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Unexplained Leap In CO2 Levels
Cally writes "The Guardian is reporting that atmospheric CO2 concentrations have leapt by 4.5 ppm in the last two years. This raises the ugly possibility that the capacity of a large carbon sink (possibly the oceans) has been exceeded, and the worst-case scenario is that a tipping point has been reached and a runaway warming scenario is in progress. Quote from Dr. Piers Foster of Reading University: 'If this is a rate change, of course it will be very significant. It will be of enormous concern, because it will imply that all our global warming predictions for the next hundred years or so will have to be redone.'"
PortlandTribune.com | Rise in CO2 levels is no cause for alarm
This isn't true. I heard an article on NPR the other day that discussed Global Warming's treatment in the media. The man being interviewed thought that the media did the issue a great disservice by trying to be fair and covering both sides of the issue. The fact is, there IS NO OTHER SIDE. The scientific evidence that humans are affecting the climate with CO2 is as clear as day, and scientists who say otherwise are hired by special interest groups or oil companies. That article is true when it says that the effects we will have on climate aren't fully known, but the connection is there in a strong way. All of the research I have read suggests the link. We NEED to be concerned.
Every time there is some big post about a comet hitting earth in the next 20 years, or global warming, or any other earth ending disaster it stays in the news for about 1 day. Just long enough for every other scientist in the world to say the guy that came up with it is a crank and the whole thing doesn't matter. I give this one maybe 2 days.
David J Hofmann of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration centre, which also studies CO2, was more cautious.
"I don't think an increase of 2 ppm for two years in a row is highly significant - there are climatic perturbations that can make this occur," he said. "But the absence of a known climatic event does make these years unusual.
"Based on those two years alone I would say it was too soon to say that a new trend has been established, but it warrants close scrutiny."
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Nothing to see here, run along.
Someone will be along soon to tell us that this is all part of a natural progression and we have nothing to worry about and to all go back to driving 5.0 SUVs as we can't hope to understand the climate and so figures are irrelevant and its not are fault etc etc etc. I wonder how many of these people STILL have their heads in the sand after this?
How much more evidence do we need before we start to do something about this problem? The problem, IMHO, is that even if we are at the point of seeing the start of run away global warming there is little incentive for our governments to do anything about it as it won't affect the current generation significantly.
If any of the governments of the world were thinking ahead though they would start investing very heavily in alternative power generation technology. In global terms it's not all that long before we run out of fossil fuels or damage the climate to the point where fossil fuels cost more than they are worth. The country that owns the technology to generate clean power will be in a very strong position. Imagine if your country didn't have to rely on the middle east for transport - suddenly your country becomes very powerful.
At the end of the day though while the American sheeple continue to vote idiots into power nothing is going to be done about the problem.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
On a side-note, British scientists have observed that, although they've largely eliminated acid rain causing pollution from power stations, etc, the problem of acid rain is actually getting worse in places. This has now been shown to be a product of marine fuels and an increase in shipping.
Consider, then, the impact this increase will be having on countries that have not put in the time, effort and money to reduce pollution...
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The fact is, there IS NO OTHER SIDE. The scientific evidence that humans are affecting the climate with CO2 is as clear as day, and scientists who say otherwise are hired by special interest groups or oil companies.
As a layman with a little scientific background, I think I can see both sides here. There are two sides, whatever you may say. There is the side saying that our CO2 emissions are going to bring about serious climate change that could be disastrous to us, and there is the side that says the other side is overreacting. The latter frequently point to evidence in this planet's fossil record that suggests that CO2 levels vary dramatically whether we're here or not, and that the amount of CO2 we produce is a drop in the ocean compared to what is produced and consumed every year by the rest of the planet. The argument is convincing, and I haven't heard a good counterargument.
I really think the only thing that recent experiments in HNLC ocean waters has proved is that Fe2+ is the limiting nutrient in phytoplankton production.
There really doesn't seem to be a solid link between increased production and Carbon sequestering. It's definatly worth further study, but as for proven?
Do you have well regarded source you could list that states some hard numbers for Carbon sequestering rates? I wouldn't mind seeing it, as I certainly havn't read every article out there on the subject.
"Nonsense, of course. We know that humans have slightly increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but hard evidence linking that to temperature rises is minimal."
The main problem is that if the tipping point has been reached, then the first time you might get your 'hard evidence' is the entire population of Florida migrating north.
Still, it's fun to see people backpedalling from the 'global warming isn't caused by humans argument'. That was always fun.
"'Global Warming' is a multi-billion dollar a year industry around the world:"
Really? How? Where did you get that figure? Your ass?
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
"We know that humans have slightly increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but hard evidence linking that to temperature rises is minimal."
This is insightful?
There's hardly any argument in this statement.
As a climatologist researching on global climate models, I can say, with the risk of losing my job, that global warming due to CO2 gases are definitly happening.
And almost all the climate models in the world will agree with me. Take a look at the Climate model inter-comparison project overview, especially Figure 20. That's a simulation for both the present state of the climate AND the future.
Given the limitations of computer models, the numbers may not be accurate yet, but we are very much sure that this trend is happening RIGHT NOW.
The earth's carbon sinks are not static in capacity. Everything is interlocked feedback cycles. As CO2 goes up, so too does the growth rate of all vegetation.
/ articles/ 2_global_warming.htm
It is the naive simplicity of the mathematics used by many lay-men(and sometimes experts) in their discussions of climate change that cause me to seriously doubt their prediction.
Check out this web page for example
http://www.hydrogen.co.uk/h2_now/journal
which tries to use *addition* to predict changes in CO2. We produce X billion tons, the amazon absorbs Y billion tons, net change is X-Y billion tons.
This approach is as hopelessly naive as trying to calculate the flight dynamics of the space shuttle with natural numbers.
That's just not how it works in a real dynamic system and alarmist crap like this only serves to push through ridiculous laws like Kyoto, the funding for which could bring food and water to a huge proportion of the third world instead of affecting some laughable 7% of the annual *human* CO2 output.
Get those people fed and industrialized, and they'll stop cutting down their own forests, start going to school, and add their share of brainpower to the world's thinktank.
Tipping point? Proof, please?
Look, just because we had a three- or four-sigma year doesn't mean that it's the end of the world. Has anyone around here taken statistics? I would think that the crowd around here would be better educated.
The language of the article indicates that it's a sham: atmospheric CO2 levels jumped 4 PPM? Four Parts Per Million? First of all, they don't mention what the level was before. Is 4PPM isn't a large number. From a table I found through Google, 4 PPM would be a normal monthly swing.
This is just like the TV news reporting that "unemployment claims skyrocketed 1% this past month." Attaching such emotional language to tiny numbers illustrates their political bent.
In a recent National Geographic they say that the CO2 is rising, but the temperature changes through history (from ice cores and other things studied) show that temp changes over time are also tied to changes in the way the earth orbits and we are in one of those changes in orbit right now...
x .html
Just makes it a little more
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0409/inde
Some one needs to do a sensitivity analysis on all these two.
Scientists are different. You don't go into science to make money, or to get power. You go into science because you have a fundamental desire to understand the truth about the world we live in.
That's true. That's why you get into science.
But then you're graduated and you are a scientist.
Only a few scientists can stay at university, the others will work for a company.. and then it's the company and the business-people who decide what direction your research goes.
Learn about pinball machines on www.flippers.be
Seriously, isn't it time people realised that environmental studies is still a discipline in its infancy, and political action taken on the basis of a young science is irresponsible ?
Get with the program, dude. ALL our science is in its infancy. Environmental science is no different than any other science. There is uncertainty involved and if you're not comfortable with uncertainty then you're not likely to be able to understand and evaluate the value of scientific study. What you're arguing is for the elimination of science as a basis for the deployment of policy. That leaves us with only faith to go by. I prefer to use uncertain science as a basis for policy rather than certain faith.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
The climate was warmer, and the planet overall appears to have been more productive as a result, spawning larger land creatures (average and maximum) and rain forests at higher latitudes.
Maybe this is just what we need to support our burgeoning population.
First, there is plenty of hard evidence. Thermometers around the world, satellite data, and much soft evidence like receding glaciers and retreating sea ice points quite clearly to global warming being real.
This is exactly right. Those that say global warming doesn't exist, is living, 100% in a fantasy world. AFAIK, the only question is, is global warming part of a cyclical trend, directly caused by human efforts, or both?
There is certainly some trending which indicates that human's are part of the "cycle". The only question is, are human causing the trend to be above what the "normal" cycle would normally be.
Second, the theory is quite sound. CO2 pushes the energy budget of Earth up. Less energy out means Earth has to heat up.
I personally believe that humans are pushing the trend above the bell curve. Simple fact is, the theory is well supported by physics, as we understand it, and we are able to make observations which support our level of understanding. To me, the only question which remains, how far off the curve are we? And, will the departure be enough to matter in the long run? Those questions, IMO, are the really tough questions to answer. Frankly, I'm not sure we have the ability to answer it unless the environment makes a huge swing, for good or bad.
'global warming' industry
It seems, he considers basic science to be part of that budget. I agree with you, that his numbers appear to be completely baseless.
I agree that sometimes the other side is wrong or lying. Sometimes the other side might take a correlation, and somehow transmute that into a causation. You must be vigilant in watching for such junk science, especially if the other side claims that there's no point in even evaluating the criticism against their claims.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Oh go away! Climate research would carry on whether human CO2 releases are found to be warming the planet or not.
As one example among many, the US National Academy of Sciences, whose leaders have all the grant money they could ask for already, and everything to lose in terms of reputation if they distort their science for any reason at all were asked by the Bush administration to take a skeptical look at global warming. Given the administrations attitude, they could clearly have pleased their lords and masters and perpetuated their influence and funding by reporting that there was no problem, but they did not! They concluded in a detailed study, after considering a huge range of alternatives that the evidence strongly favoured human releases of CO2 as a major cause of the warming which is being observed.
If we don't believe climatologists, who should we believe? oil companies? Ford?
I have always had a hard time understanding how anyone can dismess global warming, considering that 95% of the climate scientists agree that global warming is real.
Well, for starters, we happen to be in an unusually cold period right now by geological standards; for over 70% of the lifespan of the planet, geology tells us, there have been no icecaps at either pole, and there's a wide consensus that we are actually in an interglacial period right now, which could go back to a full on Ice Age, or back to the more accustomed steambath. So, given that; if things are getting warmer, it's a lot more plausible to figure that climate is just reverting to geological norms than that there's anything significant humans are doing or can do to affect it. The sunspot activity data over recorded history sure seems a hell of a lot more compelling proof that our climate depends directly on the Sun's activity than it does on anything that humans do or don't do. But it's a lot harder to indulge your anti-capitalist prejudices if the problem is sunspots, so the fear-mongering types do their ignore any astronomical contributions to the global warming debate, and actively supress funding for that line of inquiry if they can. However, if the sunspot theorists are right, there should be a slight cooling over the next couple of years and a marked cooling by 2012 or so, so if that happens and their models are the only ones that explain it, well it won't matter at that point what anyone's politics are, I imagine.
On a more philosophical level; you little kiddies may be easy to work up about the sky falling, but us grizzled oldies remember the 70s when that same 95% of climate scientists, using the same data, assured us that a new Ice Age was just about to engulf us all and we had to panic to deal with *that* threat. So when we hear that everything's flipped 180 and now there's a 95% consensus around the exact opposite position, although the data hasn't changed; well, fool me once, and all that...
No, I don't think you've done your research. And I am educated enough to tell you 4PPM is big in this instance.
See, it's not that it's a small amount in our eyes. What is small differs greatly from one area of science to another. Some chemicals, if put into your system will be enough to give you cancer. Some, breathed in over the course of a few months, say by being in the atmostphere you have in your office, will make you sick and if you keep going back to the office will kill your at worst or cause permanent damage to your system.
Now, given that fact, is 4PPM small and insignificant. No. It's large and it's bad in those instances. So what makes you so sure 4PPM is insignificant here?
The people that are saying that this is nothing to worry about or okay or even that we are in a minor perturbation (sp?) not a true warming event are 1% of the scientists out there. Plus, I have not heard from one who isn't a paid spokesman for the oil industry in one way or another. And given big industries vested self interest in making us think everything is okay - these "scientists" are not to be trusted. You need independant, real scientists, and you won't find them saying we don't have a problem.
"Agreed, 100%. The "other side" tends to be those causing the pollution. However, that's just how they are, right now, when their ultra-expensive coastal home is above water. If CO2 levels are spiralling rapidly, it's unlikely to remain that way."
This is the unfortunate thing about the so-called neoconservative mindset. Modern conservatism is nothing more than the rationalization of greed, avarice, and self-interest. The only time you see these folks change their mind about issues such as gay marriage or stem cells is when it touches them emotionally such as when Dick Cheny's daughter is gay or Nancy Reagan's husband develops Alzhiemer's. Global warming has not affected them adversely yet, so therefore they will always take the decision that allows them to continue their quest on attempting to collect more shiny things then their neighbors.
Of those who work for companies, most don't work as scientists, and of those that do, most don't work on research which the general public would find remotely interesting... like studying abrasion and powder formation on Cheerios.
A handful, a scant tiny handful might be pulled to be given 6 figure salaries to run long studies countering univeristy and government sponsored research, so as to fortify their company's position in the marketplace. Their agenda is clear, and they're not working as scientists, they're spreading jibberish and they're being paid well to counter the damage to their reputation... but... These might be the scientists which would rather create media circuses and travel the world spreading lies than hanging out in a lab devising new ways to abrade breakfast cereals.
I'm just saying that even if the majority of scientists are in corporate back pockets, it's no worse than the fact that most of the working population is in the back pocket of one corporation or another... we don't all feel such undying corporate loyalty as to irrationally defend our company's policies.
Interesting the diference in opinion on this topic in the US as compared to the rest of the world.
I have not seen any articles in credible scientific magazines, such as New Scientist, Scientific American, Science etc. that have dismissed the link between carbon dioxide and global warming or that man is responsible for the majority of the change in CO2 levels and I have not seen (in a long time) any articles in major European newspapers denying the existence of global warming. Yet the Portland Tribune is held up as evidence. The author has a Masters degree and works for a free market think tank - what is his Masters in? What is this author's scientific qualification for his claims?
Unfortunately it seems that in the US the press is full of this kind of political opinion masquerading as science. You can see the consequences on Slashdot - the discussion generally becomes divided into US readers and everyone else. The readers from the US denying the cause and effect relationship that appears to exist and everyone else expressing their amazement that people living in the world's most industrial nation do not seem to understand this simple science...
This is, of course, irrelevant. That the CO2 level, and hence climate, has varied in the past is not going to be much comfort if you wake up to find your bedroom 3 feet deep in seawater.
No one (sane) is arguing that the change in CO2 and hence climate we seem to be seeing is moving the earth somewhere it hasn't been before, or that it will somehow destroy the biosphere. Indeed if it seriously impacts on human life it will likely improve things by reducing the number of people and their ability to screw things up.
The isssues are
The people who think it is a bad thing when evidence is found that human activity is causing CO2 levels to rise haven't thought it through[*]. If you are in a car accelerating towards a wall, would you prefer it to be because you are going down hill, or because you absent mindedly put your foot on the accelerator?
Personally I like Terry Pratchett's suggestion that we should all buy more books.
[*] Well, haven't thought it through or are part of the fossil fuel industry and hope to earn enough to build a bunker.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Yeah, maybe none of the global warming scientists know that they are talking about. Perhaps they have all ignored very good evidence you have brought forward. In that case, the skeptics could easily write a paper blowing the lid off the whole deal and get it published in a presigious journal.
However, since that has not happened, and since I am not a climatoligist myself, I choose to believe the experts.
Doesn't this seem like a wise thing to do?
Tipping point? Proof, please?
Do you want proof that the tipping point exists? Do you want proof that the tipping point is a problem? Do you want proof that the tipping point has been reached? Do you want proof that the problem is imminent? Do you want proof that no other affect will appear which counteracts the tipping point?
Or are you just going to change the question until you reach a point where science is forced to answer "we don't have the data", and raise your finger, proclaiming "a-ha! so this is an emotional argument!"
The bottom line is that there is a proponderance of evidence that the vast change in industry and global human activity has impacted our environment. Lakes are poluted, the oceans are polluted, even harmful chemicals are spreading through the arctic. Species are dying, there is no question that these things are real. The only question is... what is going to happen?
There is a personal ethical decision one must make to determine if these things are important to you. I think it is a legitimate decision for a person to say "hey, this is the world I live in, you're talking me destroying a world I won't be living in. I can't say it is important to me."
Now science doesn't have a full handle on what is going to happen. Humanity hasn't destroyed a planet before, so it is tough to tell how bad things might be. We should however, err on the side of caution. If we care about the world we leave behind, we should only be as damaging to the environment as the best of science says we can afford to be be.
Finally, if the majority of humanity feels that the environment is important, then to preserve their interests (the planet), regulations must be established to prevent those who do not share their interests from attaining immense profits from destructively exploiting the planet.
So as long as the scientists are out for debate on global warming, the government should treat it as seriously as if it were real... whether it is real or not.
If you don't care, and again, I think that is a legitimate position, you should not be refuting the science and pretending that it is in the best interest of those who do care, but you should simply state "I don't care!"
We need to understand that climates change, always have and always will. We like our current climates, but they won't be here forever, even if we reduce the atmospheric CO2 levels.
You won't be here forever either, but if people were trying to accelerate your death, I doubt you would be so fatalistic. Stopping global warming isn't about halting climate change. Proponents of the global warming theory aren't claiming that the climate does not change naturally. You claim to be an 'informed scientist', but your representation of the views you dismiss are grossly uninformed.
How do you prove a tipping point in a complex system? If you're looking strictly at statistical variations from the norm in a complex system the variations in any one element prior to calmity can be quite small initially. It's a little like trying to predict the butterfly effect.
I certainly wouldn't be so quick to dismiss a 4 ppm increase as insignificant because it falls within the range of monthly variations. If that turns out to be a sustainable average increase the previous author's suggestion that our first real indication of trouble could be plans to relocate Miami are not inconceivable.
I'd also remind you that it wasn't that long ago that the suggestion of the scientifically valid possibility that the Earth could experience an extinction event caused by a giant rock falling out of the sky would have not only been ridiculed by their fellow scientists, but the author might well have been burned as a heretic.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Truly informed scientists also recognise that, yes, climates change over time. We're actually in a warm spell, in the middle of an Ice Age. The tempertures should, on average, be going down, not up. The fact that the temperatures are rising at all is significant. The fact that they have sharply risen only since the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s is also significant.
The fact that industrialists aren't keen on paying the costs to upgrade and modernise their rather archaic and inefficient systems is significant only in the amazing naivety of it. Modernising costs, sure, but if you can produce more for less, then you end up the long-term winner from spending that money.
By avoiding responsibility, industrialists not only endanger the environment, they also hurt themselves. So, even if you disregard the environmental aspect, these people are STILL commiting suicide.
Are you sure it's the suicidal lunatics we want to be listening to?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I'm not saying that this proves anything, but it's worth keeping in mind as you read the article.
Unlike you and many of the American population who demonize science and those who follow it, I trust these scientists to follow the scientific method and monitor the situation of the world.
This is not a joking issue. This is serious. It is not an issue where we should be panicking and running around like chickens with their heads cut off. This needs reasoned thought and we need to listen to the people who are capable of it.
Sadly, most of the population of the United States is incapable of calm reasoning and sound logic (ha, when was the last time that was taught in public schools?)
Just because it tells you something you don't want to believe doesn't make it untrue, or unimportant.
I still find it amazing that science has gone from being worshipped in the '50s to being demonized in the 21st century. It's cool to be the bully, but not to be the geek...
P.S. The Day After Tomorrow was a total flop and no amount of handwaving is going to get people to buy it.
Come on guys, your liberalism is showing.
Either that, or else the global-warming advocates are consistently misrepresenting and/or demonizing the careful, considered objections the "anti-global-warmers". Me, for instance. Do I believe global warming exists? Sure I do. Am I in favor of Kyoto? Hell, no.
Even its proponents agree that it would only delay global warming by a handful of months, at a cost of trillions of dollars. Kyoto opponents, such as myself, are generally not opposed to fighting global warming: we're opposed to fighting it in silly non-cost-effective means which are more public relations than results. For a trillion dollars, I'd far rather see Kyoto abandoned and a thousand coal plants converted to nuclear. Think about those carbon savings for a moment--uff da!
On the other hand, do you know how often "global-warming advocates" have heard my alternative to Kyoto, given it consideration, and responded intelligently? Zero. All they hear is I'm anti-Kyoto, and suddenly I'm a crackpot neocon. (I'm neither.)
You're right that "sometimes, you know, the other side is just wrong, or lying, and pointing this out does not constitute demonization."
On the other hand, sometimes the side that's just wrong is your side, when you state what the other person's perspective is.
Last time I checked, not a whole lot has been PROVEN about global warming.
Both the CO2 levels and average temperature are rising. That's a priori knowledge beyond dispute.
You are laboring under some misapprehension. Global warming is a reality. There is a small cadre of pseudo-scientists (they are working outside their domain of knowledge in an area of science which is notoriously inaccessible) in the pay of the big polluters that are casting about for any indication it may not be caused by human activities. And the refutation of their so-called analyses are done in the scientific community and the scientific community lays the controversy to rest. Unfortunately, the "skeptics" have chosen a public forum to air their notions, and that's all their masters really wanted: a way to influence public policy comprising an end run around the experts and their inconvenient opinions.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
"The idea that we should always be "balanced" when it comes to arguments of political import leads to a lot of bullshit getting consideration it doesn't deserve. Global warming deniers at this point are in the same class as creationists, Holocaust-deniers, and flat-earthers"
.
:"It is all my fault" and self mutilates, in an unselfish sacrifice to blind and deaf Gods?
.....oh, dearie me, and I always thought I was a balanced person. Now I am put into the same corner as (sigh) holocaust deniers.
let me recap: there is at least one person (me) thinking that at the basis of science there is at least a modicum of methods, like Occam's razor,
Now, the raw data are before our very eyes, and I do not dispute them; but, dear Sir, I dispute their extrapolations in the future, on the grounds that all these so called models do not explain great climate changes of the past, like the maunders minimum and the other variations of temperature in historical times in which the Impact of human activity was, by today's standards, negligible.
Now, I can understand the primeval impulse of Man, in the face of things that hurt him and that he doesn't comprehend, to atone and offer sacrifices; after all, we are but a few generations removed from ancestors that made human sacrifices to appease the weather.I do not understand the same behaviour in people that follow a scientific site, in which the ability to deliver balanced reasoning and correct behaviour is defined as "Kharma".
So who is wrong, or lying: the person who says that today's model are inadequate and require further study, or the person that in the face of exogenous events says
As I said, further study is worthwhile. But remember, in science, it is the true scientist that tries to prove himself wrong. No opposition is required.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
And as far as measuring radiated heat from satellites, don't they comensate for that?
-Oh and I'd replace every coal plant with a nuclear one for the pollution savings. I haven't been convinced that carbon dioxide is a problem.
I don't read AC A human right
What did I say that had anything to do with liberalism? I am only speaking to the current lot in power. They want us to all live like a bacteria culture in a petri dish which just grows unchecked until it either dies from drowning in its own waste products or from exhausting all of its resources. I am simply saying that greed is negating rational judgement.
Perhaps we need to restate the issue in a way that will resonate with greed: I would imagine many a conservative would find it unprofitable if the surface temperature if the Earth was hot enough to melt lead (like on Venus). Until they figure that out, they will continue on their current course.
"That's rich. I've seen more liberals act this way than conservatives."
Then they're not really Liberals, are they? I can say I am a tuna fish sandwich, but it does not make it true. And let me be very clear, I am not talking about true conservatives. They realize that the Earth is worth conserving. For example, who do you think created the EPA? Real conservatives are much more pragmatic then the modern version. What we call conservatives today are actually radicals. I can only guess that they think they can pollute all they want because Jesus will either come and invoke the rapture or otherwise "fix" the environment via some miracle (yes, I've actually been told this by supposed conservatives).
The only time you see these folks change their mind about issues such as gay marriage or stem cells is when it touches them emotionally such as when Dick Cheny's daughter is gay or Nancy Reagan's husband develops Alzhiemer's.
One wonders what would have happened had Mr. Reagan needed some medicinal marijuana to relieve his symptoms. Would Mrs. "Just Say No" Reagan have said no?
In my mind, these business people who try to get their way even at the detriment of the planet are among the worst humans ever. A cruel dictator or invader might result in thousands of peoples' deaths. In contrast, the individuals allowing large portions of the forests to be cut down; rare freshwater pollution; and overconsumption of resources to the brink are endangerous the lives of millions, even billions of people in the future.
I don't want to be part of the generation that is looked back on in history and blamed as the group of people Who Finally Fucked It All Up during a period of unprecedented development.
Latour writes: "What has become of critique, I wonder, when an editorial in the New York Times contains the following quote? Most scientists believe that [global] warming is caused largely by manmade pollutants that require strict regulation. Mr. Luntz [a Republican strategist] seems to acknowledge as much when he says that "the scientific debate is closing against us." His advice, however, is to emphasize that the evidence is not complete. "Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled," he writes, "their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue." Fancy that? An artificially maintained scientific controversy to favor a "brownlash" as Paul and Anne Ehrlich would say.
I'm not sure I'd call this the neoconservative mindset - but I don't have a good label for it. Basically it's in some people's interest to make the science appear to be problematic - this isn't just a lazy media habit of having to report both sides.
The rest of the article is very interesting and deals with the issue of how to look at the social forces on scientists (which is often viewed as attacks on scientists) while promoting and persuing empirically based knowledge.
I'm a creationist.
Sorry to hear that.
So your saying I'm stupid, that I don't believe in science?
Assuming these are apposite (i.e., that the comma should be there), I would say you are ignorant, which is a wholly different matter. If they are not apposite (so you meant, "Is it stupid not to believe the results of science?") then yes, you are stupid.
[W]ho do you think created earth[?]
Not who but what. Basically gravity (accretion), angular momentum (so most solar bodies rotate in the same sense) and a prior supernova explosion.
People don't want to admit there is a God so they bury their head in the sand and search for decades for evidence that doesn't exist.
Over the last four centuries, the things one might plausibly say a god is responsible for have steadily been reduced. At one time, weather was considered the sovereign acrion of the gods, while now we determine days in advance what the weather is likely to be using scientific methods. Although Darwin described descent with modification 145 years ago, gene sequencing is now allowing us to know much more detail about how it actually happened. The greatest triumph of science over religious philosophy in our time, though, has been the revolution of medicine. As late as World War I, medicine was a combination of folklore and religion (look up Dr. Kellogg if you want to see a local maximum of that weirdness). Life expectancy and survival of various maladies has improved breathtakingly during a century of science as compared with (at least) ten millenia of religion.
Albert Einstein belived that God created the earth, You think he's full of BS too?
Einstein referred to 'God' at times, but was emphatic that it was impersonal, and most of the time he used it as a synonym of 'the mechanism(s) of the universe.' Einstein was not full of BS (though he was occasionally wrong); you, however, might be.
Religion is the opiate of the masses. The wealthy smoke the real stuff.
The Maunder Minimum describes sunspots - the Little Ice Age is what you're referring to. The times were close, but the two labels are not the same.
If the people of Europe, at the time of the Little Ice Age, had any reason to believe that their actions were causing the cooling of the planet, it would've been incredibly foolish for them not to have taken action. But they didn't have any reason to believe that.
Here are the facts:
We do not know that we are the source of the warming. That's correct.
But as another poster put it before, suppose you are accelerating towards a brick wall. If someone tells you "the brick wall will go away before you get there", and someone else tells you "the brick wall will not go away before you get there", aren't you going to at least start slowing down??
Actually your premise is wrong. Although every city has a lots of thermometers everywhere the only ones that "count" are the ones from official weather stations. The vast majority of those are either on the airport or on a military base. In both of those circumstances the areas are away from the core of the city.
There are also temprature reading taken from ships at sea.
Finally the entire global warming thesis is not based on JUST air temprature readings. There are also ocean currents, ocean tempratures, CO2 levels, ice core data, rate of melting of glaciers and icebergs, geologic data, and of course tons of theoretical frameworks.
"I haven't been convinced that carbon dioxide is a problem."
That's probably because you haven't really studied the matter and probably don't really understand the studies that have been done. The vast majority of climatologist in the world do agree that CO2 is the problem.
But what the hell they are just idiots and you know so much more then them.
evil is as evil does