Slashdot Mirror
Your Thoughts on the Great Ozone Debate?
Hrodvitnir asks: "Yesterday the BBC reported that the hole in the ozone layer above the Antarctic is the largest on record. Today CNN says that it is recovering, or at least stabilized. Do we really know what's going on? Is this more bad science/false studies, or are they both partially right?"
Let's see who we have:
Who are you going to believe?
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Fox! After all, they're fair and balanced!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Bad science? More likely bad reporting. The public likes their news in small, easilly digested sound bites, but something as complex as environmental policy issues don't fit that template. So one scientific paper says the ozone hole isn't as big as before (even if the previous case was a record breaker) and the press says that things are recovering. That's just misleading.
What we need are better educated reporters. And a better educated public. But I'm not holding my breath for that, no matter how polluted the air is.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
Its because oxygen is heavier that ozone, so it falls to the bottom of the earth and displaces the ozone.
As long as you don't have a consensus on the facts, you assume and act according to the worst case scenario.
The owls are not what they seem
The reason they end up over the poles is because that's where the offending particles end up. To read about why this is so, visit here: Ozone Hole.
A blog like any other.
The fourth paragraph of the BBC article says:
"There have been signs over the last two years that damage to the ozone layer has reduced, but a full recovery is not expected until around 2050."
Sounds like the same thing CNN is saying to me.
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
The earth has been here for millions of years....
Scientists measuring the ozone layer have only been here for about 30 years.
Real measurement for 30 years verses millions of years of unknown history.
Extrapolation is easy if you really don't care.
Well, in this case, it's pretty easy. Both stories say exactly the same thing - the rate of damage has slowed but the damage hasn't halted, and it's projected to be around 50 years before the damage is completely halted and the ozone recovers to pre-industrial status.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Here's a good link to the story...quite a bit of detail not present in either article cited in the submission.
Interesting that the sources that hold that the hole is gtting worse are European, while the sources that state everything's OK are American.....hmm....
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
It really depends on what the political agenda of the person writing the story/the station is. On one hand the intention might be to make Bush look bad in which case, it is the biggest ever. On the other side, reduce panic and therefore say its recovering. If cnn said it was the biggst ever, they migth be accused of scaremongering.
Go look at some stories on democratic underground and you will see stories saying that Bush was responsible for hurricanes because of global warrming and a ton of "scientists" backing that. Look on michael moore.com and cindy sheehan has a post about jews who took soldiers away for war in iraq and not being here to stop the looting ( hello posse comitatus) in New Orleans.
My point, "News" is basically the blog of some reporter with about as much factual basis behind it. (See jason blair)
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
This has nothing to do with science and everything to do with bias in media. The real question is who is lying and who is telling the truth? My money is on the folks who say global warming is happening because they have quantifiable data to back their claims up. The people who are opposed to those findings have yet to produce reliable proof. But getting back to the question at hand, where does the bias come from? The news media corporations have many companies behind them. And those companies have investors backing them financially expecting a return on their investment. And not just a reasonable return, but unrealistic expectations. This drives those parent companies to cover their asses every which way as long as whatever they are doing makes a profit. They could be putting newborn babies in crash test simulators and if there was a tidy profit to be made from it, they'd do it and then try to hide the fact that they're doing it. Meanwhile, the media companies that they control aren't going to leak a word of the story because the parent company could shoot them down permanently. It's gotten out of hand and I suggest that some people at the tops of many corporations need to be handled in the way that Pat Robertson suggested that Hugo Chavez be handled. ;P Seriously. All the investors need to put down the crack pipes and realize that they are indirectly responsible for a lot of really rotten things. Don't just bury your head in the sand. Accept the fucking responsibility.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Why the US? You should be focusing on China and India. While the US did not sign Kyoto, it is still taking some steps on the environment (amazing considering the prevailing attitude of the party in power). China and India signed the Kyoto treaty - in which they made no committments (not sure why signing was a big deal, honestly, since they don't have to do anything).
Kyoto was intended to keep polution at 1990 levels (I would argue to reduce it from there - but just keeping it there was a start). China and India are countries of 1.3 and 1.0 billion people where pollution is skyrocketing, and no one is talking about it. The pollution in some cities in China and its health effects are astouding - nothing in the modern US or Western Europe compares. Why can't we agree that ALL countries need to go back to 1990 levels - and then work to reduce from there.
The big unspoken reason the US rejected Kyoto was it put US manufactures at a disadvantage versus ones in China (and India, but less of a consideration), because of different environmental requirements. You must have a level playing field to compete, and the US rejected Kyoto's attempt to create a system that favoured China.
If you look at the trends out to 2050 and 2100, the US is NOT the problem - it's China and India.
Sarcasm and hyperbole are the final refuges for weak minds
Who wants ozone anyways? That stuff is poisonous!
So, the ozone layer is stabilizing... meaning that it is shrinking by less each year. It's still shrinking, however, so the hole will continue to grow for a bit.
Also, there is a 26-month cycle for equatorial winds that affects the size of the Antarctic hole, so there's a quasi-biennial cycle to the ozone layer hole.
So, the only question is, how do you want to spin it?
The hole is still getting bigger. We need to step up pollution controls. Or
Nothing to see here, the hole is stabilizing at it's current size and we expect it to go back to normal within 50 years, so our current ozone-depleting-compound-pollution policies are fine.
Are we doing the best we can in re: O3 layer? No.
Do we need to do better? I dunno, and apparently, neither does anyone else.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I'm not exactly sure what the article submitter is trying to imply or ask?
The submitter seems to be trying to say that the BBC and CNN articles contradict one another. However, this isn't the case at all. The BBC article is talking about the size of this year's hole; CNN seems to be talking about the size of the hole in a more general over-years sense. CNN is saying that the ozone hole is levelling off in a long-term sense; the BBC is talking about year-to-year fluctuations. The BBC itself even says: There have been signs over the last two years that damage to the ozone layer has reduced, but a full recovery is not expected until around 2050, seeming to support the CNN article.
Moreover, the article submission is misleading. The submission says the 2005 is the largest on record. The BBC says the 2005 hole is one of the largest on record. The BBC itself says: They show that the Antarctic ozone hole was larger in mid-August this year than at the same period in any year since 2000. The 2000 ozone hole was still larger than this year's hole!
CFCs take a certain amount of time to fall out of the atmosphere, and the damage they cause lasts a certain amount of time beyond that. There is no sign in the news here that the Montreal protocol is anything but working; we're jolting back and forth within a certain area but at least the ozone hole is no longer getting worse constantly.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I predict that the ozone layer will vanish one day, not because of first world countries, but because third world countries dont have the cash for the more expensive ozone-friendly chemicals.
When that happens, a whole bunch of people are going to die from skin cancer and/or will go blind from cataracts, while the survivors who are more resistant to UVs will procreate.
I'd give anything to be around at that time, only to see how the creationism/evolution debate turns out.
The articles linked are both right in some sense, the article submission is wrong... the slashdot summary here says the 2005 hole is the "the largest on record", the BBC article it links says it is the largest on record since 2000, which was the actual all-time record...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Both are completely right. An elaboration: Wheras the CNN article discusses the stabilization of ozone depletion, the BBC article discusses the size of the Antarctic ozone hole. The BBC piece says, in not so many words, that the size of the ozone depleted region was largest in 2000 and 2003, owing to biennial-ish seasonal fluctuations and weather conditions. The hole might be of similar size THIS year as well for the same reasons. However, to quote from the very same BBC article:
So then, both articles do indeed agree. They were not referring to separate conclusions on the same issue, but instead to different facets of the same phenomenon.Two years ago researchers produced the first evidence that damage to the ozone layer is slowing down; globally, they showed, destruction continues, but at a slower rate than before.
That is down to the Montreal Protocol, established in 1987, which has limited production and use of CFCs and related substances.
But the indications are that the ozone layer will not be back to its pre-industrial condition for at least another 50 years.
I'm not familiar with this issue in particular, but BBC > CNN for essentially all values of news.
Carbon Dioxide has no impact on the ozone hole.
The ozone hole, which this article is about, is not connected to the separate problem of global climate change as a result of human-produced greenhouse gases. The ozone hole is also a problem which is easier to deal with; the CFCs and particles which cause ozone layer damage fall out of the atmosphere much faster than carbon dioxide.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Who wants ozone? Believe it or not, Los Angeles!
The city water department makes ozone to disinfect drinking water. It produces essentially zero carcinogens compared to chlorine. Because ozone can't be relied on to prevent contamination downstream of the treatment plant, chloramine is added as a final step. Any excess ozone is destroyed by catalytic degradation.
I saw this plant roughly 18 years ago when it was dedicated. It's near Sylmar, and was installed to treat water from the formerly prisine, but now less so, Owens Valley.
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
Do we really know what's going on?
No.
There, that was easy. Now, as I read somewhere around here the other day, science is not truth nor is it fact. It's a method that attempts to discern both of those things. It's a good method and as time goes on the results of our discoveries show in the things we build and the advancement of our society. So before I continue, I'm not anti-science and have no desire to be branded as some sort of Bible thumper. (Which seems to be the title given to anyone who dares question the perfection of our holy scientists.)
The problem is that humans (whether religious zealots or scientific zealots) rarely want to admit they're on the path to truth. They want to say they've found it, they know what it is and that's all she wrote. No one wants to say that they're trying when they can say that they're successful and make a really big deal out of it. For instance:
People who defend sensational scientific beliefs are just as contradictory as religious nuts. When they're talking about evolution they point to the fact that the changes and cycles take thousands and thousands of years. Geological changes? Even longer. Nature, as a whole moves in very slow patterns and makes very slow changes. It's not in a hurry. However, suddenly we analyse weather for what... 100 years? 200 years? We pluck out a pinhole sized chunk of a 4,000,000,000 year old pie and think that it really tells us anything that's truly long term?
I really love George Carlin's routine on the environment. He make a single statement that really brings it all into focus. Are humans so arrogant that we think we can destory the earth let alone save it?
I have a pretty simple policy on whether or not I believe a particular scientific theory/"discovery" and it works like this: If a "discovery" is made that yields cool new gadgets that improve my quality of life (TV, computers, polyester, bath puffs) then I believe it. If a "discovery" is heavily debated and spends a lot of time coming out of the mouths of the far left and/or the far right, I can usually ignore it and move on with my life. Politically pushed and motivated science is the worst kind. In an ironic twist, science should be scientifically motivated.
Stop telling me we know how everything works or that our methods are perfect and all that's left is time and discovery. In 250 years they're going to poke as much fun at what we know now as we do the science of 1750. Our medicine will be viewed as barbaric and primitive and our ideas on things like quantum physics will be viewed as remedial at best. In fact, with the speed discoveries are made now, the gap may be even bigger in 250 years. Again, this doesn't mean everything we know is bogus, it just means you shouldn't treat it like the be all end all.
Use science as a guide and use it to the best of your abilities. However, putting the level of faith in sensational theories that fundamentalists put in a literal 7 day (24 hours a day) creation of the world really isn't any better.
Scientifically, we're moving in the right direction. We're doing our best. However, deal with the fact that a lot of so-called "science" is politically motivated bullshit. Also deal with the fact that some things that we hold dear now are going to be discarded as we learn more about the universe and its laws and mechanics. With the exception of spotting a huge space object heading for the planet, doomsday science can be summarily ignored.
3) Ted Turner hasn't been intimately involved in what goes on with CNN for a decade (he sold CNN in 1995) and conservative Walter Isaacson moved the network very much to the right when he took over in 2001.
the chickens will come home to roost.
Sir, it is highly unlikely that chickens will ever roost in the Arctic or Antarctic. Not only could they not withstand the extreme climate they do not have the ability to fly the hundreds of miles over open ocean that would be required to make it to either of those regions. Furthermore chickens are not indigenous to either the Arctic or the Antarctic so they would never "come home" to roost as neither of those regions could be properly called "The Home of Chickens". Your science, sir, is all a shambles. Disgraceful... disgraceful.
Cute explanation, but wrong. CFCs have a stratospheric halflife of 70-120 years, and catalyze ozone destruction, thus reducing the steady-state ozone level when balancing solar ozone creation and ozone destruction.
Basically, CFCs long life allows them to reach the stratosphere. There, they slowly break down, releasing a constant supply of chlorine ions. This participates in many reactions, most notably Cl + O3 -> ClO + O2; ClO + O -> Cl + O2. Note that the chlorine ion is still left over. This ion goes on to complete thousands of more reactions before it is ultimately lost (to a variety of mechanisms).
sed "s/SJW.*$/... never mind. I was about to say something stupid, and also, I'm a troglodyte./Ig"
Especially when critical studies that form the basis of global warming theory so poorly documented and have undergone no genuinely critical peer review. Our founding documents and main research on global climate change contain cherry-picked data series to produce the desired results to "prove" that global warming is a result of automobile emissions. Secondary research to confirm the original research was done with similarly cherry-picked series and is even less well-documented data series. When we can't even go back and review the physical evidence used by our researchers because they have misplaced or just "don't remember" where they gathered their data, any intelligent and appropriately skeptical scientific-thinking person ought to call for more and better research before advocating sweeping policies that will cost the world economies an amount of money so large as to be nearly uncountable.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
I love how anti-climate change folk, just like creationists, love to pretend that there's not a near scientific consensus on the subject (in this case, anthropogenic climate change). They usually make clear their lack of knowlege on the subject by saying things like:
"determination of how much ozone was in Antarctica's atmosphere prior to the industrial revolution"
CO2 does not destroy ozone. CFCs destroy ozone. They were not developed until 1928, and didn't become widespread until the 1960s. You're confusing ozone studies with temperature and CO2-level studies.
sed "s/SJW.*$/... never mind. I was about to say something stupid, and also, I'm a troglodyte./Ig"
I did not and do not pretend that there is no scientific consensus on the matter. I also did not say I am anti-climate change. In fact, I made it rather clear that there clearly IS climate change going on. The science that documents this is all but irrefutable. My concerns lie in the research that "proves" that the change is anthropogenic.
CO2 does not destroy ozone.
I didn't say that it does. I asked how we know how much ozone there was in Antarctica's atmosphere before the industrial revolution, since the parent poster to MY post had talked about returning ozone levels to "pre-industrial" normals. How do we know what those levels were? If we do, great, but how?
CFCs destroy ozone. They were not developed until 1928, and didn't become widespread until the 1960s. You're confusing ozone studies with temperature and CO2-level studies.
No, I'm not, I'm quite clear on the difference. Perhaps I mixed the two topics inappropriately in my post. If I was unclear, I apologize. I have two separate questions.
1) What are the "normal" levels of ozone that should exist over Antarctica, and how do we know that those hypothetical levels are "normal"?
2) Although I do not doubt that global climate change is going on, I am skeptical of the research done thus far to prove that it is anthropogenic. The famous "hockey stick" graph shows temperature rising in direct correlation to the advent of the automobile (hence, CO2 emissions). However, the same graph can be found in any number of samples of utterly random information with enough red noise. Further, the pioneering and supporing research on the topic has been found to cherry-pick data series to produce the intended results. In fact, the SAME GUYS who came up with the "hockey stick" graph originally found NO correlation, and kept including and excluding series until they got a correlation, and then published THAT. Among the included series were a study of a half dozen tree rings in the Southwestern United States, which were the sole representative series for a long time period. Now, if you want to tell me it's good science to extrapolate the ring widths of a half dozen trees to be representative of a world containing billions of trees of tens of thousands different species, that's your business, but I will disagree that this is good enough science on which to base global climate policy. What's more, the original samples are now mostly unavailable, much of the original data (including WHERE the trees were found and measured, and exactly WHEN and under what circumstances) is missing, lost, or out of the recollection of the scientists involved.
For my money, if we're going to subject ourselves to lifestyle changes amounting to $100 trillion dollars to limit global temperature increase over the next 300 years to 6 degrees instead of 8, I'd like more research to back up that we are unquestionably the cause. It all SOUNDS GOOD and LOOKS good, but I'm skeptical of the original research and much of the supporting research, and I question the motives of the major players involved in the project.
You don't get more government grants by coming back and saying, "There's nothing to worry about here."
I DID NOT SAY and DO NOT THINK that global warming is not happening.
I am undecided on whether or not I think it's anthropogenic in nature. The research I have read does not prove it to me; not conclusively, not convincingly, not even suggestively. The research alone doesn't prove jack shit to me, it's when it holds up and passes a serious, critical peer review that I start to trust it, and I don't get the sense that global climate change has been given its due review. Finding flaws in it is a one-wa
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
Yes, most CO2 emitted by human activities comes from burning fuels. However, I assume you mean forest fires. Those do not affect net CO2 levels over the long term because the carbon in forests had been pulled out of the air within the last few decades. That's not the case for fossil fuels.
Volcanoes?
Despite the popular urban legend that claims otherwise, volcanoes account for about 1% as much CO2 as human activities. Look it up.
of Animals breathing? Decaying animals and plants?
All of the carbon from those sources has been pulled from the air via photosynthesis in the past few years, so no net increase in CO2.
Does factory-created CO2 have a different composition that that made from fires?
Not a different composition from forest fires, but a different source of carbon as explained above.
Hey, guess what, that means they aren't burning coal or wood fires.
Far more coal is being burned per capita to generate electricity than was burned prior to the industrial revolution. As explained above, burning wood has no net effect on CO2 levels beyond the short term.
All carbon released from burning or decaying plant material will generally be recaptured by the next plant that grows to replace the previous one. There is no corresponding mechanism to recapture excess carbon released from fossil fuels. (Other than the process that got the fossil fuels there in the first place: gradual deposit of dead organisms into sedimentary rocks. That's a painfully slow process that is totally overwhelmed by our current rate of release.)
In summary, you really have no clue about how the carbon cycle works.
> The big unspoken reason the US rejected Kyoto was
> it put US manufactures at a disadvantage versus
> ones in China (and India, but less of a
> consideration), because of different environmental
> requirements. You must have a level playing field
> to compete, and the US rejected Kyoto's attempt to
> create a system that favoured China.
Hm.
The Chinese emit 2.3 Tons of CO2 per capita per year
Americans emit 20.1 Tons of CO2 per capita per year.
Clearly any idiot can see that the Chinese are the problem.
http://savingiceland.org
Stratospheric ozone (O3) and O2 exist in an equilibrium, constantly being converted to and from one another by reaction with UV light. Free chlorine in the stratosphere in the presence of a substrate like SO2 or PSCs (polar stratospheric clouds) can "tilt" the equilibrium toward O2 (O3 + Cl- => O2 + ClO). The Antarctic has a far more extensive PSC layer because of its larger cold air mass relative to the Artic, thus the ozone hole there is larger even though most sources of stratospheric Cl are in the northern hemisphere. In the Antarctic night, when no new O2 is being created by the UV raction, the Cl-influenced equilibrium swings dramatically toward O2, causing the famed "ozone hole". Stratosperic chlorine is almost entirely man-made. Volcanoes and sea water produce water soluble forms of Cl that wash out in precipitation before reaching the stratosphere. CFC's and similar Cl- and Fl-containing molecules are mostly insoluble in water, and when released mix in the atmosphere at as "trasporter" molecules. They mix in the stratosphere where the Cl molecule is released by the strong UV light at that altitude. Supervolcanoes like the one under Yellowstone would definitely alter the Cl budget in the upper atmosphere. But even Pinatubo, the largest volcano of the 20th century, changed stratospheric Cl by only 6-7%. Volcanoes do inject SO2 into the stratosphere in singificant amounts. That SO2 can act like a global PSC layer, depleting ozone world-wide. Hope this helps....
What are the "normal" levels of ozone that should exist over Antarctica, and how do we know that those hypothetical levels are "normal"
There are four main radicals that break down ozone: Cl-, Br-, NO-, and OH-. Cl- is easily the most damaging - the chemical reactions involved are well understood. In the early 1970s, natural sources of Cl- were dominant (there are different source molecules - CFCs aren't made in nature). We've easily displaced them in terms of quantity, however - now, 84% of Cl ions are from CFCs.
At the same time, we've watched average antarctic ozone levels cut by a third, and minimum ozone levels cut by two thirds. Worldwide, levels were been cut by five percent in two decades, with the rate accelerating as stratospheric CFC concentrations increased.
What more do you need?
hockey stick graph
What is your obsession with some "hockey stick" graph? There have been thousands of studies, and you obsess over a single graph? The physics of global warming are apparent (CO2 *is* a greenhouse gas), its concentration has increased by 20% in the past century, we can model accurately how that much CO2 got there (the rate of influx vs. outflux), and we have ice cores that show an incredible correlation between CO2 concentration (as well as methane, another greenhouse gas) and temperature over the past several hundred thousand years. This is just the start of a summary of the literature, by the way - there is a *lot* more. Again, what more do you need? There's a reason that there's a near universal scientific consensus, and it's not a "hockey stick graph".
sed "s/SJW.*$/... never mind. I was about to say something stupid, and also, I'm a troglodyte./Ig"
Just out of curiosity, has anyone bothered to compare the atomic weight of CFC's to say, general atmoshpere of comparitive volume (espcially of the higher O3 areas?). Seems to me it would be mighty diffucult for the CFC's to traverse up that high due to their weight.
The atmosphere is turbulently mixed up to 80 km. This is fortunate, because otherwise the nitrogen would sink below the oxygen and we couldn't breathe.
see this lecture for example. The relevant part is at the end.
Oh, wait a sec! They also only collect AT THE SOUTH POLE. Must like it cold or something.
No, the atmosphere is well-mixed, remember? They only catalyze ozone breakdowns at extremely cold temperatures.
One ought to do some research on the effects of CFC with Ozone (O3).
yes, perhaps one could win a Nobel Prize or something.
[usual paranoid rants about DuPont elided. Let's stipulate that DuPont wanted to make money.]
I agree with an above post. Dissenting voices cause society to label one as a "nutcase" or "extremist" Isn't science all about finding logical explanations to the world around us? I say, follow the money trail, and you'll find who concocted the stories of global warming, global cooling, ozone holes.
Err, yes, I agree. Follow the money is right. I think it might be the case that the tiny little energy corporations are trembling under the onslaught of misinformation from the hugely financed scientific professional organizations and NGOs. But it might be the other way around.
mt
If we want to speed up this process, we need to remove CFCs from the stratosphere. I doubt this is feasible, especially without serious side effects.
Stephan
Apparently, the Earth magnetic field has decreased by 10% in the last 10 years. I'm an electrical engineer and during my studies in sub-atomic physics, I learned that a particles velocity can be effected by magnetic fields. I keep hearing about the increased activity of our Sun and I believe it's possible that more of the Sun's radiation is penetrating the Earth's magnetic field due to it being weaker. If more radiation hits the Earth and the Sun is spewing out more heat, shouldn't that also increase the overall temperature of the Earth and can global warming be attributed to this? I've been bouncing this idea in my head for a while now and I can't see why this MAY not be true.
In science, you can make two broad sorts of errors.
- you can fail to find something that's really there, and suffer from its effect,
- or you can find something that's not there, and suffer from spending time/effort/money/angst/blather on it needlessly.
In this instance, we'll could miss figuring out the ozone and suffer the consequences. If that happens, we'll need to make more ozone.
Or we could be wrong about the perceived ozone problem. If that happens. we'll need to make more time/effort/money/angst/blather.
I'm guessing it's going to be easier to come up with replacements for time/effort/money/angst/blather than it will be to order up some replacement ozone.
That's based on our existing experience with replacing resources. This year, between the tsunami and Katrina, we'll be seeing what happens when entire cities, including a modern first-world one, have to be brought back to functioning literally stick by stick, brick by brick.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
There's no evidence that the Earths diminishing magnetic field is related to global warming, but there is a strong correspondence between solar activity and global warming for as long as we have records on both. It's not immediately obvious why solar activity would affect temperatures on Earth (not solar temperature or radiation output, which are nearly constant, but activity such as sunspots).
I do, however, find the disappearance of the Earth's magnetic field quite troubling. Given that it's pretty important to surviving solar radiation to begin with, and is merely a symptom of something even more mysterious happening in the core, it could be quite dangerous. I guess it's not interesting to people who want to use global warming as a weapon for their pet political cause (since it's clearly unrelated to human activity) so it doesn't get any attention.
The Earth's crust more or less floats over the solid inner core, and there's no reason to assume they rotate the same speed or direction. However, if the core changes the speed or direction of it's rotation significantly (some interpretations of the magnetic field changing direction requires this), the planet as a whole will still have to conserve angular momentum, so the crust could be expected to change the speed or direction of its rotation. While the change would only be fast in geological terms, the poles don't have to move much for life to get interesting.
But, of course, we have very little data about the core, so we are left with making computer models which account for the magnetic field changes and guessing which one might have the accurate underlying assumptions.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I suspect that the majority of scientists that say they believe in a God or Gods are just feeding back what they expect the left half of the IQ bell curve wants to hear so they'll go away and let them do real work.
I have yet to encounter a good argument for the existence of a god. Nary a one. If you think you have one, go ahead and try; I expect I'll eat you for lunch, and generally speaking, it'll take about one average size paragraph. Nor have I ever encountered any person, regardless of how educated and/or intelligent, who can do anything but fall back to an utterly lame and unconvincing "well, I have faith it is so" in the face of moderately informed counter questioning and observation-sharing from me. And I'm not even all that smart. I know I'm not; I have very smart people who work for me, it's quite humbling. :-)
I agree entirely with the upstream comment that any scientist who seriously claims he "believes" in God, Santa, or the Easter Bunny is going to go to the bottom of my credibility index, and right quickly. If you can't think clearly about abstracts, if you accept propositions without evidence, if you are willing to accept one unanswerable and untestable proposition as the solution and/or explanation for another unanswerable and untestable proposition, then you have demonstrated that you don't understand scientific method and that should be (is, for me) a death blow to credibility in science.
What these survey readers (and givers) need to realize is that it is not "OK" to be an atheist in this country; it is a conservative, dangerous environment within which to choose to come out for atheism and it is also time-consuming -- should a person designated as a scientist make such a claim they'll likely end up spending a lot of time defending said claim to people they really don't need to be spending time with. Now, some of us -- like me -- have the time and there is no particular loss to society if I spend my time that way. Perhaps there is even a benefit; some people are just confused and will immediately understand when presented (finally) with reason over religion. But I'd hate for a scientist to spend a lot of time doing so. I'm much more interested in our learning how the world actually works than I am in hearing a scientist try to debunk the myth-makers. For these reasons, surveys that claim real, productive scientists are "religious" feel dubious to me. I'd actually be fascinated to meet one who could back up their belief system with other than the usual easily defeated lines of rubbish; but it's not happened as yet, and I'm not exactly holding my breath. I think it'd be a good use of their time, though, as it'd keep them away from the beakers, chalkboard and animal cages for a while. :-)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.