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I call bullshit. What's more, if you'd read previous articles on slashdot, you'd have seen this bullshit already disassembled. The only "scientists" debating in the 70s whether there was global cooling were popular rags like Newsweek, not scientific journals. And if you don't want to search slashdot, try Google and you can come up with some interesting results.

How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought. It is remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research. Discussion of recent changes in Antarctica and Greenland are expertly laid out. He also does a very good job in talking about the relationship between sea surface temperature and hurricane intensity. As one might expect, he uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may have serious impacts on society, but he doesn't highlight the connection any more than is appropriate.

Eric Steig is an isotope geochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle. His primary research interest is use of ice core records to document climate variability in the past. He also works on the geological history of ice sheets, on ice sheet dynamics, on statistical climate analysis, and on atmospheric chemistry.

How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought. It is remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research. Discussion of recent changes in Antarctica and Greenland are expertly laid out. He also does a very good job in talking about the relationship between sea surface temperature and hurricane intensity. As one might expect, he uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may have serious impacts on society, but he doesn't highlight the connection any more than is appropriate.

Eric Steig is an isotope geochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle. His primary research interest is use of ice core records to document climate variability in the past. He also works on the geological history of ice sheets, on ice sheet dynamics, on statistical climate analysis, and on atmospheric chemistry.

In short, you may be right that second hand smoke is bad for you, but if you don't do the research to actually find out whether and how much of an effect it has, then you are just as bad as creationists.

Here you go:
Epidemological study on the correlations between exposure to SHS and severe childhood asthma attacks.
A study showing the increased risk of developing heart disease from SHS.
An analysis of 37 studies on SHS and lung cancer.

Is that evidence enough for you? If not, you can play for days on Google's Scholar search putting in "second hand smoke" and various diseases caused by it. You will find next to no studies claiming that SHS is harmless. Much like global warming, you have to step outside the realm of experts on the subject to find "debunkers." I'm not sure what sort of logical process would invoke such a strong skepticism over the idea that the same chemical stew that kills smokers might also have effects on the people not holding the cigarette without questioning the effect on smokers themselves. Skepticism's healthy, but there's a limit.

In the few minutes he talked about it he seemed to be taking a reactionary stance against people like you who attack and namecall based on your unsupported assumptions. If you want to sway the middle-of-the-roaders like me, you need to provide scientific evidence rather than conjecture blown way out of proportion by people with extreme views.

Hrm. It seems interesting that a "middle of the roader" will hold me to standards of intellectual integrity that you won't hold Crichton to. I mean, nowhere do I see him making any support for his assertions (which is the bulk of what I actually wrote about, if you go back and actually read my post). Also, I do provide links to articles thoroughly debunking the assertions he makes in his books (even though there's nothing directly refutable in his empty statements of "they're just wrong" in his speeches). The best he ever gets is, "Scientists were wrong on this other completely unrelated subject material, so why trust them on this?" But, hey, I'm the one not backing myself up, right?

If you are simply asking for supporting evidence of global warming, then please go and read the many articles in RealClimate's archive. For a more layman's approach, go see the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." There is no lack of consensus within the climate research community.

If you're actually attacking my assertions on SHS and not global warming, then fine. I did not back them up initially because I thought it was freaking obvious and because my post was excessively long at that point anyway. It was pretty rushed and had some nasty grammar errors because of cutting and pasting sentences into a more cohesive whole. (That's also how I lost the bit about DDT being banned because of effects on wildlife.) In my experience, the only people who seriously question SHS's effects on others are smokers in denial. Why bother trying to reach them? They've built up a lifetime of mental and emotional defenses against the ramifications of their actions, and no amount of truth will reach them.

For a rebuttal with actual science, go to realclimate.org.

Mostly, those of us who work in the global warming field know that there are lots of uncertainties still remaining to be resolved about feedbacks, emissions projections, and oceanic processes, but most of the skeptics running around talking about "Mars is warming!" and "it has cooled since 1998!" and "you guys were global cooling fanatics 30 years ago!" and all the rest of that are just repeated long-ago debunked junk, and it is very frustrating to deal with all the noise, and so yes, we try and shout such arguments down.

And there is a _lot_ of industry sponsored junk being promulgated on this issue. And the current administration is very tightly connected with some of the biggest junk-pushers.

On the subject of scientific bluntness let me just say you are talking out of your arse and dribbling shit all over the place. The last line of your post only confims that you are more concerned with parinoid political dogma than with robust scientific findings.

Some facts on volcanos and climate.

"Environmentalists behave just like religious nuts when you are critical of their beliefs."

I would say all humans react pretty much the same when you attack their beliefs, the reason I dislike Crichton is the psudeo-science he sprouts to the senate as fact.

BTW: You also betray your own bias and ignorance by building a straw man and calling it "the environmentalist movement".

Perhaps it is because he is now advising the senate about the "scientific facts" of climate change.

"Or current generations whose economic interests *will* be significantly affected?"

Not trying to pick on you personally but why is it that economic models that predict dire cosequences are taken as gospel, yet the more scientifically robust climate models are taken with a grain of salt?

Dogma of any kind is dangerous, inviting a fiction writer to give scientific evidence to a senate commitee would seem to be the opposite to "playing it safe".

"The subject of the cartoons must relate to political interference in science in the federal government."

Inviting an opinionated fiction writer to "advise a senate committe on science facts" is both funny and sad at the same time. I think a cartoon that bounces the ridicule back on to Crichton and the puppet senators is exactly what the UCS are looking for.

Heck, if we're talking abuse of science, I can't think of any better subject to discuss than the author of Andromeda Strain, Prey, and State of Fear. The man's been mangling science for years and then making his books look better by tossing a gratuitous biblography of all the papers he supposedly read to justify his plots. (Alien crystal viruses, grey goo, and local cooling disproving global warming, oh my!)

Michael Crichton doesn't know what he's talking about. State of Fear is filled with junk science. Read a more thorough debunking here.

The essay you link is nothing but an attack on the argument by attacking the source of the argument as being from zealots. He accuses the environmental movement of being responsible for massive deaths, and claims that they're distorting facts without backing any of it up with "facts" of his own -- except for "facts" like the harmlessness of second-hand smoke. Crichton's a loon and an asshole for making that last argument in particular, but the bulk of the essay argument is that environmentalists are wrong in their assertions (without any justification of why) and thus religious nuts for asserting something that his holiness Crichton declares to be wrong. (Oh, he could cite mainstream articles, but you wouldn't believe him anyway, so why back up his bald-faced lies?)

He attacks environmentalists as being the same as people who romanticize primativism, use errors on predictions of a socially affected phenomena like population growth show that scientists who care about the environment can't be trusted. He claims that DDT is harmless because it's not a carcinogenic (when it's the liver, immune, and nervous toxicity that actually caused it to be banned). He states that we can't totally roll back carbon emissions without fusion technology, so it's a waste of time to bother reducing them in the meantime. He falls back on the old saw of the environment being a complex system that's hard to understand as justification for not erring on the side of safety.

His speech is nothing but a litany of half-truths, distortions, unbacked assertions, and ad hominem attacks. So, yes, let's start our discussion of abuse of science with a discussion of Crichton. It's only appropriate.

2) If you look at the rest of your list you will find that none of the other "predictions" were ever made in the scientific literature either. In fact, none of them ever represented a scientific consensus amongst the professional scientific community.

(However, many of your choices are blatantly misrepresented lies of yours based upon some truth that you no doubt wish to ignore. Forest fire management is complex. Lack of potable water is an increasing issue in today's world. Fish stocks have dropped to 10% of their pre-industrial levels, and many are already commercially worthless. WWIII was always a credible threat. And I can guarantee that no scientist in the respective field ever gave such timelines for effects. The fact that you quote spurious times above shows you for the troll you are.)

Now, Climate change IS a scientific consensus. It IS recognised and agreed upon by every single climatologist. It is also accepted to be anthropogenic (caused by man) by every climatologist except for a handful who work for biased interests (oil companies). There are thousands times more scientists who understand the science and principles who agree about anthropogenic climate change than the small fraction who dissent (and even the dissenters agree that it is occurring - they have just moved from denying it, to shifting the blame from anthropogenic causes).

Get it through your thick head - there is NO DEBATE. It is happening and your little stick-your-head-in-the-sand attitude is laughable. Get a fucking brain.

As for his DDT stuff -- it's complete rubbish. In the 60s the World Health Organization tried to eradicate malaria by spraying DDT and failed. There are several reasons why it failed, but one of them was the indiscriminate use of DDT in agriculture, which was a very effective of evolving DDT-resistant mosquitoes. DDT is still useful in the areas where the mosquitoes are not resistant and for that you can thank the ban on the agricultural use of DDT. In other words that ban, far from causing 50 million deaths, has saved lives. You can read about the failure of the malaria eradication campaign here.

It's good to look for sources, thanks for asking. Please give yours also.

Here's a good general discussion responding to questions from one modeler to another:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005 /10/modeller-vs-modeller/

Other relevant threads for your question -- a few in a quick grab-bag -- include:

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2006/05/model_projec tions_of_the_north.php

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /03/catastrophic-sea-level-rise-more-evidence-from -the-ice-sheets/

http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan /

One of the fundamental predictions made 10 years ago by modeling that has been borne out in measurement is discussed here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /01/polar-amplification/

Most of the statements you make deserve footnotes, if you'll tell us where you got those ideas. It's very helpful to understand where these ideas come from -- not uncommonly, they can be traced back to websites of PR industry pages funded by industries trying to deny scientific work can be relied on (see the tobacco papers generally for fifty years of such material).

Your basic idea that science starts only from observation, for example -- who says that and where? Why do you believe it's the only way science can be done? Do none of the scientists you personally know -- ask them! -- first think about things, then go look to see if they can disprove ("falsify") what they imagined might be true? Those I know work that way routinely.

Science moves by self-correction. One example here:
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2006/05/the_von_s_af fair.php

Most of the questions you pose are in the 'can be looked up' realm; I'm just a reader of the science like you are, not a climate researcher myself. I recommend the reading. The books reviewed here
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /05/my-review-of-books/
may be helpful (all have extensive footnotes that can be looked up, most of the references are online).

It's good to look for sources, thanks for asking. Please give yours also.

Here's a good general discussion responding to questions from one modeler to another:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005 /10/modeller-vs-modeller/

Other relevant threads for your question -- a few in a quick grab-bag -- include:

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2006/05/model_projec tions_of_the_north.php

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /03/catastrophic-sea-level-rise-more-evidence-from -the-ice-sheets/

http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan /

One of the fundamental predictions made 10 years ago by modeling that has been borne out in measurement is discussed here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /01/polar-amplification/

Most of the statements you make deserve footnotes, if you'll tell us where you got those ideas. It's very helpful to understand where these ideas come from -- not uncommonly, they can be traced back to websites of PR industry pages funded by industries trying to deny scientific work can be relied on (see the tobacco papers generally for fifty years of such material).

Your basic idea that science starts only from observation, for example -- who says that and where? Why do you believe it's the only way science can be done? Do none of the scientists you personally know -- ask them! -- first think about things, then go look to see if they can disprove ("falsify") what they imagined might be true? Those I know work that way routinely.

Science moves by self-correction. One example here:
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2006/05/the_von_s_af fair.php

Most of the questions you pose are in the 'can be looked up' realm; I'm just a reader of the science like you are, not a climate researcher myself. I recommend the reading. The books reviewed here
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /05/my-review-of-books/
may be helpful (all have extensive footnotes that can be looked up, most of the references are online).

It's good to look for sources, thanks for asking. Please give yours also.

Here's a good general discussion responding to questions from one modeler to another:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005 /10/modeller-vs-modeller/

Other relevant threads for your question -- a few in a quick grab-bag -- include:

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2006/05/model_projec tions_of_the_north.php

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /03/catastrophic-sea-level-rise-more-evidence-from -the-ice-sheets/

http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan /

One of the fundamental predictions made 10 years ago by modeling that has been borne out in measurement is discussed here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /01/polar-amplification/

Most of the statements you make deserve footnotes, if you'll tell us where you got those ideas. It's very helpful to understand where these ideas come from -- not uncommonly, they can be traced back to websites of PR industry pages funded by industries trying to deny scientific work can be relied on (see the tobacco papers generally for fifty years of such material).

Your basic idea that science starts only from observation, for example -- who says that and where? Why do you believe it's the only way science can be done? Do none of the scientists you personally know -- ask them! -- first think about things, then go look to see if they can disprove ("falsify") what they imagined might be true? Those I know work that way routinely.

Science moves by self-correction. One example here:
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2006/05/the_von_s_af fair.php

Most of the questions you pose are in the 'can be looked up' realm; I'm just a reader of the science like you are, not a climate researcher myself. I recommend the reading. The books reviewed here
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /05/my-review-of-books/
may be helpful (all have extensive footnotes that can be looked up, most of the references are online).

It's good to look for sources, thanks for asking. Please give yours also.

Here's a good general discussion responding to questions from one modeler to another:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005 /10/modeller-vs-modeller/

Other relevant threads for your question -- a few in a quick grab-bag -- include:

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2006/05/model_projec tions_of_the_north.php

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /03/catastrophic-sea-level-rise-more-evidence-from -the-ice-sheets/

http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan /

One of the fundamental predictions made 10 years ago by modeling that has been borne out in measurement is discussed here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /01/polar-amplification/

Most of the statements you make deserve footnotes, if you'll tell us where you got those ideas. It's very helpful to understand where these ideas come from -- not uncommonly, they can be traced back to websites of PR industry pages funded by industries trying to deny scientific work can be relied on (see the tobacco papers generally for fifty years of such material).

Your basic idea that science starts only from observation, for example -- who says that and where? Why do you believe it's the only way science can be done? Do none of the scientists you personally know -- ask them! -- first think about things, then go look to see if they can disprove ("falsify") what they imagined might be true? Those I know work that way routinely.

Science moves by self-correction. One example here:
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2006/05/the_von_s_af fair.php

Most of the questions you pose are in the 'can be looked up' realm; I'm just a reader of the science like you are, not a climate researcher myself. I recommend the reading. The books reviewed here
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /05/my-review-of-books/
may be helpful (all have extensive footnotes that can be looked up, most of the references are online).

I'm pretty sure you're just being sarcastic, but lest anyone believe you, the effects of water vapor transport have long been one of the major areas of research. You can look this stuff up.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005 /11/busy-week-for-water-vapor/

People might think you to be confused or fooled by the propaganda that the effect of water vapor swamps that of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases, but again you can look that up.

Basic technique for looking anything up == find sites with footnotes and check them. Trolls and PR industry flacks just make things up, and don't have cites that can be checked. It's the simple way to tell science from bullshit. Kind of a smell test.

Science is hard, you know. No other civilization in the ten to hundred thousand years people lived on Earth managed to invent science. It's worth the effort.

You know the REALLY funny thing? As often as not the rises and drops on Bush's approval rating preceed the changes in the gase prices.

That's 'precede'. (Or perhaps you deliberately misspelled the word for emphasis?)

And the really funny thing is that you can see the same phenomenon in the glacial ice core records of CO2 and temperature. First the temperature rises, then the CO2 concentration increases. It's noted in this article on a widely respected scientific blog.

It doesn't mean there is no causal relation. On the contrary, it is very strong evidence that the two are related. But the way they relate to each other is a little complicated.

This is /. , you should've used "State of Fear" as your example, not "Jurassic Park".

Some global warming skeptics believe that the Earth's climate is still recovering from the Little Ice Age and that human activity has nothing to do with present temperature trends. There is a wide consensus among climate scientists, however, that the present sharp upturn in temperatures is primarily caused by the increased proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere caused by human activity.

Also noted in the article:

1. Little Ice Age was not part of the regular climate cycle (causation linked instead to discrete natural phenomena or possibly anthropogenic influences - or a mix of both) - so the earth is NOT, as you assert, coming out of an ice age that peaked in the middle ages.

2. The LIA was probably not as widespread as some would have us believe - for example http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=32 indicates that many of the phenomena described can be explained by other causes.

3. The LIA caused massive loss of human life. If something as minor and short lived as the little ice age can cause such devastation, it is difficult to see why you would present it as a reason to be blase about a more widespread and severe event, such as global warming - particularly given that we are fully utilising the resources we expect to be affected by climate change (arable land, fresh water) and we have lost much of the mobility we had 400 years ago.

Right back at you.

Oh really?

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=181

The argument, IIRC, is centred on the intensity of hurricanes. Activity based on numbers of hurricanes do not capture such an effect, while intensity graphs show a pretty good correlation. Though things are still sketchy at the moment, you can't make a handwave motion and suggest that all hurricane researchers are of the same opinion.

Congratulations for buying into the global cooling myth!

Every now and again, the myth that "we shouldn't believe global warming predictions now, because in the 1970's they were predicting an ice age and/or cooling" surfaces. Recently, George Will mentioned it in his column (see Will-full ignorance) and the egregious Crichton manages to say "in the 1970's all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming" (see Michael Crichtons State of Confusion ). You can find it in various other places too [here, mildly here, etc]. But its not an argument used by respectable and knowledgeable skeptics, because it crumbles under analysis. That doesn't stop it repeatedly cropping up in newsgroups though.

Ah, the old scientists in the 1970s believed in global cooling myth rears its ugly head again.

"Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence."

Lindzen finds logic intimidating because it works against him, his paper was discredited on scientific grounds and he is flat out lying about Mann and his data. Lindzen's op-ed in the WSJ does not look like he is being silenced.

Also I don't think the people who are trying to correct his bullshit would qualify as alarmists.

Looking through slashdot's latest threads on GW, it appears slashdot is populated by people who laugh at ID because it is unscientific and at the same time hold Lindzen's tripe up as a counter argument to one of the most scutinised scientific findings ever offered up to the public.

I habitually put corporate spokesmen like Lindzen into the same basket as flat earther's, ufologists and creationists. If they actually came up with something that had the rigour to find it's way into a peer-reviewed journal, or even a rational argument that hasn't been debunked, it might be worth posting. The op-ed you have reproduced deliberately misinforms, it is offensive to the scientific community in general and climatologists in particular.

"Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence."

Lindzen finds logic intimidating because it works against him, his paper was discredited on scientific grounds and he is flat out lying about Mann and his data. Lindzen's op-ed in the WSJ does not look like he is being silenced.

Also I don't think the people who are trying to correct his bullshit would qualify as alarmists.

Looking through slashdot's latest threads on GW, it appears slashdot is populated by people who laugh at ID because it is unscientific and at the same time hold Lindzen's tripe up as a counter argument to one of the most scutinised scientific findings ever offered up to the public.

I habitually put corporate spokesmen like Lindzen into the same basket as flat earther's, ufologists and creationists. If they actually came up with something that had the rigour to find it's way into a peer-reviewed journal, or even a rational argument that hasn't been debunked, it might be worth posting. The op-ed you have reproduced deliberately misinforms, it is offensive to the scientific community in general and climatologists in particular.

I agree with your post but there is NO CONTROVERSY, rather there is very strong scientific consensus about the following points.

1. Global warming is occuring.
2. Humans are responsible for the majority of the warming via CO2 emmisions.

The willfully ignorant have not really changed their tack from the old argument the idiot you were responding too is using. There has not been a single peer-reviewed paper for over 10yrs that has questioned either of these scientific FACTS. Sure there has been a plethora of skeptics in the mass media but strangely NONE (yes that's right, none, nada, not one) of these skeptics have had enough confidence in their work to actually bother publishing it in a scientific journal!!!

As for who is "politically motivated", I think the "last word" in TFA is telling...

"President Bush's chief climate adviser, James Connaughton, said he did not believe anyone could forecast a safe level and cutting greenhouse gas emissions could harm the world economy."

What this "last word" says is don't do anything to tackle global warming based on climate modeling because our economic models say we will go broke. Now, guess which of the two groups of models have had the most scientific rigour applied to them?

No prizes either for guessing Connaughton's qualifications for the job of top "environment advisor", he has represented GE against the EPA, and was previously employed as a lobbyist on pollution issues for Alcoa, GE, and other major corporations. Putting a pro-pollution lawyer/lobbyist in that position is like deliberately hiring pedophiles to work as kindergarten teachers. The rationale being that they are now working for "the other side".

As an outsider it is obvious the USA is not run by "the people" or even the republicans, the government (on both sides) has become so corrupt that corporations write government policy no matter who is in power. Americans are not alone however, the same "sell out" has also happened here in Australia, except in our case it is coal rather than oil.

I've not seen a better repeater of fossil-industry talking points since I last had the time to read through stuff at Real Climate; they get all the best trolls (and do a damn good job of refuting their assertions in detail).

If I could moderate you all the ways you deserve, I'd slap you with Over-rated, Redundant and Flamebait. Fortunately for you, I expended my mod points earlier (and thus have to post AC to avoid cancelling my mods).

I don't expect to learn about biology, DNA or dinosaurs from science fiction. Or climate.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74

Read this article which is a recent Slashdot Thread: [link snip]

I did read the article and the discussion around it. Personally, I find his reasoning to be shaky and his references to climate models to be disingenuous. There are a lot of climate models, but very few are effective at predicting even historical data (give it data up to 2000, does it provide any predictions that match 2000-2005?). Though they are being continuously improved, there is a limitation to predictive accuracy based on the same limitations that meteorologists have: the earth's weather system is highly chaotic.

Where do you get your numbers on the amount of CO2 released by humans.

Well, you forced me to do some more research and what I thought was a slam-dunk fact (ten thousand to one proportion) turned out to be fairly shaky and almost certainly incorrect.

One older source:
http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articl eID=000D4121-91C5-1CD1-B4A8809EC588EEDF&catID=3&to picID=22

Newer source #1:
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/frequent_quest ions/grp6/question1375.html

Newer source #2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Global_Carbon_E mission_by_Type.png

Newer source #3:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=87

My older source and the newer sources differ substantially. The older source states 10,000:1 human:natural and 110MT CO2/year from volcanoes (implied 1100GT/year from humans). Source #1 states a long-term average of 500MT CO2/year from volcanoes and a recent average of 17.6GT CO2/year from humans. Source #2 provides recent human emission totals of 5GT to 6.5GT C/year from humans (equivalent to 16.4GT to 21.3GT CO2/year).

I think that the older source took the amount of human CO2 emissions over the past 200 years (though Source #3 states that total human CO2 emissions are 500GT CO2, so that's not enough to fully explain his error). Based on newer and better researched data, I've now updated my statements to reflect that humans release 32 times as much CO2 as volcanoes on average.

You also mention that volcano eruptions cause the Earth's temperature to drop because the sulphur compounds reflect heat. You then say that mankind releases 8181 times more that that.

Clearly an error. Humans release about 10MT SO2/year. Volcanos release on average 2.5MT SO2/year, though individual eruptions release much more than others (El Cichien 8.5MT, Pinatubo 17MT, Mt. St. Helens 212 KT). Also, the exact kind of sulphur "stuff" released and where it ends up makes a huge difference on whether it has any impact on global temperatures. Some volcanoes, like Tambora release lots of SO2 to the upper atmosphere, which causes an optically dense haze that blocks some of the sun's radiation. The SO2 in the upper atmosphere and the haze it creates can persist for more than two years. Other volcanoes, like Mt. St. Helens, release more ash, which does create more clouds in the months following the eruption, but is almost entirely washed out of the atmosphere within six months.

Most human emissions of SO2 occur in the lower atmosphere, and contribute heavily to smog and haze close to the ground, but are more quickly removed from the air by rain than the SO2 delivered to the upper atmosphere by volcanoes. Also, because the haze is lower to the ground (often at ground level), the optical scattering from the haze doesn't reflect nearly as much back out (most of the radiation is captured in one way or another by the time it reaches ground level).

To me, the biggest remaining issue is to show a caus

I wasn't refering to the warming of Mars. But you may want to look here.. There is no 'global' warming on Mars, but just on the southern pole. Mars has a much more elliptic orbit than the earth, which contributes significantly to its seasons, which are caused by the tilt of the rotational axis on the earth. Also, so far the warming has been observed for only three seasons on Mars.

The earth has supposedly been warming over some period of very, very recent history. So with over 4 billion years of weather, we humans in our infinite wisdom are choosing about 100 years of data and trying to extrapolate where the earth is heading.

Actually, try 650 000 years of data.

Let's face it, religious zealots have been calling for the End of the World since the beginning of time and now Scientific zealots are getting into the act.

Yes... the little difference is that the scientists have science to back these claims. You know, facts and those things.

What's really funny is that when I was a kid the real weather scare was the coming Ice Age. What happen to those Ice Age zealots anyway?

A nice debunking of this claim in all its permutations is available here.

I'm so sick of the press reporting on predictions of idiots from idiot scientists to idiot psychics as if they were fact and then never following up when most of these nutballs are wrong.

Could you show us some proof that they are wrong please? Haven't you considered that a possible reason you don't see any debunking "follow up" reports is no a conspiracy, but rather that no one manages to prove them wrong?

The earth has supposedly been warming over some period of very, very recent history. So with over 4 billion years of weather, we humans in our infinite wisdom are choosing about 100 years of data and trying to extrapolate where the earth is heading.

Actually, try 650 000 years of data.

Let's face it, religious zealots have been calling for the End of the World since the beginning of time and now Scientific zealots are getting into the act.

Yes... the little difference is that the scientists have science to back these claims. You know, facts and those things.

What's really funny is that when I was a kid the real weather scare was the coming Ice Age. What happen to those Ice Age zealots anyway?

A nice debunking of this claim in all its permutations is available here.

I'm so sick of the press reporting on predictions of idiots from idiot scientists to idiot psychics as if they were fact and then never following up when most of these nutballs are wrong.

Could you show us some proof that they are wrong please? Haven't you considered that a possible reason you don't see any debunking "follow up" reports is no a conspiracy, but rather that no one manages to prove them wrong?

* Since Mars has no oceans and a thin atmosphere, the thermal inertia is low, and Martian climate is easily perturbed by external influences, including solar variations. [...]
* Globally, the mean temperature of the Martian atmosphere is particularly sensitive to the strength and duration of hemispheric dust storms, (see for example [...]here). Large scale dust storms change the atmospheric opacity and convection; as always when comparing mean temperatures, the altitude at which the measurement is made matters, but to the extent it is sensible to speak of a mean temperature for Mars, the evidence is for significant cooling from the 1970's, when Viking made measurements, compared to current temperatures. However, this is essentially due to large scale dust storms that were common back then, compared to a lower level of storminess now.[...]
* The shrinkage of the Martian South Polar Cap is almost certainly a regional climate change, and is not any indication of global warming trends in the Martian atmosphere. Colaprete et al in Nature 2005 (subscription required) showed, using the Mars GCM, that the south polar climate is unstable due to the peculiar topography near the pole, and the current configuration is on the instability border; we therefore expect to see rapid changes in ice cover as the regional climate transits between the unstable states.

Don't be an idiot. Crichton knows nothing about Global Warming. He's been completely debunked.

We only contribute 0.28% of greenhouse gases according to official numbers. 5% if you remove water vapor, which most global warming kooks do to jack up the numbers.

Temps haven't risen since 1998.

We only contribute 0.28% of greenhouse gases according to official numbers. 5% if you remove water vapor, which most global warming kooks do to jack up the numbers.

Temps haven't risen since 1998.

... of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase

One study compared to dozens of other methods using widely varying methodologies that reached opposite conclusions. Then the article you pointed to quotes the same canard that the "hockey stick" was a "hoax" (in the word of one congressman). When in fact McIntyre massaged the methodology to remove the fluctuation (see the website I linked to below).

For those interested in what the climate researchers actually have to say (and not afraid of hard math thrown in), try Mann's website Real Climate for their responses to their critics.

We need to find out how much of the global warming that we have seen is due to our activities.

And for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006 /02/richard-lindzens-hol-testimony/

• The Discovery of Global Warming
  
• Real Climate
  
• A Few Things Ill Considered
  

I tend to believe this guy.
The global temp started increasing alarmingly only after 80's due to cleaner air supported by green house gases.
But, as per the storm counts - http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=140, there is an increase of stronger storms, from 1920 onwards.

Even though this doesnt prove anything, it actually puts a seed of doubt in my mind. I used to believe (without any doubt) that increased temp is causing stronger storms et al. But I do have my doubts now.

Also I do not know if some localized temp changes caused these storms too...

Venus slow rotation rate, massive atmosphere, tiny inclination (-3 deg), and lack of a hydrologic cycle should make the climate very stable. The mission has a lot of merits on its own. Why make tenuous comparisons?

Venus slow rotation rate, massive atmosphere, tiny inclination (-3 deg), and lack of a hydrologic cycle should make the climate very stable. The mission has a lot of merits on its own. Why make tenuous comparisons?

the new global ice age that the previous generation of scientists were sure was happening

However, since water vapor is, you know, an integral part of the atmosphere and several cycles on earth, we really can't do much about that. Better to worry about all the other gasses we up dump into the atmosphere that we can control.

Warming is both a) established as a fact beyond debate and b) that the CAUSE of such warming is also established beyond debate

are beyond *sensible* debate unless someone brings pretty spectacular new evidence to the table. They are decided within the relevant scientific communities.

Either that or the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the National Academy of Sciences, and similar bodies in other countries, are "ignorant savages" comparable to religious fanatics.

The sun IS burning hotter. NASA is detecting upward temperature trends on Mars and I really don't think that is amendable to human intervention. The temprature on Mars doesn't depend on our CO2 emission levels, whether or not you drive a hybrid car or if we ratify the Kyoto Treaty.

Not on the right time scales. This one's easy for me because I read the rebuttal before I ever heard of the claim.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005 /10/global-warming-on-mars/

For instance, assume the Earth is warming in a non-cyclic pattern. Is the answer to destroy industrialized civilization in order to save it or is it possible to use our science to offset the bad effects?

I don't think it is the opinion of the scientific community that it is necessary to "destroy industrialized civilization". You apparently have the scientific community confused with the Unabomber.

Seriously, do you think everyone who is concerned about climate change wants to shut down civilization? There may be a few cranks who make such a linkage, but that really is a straw man argument against a very serious claim.

That's the very 1st tab the our Global Warming Sceptics Bingo sheet.

The truth? It's a myth.

Yes, the media pushed to the front the loudest and whackiest "global cooling" scientists, but they didn't represent the median scientific view.