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Climatologists Wager on Global Warming
coflow writes "The Guardian is carrying a story about a $10,000 bet that a pair of Russian scientists have entered with British climate expert James Annan. According to the article, the Russians believe the world will be cooler in 10 years. "If the temperature drops Dr Annan will stump up the $10,000 (now equivalent to about £5,800) in 2018. If the Earth continues to warm, the money will go the other way.""
According to the article, the Russians believe the world will be cooler in 10 years.
Unfortunately, $9,999 will have gone towards building a giant air conditioner in the middle of Moscow.
The russians investigated weather control far more deeply than the USA (though the british did some experiments too, ended up flooding a small town). Maybe they're going to plunge the world into a new ice age, so they can swan about in their fur hats while the rest of us freeze.
I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but I think we could use some global warming in northern Ohio. After a while, the bipolar weather patterns aren't so bad, but the winters can get pretty nasty. I realize it probably won't change too much in my lifetime, but it's a thought.
As for the climatologists, is a bet really news?
I thought I'd never say that. It's interesting how mainstream media has declared that a majority of scientists say global warming is real and directly tied into carbon emissions. When the only consensus is that things are getting warmer (opposite of when the planet was getting cooler in the 50's through 60's and causing the global cooling panic).
I have no trouble accepting that carbon emissions could cause warming, however the evidence isn't there yet. I have several friends in climatology, geology and astronomy who shake their heads everytime a new panic prediction is released. They're not right-wing anti-environmentalist idealogues. They're scientists who see multiple cause for global warming, man being only one of them.
The "better something than nothing" crowd loses traction with me when it comes to Kyoto. It's just a bad plan.
Obviously inspired by the 10-year Julian Simon/Paul Ehrlich wager of 1980.M Simon had Ehrlich choose five of several commodity metals. Ehrlich chose 5 metals: copper, chrome, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Simon bet that their prices would go down. Ehrlich bet they would go up. Simon won.
"To decide who wins the bet, the scientists have agreed to compare the average global surface temperature recorded by a US climate centre between 1998 and 2003, with temperatures they will record between 2012 and 2017"
/., not like anyone would listen anyway...
I'd say to RTFA next time, but this is
Scientists who stand firm on the belief that humans are causing global warming, have been involved in several bet-challenges with skeptics. Here's how two of them panned out:
"Dr Annan first challenged Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is dubious about the extent of human activity influencing the climate. Professor Lindzen had been willing to bet that global temperatures would drop over the next 20 years.
No bet was agreed on that; Dr Annan said Prof Lindzen wanted odds of 50-1 against falling temperatures, so would win $10,000 if the Earth cooled but pay out only £200 if it warmed. Seven other prominent climate change sceptics also failed to agree betting terms."- In other words, Lindzen made it so it wasn't a fair bet. He poisoned the wager.
"In May, during BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the environmental activist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot challenged Myron Ebell, a climate sceptic at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in Washington DC, to a £5,000 bet. Mr Ebell declined, saying he had four children to put through university and did not want to take risks."- In other words, Monbiot flat out chickened out.
The thing is, what happens if (by a miracle) enough nations enact policies that cause lower greenhouse gas emissions and global warming stops? Then who wins?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
That says global warming may well stave off the next ice age, and this wiill be no bad thing for our species. Now I suspect that this would be better acheived deliberately and with planning, rather than through polution. Whichever way it happens though, given that I live in england, a country which was covered to a depth of several kilometers in ice during the last ice age, I can't say I mind too much, however it happens.
Start your spraycans!
.....who gets the money if the climate stays the same?
$10,000 will be worth about $1.98 in today's dollars, due to the coming hyperinflation.
- Feynman bet a $1000 that no one could construct a motor no bigger than 1/64th of an inch on a side
- Hawking bet against his own theory of black holes (a subscription of Penthouse to the winner, no less)
And other similar stuff...Ah, thanks for settling this one for us. If they only would have talked w/ you before they made their bet they could have saved themselves $10,000.
God plays at dice.;)
This type of "betting" has been going on for a while now at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Weather futures lets companies and traders buy and sell the risk of high or low temperatures For example a utility company might fear that it will incur high costs if the summer weather is too hot and a softdrink maker might fear that the summer weather will be too cold. These parties can agree to trade a weather future contract that profits the utility if the weather is hot (offsetting the extras costs) and pays the drink maker if the weather is cold (offseting the lost sales). Both sides reduce their own risks. Agriculture and energy traders can also use weather futures to hedge or correct for weather-related price changes in commodities to profit from non-weather-related effects.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
A thermometer?
Pretty soon Earth is chock full of sunbeams...their rotting corpses heating our atmosphere.
Fortunately our handsomest politicians came up with a cheap, last minute way to combat global warming.
Ever since 2063 we drop a giant ice cube into the ocean every now and then.
Of course, since the greenhouse gases are still building up, it takes more and more ice each time.
Thus solving the problem once and for all.
Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.
"To decide who wins the bet, the scientists have agreed to compare the average global surface temperature recorded by a US climate centre between 1998 and 2003, with temperatures they will record between 2012 and 2017."
I believe the reason for the extra three years is so that the data from 2012-2017 can be collected and processed, thus giving an "average" temperature for 2015...at least, that's what TFA seems to say.
I know, I know, no need to read TFA when you can make a snappy remark for free +1 Funny points but look like an idiot cause you didn't read the article you are trying to poke fun at.
"So, what's your plausible alternative warming mechanism,"
A. Sun (I know it's a crackpot theory, but some people actually do think the sun has something to do with Earths Climate, and the Suns output does vary)
B. Water vapor (Much greater greenhouse gas than either Methane or CO2, also dictated by the laws of Physics, also increasing over time through natural means)
C. Natural variation (Entropy, ringing)
D. Loss of cloud cover
E. Natural emissions of greenhouse gasses (Volcanoes, deepwater CO2 and Methane out-gassing)
Do you honestly think that's mans carbon emissions are the ONLY thing that effects climate. Do you think that the earth had no climate variations before man?
In Soviet Russia global warming cools you!
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
The Kyoto Protocol and UNFCCC were designed to prevent global climate change. If the climate gets warm enough, ocean currents can be forced to "switch" in a way that can trigger a mini ice age.
After a 1 month Summer in Calif* and several years of declining temperatures, we feel the climate is cooling down from particulates more than it's heating up from CO2. Everyone knows sulfur from China's factories is reducing the amount of energy reaching Calif*. The sunsets today are a lot redder than they used to be.
Seems odd but here is why. The ocean currents carry water from the Polar regions to the Tropics. The reason Northern latitudes are able to sustain large populations is because of the moderating affect of the ocean. If the Polar latitudes warm up suffciently all the ice melts and the process that was sending heavy dense water down to the tropics is disrupted and the Polar regions get really cold and and Ice Age comes along. I don't think there is rational person that doesn't believe we are modifying the environment but this process has happened over and over through history. The Sun is in a very active state and has been pumping out a lot of heat at the same time so I think the chance of this happening isn't so remote. In the 1600-1800s there was a pronounced cooling in Northern Europe and it may be on the way again once the Planet heats up enough to start the cycle all over again. The Earth is very dynamic and climate change is inevitable. Evidence of vineyards in England has been found but you won't be growing any grapes there today!
We *are* releasing a ton of gasses, much more than can be reabsorbed, and two giant economies, india and china, are just the past few years really bumping up the volume on what they burn.
So combine that with the aforementioned geophysical realities, and it looks like more warming coming to me. How long it will last I don't know because of political wildcards. All you can do is guess, but there's only enough oil for some countries to have a robust middle class, not enough for all nations. Anyone can do the math there, it's not that hidden or weird or debateable any longer. There is x-amount projected global demand, with y amount proven reserves/refinery capacity, etc. They aren't the same number and x is a lot larger. That and other strategic minerals, etc. We just *may* have a tremendous global warfare period over natural resources and availability (some contend it has started already),and if this happens, the amount of fires started (call them megafires, as in regional sized) and resultant release of even more gasses plus extra heat that will get trapped WILL be catastrophic. and large wars have started over much less than large nations economic survival.
I think it pays to remember that "leaders" in these various very large nations by and large tend to be *quite mad*. I am pointing in all directions right now, no favorites. You cannot predict what they might do or how things might spiral out of control.
I tend to think at best, just for a SWAG, we have to go on past planetary history. We usually wind up with major wars fought by major powers with whatever the major weapons of that time period were. It has eventually always happened. I see nothing that convinces me todays humans are any better than yesterdays humans in that regard. So the combination of lame hoomannz and natural cyclical warming trends should indicate for the next generation or more we will have _more warming_.
Do you mean the pro-warming scientists or the anti-warming scientists?
Grants from the Sierra Club spend just as well as grants from Exxon, and carry the same risk of biasing a scientist to report what he thinks his patron wants to hear.
I'd be interested in an analysis of the source of funds for climate scientists. How much is coming from the evil corporations, how much from scaremongering environmentalists, and how much from supposedly apolitical government agencies?
Also, you must not underestimate the power of peer review and tenure decisions to bias scientific research. The academic world is tough on people who undermine articles of "progressive" faith.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Total Russian GDP decreased by %50.
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
Yeah but when it comes time to pay up:
"Not so fast, Comrade. You have heard of NUCLEAR VINTER?"
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
I'm sorry. ./ you are no longer my homepage.
But
Interesting how you were still afraid to risk your karma on that statement.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
Here's a study that says that oil and gas will run out too fast and prevent any type of doomsday global warming. Actually, it's not the fact that oil will run out, it's the fact that oil and gas will peak and so we won't be able consume them at a fast enough rate.
That is of course if we don't replace the depleted oil with coal, which may be a possibility. But even still, it seems as if there are enough signs of global warming already and the oceans will be releasing so much CO2 that even if we stop using fossil fuels today there will still be net CO2 emissions.
Which in turn causes global cooling. When the earth warms up the poles melt. the water floods the earths currents. The currents no longer bring warm water throughout the world. Global cooling starts.
Pentium 4's will be obsolete and not in mainstream usage.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
Have we in the left boiled down to blaming Bush for everything? Unfortunately this view doesn't win votes against Bush. As long as there is no credible opponent and vision we are doomed.
A. Sun (I know it's a crackpot theory, but some people actually do think the sun has something to do with Earths Climate, and the Suns output does vary
Wouldn't they be able to tell if the sun was having some kind of effect? Aren't they able to measure these kinds of things?
B. Water vapor (Much greater greenhouse gas than either Methane or CO2, also dictated by the laws of Physics, also increasing over time through natural means)
I would think they could measure this also. If they can tell how many parts per million of CO2 is in the air, I would think they could do the same thing for water vapor.
C. Natural variation (Entropy, ringing)
I don't know what this has to do with global warming, so I can't comment on it.
D. Loss of cloud cover
Wouldn't the loss of cloud cover be a result of other things? The loss of cloud cover wouldn't really cause global warming. It would merely be the byproduct of something else that was causing it.
E. Natural emissions of greenhouse gasses (Volcanoes, deepwater CO2 and Methane out-gassing)
Have there really been enough volcanoes in the last hundred years or so to produce the kind of effect that is happening?
Do you honestly think that's mans carbon emissions are the ONLY thing that effects climate. Do you think that the earth had no climate variations before man?
The climate has certainly changed many times before mankind was around. The question is, has it ever changed as drastically as has been reported?
If we know that CO2 can cause the greenhouse effect, and we know that our CO2 output has increased since the start of the industrial age, isn't it a safe bet to think that we are indeed changing the climate? Here are some graphs that show CO2 concentrations: The last 60 years. and the last 420,000 years.
will the singularity due in 2012 nullify this bet?
Why do people keep saying things like this? There are only 2 countries in the UN that refuse to join the Kyoto Protocol: the US and Australia.
Yes, the the protocol imposes different targets on different countries, but this is as you'd expect. For example, you would never expect India, which puts out one-fifth of the CO2 of the US despite having 3.6 times the population, to cut its emissions by the same percentage. Ditto China, which puts out 40% less CO2 than the US, but has 4.4 times more people. And Brazil! Brazil has 62% of the US's population, and 5% of the CO2 emissions. Look for yourself.
You could more plausibly argue the opposite: that every country should be allowed to emit, say, 20 tons of CO2 per capita. That sounds fair. But that would mean allowing massive increases by every undeveloped country, while imposing cuts on the US. Because developed countries are responsible for many times more per-capita emissions than undeveloped ones.
The Kyoto Protocol targets aren't especially difficult anyway. The US target was a 7% decrease over 20 years. That's 0.35% p.a. And less than the reduction target accepted by the European Union (8%). The idea, obviously, is not to make countries shut down important industries, but to encourage the use of cleaner technologies where they are appropriate. To begin taking steps in the right direction.
But Republicans apparently believe that the environment is nothing more than an infinitely exploitable resource, so while 153 countries do their part, the world's #1 greenhouse gas polluter continues to belch out 25% of the world's CO2.
I should buy some cement.
The rate of change is what is more important in this scenario. Both polar regions tell the tale. It has dramatically sped up just in the past few years, it is not very gradual any longer. And it is a double whammy in those areas, once the ground areas switch from brilliant white reflect the heat ice and snow, to open exposed dark rock that absorbs the heat, it further increases the rate of radical change, ie, more ice melts right there. It goes faster and faster then. I was just an hour ago reading about greenlands massive glaciers, biologists and geologists are freaking out, they are melting so rapidly there that they keep finding new plants, etc growing, where just a few years ago it was totally barren. The problem is, if the polar regions radically melt, it slows or stops ocean thermal currents, which tend to make the 'moderate' climate areas where most humans live-moderate. If the gulf stream slows more from the arctic dumping melted icewater into it, it will make northern europe wicked cold, and cause the southern US to become unbearably hot and probably cause droughts followed by an increase in super hurricanes from the gulf regions not being able to shed excess heat.
this would just *suck*
If these changes were to take 1000 years (joe random big number), swell, we can gradually adapt to it, I wouldn't see any large problems with it,but if it takes a decade or two (joe random very small number) to drastically alter the climate, I doubt it will be pleasant. Unfortunately, the academic articles that have come out semi recently point to a profound and fast rate of change in both polar regions. This is just raw data, it is not disputable either. The rest of the planet is bound to follow.
The second and tangential part of the whole greenhouse gas debate is only partly of interest to global warming, but is primarily a health issue. The planet is becoming more urbanised, and urban areas become little micro climates and tend to trap poisonous gasses *right there*. I live rural and you can see it and smell it when you aren't used to it, whenever I am forced to go into atlanta it stinks and the air is foul, it is poisonous really, and THAT is 99% man made,and I doubt you'd get much in the way of scientific support to dispute that. If for only that reason alone, we should be pushing for alternatives to petroleum products and coal whenever possible, either replacements, more efficient use (dropping demand and burning cleaner) or by reducing the needs (better designed buildings with triple the insulation for example, etc).
While there are some isues with that graph, lets not examine those for a moment. Lets look at some of that data. A smaller portion of the whole.
If you will look at the date of ~1940 until ~1975. You will not something. The temperature during that time actually drops from a high in the late 30s until approximately the Oil Crisis of the 70s.
To give some context to this time. This period starts right about the time Hitler was invading Poland, and the entry of the world into WWII. During the beginning of this period, much of the world, including the US, was still agrarian. Few people owned cars, even fewer had ever ridden on an airplane. This is shortly after the rural electricification program ended, prior to this there were many people in the US who didn't have electricity or indoor toilets (In rural areas). As we entered WWII industry the world over soared, this was a period of the greatest increase in industrial output in all of Human history, dwarfing anything we have now. This continued throughout WWII, and then after (How are you going to keep them on the farm after they've seen gay Parie). It was during this time that two cars per household became common. People that had not flown on a plane were in the minority, not just here, but the world over. More importantly this wasn't the "efficient" and "clean" industry of today, recall the muscle cars of the 60's. Then energy efficiency wasn't even thought of. More importantly they didn't have the materials or technology to make efficient boilers or engines like we have today. It was during this period that we had the largest increase of greenhouse gasses.
And it was also during this time that the global climate dropped in temperature, enough so that Newsweek published the concerns of scientists that People were causing the problem of Global Cooling. http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/cooling1.pdf/.
As to the graph. This is the surface temperature record. One of the serious weakness of AGW (that is often glossed over) is that based on "Greenhouse theory" The atmosphere warms, warming the surface. What we see from direct measurement is that the surface is warming faster than the atmosphere, precluding that greenhouse warming is causing the surface temperature increase, and that a large portion of the heat increase can be attributed to larger land development, and the closeness of the sensors to developed areas, and less in rural, or in wilderness. And before someone posts any articles referencing the recent UAH MSU data that corrects for atmosphere warming by allowing for satellite drift. Keep in mind that that number, even in the most optimistic interpretations, still does not bring atmospheric warming up to the same level as surface temperatures, and based on greenhouse theory, atmospheric temperatures should be ~30% higher than surface. Even with the correction they are still below surface temperatures.
whether or not the US population as a whole gets the message that burning Arab Juice is Un-American. I predict that they will and that successive US governments will make a considerable effort to reduce the amount of imported liquid hydrocarbon fuels. The main result will, thankfully, be a reduction in the rate of Global Warming. International Treaties == Nothing, [Patriot|National]ism == Everything.
WOW, BRILLIANT!. You my friend are a genious!. You have thought of these things that no scientist ever even considered. Those scientists are obviously stupid and greedy. Too stupid to take into account things like the sun, loss of cloud cover and too greedy to be consider things like volcanoes and deepwater CO2. They are just riding around in their bentleys with their fat paychecks from the govt writing about how global warming is caused by human activity.
You should be a scientist man. Truly you are able to think of things not one of climatologists has ever thought of.
evil is as evil does
We all know about global warming, but there is also the theory of "global dimming", which been backed up by extensive research. The global dimming theory says that the true extent of global warming is being masked by pollution particles, which block out UV rays and therefore prevents them from warming the planet. The cruel irony is that if we move to a %100 renewable, non-pulluting energy existance, these UV blocking particles will dissipate back to natural levels, thus allowing more UV to bounce around in the greenhouse, and exposing us to the full effect of global warming!
The greenhouse particles exist for greater than 100 years, meaning the only solution would be to remove both the greenhouse particles and the UV blocking particles, how that may be achieved is unclear.
Using a graph from another poster. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/carbdiox.html/
This shows 5 separate changes in excess of 6 Degrees C in 450 thousand years. This graph is supplied by the AGW crowd.
I don't know where you get the 1 degree change in a million years, I don't know of any scientific study that would claim such a thing. We regularly see greater changes than that in any time scale greater than a minute. Day, hour, month, year, decade, Century, Millennium. In fact we saw a change greater than 1 degree from 1850 to 1900.
As to the permafrost comment. A recent glacier receded in Greenland. They talked about how it had been there since the last Ice Age. They also mentioned that under the Ice was revealed a Viking Church. I don't know how to correlate the two comments, as the Vikings weren't around 10,000 years ago, since the church is tangible, and the comments is un-substantiated. I would go with the fact that the glacier was not there during Viking times, since I don't believe they would go through the trouble to build a church under a glacier.
As to the permafrost. The concern is the decomposing of the Peat underneath. Since peat is made of plants that cannot grow in permafrost, I would reckon that there never was much "perma" in permafrost. I would be greatly interested in any carbon dating of said peat.
Sky rocketing markets, wars over energy rights, mass unemployment and rioting as a result of that unemployment
Except that those prognostications are utterly wrong: a reduction in energy usage doesn't produce unemployment or result in wars or rioting. If anything at all, in increases employment, both in the development of more energy efficient technologies, and ultimately in the service sector (where automation is replaced with manual labor).
Yes we have a tremendous amount to lose if we're wrong.
No, we (as in "the people") only have to gain from lowered carbon emissions: we get a cleaner environment, less risk from global warming, reduced chance of conflict over energy, and more employment. Who stands to lose are the existing energy companies and manufacturers, who have a huge investment in old energy technologies and production methods; any change to the status quo threatens their business big time.
"You do realize that just because a majority of people believe one thing does not make it true, right?"
Your belief, and anyone else's belief is irrelevant to science in regards to a "scientific conclusion". Let me explain it to you historically with one of your own example, "At another, people thought atoms consisted of a proton with electrons orbiting around it."
This is not true, because it is inaccurate. No scientist thought or believed that atoms consisted of electrons orbiting atoms. It is more accurate to say that at one time, the best theory, which had the fewest weaknesses and was based upon empirical data and scientific methodology, was the model that electrons orbited protons. Yet even then, this theory was known to have weakeness, like the electron radiating because it was accelerating, but there was no better theory so this was the "scientific conclusion".
Now we physicists have gone even further, down to the level of quarks and leptons. The physics that describes this is "quantum field theory", and the model is called the "standard model". No scientist believes that atoms are made out of quarks and leptons becuase this believe is unnecessary. It is more accurate to say that scientists have concluded based upon empirical data and scientific methodology that the best theory with the fewest weaknesses is the standard model. Yet even now, without a better theory, this theory is known to have weakenesses. For instance, it can explain neither mass, nor neutrino oscillations, nor gravity.
One of the hottest topics in physics is the search for the next best model to describe the atom. Would physicist's be so eager to search for something they did not believe in? The answer is neither 'yes' or 'no', but rather 'belief is unnecessary in science to scientific conclusions'.
Similarly, no scientist believes in global warming. Their belief is irrelevant. It is more accurate to say that the best theory that describes the climate and the recent climate changes, is a climatological theory which includes the theory called "global warming", because this theory has the fewest weaknesses and is based upon scientific methodology and empirical data. To dispute this, you must show, using the scientific methodology of climatologist's, that there is a theory that better fits the empirical data and has fewer weakness than the previously prevailing theory, "global warming". Even though I am a physics graduate student in an accredited PhD program, I do not possess the scientific background that includes the scientific methodology and empirical data of the climatologists. Thus, I cannot dispute this. I will hazard a guess that neither can you, nor can 'certain politicians' (even if they right fancy books and news articles) nor anyone else who is not trained in the scientific methodology of the climatologists and their empirical data.
All you have is your beliefs, which you are free to have, so long as you are aware that they are both irrelevant and unnecesary to the scientific discussion of "scientific conclusions".
~Kevin
I seem to recall that the sodium lamps actually came into use in part to help astronomers. IIRC, they have a very narrow spectrum that is easily filtered, unlike broad spectrum white lights.
--ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
A poster to the extropy-chat mailing list pointed out that James Annan also created a global warming claim on the Foresight Exchange that people can bid on:
3 0
http://www.ideosphere.com/fx-bin/Claim?claim=GW20
If I'm reading the current bid correctly, global average temperatures are predicted to rise 0.72 degrees celsius by 2032.
There's also a Nature news item covering this.
There's plenty of other wagers similar to this one on longbets.org, except the loser pays money to a charity instead of to the winner.
A few examples:
* A $20,000 bet between Mitchell Kapor (founder of Lotus) and Ray Kurzweil on whether or not the Turing Test will be passed by 2029
* A $10,000 bet between Esther Dyson and Bill Campbell on whether or not Russia will be the world leader in software development by 2012
* A $2,000 bet on whether or not someone alive in the year 2000 will still be alive in 2150
* A $2,000 bet between Craig Mundie (Microsoft CTO) and Eric Schmit (Google CEO) on whether or not commercial passengers will routinely fly in pilotless airplanes by 2030
We should keep in mind that there are good economic incentives built into the funding system for scientists to overstate their case. There are plenty of examples of this in action:
(i) the advantages of a reusable Shuttle.
(ii) the advantages of a Space station.
(iii) the exaggerated AIDS risk, where the NIH kept on promising a million infected Americans every year, for nearly two decades, before it came true. This one has the distinction from the two above that fighting AIDS is a worthwhile cause that was not properly funded until alarmist statements were made.
(iv) the risk of meteorites hitting earth.
(v) the risks of overpopulation (see Malthus).
(vi) the risks of shortages (see the Ehlrich-Simon wager).
(vii) the benefits of the next $20B megasuperduper-cyclotron (still waiting for my muon toaster oven).
(viii) the benefits of artificial intelligence.
and on and on.
The publicity seekers have been talking about global warming of several degrees C as a fact since the mid 1990s. Examining the literature the picture is different: global warning of just half a degree C was conclusively proven only a couple of years back.
So to sum it up, the risks of global warming are overstated by the scientific press. Something to keep in mind is that tempering the claims of global warming does not mean completely ignoring them (like Dubya does today or Regan did with AIDS in his time).
Don't lump the whole United States together we are more divisive regionally now than ever. Where I live in Humboldt county, CA many of us are talking about holding a new consitutional convention and seeing if any more of the northwest wishes to leave the emerging US theocracy.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
How funny. I have multiple degrees all in science(Microbio/genetic engineering and Computer Science). I have worked at C.D.C., IBM Watson, Bell Labs, and US West AT, all in research positions.
Oh, on a side note, I have been a registered libertarian since 1994 (as well as voted that way except for the last election), and yet, I would never refer to CATO for science.
As to your believing in the scientific method, I seriously doubt that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.