panel seems reluctant to admit any error.
Among many other suggestions for reform he recommends thorough audits of the IPCC work and that environmental scientists adopt the best practice of economic journals, of submitting data and computer code along with any papers for publication so that others can reproduce the analysis. This would avoid some of the worst features of the hockey stick debate, Henderson says.
This 21-page PDF goes into greater detail:
http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Public_Policy/WarmAudit31.pdf
You should read all of these articles too. Pay special attention to the scientists' credentials at the end of each article.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/environment/story.html?id=4432a41c-7c52-4b74-934e-f0dac3b2bcb8
in other words: INTERNATIONAL JEWISH CONSPIRACY
I honestly don't know who to believe in this highly politicized matter.
I think since this is ultimately about protecting the environment, there are probably more pressing issues we could address since global warming isn't as well understood as we would like it to be.
We should look at how China is terribly polluted, or how other emerging industries an bursting populations will effect our society and prepare for that. We also have a massive fishing crisis that needs to be addressed, land use that is killing our ecosystem, deforestation and massive erosion in the middle east and elsewhere, big issues that could effect us much faster than an excess of Co2. Let's think about our air and water quality. If that means reducing emissions, so be it, but there are other things we should be focusing on than the Co2 content of our emissions.
> More evaporation means more water vapor... More clouds means more rain.
Are you aware of how supersaturation can be achieved? Or why the water content of air in the Arctic is lower than the Namib desert?
The higher the temperature, the more water can be held in the air without precipitation.
> Fascinating. Good thing the earth isn't a human body.
Oh? Which part of "a lot of life out there is used to fairly constant temperatures and lack any form of thermoregulation" did you not catch? You won't be affected directly by a 5C external change, but other things will.
> When's the last time the temperature was up a few degrees for a long period?
With an open carbon cycle, the question is where will it stop? And in the meantime, there's going to be a mass migration of humanity going on while they move to more fertile areas. And if it doesn't stop, we'll really have problems.
I'll pass.
I didn't miss any part of that life is too fragile to adapt to changing conditions argument. I'd just like to see some proof of it. If you can find solid evidence of a plant or animal that can't cope with a few degrees of extra warmth, let me know.
If you consider the last decade's temperatures, it already has. We've added an extra 15 parts per million CO2 into the air, and temps have stayed steady over that time.
The UN, through the IPCC, is advocating strong action on the hypothesis that CO2 causes global warming, and there quite simply is no evidence to validate that hypothesis.
>>224, you should read the other stuff I posted above.
>>225
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/birdsclimatereportfinal.pdf
http://www.amap.no/acia/index.html
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/foci/sebscc/SEBSCC_final_report.pdf
http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/nationalassessment/10Alaska.pdf
http://www.geog.umd.edu/resac/outgoing/GEOG442%20Fall%202005/Lecture%20materials/extinctions%20and%20climate%20change.pdf
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/27230th7l7473773/
> I honestly don't know who to believe in this highly politicized matter.
Believe the scientists. http://realclimate.org/ is very representative of their views.
> If you can find solid evidence of a plant or animal that can't cope with a few degrees of extra warmth, let me know.
You do realize that life will tend to expand until it reaches the limits of its environmental endurance? An organism that is living well within its comfort zone won't be affected by a small change in temperature. One living right on the edge, however, will.
As far as I can tell that's an attack on the IPCC. I asked for some evidence that the entire field of climate science is lying to us, not an attack on a single panel of scientists.
See, the IPCC is not the entirety of climate science. It doesn't matter how many times you try and refute them, because even if you were successful, you'd still have the entire body of scientific results left.
Yeah, the IPCC is more about climate politics.
> I asked for some evidence that the entire field of climate science is lying to us, not an attack on a single panel of scientists.
That's largely impossible to get, seeing as there is no clear consensus on the issue among climate scientists. If you skip the summary and read the whole IPCC report, they practically admit that they don't know enough about how the climate works to predict anything with any certainty. The summary, on the other hand, has been vetted for politicians, contains very little science, and is really about forcing an extreme environmentalist agenda.
> If you can find solid evidence of a plant or animal that can't cope with a few degrees of extra warmth, let me know.
Fishy, fishy in da sea. Not all fishy warm like me.
Of course, not only are fish cold-blooded (and used to a narrow temperature range, ergo not developing multiple energy paths like land-based cold-blooded critters), but their homes don't take well to temperature variation either.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is basic biology. Elementary, even. And the coral die-off, particularly of warm-water coral reefs, isn't news either.
> they practically admit that they don't know enough about how the climate works to predict anything with any certainty.
I fail to see how this is in the least bit damning.
We can't, with any certainty, predict the course of evolution or human behaviour, either.
> The summary, on the other hand...contains very little science
That's why it's called a summary
> is really about forcing an extreme environmentalist agenda.
In other words, you're a political drone and think that everyone who disagrees with your opinion is conspiring to do evil.
Nothing is certain in science (or anything else short of religion). It's all confidence intervals and other statistics.
I dunno, maybe when it really starts getting warm I'll believe them, but so far, when you consider how warm Europe was historically and how cold our recent, modern history has been, there doesn't seem to be anything abnormal about our current temperatures.
This is what I don't understand. How can climate scientists detect a distinct abnormality in temperatures that have been climbing since the 17th Century?
If someone could really explain it to me I'd probably believe them, but it seems that a lot of global warming theories are based on faith more than empiric reason.
>>235
Core samples of quickly forming ice (in greenland, for example) reveal the history of (local/global) temperature and atmospheric composition, for one.
There are a lot of ways these things are measured, and the amount of factors going into this kind of thing make it far more complex than some would have you believe (CO2 is far from being the only thing that affects this).
Seeing as it is unlikely there are any respected climatologists, geologists or atmospheric scientists frequenting this board, you'd best learn from a google search for "climate change"
The ice core samples are not all that reliable:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=25526754-e53a-4899-84af-5d9089a5dcb6
Quoting the important part:
Ice, the IPCC believes, precisely preserves the ancient air, allowing for a precise reconstruction of the ancient atmosphere. For this to be true, no component of the trapped air can escape from the ice. Neither can the ice ever become liquid. Neither can the various gases within air ever combine or separate.
This perfectly closed system, frozen in time, is a fantasy. "Liquid water is common in polar snow and ice, even at temperatures as low as -72C," Dr. Jaworowski explains, "and we also know that in cold water, CO2 is 70 times more soluble than nitrogen and 30 times more soluble than oxygen, guaranteeing that the proportions of the various gases that remain in the trapped, ancient air will change. Moreover, under the extreme pressure that deep ice is subjected to -- 320 bars, or more than 300 times normal atmospheric pressure -- high levels of CO2 get squeezed out of ancient air."
Because of these various properties in ancient air, one would expect that, over time, ice cores that started off with high levels of CO2 would become depleted of excess CO2, leaving a fairly uniform base level of CO2 behind. In fact, this is exactly what the ice cores show.
"According to the ice-core samples, CO2 levels vary little over time," Dr. Jaworowski sates. "The ice core data from the Taylor Dome in Antarctica shows almost no change in the level of atmospheric CO2 over the last 7,000 to 8,000 years -- it varied between 260 parts per million and 264 parts per million.
Another important part:
Is there an alternative to ice-core samples, which are but proxies from which assumptions about the historical composition of the atmosphere can be made? "Yes, there are several other proxies, and they lead to different findings about CO2," Dr. Jaworowski states. "But we don't need to rely on proxies at all.
"Scientists from numerous disciplines have been examining CO2 since the beginning of the 19th century, and they have left behind a record of tens of thousands of direct, real-time measurements. These measurements tell a far different story about CO2 -- they demonstrate, for example, that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have fluctuated greatly, and that several times in the past 200 years CO2 concentrations have exceeded today's levels.
"The IPCC rejects these direct measurements, some taken by Nobel Prize winners. They prefer the view of CO2 as seen through ice."
National Post? Ugh. My head hurts every time I see than newspaper.
Please, find a source from somewhere else. :(
IPCC report? Ugh. My head hurts every time I see than summary.
Please, find a source from somewhere else :(
Anonymous Scientist? Ugh. My head hurts every time I see than collectivist identity.
Please, find a source from somewhere else :(
>>237
The national post is not all that reliable.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=6626a0fa-99de-4f1e-aebe-bb91af82abb3
Can you name a paper that is all that reliable? Most of them make mistakes all the time.
However, disparaging the source instead of pointing out exactly how the articles themselves are wrong re/AGW is lame.
Maybe you don't live in Canada, but National Post is pure tripe.
Considering that I am not a climatologist, I have to rely on others. I am not going to rely on National Post, but if someone provides some articles in a respected peer-reviewed journal, I'm all eyes.
Also, to the clown who implicitly compared IPCC to National Post (or any newspaper): you're clueless. The IPCC at least provides references to articles, as opposed to "X says that..."
> National Post is pure tripe.
Is this your scientific opinion?
Why yes. Based on a random sample of 125 National Post papers, we can conclude that it is composed of 95% fecal matter, with a standard error of...
Anyway, respected peer-reviewed journal or it didn't happen.
>>245
Based on it's founding principles of 'balancing' the media with a neo-conservative agenda... It's as close to physical truth as we can get.
The Iranian 'Yellow Badge for Jews' is among the five most irresponsible journalistic errors made in the past five years.
Right up there with Koran-Flushing and the collective US media in the years after 9/11.
So, in other words, there's no point in actually reading the articles linked to, then forming an intelligent response as to why those articles fail to convince you, because you can tar them all based on occasional crappy news coverage of unrelated subjects.
Yeah, I guess that's the easy way out, you lazy fuck.
> on occasional crappy news coverage of unrelated subjects.
Occasional? You're not familiar with National Post.
> Yeah, I guess that's the easy way out, you lazy fuck.
To reply in turn: why are you not giving us references to articles of quality? You're quite adamant over this one National Post article.
So, if you don't mind, I shall reiterate: respected peer-reviewed journal or it didn't happen. I hope you caught it this time.
Did you read them in order to determine their individual shittiness, or are you just avoiding reading something that challenges your UN-sponsored faith in the amazing power of manmade CO2 to destroy the planet by raising temperatures about 2.5 degrees C over the next hundred years saying "that papr sux every1 nos it" as if everything in that paper were written by exactly one person?
Try reading them anyway. See what happens.
I fucking dare you to open your mind a little bit.
> I fucking dare you to open your mind a little bit.
I fucking double-dare to you get a grip on reality.
Already there my man. There's room here for you and your friends if you like.
>>252
Ideology is not reality.
You're full of yourself.
>>253
And reality does not come from the mouths of politicians.
You're a sucker.
Honestly, I want to believe, but the current science hasn't yet offered convincing evidence to back up the IPCC's claims, at least not for me. On the other hand, the skeptics often seem to be political conservatives, or presented by political conservatives who are weary of the environmental movements or any policy that demands government intervention or limitations on corporate activities.
So all there is for me is a big puddle of political mud.
I guess I ask myself, what does the UN get by pushing a climate theory like this out of proportion? That might be the best question, the only answer I can see is a kind of evangelical environmentalism based more on faith and a kind of ethical ideology, or maybe hysteria, than hard science.
The UN itself? Not much. That irritating, lying group of lunatic socialist anti-global anti-corporate activists who hijacked the otherwise valuable environmental movement and turned it from a sensible approach to caring for the earth into a freaky WE HATE PROGRESS party? They get to push everyone in the whole world around, and make a lot of money off of carbon offset bookkeeping while doing it.
> the current science hasn't yet offered convincing evidence to back up the IPCC's claims
The problem with (some definitions of) convincing evidence is that we might not survive it all that well.
> They get to push everyone in the whole world around, and make a lot of money off of carbon offset bookkeeping while doing it.
For some reason I doubt they'd fair too well against multinationals, especially when a select group also owns most of the media.
>>254
And reality does not come from the mouths of lobbyists and PR Firms.
You're a sucker.
> Honestly, I want to believe, but the current science hasn't yet offered convincing evidence to back up the IPCC's claims
How would you know? By the sound of it, you haven't studied any of the science at all, but merely listened to the media circus.
>> I asked for some evidence that the entire field of climate science is lying to us, not an attack on a single panel of scientists.
> That's largely impossible to get,
Then why are you claiming that they are lying?
> seeing as there is no clear consensus on the issue among climate scientists.
That, however, is a lie: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=86
> That irritating, lying group of lunatic socialist anti-global anti-corporate activists who hijacked the otherwise valuable environmental movement and turned it from a sensible approach to caring for the earth into a freaky WE HATE PROGRESS party?
You sure like setting up strawmen and beating them down, don't you? And you also sure like to change your position around however it suits you.
Now tell us: Are the majority of climate scientists "lunatic socialist anti-global anti-corporate activists"?
>>261
Please don't feed the trolls.
So I should trust the heavily biased "realclimate.org" site simply because it has the word "real" in it?
Fascinating site. Every time someone's comments suggest that natural warming may be occurring, there's a polite response that insists that "We know that the current CO2 rise is anthropogenic". He never bothers to link to any studies that prove this one way or the other. He just insists that it's true.
(reading further...)
OMG he still thinks the Mann Hockey Stick graph is valid!!!!
> Now tell us: Are the majority of climate scientists "lunatic socialist anti-global anti-corporate activists"?
Probably not. But the talking heads who front the whole Global Warming - er, I'm sorry, "Climate Change" activism are.
> OMG he still thinks the Mann Hockey Stick graph is valid!!!!
He has elucidated why here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=11
You're free to indicate why that's wrong.
Also, it seems we've deviated wildly from the /science/.
> So I should trust the heavily biased "realclimate.org" site
Proof of bias, please. The fact that somebody disagrees with you is not enough.
>> Now tell us: Are the majority of climate scientists "lunatic socialist anti-global anti-corporate activists"?
> Probably not.
Then why do you keep insisting that they are fucking lying?
It pains me to do so, but I have to back up our local drone's claims of realclimate.org being biased.
Simply run a whois on the domain, and follow the hierarchy.
Not that this matters, all the "proof" relating to climate change is offsite. Relatively unbiased sources follow.
Here, from motherfucking NASA, which has surprisingly not been tainted by Republican politics:
> “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarmingUpdate/
University of Oxford:
http://www.eo.ucar.edu/basics/index.html
For the absolutely clueless, here's a pretty, interactive slideshow:
http://www.begbroke.ox.ac.uk/climate/interface.html
> Simply run a whois on the domain, and follow the hierarchy.
what
> Then why do you keep insisting that they are fucking lying?
Working on a response to that. Meanwhile, here's some good reading:
Reply to Lockwood and Fröhlich - The persistent role of the Sun in climate forcing:
http://www.spacecenter.dk/publications/scientific-report-series/Scient_No._3.pdf
And some OMG Leftist Conspiracy stuff too:
http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/225
And another good one, but a pretty long read:
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
http://eprintweb.org/S/article/physics/0707.1161
I think the panic over this matter is generated by the fact that over the last 50 years, temperatures have spiked dramatically. Usually they don't do that, not so high, not so fast, natural fluctuation is more subtle and prolonged. Now, if the temperatures spike down again over the next 30 years and level off, we will feel like complete idiots for falling for the alarmists, but why should we believe this mounting spike will fall?
It's a frightening time. Especially since reducing emissions probably won't have any noticeable effect on temperature, at least not for many many decades, so even in a century we may not be able to know how much of the heating was caused by anthropogenic gases, if any, and how much of it might have been caused by the sun.
I think the panic over this matter is generated more by the fact that alarmists are insisting that temperatures have spiked dramatically over the last 50 years, not that it's actually happened. Remember that before this, we had the Big ol' Giant Ice Age caused by too much industrially generated particulate matter in the air cooling everything down to sweater temps scare too. Many of the people behind that scare are behind this one too.
Look, come back when you have some actual peer-reviewed science to present and not random web pages or arXiv garbage.
Dude, I just LOVE that open mind of yours!
BTW, could you find a peer-reviewed, clear exposition of exactly how 2xCO2 leads to 2.5 deg C? That'd be great.
> that alarmists are insisting that temperatures have spiked dramatically over the last 50 years
Strawman.
> before this, we had the Big ol' Giant Ice Age caused by too much industrially generated particulate matter in the air cooling everything down to sweater temps scare too
First time I've heard of this.
I'm still waiting for the second coming of Christ, myself.
>>275
This address your claims.
http://www.begbroke.ox.ac.uk/climate/interface.html
>>268
Sorry about the technical terms.
realclimate.org is run and funded through various lobbying/non-profit groups aligned with Democratic Party interests. I can barely untangle these complex money chutes that political cash flows through, but you can look it up yourself by searching for "whois" and using those tools to discover a website's registrant and from that information, discover it's affiliates. Running web searches on names/organizations helps, as well as reading Financial Statements (if you're really dedicated).
All purely political sites and blogs are automatically biased due to human cognitive dissonance, so don't bother looking those up.
It's true that weather balloon data supports the anthropogenic theory pretty solidly. If it was just solar heating the troposphere wouldn't be heating the way it is. It's definitely in the atmosphere. Just how much it will heat/cool local weather or what that will be like? I think that's up to more questions.
> First time I've heard of this.
There's this stuff that went on before you were born called "history." You should take a look at it sometime.
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 9/21/2007
Climate Change: Did NASA scientist James Hansen, the global warming alarmist in chief, once believe we were headed for . . . an ice age? An old Washington Post story indicates he did.
On July 9, 1971, the Post published a story headlined "U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming." It told of a prediction by NASA and Columbia University scientist S.I. Rasool. The culprit: man's use of fossil fuels.
The Post reported that Rasool, writing in Science, argued that in "the next 50 years" fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun's rays that the Earth's average temperature could fall by six degrees.
Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, Rasool claimed, "could be sufficient to trigger an ice age."
Aiding Rasool's research, the Post reported, was a "computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen," who was, according to his resume, a Columbia University research associate at the time.
So what about those greenhouse gases that man pumps into the skies? Weren't they worried about them causing a greenhouse effect that would heat the planet, as Hansen, Al Gore and a host of others so fervently believe today?
"They found no need to worry about the carbon dioxide fuel-burning puts in the atmosphere," the Post said in the story, which was spotted last week by Washington resident John Lockwood, who was doing research at the Library of Congress and alerted the Washington Times to his finding.
Hansen has some explaining to do. The public deserves to know how he was converted from an apparent believer in a coming ice age who had no worries about greenhouse gas emissions to a global warming fear monger.
This is a man, as Lockwood noted in his message to the Times' John McCaslin, who has called those skeptical of his global warming theory "court jesters." We wonder: What choice words did he have for those who were skeptical of the ice age theory in 1971?
People can change their positions based on new information or by taking a closer or more open-minded look at what is already known. There's nothing wrong with a reversal or modification of views as long as it is arrived at honestly.
But what about political hypocrisy? It's clear that Hansen is as much a political animal as he is a scientist. Did he switch from one approaching cataclysm to another because he thought it would be easier to sell to the public? Was it a career advancement move or an honest change of heart on science, based on empirical evidence?
If Hansen wants to change positions again, the time is now. With NASA having recently revised historical temperature data that Hansen himself compiled, the door has been opened for him to embrace the ice age projections of the early 1970s.
Could be he's feeling a little chill in the air again.
> INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Would you stop linking this kind of garbage already? Look up your browser window. What does it say in that URL? Science.
Now post some fucking science, fool.
Why don't you ever argue about the information contained in those posts? You always attack the source, and thereby neatly sidestep the content. I suspect that if I posted iron-clad scientific proof, with all the data, formulas and historical records to prove that global warming was a fiction, you'd complain because it didn't come from Al Gore or something.
The problem is that it's hard to find skeptic information about global warming from the scientific community, the only people willing to host those views are conservative papers.
Here's something I could find, a criticism of Gore's film from the NY Times, a liberal paper.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13gore.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
> Why don't you ever argue about the information contained in those posts?
First post something worth arguing over.
Once again: respected peer-reviewed articles or it didn't happen.
>>269 is getting somewhere; there's some meat to it, although it doesn't look like it was peer-reviewed or published. It'll be interesting to see the response.
How would you know if a post is worth arguing over if you never read them?
>>283
Because I don't have the time to waste on dubious claims. If it doesn't fulfill the aforementioned criteria, it's not worth my time.
I don't listen to street bums for business advice either.
Then why do you spend so much time here?
> global warming alarmist in chief,
tl;dr
Ugh.
Now that we're done with the stupid irrelevant questions, back to /science/:
http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming.
refs:
http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Reference_Docs/Geocarb_III-Berner.pdf
> Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming.
Hey, now we're getting somewhere!
So lets not go around echoing that CO2 is the only thing that has been claimed to affect a system as complex as global climate, k?
So, plain and simple, how does one prove that most of the warming over the last fifty years is caused by anthropogenic gases? Because almost everyone seems very confident about that. It seems like I might be missing that one little piece of evidence that would make the greenhouse theory click for me as an imminent man-made problem.
So, plain and simple, prove prove to me that this one little piece of evidence would actually convince you, and your not just going find a reason to dismiss it. Otherwise, why should we waste our time?
> how does one prove that most of the warming over the last fifty years is caused by anthropogenic gases?
Prove, in the scientific sense? With current data it can't be done. We'd need at least two planet earths and a century.
Even so, there'd be a number of confounding variables. Our society is quite dependent on gasoline.
From CO2 Science:
Then Again? Rethinking Climate Change Reference
Hansen, J., Sato, M., Ruedy, R., Lacis, A. and Oinas, V. 2000. Global warming in the twenty-first century: An alternative scenario. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, Early Edition. Online at: http://tinyurl.com/yvcghk
What was done
The authors provide their best estimates of radiative climate forcings since 1850 and discuss their implications for past and future climate change.
What was learned
The radiative forcing of the atmospheric CO2 increase experienced between 1850 and 2000, according to the authors, was 1.4 W/m2, which is equivalent to that of all other (non-CO2) greenhouse gases (GHGs). Also of the same magnitude, but of opposite sign, was the radiative climate forcing attributable to atmospheric aerosols.
What it means
Since fossil fuel use is the main source of both CO2 and aerosols, the authors state that "it follows that the net global climate forcing due to processes that produced CO2 in the past century probably is much less than 1.4 W/m2." Indeed it is. Their own estimates, in fact, suggest it would be zero. "A corollary," as they put it, "is that climate forcing by non-CO2 GHGs is nearly equal to the net value of all known forcings for the period 1850-2000." Put more bluntly, their conclusion is that essentially all of the radiative climate forcing of the past 150 years was provided by things other than fossil fuel usage.
Assuming this conclusion is correct - and we believe it must be very close to reality - what does that say about the Kyoto Protocol? Simply that it is absolutely and undeniably unnecessary. It is, in fact, ludicrous in the extreme to attempt to ameliorate future climate change by regulating activities that have had absolutely nothing to do with the climate change of the entire industrial era.
>> how does one prove that most of the warming over the last fifty years is caused by anthropogenic gases?
> Prove, in the scientific sense? With current data it can't be done.
And yet this site, linked to a few posts, insists that it's a fact:
http://www.begbroke.ox.ac.uk/climate/interface.html
I meant to say "a few posts above".
Mornings suck.
> Why don't you ever argue about the information contained in those posts? You always attack the source, and thereby neatly sidestep the content.
I have, again and again, argued with the content. And you ignore it every single time. After a while, it gets a little bit boring to make an argument and have it ignored, and just have a new "HERE READ THIS ARTICLE FROM COTTAGE CHEESE EATERS MONTHLY" shoved in my face. At that point, you kind of start to request some actually reliable sources so you don't have to go to the effort to read the garbage, type key phrases into Google, and find out where it was refuted again and again.
You know, you could do that yourself. If you were actually a skeptic, you would be applying as much questioning to the sources you agree with as the ones you disagree with. But you don't, you just find the next article in the big mountain of garbage and demand everybody answer to that one. And when they do, you pick the next one.
THEREFORE, once again, try posting some actual science. Your refusal to do so just underscores that apparently you can't find any science to back up your claims, so you have to resort to the junk pile.
Yeah, but your arguments with the content did not apparently involve you actually reading any of it. You just complained about it without even giving the content itself a glance.
Sorry if I don't spend all my time using Google for some idiot on the internet who is too sure that he is smarter than everyone else to do it himself.
>>298 Same here.
Besides, the links were provided, what would you need Google for?
We would all be much happier if you would just go use Google for yourself, and read both the arguments for and against whatever it is you're going on about this week, and actually paty attention to both, instead of just assuming that everything that disagrees with you is a lie. You might learn something, and we wouldn't have to listen to your rambling.
I will do my utmost to paty attention to all sides in this issue.
For instance, this article covers both sides, and is (perhaps, unfortunately) biased in favor of science over running around screaming about the sky falling:
Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: Separating Scientific Fact from Personal Opinion
A critique of the 26 April 2007 testimony of James E. Hansen made to the Select Committee of Energy Independence and Global Warming of the United States House of Representatives entitled "Dangerous Human-Made Interference with Climate"
Prepared by Sherwood B. Idso and Craig D. Idso
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
6 June 2007
PDF here: http://tinyurl.com/3d6jna
http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777
Majority Press Release
Contact: MARC MORANO (202) 224-5762 (marc_morano@epw.senate.gov), MATT DEMPSEY (202) 224-9797 (matthew_dempsey@epw.senate.gov)
Renowned Scientist Defects From Belief in Global Warming – Caps Year of Vindication for Skeptics
October 17, 2006
Washington DC - One of the most decorated French geophysicists has converted from a believer in manmade catastrophic global warming to a climate skeptic. This latest defector from the global warming camp caps a year in which numerous scientific studies have bolstered the claims of climate skeptics. Scientific studies that debunk the dire predictions of human-caused global warming have continued to accumulate and many believe the new science is shattering the media-promoted scientific “consensus” on climate alarmism.
Claude Allegre, a former government official and an active member of France’s Socialist Party, wrote an editorial on September 21, 2006 in the French newspaper L'Express titled “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (For English Translation, click here: http://epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=264835 ) detailing his newfound skepticism about manmade global warming. See: http://www.lexpress.fr/idees/tribunes/dossier/allegre/dossier.asp?ida=451670 Allegre wrote that the “cause of climate change remains unknown” and pointed out that Kilimanjaro is not losing snow due to global warming, but to local land use and precipitation changes. Allegre also pointed out that studies show that Antarctic snowfall rate has been stable over the past 30 years and the continent is actually gaining ice.
“Following the month of August experienced by the northern half of France, the prophets of doom of global warming will have a lot on their plate in order to make our fellow countrymen swallow their certitudes,” Allegre wrote. He also accused proponents of manmade catastrophic global warming of being motivated by money, noting that “the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!”
Allegre, a member of both the French and U.S. Academy of Sciences, had previously expressed concern about manmade global warming. "By burning fossil fuels, man enhanced the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," Allegre wrote 20 years ago. In addition, Allegre was one of 1500 scientists who signed a November 18, 1992 letter titled “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity” in which the scientists warned that global warming’s “potential risks are very great.” See: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~sai/sciwarn.html
Allegre has authored more than 100 scientific articles, written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States.
Allegre's conversion to a climate skeptic comes at a time when global warming alarmists have insisted that there is a “consensus” about manmade global warming. Proponents of global warming have ratcheted up the level of rhetoric on climate skeptics recently. An environmental magazine in September called for Nuremberg-style trials for global warming skeptics and CBS News “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley compared skeptics to “Holocaust deniers.” See: http://www.epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=264568 & http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2006/03/22/publiceye/entry1431768.shtml In addition, former Vice President Al Gore has repeatedly referred to skeptics as "global warming deniers."
This increase in rhetorical flourish comes at a time when new climate science research continues to unravel the global warming alarmists’ computer model predictions of future climatic doom and vindicate skeptics.
continued...
60 Scientists Debunk Global Warming Fears
Earlier this year, a group of prominent scientists came forward to question the so-called “consensus” that the Earth faces a “climate emergency.” On April 6, 2006, 60 scientists wrote a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister asserting that the science is deteriorating from underneath global warming alarmists.
“Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future…Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary,” the 60 scientists wrote. See: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=3711460e-bd5a-475d-a6be-4db87559d605
“It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas,” the 60 scientists concluded.
'Climate Change is Nothing New'
In addition, an October 16, 2006 Washington Post article titled “Climate Change is Nothing New” echoed the sentiments of the 60 scientists as it detailed a new study of the earth’s climate history. The Washington Post article by reporter Christopher Lee noted that Indiana University geologist Simon Brassell found climate change occurred during the age of dinosaurs and quoted Brassell questioning the accuracy of computer climate model predictions.
“If there are big, inherent fluctuations in the system, as paleoclimate studies are showing, it could make determining the Earth’s climatic future even harder than it is,” Brassell said. See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/15/AR2006101500672.html
Global Cooling on the Horizon?
In August, Khabibullo Abdusamatov, a scientist who heads the space research sector for the Russian Academy of Sciences, predicted long-term global cooling may be on the horizon due to a projected decrease in the sun’s output. See: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060825/53143686.html
Sun’s Contribution to Warming
There have also been recent findings in peer-reviewed literature over the last few years showing that the Antarctic is getting colder and the ice is growing and a new 2006 study in Geophysical Research Letters found that the sun was responsible for up to 50% of 20th-century warming. See: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006GL027142.shtml
continued...
“Global Warming” Stopped in 1998
Paleoclimate scientist Bob Carter has noted that there is indeed a problem with global warming – it stopped in 1998. “According to official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK, the global average temperature did not increase between 1998-2005. “…this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” noted paleoclimate researcher and geologist Bob Carter of James Cook University in Australia in an April 2006 article titled “There is a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998.” See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/09/ixworld.html
“Global?" Warming Misnamed - Southern Hemisphere Not Warming
In addition, new NASA satellite tropospheric temperature data reveals that the Southern Hemisphere has not warmed in the past 25 years contrary to “global warming theory” and modeling. This new Southern Hemisphere data raises the specter that the use of the word “global” in “global warming” may not be accurate. A more apt moniker for the past 25 years may be “Northern Hemisphere” warming. See: http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/09/southern-hemisphere-ignores-global.html
Alaska Cooling
According to data released on July 14, 2006 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the January through June Alaska statewide average temperature was “0.55F (0.30C) cooler than the 1971-2000 average.” See: http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2006/jul06/noaa06-065.html
Oceans Cooling
Another bombshell to hit the global warming alarmists and their speculative climate modeling came in a September article in the Geophysical Research Letters which found that over 20% of the heat gained in the oceans since the mid-1950s was lost in just two years. The former climatologist for the state of Colorado, Roger Pielke, Sr., noted that the sudden cooling of the oceans “certainly indicates that the multi-decadal global climate models have serious issues with their ability to accurately simulate the response of the climate system to human- and natural-climate forcings.“ See: http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/2006/09/
Light Hurricane Season & Early Winter
Despite predictions that 2006 would bring numerous tropical storms, 2006’s surprisingly light hurricane season and the record early start of this year’s winter in many parts of the U.S. have further put a damper on the constant doomsaying of the global warming alarmists and their media allies.
Droughts Less Frequent
Other new studies have debunked many of the dubious claims made by the global warming alarmists. For example, the claim that droughts would be more frequent, severe and wide ranging during global warming, has now being exposed as fallacious. A new paper in Geophysical Research Letters authored by Konstantinos Andreadis and Dennis Lettenmaier finds droughts in the U.S. becoming “shorter, less frequent and cover a small portion of the country over the last century.” http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/10/13/where-are-the-droughts
Global Warming Will Not Lead to Next Ice Age
Furthermore, recent research has shown that fears that global warming could lead to the next ice age, as promoted in the 2004 Hollywood movie “The Day After Tomorrow” are also unsupportable. A 2005 media hyped study “claimed to have found a 30 percent slowdown in the thermohaline circulation, the results are published in the very prestigious Nature magazine, and the story was carried breathlessly by the media in outlets around the world…Less than a year later, two different research teams present convincing evidence [ in Geophysical Research Letters ] that no slowdown is occurring whatsoever,” according to Virginia State Climatologist Patrick Michaels, editor of the website World Climate Report. See: http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/10/13/overturning-ocean-hype
‘Hockey Stick’ Broken in 2006
The “Hockey Stick” temperature graph’s claim that the 1990’s was the hottest decade of the last 1000 years was found to be unsupportable by the National Academy of Sciences and many independent experts in 2006. See: http://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=257697
Study Shows Greenland’s Ice Growing
A 2005 study by a scientist named Ola Johannessen and his colleagues showed that the interior of Greenland is gaining ice mass. See: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V8/N44/C1.jsp Also, according to the International Arctic Research Institute, despite all of the media hype, the Arctic was warmer in the 1930’s than today.
Polar Bears Not Going Extinct
Despite Time Magazine and the rest of the media’s unfounded hype, polar bears are not facing a crisis, according to biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor from the Arctic government of Nunavut. “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present,” Taylor wrote on May 1, 2006. See: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1146433819696&call_pageid=970599119419
continued...
Media Darling James Hansen Hypes Alarmism
As all of this new data debunking climate alarmism mounts, the mainstream media chooses to ignore it and instead focus on the dire predictions of the number-one global warming media darling, NASA’s James Hansen. The increasingly alarmist Hansen is featured frequently in the media to bolster sky-is-falling climate scare reports. His recent claim that the Earth is nearing its hottest point in one million years has been challenged by many scientists. See: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V9/N39/EDITB.jsp Hansen’s increasingly frightening climate predictions follow his 2003 concession that the use of “extreme scenarios” was an appropriate tactic to drive the public’s attention to the urgency of global warming. See: http://naturalscience.com/ns/articles/01-16/ns_jeh6.html Hansen also received a $250,000 grant form Teresa Heinz’s Foundation and then subsequently endorsed her husband John Kerry for President and worked closely with Al Gore to promote his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” See: http://www.heinzawards.net/speechDetail.asp?speechID=6 & http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/dai_complete.pdf
American People Rejecting Global Warming Alarmism
The global warming alarmists may have significantly overplayed their hand in the climate debate. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll this August found that most Americans do not attribute the cause of any recent severe weather events to global warming, and the portion of Americans who believe that climate change is due to natural variability has increased over 50% in the last five years.
Senator Inhofe Chastises Media For Unscientific & Unprincipled Climate Reporting
Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, commented last week on the media’s unfounded global warming hype and some of the recent scientific research that is shattering the so-called “consensus” that human greenhouse gas emissions have doomed the planet.
“The American people are fed up with media for promoting the idea that former Vice President Al Gore represents the scientific ‘consensus’ that SUV’s and the modern American way of life have somehow created a ‘climate emergency’ that only United Nations bureaucrats and wealthy Hollywood liberals can solve. It is the publicity and grant seeking global warming alarmists and their advocates in the media who have finally realized that the only “emergency” confronting them is their rapidly crumbling credibility, audience and bottom line. The global warming alarmists know their science is speculative at best and their desperation grows each day as it becomes more and more obvious that many of the nations that ratified the woeful Kyoto Protocol are failing to comply,” Senator Inhofe said last week. See: http://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264616
“The mainstream media needs to follow the money: The further you get from scientists who conduct these alarmist global warming studies, and the further you get from the financial grants and the institutions that they serve the more the climate alarmism fades and the skepticism grows,” Senator Inhofe explained.
continued...
Eco-Doomsayers’ Failed Predictions
In a speech on the Senate floor on September 25, 2006, Senator Inhofe pointed out the abject failure of past predictions of ecological disaster made by environmental alarmists.
“The history of the modern environmental movement is chock-full of predictions of doom that never came true. We have all heard the dire predictions about the threat of overpopulation, resource scarcity, mass starvation, and the projected death of our oceans. None of these predictions came true, yet it never stopped the doomsayers from continuing to predict a dire environmental future. The more the eco-doomsayers’ predictions fail, the more the eco-doomsayers predict,” Senator Inhofe said on September 25th. See: http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759
Related Links:
For a comprehensive review of the media’s embarrassing 100-year history of alternating between promoting fears of a coming ice age and global warming, see Environment & Public Works Chairman James Inhofe’s September 25, 2006 Senate floor speech debunking the media and climate alarmism. Go to: (epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759)
To read and watch Senator Inhofe on CNN discuss global warming go to: (http://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264308 )
To Read all of Senator Inhofe’s Speeches on global warming go to: (http://epw.senate.gov/speeches.cfm?party=rep)
“Inhofe Correct On Global Warming,” by David Deming geophysicist, an adjunct scholar with the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (ocpathink.org), and an associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. (http://epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=264537)
Dear lord... who the fuck is going to read all that shit?
I'll just point out the obvious bias right in the headlines and websites.
> National Post
> senate.gov
> running around screaming about the sky falling:
> Media Darling ... Hypes Alarmism
> Eco-Doomsayers'
TL;DR
You are officially too untrustworthy to debate against if you can't be bothered check the backgrounds of your own sources.
Not that anyone can debate you anyway, since you find so many excuses not to participate.
Waaaaahhhh I don't like the source, Waaaaaaah there's too much to read, Waaaaaaaaah the bias isn't in agreement with my bias, WAAAAAAAAAH
And one more:
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH I don't trust myself to come to my own conclusions after reading something PEER REVIEW OR I'M TO FAGGY TO READ IT WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Not that anyone can debate you anyway, since you find so many excuses to ignore or refute everything.
Waaaaahhhh I don't like the source, Waaaaaaah there's too much to read, Waaaaaaaaah the bias isn't in agreement with my bias, WAAAAAAAAAH
>>303 had real Science in it. You should read that one.
>>314
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change has received $100,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.
Notification of obvious bias: exxonsecrets.org
Notification of even more obvious bias: lol Greenpeace lol
In addition, notification of irrelevancy: What does the source of funds have to do with the science in the article itself?
So by this logic, if I find out somebody is doing wrong, and I dislike this and try to tell the world that he is doing wrong, I can be dismissed because I am biased?
You can if you're Greenpeace. I admired them before they traded environmentalism for Stickin' It To The Nucleo-Industrial Deathglomerate.
>>317
Greenpeace is not unbiased, obviously, and I myself have little respect for what may resort to eco-terrorism and piracy.
But what does greenpeace have to do with financial statements filed by the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change and Exxon-Mobil that anyone can access (although there may be a charge for 'processing')?
There is no bias, spin, or even original research there, just plain facts that come from Exxon-Mobil and it's child organization.. Unless you wish to accuse this information of being fraudulent...
> What does the source of funds have to do with the science in the article itself?
Selective interpretation of the data.
Find your own source if you persist in being childish:
http://www.google.com/search?q=www.co2science.org
Prove it, kid.
Near as I can tell from reading it and everything else, the selective interpretation of the data that you find so obnoxious is all on the OMG Global Warming side. THAT is the side that makes shit up to cover its rather nonsensical premise, accuses people who disagree of being OMG GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS WHO ARE IN THE THRALL OF BIG OIL and who insist that any change from the current climate will result in massive dieoffs and huge floods that are nearly biblical in their proportions. Scary shit, no?
The OMG GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS WHO ARE (disputably) IN THE THRALL OF BIG OIL are the ones that put some effort into fact checking. You may distrust co2science.org and others, but at least they have the propriety to show their work in enough detail that it can be reproduced, and name the studies they draw their inferences from.
> the selective interpretation of the data that you find so obnoxious is all on the OMG Global Warming side.
Prove it, kid.
> OMG GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS WHO ARE IN THE THRALL OF BIG OIL
...
> running around screaming about the sky falling:
> Media Darling ... Hypes Alarmism
> Eco-Doomsayers'
> insist that any change from the current climate will result in massive dieoffs and huge floods that are nearly biblical in their proportions.
Strawman.
> The OMG GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS WHO ARE (disputably) IN THE THRALL OF BIG OIL are the ones that put some effort into fact checking. You may distrust co2science.org and others, but at least they have the propriety to show their work in enough detail that it can be reproduced, and name the studies they draw their inferences from.
So now we're back to calling an entire field of science a sham.
Provide proof that the scientific process has collapsed, please, or shut up.
Provide proof that I'm calling an entire field of science a sham. I don't think that phrase means what you think it means.
I just quoted the passage where you say that the only ones who do "fact checking" are "global warming deniers". Considering that pretty much all climate scientists are most definitely not "global warming deniers", you are therefore saying that no climate scientists do fact checking. Thus, you are apparently not considering peer review to be "fact checking", and thus you are claiming that the entire field of climate science is a sham.
Check out the graph here, generated from the Vostok Ice Core samples:
http://www.grida.no/climate/vital/02.htm
The neat thing is that the last three interglacial warm periods were warmer than the one we're in now, sometimes by over 2 degrees C.
We should check those periods in time to see if there was massive biological damage during the hot times. Then we'll know if we're really in danger now.
If rapid change in temperature were dangerous, everything would die off when summer comes. That change is a hell of a lot stronger than the 2.5C predicted.
Regarding >>327, should I have said "Who the fuck has the time to read all that?" After all, if you can use that argument, it must be a valid one.
Besides, the clear mistake there is the "Considering that pretty much all climate scientists are most definitely not "global warming deniers", you are therefore saying that no climate scientists do fact checking." line. I really don't know why you cling to that lie so fiercely. A little googling will find you plenty of climate scientists who don't buy into the whole global warming scheme.
Also, post >>327 wasn't peer reviewed, so it didn't happen.
And you smell bad.
>>332
Strawman.
> We should check those periods in time to see if there was massive biological damage during the hot times.
There's been mass extinctions in Earth's history all but confirmed as being due to extreme temperature fluctuation.
> It's not temperature that is dangerous, it is rapid change in temperature.
There is no rapid change, it's steady, but can speed up.
This can happen when that half-a-degree increase in average temperature increases energy consumption, fuelling another half-a-degree increase.
Causation.
Why should I argue causation?
Most people don't even understand the consequences of hitting the snooze button.
>>333
No, that's Ad Hominem. Try and keep up.
And then there's Ad Nauseam, which our resident troll is going for.
Wait, which one is the troll? The one with the opposing viewpoint and links to back it up, or the one who refuses to read the links?
> If rapid change in temperature were dangerous, everything would die off when summer comes. That change is a hell of a lot stronger than the 2.5C predicted.
Except, you know, the ecosystem is adapted to the seasons? By this logic, you seem to think that if the entire earth was plunged into eternal winter, everybody would be just fine, because a couple months of winter doesn't kill off the ecosystem. I mean, at least try to think things through before you say them.
> Besides, the clear mistake there is the "Considering that pretty much all climate scientists are most definitely not "global warming deniers", you are therefore saying that no climate scientists do fact checking." line. I really don't know why you cling to that lie so fiercely. A little googling will find you plenty of climate scientists who don't buy into the whole global warming scheme.
And it will find me plenty more who do "buy into" it.
Look, will you agree that at least 50% of climate scientists believe in global warming? This is a ridiculous understatement, but it will serve for this purpose. If you accept that, then you are still saying that the majority of researchers in an entire field of science are lying, and this is an incredibly grave accusation. You have provided zero evidence to back up this huge, world-wide conspiracy of scientific fraud.
I provided plenty. You just refused to read any of it.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/climate/
Here's an article that talks about some of the inaccuracies of some of the IPCC's findings, and another published by a New Zealand Business paper which has some nice information, but I guess is hosted by a more conservative media view point.
http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=14429&cid=18&cname=Opinion
Well, everything is politicized now, media, religion, even science and history.
I guess you just have to pick what pleases you. I still wish the mainstream climate science scene could convince me that something as broad, powerful, and natural as global climate change could be so confidently pinned to something as specific and brief as the human co2 emissions of the last century.
From April, 2006
An open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper:
Dear Prime Minister:
As accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines, we are writing to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the federal government's climate-change plans. This would be entirely consistent with your recent commitment to conduct a review of the Kyoto Protocol. Although many of us made the same suggestion to then-prime ministers Martin and Chretien, neither responded, and, to date, no formal, independent climate-science review has been conducted in Canada. Much of the billions of dollars earmarked for implementation of the protocol in Canada will be squandered without a proper assessment of recent developments in climate science.
Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future. Yet this is precisely what the United Nations did in creating and promoting Kyoto and still does in the alarmist forecasts on which Canada's climate policies are based. Even if the climate models were realistic, the environmental impact of Canada delaying implementation of Kyoto or other greenhouse-gas reduction schemes, pending completion of consultations, would be insignificant. Directing your government to convene balanced, open hearings as soon as possible would be a most prudent and responsible course of action.
While the confident pronouncements of scientifically unqualified environmental groups may provide for sensational
headlines, they are no basis for mature policy
formulation. The study of global climate change is, as you have said, an "emerging science," one that is perhaps the most complex ever tackled. It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.
We appreciate the difficulty any government has formulating sensible science-based policy when the loudest voices always seem to be pushing in the opposite direction. However, by convening open, unbiased consultations, Canadians will be permitted to hear from experts on both sides of the debate in the climate-science community. When the public comes to understand that there is no "consensus" among climate scientists about the relative importance of the various causes of global climate change, the government will be in a far better position to develop plans that reflect reality and so benefit both the environment and the economy.
continued...
"Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural "noise." The new Canadian government's commitment to reducing air, land and water pollution is commendable, but allocating funds to "stopping climate change" would be irrational. We need to continue intensive research into the real causes of climate change and help our most vulnerable citizens adapt to whatever nature throws at us next.
We believe the Canadian public and government decision-makers need and deserve to hear the whole story concerning this very complex issue. It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas.
We hope that you will examine our proposal carefully and we stand willing and able to furnish you with more information on this crucially important topic.
CC: The Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of the Environment, and the Honourable Gary Lunn, Minister of Natural Resources
Sincerely,
Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
Dr. Tad Murty, former senior research scientist, Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans, former director of Australia's National Tidal Facility and professor of earth sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide; currently adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
Dr. R. Timothy Patterson, professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University, Ottawa
Dr. Fred Michel, director, Institute of Environmental Science and associate professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa
Dr. Madhav Khandekar, former research scientist, Environment Canada. Member of editorial board of Climate Research and Natural Hazards
Dr. Paul Copper, FRSC, professor emeritus, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ont.
Dr. Ross McKitrick, associate professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Guelph, Ont.
Dr. Tim Ball, former professor of climatology, University of Winnipeg; environmental consultant
Dr. Andreas Prokoph, adjunct professor of earth sciences, University of Ottawa; consultant in statistics and geology
Mr. David Nowell, M.Sc. (Meteorology), fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, Canadian member and past chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group, Ottawa
Dr. Christopher Essex, professor of applied mathematics and associate director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.
Dr. Gordon E. Swaters, professor of applied mathematics, Dept. of Mathematical Sciences, and member, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Research Group, University of Alberta
Dr. L. Graham Smith, associate professor, Dept. of Geography, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.
Dr. G. Cornelis van Kooten, professor and Canada Research Chair in environmental studies and climate change, Dept. of Economics, University of Victoria
and the list continues...
You wanted peer-reviewed, you got it. One compiled bibliography of peer-reviewed climate science papers, critical of the IPCC's politicised version of the science.
Short Version PDF: http://tinyurl.com/29llfd
Long version PDF: http://tinyurl.com/2yy5cs
Now you have no excuse. Read 'em.
Leading scientific journals 'are censoring debate on global warming'
By Robert Matthews
Two of the world's leading scientific journals have come under fire from researchers for refusing to publish papers which challenge fashionable wisdom over global warming.
A British authority on natural catastrophes who disputed whether climatologists really agree that the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, says his work was rejected by the American publication, Science, on the flimsiest of grounds.
A separate team of climate scientists, which was regularly used by Science and the journal Nature to review papers on the progress of global warming, said it was dropped after attempting to publish its own research which raised doubts over the issue.
The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame.
The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.
Dr Oreskes's study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser.
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However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.
They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.
Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication - but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he make had been "widely dispersed on the internet".
Dr Peiser insists that he has kept his findings strictly confidential. "It is simply not true that they have appeared elsewhere already," he said.
A spokesman for Science said Dr Peiser's research had been rejected "for a variety of reasons", adding: "The information in the letter was not perceived to be novel."
Dr Peiser rejected this: "As the results from my analysis refuted the original claims, I believe Science has a duty to publish them."
continued...
Dr Peiser is not the only academic to have had work turned down which criticises the findings of Dr Oreskes's study. Prof Dennis Bray, of the GKSS National Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany, submitted results from an international study showing that fewer than one in 10 climate scientists believed that climate change is principally caused by human activity.
As with Dr Peiser's study, Science refused to publish his rebuttal. Prof Bray told The Telegraph: "They said it didn't fit with what they were intending to publish."
Prof Roy Spencer, at the University of Alabama, a leading authority on satellite measurements of global temperatures, told The Telegraph: "It's pretty clear that the editorial board of Science is more interested in promoting papers that are pro-global warming. It's the news value that is most important."
He said that after his own team produced research casting doubt on man-made global warming, they were no longer sent papers by Nature and Science for review - despite being acknowledged as world leaders in the field.
As a result, says Prof Spencer, flawed research is finding its way into the leading journals, while attempts to get rebuttals published fail. "Other scientists have had the same experience", he said. "The journals have a small set of reviewers who are pro-global warming."
Concern about bias within climate research has spread to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose findings are widely cited by those calling for drastic action on global warming.
In January, Dr Chris Landsea, an expert on hurricanes with the United States National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, resigned from the IPCC, claiming that it was "motivated by pre-conceived agendas" and was "scientifically unsound".
A spokesman for Science denied any bias against sceptics of man-made global warming. "You will find in our letters that there is a wide range of opinion," she said. "We certainly seek to cover dissenting views."
Dr Philip Campbell, the editor-in-chief of Nature, said that the journal was always happy to publish papers that go against perceived wisdom, as long as they are of acceptable scientific quality.
"The idea that we would conspire to suppress science that undermines the idea of anthropogenic climate change is both false and utterly naive about what makes journals thrive," he said.
Dr Peiser said the stifling of dissent and preoccupation with doomsday scenarios is bringing climate research into disrepute. "There is a fear that any doubt will be used by politicians to avoid action," he said. "But if political considerations dictate what gets published, it's all over for science."
Meteorologist Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin (now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, was pivotal in promoting the coming ice age scare of the 1970’s ( See Time Magazine’s 1974 article “Another Ice Age” citing Bryson: & see Newsweek’s 1975 article “The Cooling World” citing Bryson) has now converted into a leading global warming skeptic. In February 8, 2007 Bryson dismissed what he terms "sky is falling" man-made global warming fears. Bryson, was on the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?” Bryson told the May 2007 issue of Energy Cooperative News. “All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air,” Bryson said. “You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide,” he added. “We cannot say what part of that warming was due to mankind's addition of ‘greenhouse gases’ until we consider the other possible factors, such as aerosols. The aerosol content of the atmosphere was measured during the past century, but to my knowledge this data was never used. We can say that the question of anthropogenic modification of the climate is an important question -- too important to ignore. However, it has now become a media free-for-all and a political issue more than a scientific problem,” Bryson explained in 2005.
Another Ice Age (Time): http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,944914,00.html
The Cooling World (Newsweek):
http://denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm
>>342 One more time for those peer reviewed papers critical of the IPCC's politicizing science:
Short Version PDF: http://tinyurl.com/29llfd
Long version PDF: http://tinyurl.com/2yy5cs
Ok, this time in bold:
I didn't ask for anything to do with the IPCC. The IPCC is not the entire field of climate science. Forget about the IPCC. The vast majority of work has nothing to do with the IPCC. Even if you were to prove that the IPCC is run by coked-up junkies and pathological liars, that would not affect the results of the rest of the field of climate science.
I wanted some proof that the scientists doing the actual work are lying, as you claim.
I never claimed that. If you're going to just rearrange the argument every time you post, there's really no good reason to respond to anything you say.
Okay, this time in bold, just for you:
You keep accusing me of saying that the ENTIRE FIELD OF CLIMATE SCIENCE is LYING about anthropogenic global warming. YOU seem to think that I'm tarring the whole bunch of them at once.
You also seem to be convinced that they are all on the same page regarding AGW, and I've given you huge piles of evidence that they are NOT.
Dumbass.
> Dumbass.
Appeal to authority.
> You also seem to be convinced that they are all on the same page regarding AGW, and I've given you huge piles of evidence that they are NOT.
I've seen no reliable evidence that would support your claim, and lots and lots of evidence - such as statements by many, many actual climate scientists - that they are.
But just to clear this up once and for all: Give me an approximate figure for how many percent of climate scientists you think do believe in AGW.
Or rather, "support", not "believe".
You should try reading the stuff I post first. I don't have time to do a census.
A figure, please. Don't dodge the issue. It doesn't have to be exact or anything. A guess.
Read the stuff I posted. Don't dodge the evidence. I'm not going to guess, as guessing is not applicable to science unless you're Al Gore.
Please answer the question. Just a figure. 1%? 10%? 25%? 50%? 75%? 90%? 99%?
Hell, just answer if you think it's more or less than 50%.
Please read what I posted. It won't take very long.
Please read The Internet:
http://
It wont take very long.
i'm going to link this just for lulz:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/11/94854/280
No, seriously. You say you don't claim that most climate scientists are lying, so now I am sort of confused. Before this discussion can continue, I really want to know what it is you do believe.
So please, once again, just answer the question. Stop ducking it. You must have some kind of opinion on this, why are you so afraid of saying it out loud?
I believe that the people telling us that OMG GLOBAL WARMING is going to lead to catastrophe are full of shit. That's all. It's really not that hard to figure out.
I'll counter that ignorant alarmism with this:
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/more_on_the_great_pacific_climate_shift_and_the_relationship_of_oceans_to_t/
And what portion of actual climate scientists do you believe are saying that? Just answer that.
The stupid portion.
And how many are "stupid"? Are the people who peer review their work also "stupid"?
Why are you so fixated on getting a number out of me?
Here's one: 37
Here's another: 291,384,191.
Because I am trying to understand what it is that you actually believe. You say you don't claim that climate scientists are liars, and you claim that only stupid ones believe in global warming, yet the vast majority of climate science papers support it - so how are you explaining this discrepancy? Are you saying that:
I believe what I posted in >>361
So, did you read the stuff I posted?
I am asking what you believe. In your own words.
And I've told you over and over again. If your short-term memory is faulty, there's a written record right here in this thread.
Besides, what does belief have to do with science?
Oh, and here's some 19,000 scientists who think it's bullshit:
"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth. "
>>373
On www.oism.org
...The OISM is located on a farm about 7 miles from the town of Cave Junction, Oregon (population 1,126)...
...It is headed by Arthur B. Robinson, an eccentric scientist who has a long history of controversial entanglements with figures on the fringe of accepted research. OISM also markets a home-schooling kit for "parents concerned about socialism in the public schools" and publishes books on how to survive nuclear war....
...The institute is so lax about screening names, however, that virtually anyone can sign, including for example Al Caruba, a pesticide-industry PR man and conservative ideologue who runs his own website called the "National Anxiety Center." Caruba has no scientific credentials whatsoever, but in addition to signing the Oregon Petition he has editorialized on his own website against the science of global warming, calling it the "biggest hoax of the decade," a "genocidal" campaign by environmentalists who believe that "humanity must be destroyed to 'Save the Earth.'...
...OISM's Arthur Robinson admitted that only 2,100 signers of the Oregon Petition had identified themselves as physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, or meteorologists, "and of those the greatest number are physicists." This grouping of fields concealed the fact that only a few dozen, at most, of the signatories were drawn from the core disciplines of climate science - such as meteorology, oceanography, and glaciology - and almost none were climate specialists....
There is far too much for me to summarize here:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine
In b4 counterbias.
You're belief system seems to consist of randomly swinging between denying the existence of climate change, claiming it is beneficial, and claiming it is not anthropogenic.
Basically, politics.
Please pick a viewpoint and stick with it.
You have told me some things, but you have not explained the consequences. I mean, if you believe this so strongly, you must have thought it through to the end, don't you? Why not tell us?
To repeat: There are a lot of published scientific papers in support of global warming. If you say only stupid people believe in it, why do these papers exist? Do you think the scientific process is such a sham that you can just publish any obviously invalid idea and have it accepted?
You can if the political climate is favorable.
So to clarify, you do think the scientific process is a sham?
I believe the peer review process is prone to ideological censorship. The editor may dismiss something on first glance if it doesn't fit his worldview. If it makes it past him, any one of the reviewers can bury it with a word. The author has absolutely no power when it comes to peer reviews.
As to the scientific process, I see very little of it being used to tie CO2 to catastrophic climate change. Just a lot of emotions.
But the stuff that is about global warming does get through peer review. Are you saying that the peer reviewers who do let that stuff through are all stupid, or that they are all liars?
Or maybe, just maybe, they are prejudiced in favor of global warming for reasons having nothing to do with science? Scientists aren't computers, you know.
Ten Hottest Years on Record:
http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/view/SIk76IsOtha6r4mhQs1ZI2-
Data courtesy of NASA, NOAA and NorCalBlogs.
Average Temperature Variations by Decade, sorted hottest to coolest:
0.653 2000s (only 7 years)
0.5 1930s
0.424 1990s
0.2 1950s
0.195 1940s
0.176 1980s
0.015 1920s
-0.112 1960s
-0.137 1970s
-0.15 1900s
-0.212 1910s
-0.217 1890s
-0.224 1880s
And sorted by time:
1880s -0.224
1890s -0.217
1900s -0.150
1910s -0.212
1920s +0.015
1930s +0.500 - Before the Industrial Revolution of Doom
1940s +0.195
1950s +0.200
1960s -0.112
1970s -0.137 - When gas guzzlers roamed the earth
1980s +0.176
1990s +0.424
2000s +0.653
Data here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt
So, didja read those links I posted?
In other words, you are claiming they are failing in their duties as peer reviewers, overlooking invalid data and conclusions? All of them?
> As to the scientific process, I see very little of it being used to tie CO2 to catastrophic climate change.
...Greenhouse gases include in the order of relative abundance water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...
And, before our resident Political Stooge starts to throw it around, Carbon Monoxide is not the same as Carbon Dioxide.
>>383
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
Actually, it goes like this:
WATER VAPOR
other stuff
The only time CO2 and the others exerts any kind of noticeable greenhouse effect is when the air is cold and dry. Water vapor in the air will totally overwhelm the rest of it.
> In other words, you are claiming they are failing in their duties as peer reviewers, overlooking invalid data and conclusions? All of them?
Yes, every last one of them. Is there a rolleyes smiley in wakabamark? I could really use one right now.
McKitrick seems to do the peer review thing with proper attention to detail, though. Maybe that's why the folks at realclimate don't like him.
If you have something to say, say it. No need to be coy.
Okay. I'm somewhat stunned by that weird ALL OR NOTHING fixation you seem to have. I'm guessing the little fact that everybody is different hasn't filtered down to you yet or something.
Sure, everybody is different. However, most papers about global warming support it. You don't get because some guys here and there are a bit biased for it. You pretty much have to have the entire field in on it. You still haven't made any real effort to explain how this has come to be the case.
If everybody is different, and there are a bunch of people out there who do not believe in global warming, and a bunch of peer reviewers who aren't biased against it, where are their papers?
google "information cascade"
There's also plenty of papers that don't. You don't hear much about them, because every time I bring up a link referring to one, you find some lame excuse not to read it.
>>393,394
You've referenced nothing but blogs, politicians, newspapers, charlatans, and PR.
You aren't going to like to hear this but, despite your ego, you really don't think for yourself, and as such are no different than those 'other people' you hate so much.
How would you know? You never read any of them.
You aren't going to like this, but, despite your ego, you are just a victim of information cascade and you haven't yet had the joy of investigating both sides before making up your own mind.
> You never read any of them.
I've debunked all of them, and you've refused to summarize for others.
> information cascade
I believe what you are trying to say is that people are stupid, and don't know what's best for them. That's capital-f Fascism.
I am not a politik, and have no strong attachment to this debate.
I could even side with you if I wanted, but you'd embarrass me.
How could you have debunked them if you never read them? All you did was whine about the source, rather than consider the information presented. You really are new to this whole debunking thing, aren't you?
> I believe what you are trying to say is that people are stupid
No. I was pointing out a very real and destructive social phenomenon. The more you know about it, the easier it is to avoid falling into that trap.
As to people being stupid; do you know how dumb the average person is? By definition, half the human race is dumber than that.
> There's also plenty of papers that don't.
No, no there aren't. There are a few, here and there. There are far, far more that support it. Even this article which tries to claim otherwise in the face of facts supports this: http://www.dailytech.com/Survey+Less+Than+Half+of+all+Published+Scientists+Endorse+Global+Warming+Theory/article8641.htm
6% deny global warming. From the way it's spun, that is probably an exaggeration, but even if it isn't, that's pretty tiny.
Please explain why this is.
> As to people being stupid; do you know how dumb the average person is? By definition, half the human race is dumber than that.
Technically, that is not true, although it may be approximately true. If you want to take an elitist position about how clever you are, perhaps you should not state that as being true.
Maybe you should look into this radical new concept called a "joke."
"Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."
Way to spin it, zippy.
> The more you know about it, the easier it is to avoid falling into that trap.
False.
Explain how that's false, please.
The article came pre-spun. I was merely un-spinning it. The fact remains that only 6% deny the consensus view. The others are supportive or neutral. We had this discussion already, but to recap: In science, you generally don't run around continuously yelling in support of the prevailing theory. It is usually taken as granted unless explicitly stated otherwise.
So once again, why only 6%?
Why did only 7% explicitly endorse it? Why were the other 93% unwilling to come right out and agree?
I already told you. Every paper related to cosmology does not say "Oh and by the way general relativity is true", and neither does every paper about climate science say that AGW is true. It is not necessary to clutter up papers with known facts. When there is a single prevailing theory, there is no need to explicitly mention it all the time, and not mentioning it in no way means you don't believe in it.
If you are attacking the prevailing theory, you do have to mention this explicitly. The situation is not symmetric. And only 6% do, apparently, and even this may be an exaggeration - other studies have found far smaller numbers, but let's go with the largest one here.
Now, why only 6%?
> I already told you. Every paper related to cosmology does not say "Oh and by the way general relativity is true", and neither does every paper about climate science say that AGW is true.
Especially when those writing the paper may not believe AGW is true.
It's going to take some time for me to telepathically reach out to those 6% (and the other 94% just to cover all the bases) and interrogate their brains, so I'll have to wait on that answer until I have read the minds of the authors of all 528 papers in this study. I'll get back to you next week on that.
So basically you have no explanation why most people would not question AGW, yet you will happily claim that anybody who doesn't is stupid?
Don't you ever follow the implications of your own beliefs? Don't you ever question them? Don't you have any kind of skepticism at all?
How the fuck am I supposed to know how other people think? That's metaphysically absurd. Try asking a less stupid question.
If you don't know how people think, why are you so sure they are stupid?
If you know how I think, why don't you tell me?
its their actions and words that determine how stupid they are, not their thoughts. if someone was contemplating a radical new theory for the big bang but wasnt watching where he was walking and fell off a cliff, i would say they were a moron even if they thought at the level of a genius.
Where as I, being less of a judgemental shitbag than you, would have seen that he was merely absent-minded.
I'm just going to ask again: Why are you so quick to pick on perceived inconsistencies of other's arguments, but so blind tho your own? The wise man will always question his own beliefs first - this is the only way to know you have a solid argument before you try and convince someone else. You, on the other hand, are pretty much admitting you don't do that - you claim only stupid people believe in AGW, you claim that all scientists are not stupid, and that many do not believe in AGW, yet when it is pointed out to you that hardly any of them are publishing about this, your only explanation for this is your own ignorance.
It seems pretty clear you have not thought your own beliefs through to the end. I'm just going to make this one final request: Do think them through. Do work out what it is you really believe, and find the real justifications for your beliefs. And then come back to argue your case, when you actually have something to bring to the table. As it stands now, how can you convince anyone else that you are right if you apparently can't convince even yourself?
Okay.
Done now. I'm still right.
How can you know?
Time will bear me out.
So you are basically just taking this on faith?
As much faith as you put in those precious thousands of scientists of yours, yes.
Actually, the thing that sucks about this issue is time won't bear you out, for neither party it seems, although the people pushing for the anthropogenic theory have the momentary advantage. You see, regardless about how huge an impact AGW(Anthopogenic Greenhose Warming) has, the Earth will continue to warm, rather quickly, seeing as we're rapidly coming out of the little ice age. You'll have to wait a few centuries at least before the temperature begins to plunge down again into a deep and long trend of global cooling, which will eventually lead to another major ice age, with huge glaciers and low sea levels, all that jazz.
I'm not sure how factual all of this is, but it makes tremendous sense:
http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
Can anybody point out some of its flaws if you find any?
Well, the main problem with >>423 is there's no easy way to put interfering leftist busybodies in charge of world affairs. Otherwise, it's pretty sound.
It also offers the heretical idea that we can and should adapt to climate changes, rather than driving our economies into the shitpile in a futile attempt to reduce the global temperature by half a degree or so in the next hundred years.
So now you are calling science "faith"? That's basically at the same level as "proofthatgodexists.com" and religious fanatics.
Give me a single reason to keep listening to you after that.
Well, as for me, the only argument I ever hear come out of the mainstream environmentalists is that the vast majority of the scientific community is in consensus about it. What does that mean? And how is that supposed to convince me? Since when is science about consensus? They never actually try to present what argument-breaking evidence supposedly put them into this consensus in the first place do they?
I've been looking for that evidence but haven't seen it yet.
>>426
cont.
I would listen to Gore's movie, but his theories seem more far-fetched than those about man-made global cooling.
It's full of little misrepresentations, myths, and misleading statements. Generally, it grossly oversimplifies in order to push its own agenda. Try googling keywords from it like "little ice age" to find out more.
Consensus = Appeal to Authority, long known to be the best way to argue a case.
"The science is settled." = a polite demand to stop asking impertinent questions, young man.
"It's complicated." = Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
You fail reading comprehension yet again. I did not call science "faith." I called your inane and yet reverent belief that Science Can Do No Wrong faith. Your near-constant "Peer Reviewed or it didn't happen" posts indicate a reverent faith in the peer review process, as if it were God Hisself doing the reviewing and not simple, flawed ordinary people.
> Well, as for me, the only argument I ever hear come out of the mainstream environmentalists is that the vast majority of the scientific community is in consensus about it. What does that mean? And how is that supposed to convince me?
It means people who have spent much effort to study the problem all agree that there is a problem. It is supposed to convince you because science is the method we have created to find out the truth about the universe. If scientists were lying to you, that would be a problem far larger than just this issue.
> Since when is science about consensus?
Since is about finding the truth. The truth is the ultimate consensus, no?
> They never actually try to present what argument-breaking evidence supposedly put them into this consensus in the first place do they?
> I've been looking for that evidence but haven't seen it yet.
They present it all the time. That is how science works. The only things that count are what you publish. You are free to learn the methods and study all the published material yourself. It seems that by "looking for that evidence" you mean "waiting for someone to spoon-feed you the information". Go to a university library and start reading the climate science publications if you are really serious about this.
>"The science is settled." = a polite demand to stop asking impertinent questions, young man.
No, "the science is settled" means "you need some actual evidence if you want to challenge this".
> "It's complicated." = Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
No, "it's complicated" means "it's complicated". You have to actually understand the arguments made before you can attack them.
> You fail reading comprehension yet again. I did not call science "faith." I called your inane and yet reverent belief that Science Can Do No Wrong faith. Your near-constant "Peer Reviewed or it didn't happen" posts indicate a reverent faith in the peer review process, as if it were God Hisself doing the reviewing and not simple, flawed ordinary people.
Yes, peer reviewers are human. Yes, flawed papers sometimes slip through. But for the love of fuck, this is not a paper here and a paper there, it's the majority of published papers we are talking about. If you think peer review is flawed to the level that the majority of published work in an entire field is wrong, you're going to have to come up with an actual explanation for how on Earth such an utter collapse of a trusted institution could happen. You have done nothing of the sort. You are just making vague implications that people are dishonest or stupid, but none of those implications could ever explain the reality of the situation.
And on top of it, you admit you have no idea whatsoever how the situation you claim exists could have happened. You almost seem to be proud of your ignorance of this. Yet you still take the rest of us to task for not believing you, when you can't even give a justification for your own beliefs.
God DAMN you are one naive son of a bitch.
Yes, obviously - believing in science and wanting proof of things before I believe in them makes me horribly naïve. If should be taking things on faith, just like you. And when I can't respond to an argument, I should just ignore it and post some ad hominem attack so I don't have to face up to the fact that I can't support my own beliefs rationally.
You already do plenty of that.
Here's a project for you. Go to co2science.org, and work your way through the subject index. Read stuff at random, but whatever you start reading, read completely. Note the references at the bottom, and if you have a college campus nearby, see if you can look up the original documents and verify what they said in the article is said in the document. Do this for a couple of weeks or so.
Now go to realclimate.org and do the same thing.
Now think about which one looks like its presenting legitimate science, and which one has an agenda to push.
>>434 It's not the believing in science part. It's the absolute faith you have that the majority is always right. Anyone with any knowledge of history knows better than that.
You, in the words of the time cube guy, were educated stupid.
> It's not the believing in science part. It's the absolute faith you have that the majority is always right. Anyone with any knowledge of history knows better than that.
No, I do not have any faith that the majority are always right. What I do have is a belief that the majority of scientists are neither stupid nor dishonest. If you want to claim that they are all wrong, you're going to have to give a solid argument for why they are wrong, and how come they have been able to produce so much research if the basic concept is entirely wrong.
And you've repeatedly said you are unable to do so, so I see no reason to listen to you until you can produce such an argument. Want to try again?
No, "The science is settled." is bullshit. Science should always be considering other possibilities. That's how it's done.
>>437 Then again, why am I wasting time arguing with some anonymous jerk on the internet? Why are YOU wasting time arguing with some anonymous jerk on the internet? Is there a prize if you're annoying enough that he says "Fine, whatever, you win." and leaves?
> What I do have is a belief that the majority of scientists are neither stupid nor dishonest.
If that isn't naive, I don't know what is.
>> What I do have is a belief that the majority of scientists are neither stupid nor dishonest.
> If that isn't naive, I don't know what is.
Once again, we get down to the gist of the argument: It's that everyone is stupider than you, isn't it? As long as global warming is false, and you know this while everyone else doesn't, it means you're the clever one.
Science is always considering other possibilities. It's just that they have to be actually backed up with evidence if they are to be considered. Nobody really claims that "the science is settled" other than those who construct strawman arguments.
>>442 Al Gore did.
>>441 Keep with that persecution complex, it'll serve you well in the real world.
Ok, I think we have long since reached the point in this thread where nothing new is being said, and the thing is just going out of stubbornness. It has very little to do with any kind of actual science, and anything worth saying has been said.
Nobody wants to read this mess any longer, so this thread, and this discussion, is now closed. Don't try to start up the exact same thing again in a new thread. If you absolutely, positively, have to bring up the subject, make sure you are brining something genuinely new and interesting to the table, or else that will get nuked too.
