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Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House
Jeff K writes "Facts and science collide with tribal loyalties, the Washington Post reports: 'Scientists doing climate research for the federal government say the Bush administration has made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the public about global warming. The result, the researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing.'"
Is this really a shocker? Bush has had a policy of denying global warming is a result of humans, the fact he is giving the NOAA extra money for research rather than prevention is quite interesting, global warming is something that is happening.
I remember years ago when the offical stance was there is no such thing as global warming, this has evolved to, there is no proof of global warming, to okay it exists but it isn't our fault, somehow I get the feeling the intention now is to attempt to prove it isn't caused by the biggest donators to the Bush administration.
When the whitehouse and the pentagon started to open up and declassify documents all those years ago, it was a good thing it felt like finally they are opening up, now things are going back to feeling more like the cold war, a policy of secrecy, spying (although internally now rather than on a foreign element), lies, and gagging the people with important information.
So as you feel your skin cancer forming and watch the ice caps come washing over us, just remember it isn't because of mankind, President Bush says so.
GeekServ Unix Consulting Services (http://www.geekserv.com)
"Although Bush and his top advisers have said that Earth is warming and human activity has contributed to this, they have questioned some predictions and caution that mandatory limits on carbon dioxide could damage the nation's economy."
Of course, the cost of doing nothing is much lower in the long run.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
It doesn't appear that US citizens even care about global warming. Maybe work on this first, or is the Federal goverment responsible for public morals?
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
The result, the researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing.'"
You only have to read a slashdot story on Climate Change (and the amount of time posters call it "global warming" to know that the vast majority of people all over the world are not getting the full story on climate change.
I'm more worried about the current administration's failure to legislate forced change to energy (particularly oil & gas) consumption, then I am about the American public's lack of awareness of the facts.
My pics.
I guess this is the price you pay for taking money from the government for your research. Perhaps the government shouldn't be doling out the money. Maybe the government shouldn't be given that power. The power of the US Government comes mostly not from the armed forces but the money it takes in and gives out.
"There has been a change in how we're expected to interact with the press," said Pieter Tans, who measures greenhouse gases linked to global warming and has worked at NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder for two decades. He added that although he often "ignores the rules" the administration has instituted, when it comes to his colleagues, "some people feel intimidated -- I see that."
I think I like this Pieter Tans guy. I think there needs to be more scientists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H people like him, who don't allow their convictions to be challenged by the administration.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
... the RIAA and MPAA got the White House to hide the fact that global warming is caused by a lack of pirates ...
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Bush administration not caring about reality and the people living in it... who'da thunk it?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Americans will only start caring when they lose some coastal cities. The sad thing is, that global warming is a relatively slow effect, it doesnt give the big bang that a hurricane or earthquake does ... so it slowly creeps in and over time will do much more damage that what most quick natural disasters could do, and the effects will be permanent. The entire time ignorance will be the key to keeping the population in the dark about the threats to their lovely house with a coastal view. But as usual, the loss of life have been given a price, cause afterall, it would be more expensive to do something about it than to sit there and wait for it to happen.
Come on guys, your scientific research is all flawed. There is no such thing as global warming! You need to go back, and do some more studies.
Why do you keep saying that the clima....*GLUB* *GLUB* *WHOOSH* *FLUSH* *GURGLE* *BUBBLE* *pop*
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Not to draw TOO many parallels, but remember when Galileo et al gave scientific findings that the governing powers didn't like? One of the causes, I feel from experiences with research, for the acceleration of scientific discovery is the change from a few centuries ago when science was done at the behest of the wealthy/powerful for status. As science was removed from the political, innovation and creativity flourished. This seems a bad sign of a growing politicization of scientific research, which is what kept things so slow for so long.
It seems like what they are complaining about is that the Bush administration doesn't want people who work for them to talk to the media and espescially don't want them to field questions on public policy.
In effect, a non-issue. Most of you already know you shouldn't go to the media and make comments about the job your boss is doing, or make comments about what they should do instead. I really don't think it's out of the ordinary for Bush to put a collar on his subordinates.
Bush is evil, yes, yes, but stop blaming him for Global Warming.
You want the truth? This is *my* fault. In fact, just yesterday I noticed the bathroom light was on, and I figured "oh well, not worth getting up" and left it on.
Anyone under the age of 30, intelligent enough to use a computer, who intentionally reproduced despite the COMMONLY UNDERSTOOD STATE OF AFFAIRS, should be very, very ashamed of themselves. Anyone attempting to "play dumb" or "blame politics", doubly so.
Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
I thought that this was a dupe, but then I realized it's the same tactics, different agency. Just our lovely administration "staying the course" on being "good stewards" of the environment.
scientists from all over the world fled to the US from totalitarien oppressive regimes, in which true and unbiased research was made difficult and or illegal. Maybe it's time your best and bravest come to us?
In all fairness, nobody talks about how government orgs like the EPA allocate funds for climate reasearch with heavy biases in favor of research that tends to promote the necissity of a larger EPA. But then when it goes the other way around, people scream bloody murder.
Get the government money out of the freakin cliamte research studies to begin with, and they might actually become credible.
This story has a "both sides of the coin" situation to me, and one HUGE reason why I absolutely despise government financing and control of research. To say the Bush Administration is the problem is to ignore the reality of government -- it is seemingly all powerful, very corrupt, very easily manipulated if you have the cash, and never thinking about its citizens as individuals, just as voting groups.
Clinton was no better, no matter what the Progressives might say. This is the reason guys like this run for office -- to change the climate of thinking in the US and in the World. When it comes to public opinion, you may win on occasion when the big guys pick your side, you may lose on occasion. But when it comes to reality, you'll always lose -- the politicians will never do things the way you want them to, and they usually have hidden reasons for doing what they do.
If this doesn't help prove the case for withdrawing federal funding of research (and arts and dozens of other areas) to better allow researchers to publicize evidence for their beliefs, I can't think of what will.
There is no federal mandate for financing science or art or anythink of the sort, and the reason for it was so that the science and the art wouldn't be corrupted by opinion or political control.
Really, politics aside, all I hear about lately is Global Warming. Ever since Gore had his big push when The Day After Tomorrow came out, it seems like its all i ever hear anymore. Time and Newsweek just gave Global Warming their covers recently... I just don't see how theres information out there that isn't getting to me. At least information i could understand, I don't need up to the minute global-current charts.
Yes, but he was dealing with a bunch of midaeval religious fanatics.
As science was removed from the political, innovation and creativity flourished.
Science has always been political; probably always will be. Perhaps you mean "as the supression of politically unacceptable experimental results decreased".
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Hey, if they don't want federal funding, they are free to abandon it and be unfettered by restrictions on who they talk to.
It's "freedom of speech", not "freedom from consequences". If you go into work and talk shit about your boss, you can't whine about freedom of speech when you get fired
In effect, a non-issue. Most of you already know you shouldn't go to the media and make comments about the job your boss is doing, or make comments about what they should do instead.
No, it *is* an issue. My tax dollars are at work funding government scientists. What's the fucking point of paying these scientists to do research if they can't talk about the results of their work with the public? We have a long tradition of federally-funded scientists being generally insulated from politics, because in the past both major parties have recognized the value of unbiased scientific research.
The Bush Administration has been muzzling the results of government-sponsored research for several years now, and this is a very troubling development. Representative democracies (yes, even republics, for those of you who will latch onto the semantics) need some areas of government to be devoid of partisanship.
If you're wondering about Hansen's reference to Nazi Germany and the USSR, read Hitler's Scientists to see how science can be co-opted for political ends.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Some time after the fall of the Soviet Union, I had the pleasure of travelling on a Yugoslavian passenger ship. One of the crew was the designated Political Officer - strangest thing - he was just there to make sure the crew didn't say the wrong thing to the western tourists. He was really nice bloke, and well able to throw back a pint but it just seemed a little strange.
Obviously, this is just an 'interesting' travel anecdote - and has nothing to with anything here.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
The pollution in question is carbon dioxide. One litre of petrol will produce the same amount of carbon dioxide when burned, regardless of the engine in which the burning takes place. Hence, as far as global warming is concerned, the fuel-efficiency of your vehicle is all-important.
Of course, there are other pollutants in car exhausts, against which measures the new-but-inefficient car may perform better, but that's a separate issue.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
So we Americans are tending to feel that we're sliding down a slippery slope but we don't have much in the way of braking mechanisms available to us. It's not apathy, it's helplessness.
-Kurt
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
If you get drowned, you just weren't praying hard enough and the Dear Lord decided you need some flood to cleanse you.
You'd think New Orleans would've worked as a wake-up call, to show Bush that there IS actually some problem with the weather, and how we affect it. But I guess we should hope for some flood in his basement for a change to see some change in politics. Some people don't give a rat's bottom until it goes after their own rear.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The new Harper government in Ottawa has cut funding to groups studying climate change. That has to be as chilling as gagging scientists.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
When you work in the public sector, the public is your boss, and they should be your number one priority.
The scientists have 65536 Pentium 4 processors working on the problem right now, each consuming 400W of power, all to model the earth and it's atmosphere in an effort to fortell the climate changes that are underway.
10 40Ton Air conditioners are cooling the computer room where all this computing is going on. Safely venting the heat to the cool night sky.
It won't be long before we can prove beyond a shadow of doubt that global warming is happening.
We just need a few more coal powered power plants brought online to level the power grid as we work to bring on stage 2 of our processor array.
That will actually model the grass on the Minnesota plains so we can judge their cooling effect... etc etc.
Thank goodness for computers and Science.
Rarely does an "environmentalist" asterisk or footnote ANY claim with:
... it is not proven that global warming is a natural pattern of nature or a human population problem."
"These findings are carefully researched but only subjective
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
It's easy to fault Bush and to make him sound like a two year old. Oftentimes, it just requires you to copy and paste something he said.
But I would like to point out that there is a good article regarding this matter and it happens to take a look at it without political bias (if you believe that's possible).
Essentially what I'm asking you is, "Would a Democratic president be doing anything differently?" That's hard to decide--both sides are all talk and no action on this subject.
My work here is dung.
Since when are government scientists the presidents "subordinates"? You really need to study how a democracy works, because it doesn't work through those at the top trying to stop any information they don't like from getting out. Ever heard of Government of the People, by the People? The President works for me, and you too. I want to hear what the scientists have to say, and it's actually the role of government to get that information out.
This administration is starting to look more like China that the United States. There's another regime that's famous for trying to control the flow of information.
AccountKiller
Why do we have the seperation between Church and State? We have it because when Church and State are merged, religion will be exploited to further the goals of those in charge of the state... and those that disagree with the religion of the ruling class will be persecuted.
Most people (OK, not everyone) agrees that a seperation between Church and State is good, but that is because nowadays religion has become irrelevant. Sure, it is easy to keep the Church seperated from the State, because the Church is no longer the defining belief of our society.
Our society is now defined by the science (and the media, but that is irrelevent for this conversation). The danger that once existed when we had State Religion, now exists when we have State Science. This kind of political pressure on scientists is inevitable when the government is the largest financial supporter of science in the country.
Science will always be clouded by politics, unless we insist on the complete seperation of Science and State, the same way that we do the Church and State! I know that doesn't appeal to the socialists here, who want the government to be in charge of everything. But sorry, government involvement in science means bad science.
"Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive,
R ICA.html [ornl.gov]
for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age." - TIME, Monday, Jun. 24, 1974
But NOW (I understand) they're sure?
Let's just point out:
"From around 150,000 to 130,000 years ago, North America experienced colder and generally more arid than present conditions. About 130,000 years ago, a warm phase slightly moister than the present began, and conditions at least as warm as the present lasted until about 115,000 years ago. Subsequent cooling and drying of the climate led to a cold, arid maximum about 70,000 years ago, followed by a slight moderation of climate with a second aridity maximum around 22,000-13,000 14C years ago. Conditions then quickly became warmer and moister, though with an interruption by cold and aridity in many areas around 11,000 14C years ago."
(Jonathan Adams, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercNORTHAME
Does the temperature seem to be moving up lately? Yep.
Beyond that, it seems to be a huge guessing game: are humans responsible for the current warming? (personally, I think we probably contribute significantly to it)
Is warming a catastrophe? Even IF you buy into the Cassandras, for every "coral reef is gonna die because the water's too warm!" it's hard to believe that there's not a corresponding expansion (northward) of coral-reef-able zones. For every acre of expanded desert, there's another acre of former-tundra that now has a growing season.
And don't even get me STARTED on "cities will flood" crap. Duh? For ANY city in any location, over a long enough span of time, the odds of it surviving unscathed are ultimately zero. Nobody built the big cities (generally starting as a cluster of wooden huts around a river or nice bay) with an eye toward their long term survivability - NOBODY. To presume at this point that we need to exert every effort to somehow FREEZE Earth's dynamic climate to accomodate habitation choices made 000's of years ago?
That's just stupid.
-Styopa
Some marketing professionals have stated that the reason people in the U.S. don't care about global warming is because of how it's presented: global is good, warming is good, how can 'global warming' be so bad? They should call it what it is: 'atmosphere cancer', 'oxygen rot' or 'Earth decay'.
Yet another drama filled screed about some scientist being "gagged". Has it occurred to anyone that if we are reading about it and about his opinions on Global Warming that he is not being gagged?
What's happening is that they are being told that they do not speak for the administration whenever they open their mouth about something. No one is holding a gun to their head to make them say something or prevent them from saying something. They just can't say it as if they are the official spokesman for the Administration. That is nothing more than common sense management.
Of course, this won't stop the coming wankfest of Daily KOS, Dem Underground pseudo scientists from filling Slashdot with all kind of vitriol towards anyone to the right of Howard Dean.
And anyone who would dissagree with the wacky left had better post anonymously, otherwise they will have their karma pummeled to the point that they will be effectily "gagged" much more than any government scientist supposedly is.
Baghdad Bob? Is that you?
Perl, n. A language spoken by Eskimos.
It's already too late.
Its obvious the government is trying to cover up the fact that the source of Global Warming is all the hot air eminating from Capitol Hill and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
White House Effect: The phenomenon whereby government agencies trap climate control funding, caused by the presence in the atmosphere of Republican FUD that allows donator-friendly information to pass through but absorbs evidence radiated back from concerned scientists. (original definition)
Look, Earth's temperature has been rising and falling throughout history. If you're going to ask us to do things like follow the Kyoto treaty that just happens to be rigged to do disproportionate harm to America then you're going to have to come up with better proof that adding industrialization to the mix is artificially increasing those natural climate swings. The fact that the people most loudly advocating man-made global warming theories are our political adversaries and/or have a financial incentive to hype it (it would still be useful to know how the natural temperature changes work though, even if that's less alarming) doesn't instill confidence in we right-wingers. Yes, that most definitely includes government researchers.
The same reasoning applies to government workers in charge of investigating -isms. If their jobs depend on the existence of series racism, sexism, etc, then by golly it's going to be there whether the "commoners" can see it or not.
Energy: time to change the picture.
The deliberate intrasigience of the feddies is not the last word. Technology to combat catastrophic climate change is the next big economic opportunity. The only question is whether we make it here and sell it there, or vice versa.
As long as our political leadership are tied to old-fashioned energy sources, they have no incentive to develop & implement the new technologies that will replace the old ... it's a classic "Innovator's Dilemma".
And it has an "Innovator's Dilemma" solution: outsiders develop small, nimble technologies, some of which fail, some of which succeed; eventually they eat the dinosaurs (...sorta like the desktop PC in the era of the mainframe.) You, yourself, can probably figure out a few clever ways to create or implent a green tech in your own city. Give it a try! [A few suggestions here]
What is better than making an honest buck while thumbing your nose at the anti-scientists!
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
If the government's not allowing scientists to talk to the public, it's doing a pretty inept job.
"So as you feel your skin cancer forming and watch the ice caps come washing over us, just remember it isn't because of mankind, President Bush says so."
And global warming is linked to an incidence of skin cancer... how?
I think you're referring to the ozone hole.
That was the LAST Impending Global Catastrophe. Keep up with the times.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
The thing is, the people want both religion and politics to be abou truth. We all have a primal need for our 'team' (ie: tribe) to be correct. We all want to believe our side is the Good Guys. The problem, as people become better educated, it becomes harder and harder for any but the most ignorant and gullible to buy into centuries-old superstitious nonsense of religion or the greed-saddled crap spewed out by politics.
If we ever have political leadership that genuinely prioritizes truth as their policy, that is when we will see a resurgence in interest from the populous. Until then, people are too bored with the gigantic quagmire of lies to care whether something is coming from one rich white guys' camp or the other.
A-Bomb
If a reputable scientist is threatened with loss of his job if he does a television interview, it doesn't matter how many websites he puts up, he can't get the message out as effectively as he otherwise could. Censorship, plain and simple.
Energy: time to change the picture.
I am so glad to see you take a mature approach to using your constitutional rights to freedom of speech, perhaps if the current administration did the same and didn't restrict the speech of the scientists researching global warming this entire thread wouldn't exist.
GeekServ Unix Consulting Services (http://www.geekserv.com)
One litre of petrol will produce the same amount of carbon dioxide when burned, regardless of the engine in which the burning takes place.
I'm not sure this is true. CO production is not constant and varies with ignition temperatures, pressures, and fuel/air mixture composition and ratios. Also, CO production does not equal CO emission, thanks to things like catalytic converters.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
You only have to read a slashdot story on Climate Change (and the amount of time posters call it "global warming"
If you would read TFA you would notice that the researcher being interviewed "measures greenhouse gases linked to global warming"... Sorry to knock you off your horse and all, but this article is about the supression of information concerning global warming (and not the broader sense of "climate change" to which you appear to be referring). All posts about global warming are on topic.
No. I fully expect all presidential administrations to keep a tight leash on what gets reported as "official" government science.
Bush has had a policy of denying global warming is a result of humans
It can reasonably be disputed based on our current evidence. We have established correlation, but not causation.
the fact he is giving the NOAA extra money for research rather than prevention is quite interesting
Yes, it means he's doing exactly what he said he was going to do - fund more research and gather more data. You can disagree that this is necessary (I don't happen to - more data is always good).
global warming is something that is happening.
I don't recall the White House denying this.
I remember years ago when the offical stance was there is no such thing as global warming
Under which President? Bush has never as President (to my recollection) insisted that global warming does not exist at all.
this has evolved to, there is no proof of global warming
Well, there wasn't any proof for quite some time. Just speculation and incomplete data.
to okay it exists but it isn't our fault
Again, this isn't the official White House line. The official line is, "we don't know for sure and I want to be sure before I sign economically crippling policies to screw up everybody's lifestyle." That seems sensible to me.
somehow I get the feeling the intention now is to attempt to prove it isn't caused by the biggest donators to the Bush administration.
Such as? Bush isn't running for election again, even if the Democrats are still running against him. Why would he still pander to lobbyists?
When the whitehouse and the pentagon started to open up and declassify documents all those years ago, it was a good thing it felt like finally they are opening up
Well, a war can tighten up the flow of information.
now things are going back to feeling more like the cold war, a policy of secrecy, spying (although internally now rather than on a foreign element)
Spying internally? So wiretapping people who are suspected of having conversations with foreign Al Qaeda operatives is NOT spying on a foreign element?
lies
Such as?
and gagging the people with important information.
This does bug me, but since this administration can't seem to keep a lid on its leaks, it doesn't seem to be a real problem.
So as you feel your skin cancer forming and watch the ice caps come washing over us, just remember it isn't because of mankind, President Bush says so.
He could end up being right. He probably won't. We'll find out eventually!
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
That's the consesus, yes. If he wasn't, then why is he occupying the office? If enough people speak up, he can be removed. Since hardly anybody did or does, I'll have to accept that he was voted in, fair and square. Most people have decided to ignore any possible evidence of wrongdoing and have accepted the election as legitimate. Democracy at work. Exactly the way it's supposed to. If there's any failure, it's that of majority rule itself, not of any particular individual.
What?
"There is that feedom of speach"
SPEECH. It's spelled SPEECH, so please, if you plan to cite it in your argument, and try to make the case that it's important to you, then PLEASE SPELL IT CORRECTLY.
I realize this is pedantry, but do you realize how ridiculous that looks?
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Someone please mod the parent UP!
The Earth's climate has changed in the past and it will change in the future. All we can do is adapt to it. The change is not happening over night. There is plenty of time to adapt. Coastal cities will either build flood control walls or will be slowly abandonded as the coast lines change. In another few hundred years the decendants of the current Chicken Little's will be screaming about global cooling and how they no longer have beach front property.
If you want a static climate then establish self sustaining colonies off this planet. Only in completly sealed environments are you going to be able to have a non-changing environment. Just don't make the same errors that the Spaceship Earth people did in there experiment many years ago. Oh wait, they also had a carbon dioxide issue. Seems they could not control even a small enclosed environment. And people think we can control the Earths environment.
We have to raise the Global Warming Threat Level to RED. Your government watch ouver you! Thus we are declaring war on global warming, we're going to get it wherever it hides.
Colosse.
You mention CO (Carbon Monoxide), but the original poster is talkiing about CO2 (carbon dioxide), which may or may not be a typo by you. Your statement is correct as applied to CO, but as the OP says, this is not the issue. The issue is CO2, and If CO2 production from combustion goes down, the percentage of other nasty pollutants goes up. Pure C02 and H20 is the ideal exhaust of a 'clean' internal combustion engine, and the purpose of a catalytic converter.
The academia usually doesn't get censored very often in the West. During Chairman Mao's rule, Chinese professors were criticised for being "anti-revolutionaries." Smart people who know shit and know what's going on are liable to expose the administration's lie.
Maybe vacations, spin, and cronyism don't work once the electorate begins to be informed.
Oh, so that's why Clinton lost the presidency for the DemocRats.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
This is something that is affecting us all and beyond. Can the rest of the world not sanction the US on these issues?
They are attempting to undermine the very basis of rational thought just because it doesn't align with what they think the Bible says. This is NOT new -- Luther himself called reason "Satan's whore." There is a long and rich tradition of anti-intellectualism in this movement, and the denial of global warming (and then the backup position, that humans aren't involved) goes hand-in-hand with Intelligent Design. Also involved here is the fact that most evengelicals (who make up the vast bulk of the ID movement) believe that Jesus is coming back during their lifetime--i.e. end-times are nigh. If you literally believe that you and yours will be raptured to Jesus in the next few decades, then don't you think that might just influence your views on the necessity of environmental activism? So flinging about the label of religious nutjob, while entertaining, is not by any means gratuitious.
ID and "skepticism" over global warming are both integral parts of the same movement. This linkage is not figurative or polemical--we're talking about two fronts being fought by the same army. So bringing up ID in this context is nothing at all like calling someone a Nazi just because you don't like them.
Yes, moderators land hard on ID proponents, just as they would if someone said "I don't buy it that germs cause disease," or, "I don't believe in continental drift--it's just a theory." The astounding arrogance and willful ignorance of ID proponents deserves to be modded down. Would you be for "teaching the controversy" to placate a group that wanted to displace the germ theory in favor of the idea that demonic possession causes illness? No, eventually you'd get snippy and start humiliating them in public, because it's just a stupid position to take.
I am not going to argue with your point, your are completely correct, poor wording on my part I should have used the word results and not truth. But my point does remain the same there is censorship going on here.
GeekServ Unix Consulting Services (http://www.geekserv.com)
I tried to illustrate the absurdity of the people who jump all over the Bush administration for global warming. Granted the person I responded to did it in an admittedly level headed way. But, I would not be lying if I said I have seen people go into seething rages when global warming and Bush are mentioned in the same sentence
It's like seeing a tobacco executive in the 80's deny smoking causes cancer when, in the previous 15 years, you've had a number of family members who smoked heavily then die of lung cancer.
He's lying. He knows he's lying through his teeth and so do you. And yet many people believe him because they're in denial of their smoking habit.
And, as you see his smug face on TV denying a smoking-cancer connection, you vividly remember your relatives as they were in pain and wasting away in a hospital bed. Wouldn't that piss you off too?
That's why some people get angry about Bush and Cheney when the latter deny man's influence on global warming or, until recently, global warming itself. They are lying to protect their self-interest and those of their oil-industry executive buddies who make big campaign donations. They know they are lying and they don't care how bad the results are.
It's beyond hypocritical. It's evil.
Given the releases of methane from the permafrost, we may already be beyond the point of no return.
Also consider the following issues:
We have more people alive today than were born in the entire history of our planet up to a hundred years ago. We are consuming a large amount of energy from a variety of sources. We can shift some of the burden away from fossile fuels and maybe even help slow global warming by looking at generating some electricity off methane emissions from sewars, landfills, farms, and the like, but this will really be a small impact considering the vast amount of fossile fuels that we have to consume every day.
There are no sources of energy that are sufficiently environmentally friendly to create a net positive impact given other human activity.
This doesn't mean we should not try *really* hard to slow down the process. Global warming, while not a huge global threat to human activity in the same sense that nuclear war was, is going to be a very painful adjustment. Slowing it down will give us more time to adjust to the new environment and possibly help prevent economic collapse when it happens.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
It's pretty evident from the study of climatology that climate change doesn't need our help to happen very rapidly.
In addition, it's pretty clear we've pumped so many CFCs into the atmosphere at this point, if human climate change can happen, it's unavoidable.
If this is the case, we need tech and industry to insulate us from the dangers of global warming, whether it's building higher flood walls, or making healthier crops. We can spend our resources in industry on a) more expensive fuel that won't stop the inevitable, or b) innovations to help us address our needs on the fly.
Industry usually opts for the latter.
So I guess I'm saying, it's not necessarily a lack of care, or lack of appreciation of the risks here; maybe it's just a different cost benefit analysis. And while I sympathesize with your approach, it's not completely implausible that industry is opting for the better path here.
Scientific American Did a great article recently on how the Bush Administration has been censoring scientific reports to fit thier particular agenda. It seems an oilman doesn't want oilmen to look like bad people. Who would have guessed? LINK TO ARTICLE
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Nobody is saying that the earth doesn't go through natural cycles. The concern is that our influence is increasing the negative effects of these cycles.
As for your idea that we (humans) can't affect the climate of earth, may I point out holes in the ozone layer?
Personally, I dislike Bush. However, I am a serious fan of the process of elections (electoral college and all), even if I don't always like the outcome. I suspect what we need are not better presidents or laws but better politicians and lawyers. If we don't get them, we have only ourselves to blame.
-WS
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
The thick multi-year ice essential to polar bears has been shrinking 8 to 10 percent per decade, and already, an area of sea ice roughly equal to twice the size of Texas has melted away. Some studies forecast an ice-free Arctic in summer as early as 2050, spelling certain doom for polar bears.
The effects of global warming on polar bears can already be seen in the western Hudson Bay, where there has been a 14 percent decline in the Hudson Bay polar bear population over the past 10 years, and polar bears weigh about 15 percent less than they did 30 years ago.
Polar bears in the United States are also showing the effects of global warming. A recent report by the U.S. Minerals Management service revealed that polar bear drownings, once a rare event in Alaska, are now taking place with greater frequency due to the bears being forced to swim longer distances. Indeed, a new record was established in September of 2005 for the lowest Arctic sea ice extent since satellite monitoring began in the late 1970s.
However, we can help protect our last remaining polar bears by listing them as an endangered species. Please click on the following links to send a message to:
Supervisor Scott Schliebe
Polar Bear Project Leader
Marine Mammals Management Office
http://ga3.org/campaign/polar_bears
http://www.savebiogems.org/polar/takeaction.asp
-avi
Do the negatives outweigh the benefits? So there are some negatives, coastal areas continue to be more covered in water as they have been slowly since peak glaciation. And on the plus side, papaya's from the midwest and corn crops in the NW Territory. Shipping from Murmansk to Churchill Canada. A NW passage. Blah Blah coastal cities flooded, well, they obviously shouldn't have been in a million year flood zone. It is A Change - what is a bad change, what is a good change?
The thick multi-year ice essential to polar bears has been shrinking 8 to 10 percent per decade, and already, an area of sea ice roughly equal to twice the size of Texas has melted away. Some studies forecast an ice-free Arctic in summer as early as 2050, spelling certain doom for polar bears.
The effects of global warming on polar bears can already be seen in the western Hudson Bay, where there has been a 14 percent decline in the Hudson Bay polar bear population over the past 10 years, and polar bears weigh about 15 percent less than they did 30 years ago.
Polar bears in the United States are also showing the effects of global warming. A recent report by the U.S. Minerals Management service revealed that polar bear drownings, once a rare event in Alaska, are now taking place with greater frequency due to the bears being forced to swim longer distances. Indeed, a new record was established in September of 2005 for the lowest Arctic sea ice extent since satellite monitoring began in the late 1970s.
However, we can help protect our last remaining polar bears by listing them as an endangered species. Please click on the following links to send a message to:
Supervisor Scott Schliebe
Polar Bear Project Leader
Marine Mammals Management Office
http://ga3.org/campaign/polar_bears
http://www.savebiogems.org/polar/takeaction.asp
-avi
Humans are the cause of global worming? VERY doubtful. Myth: Humans Are Causing Global Warming. Scientists do not agree that humans discernibly influence global climate because the evidence supporting that theory is weak. The scientific experts most directly concerned with climate conditions reject the theory by a wide margin. A Gallup poll found that only 17 percent of the members of the Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Society think that the warming of the 20th century has been a result of greenhouse gas emissions - principally CO2 from burning fossil fuels. [See Figure II.] Only 13 percent of the scientists responding to a survey conducted by the environmental organization Greenpeace believe catastrophic climate change will result from continuing current patterns of energy use. More than 100 noted scientists, including the former president of the National Academy of Sciences, signed a letter declaring that costly actions to reduce greenhouse gases are not justified by the best available evidence. While atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by 28 percent over the past 150 years, human-generated carbon dioxide could have played only a small part in any warming, since most of the warming occurred prior to 1940 - before most human-caused carbon dioxide emissions.
I can't wait to see how MythBusters does this one!
Jamie: "We've recreated a volcano here in our workshop."
Adam: "We're now going to see how high Buster will be launched when the volcano erupts."
Both: "The pain, the pain!" (as a flaming buster lands on them)
The earth is warming, we may or may not be contributing to it. Regardless of whether we are we would be foolish not to do something if it prevented us reaching the tipping point beyond which there wont be a comeback. I fail to understand why this is such a political issue, what are the right so afraid of here? Are they afraid of the dent it might put in the billion dollar profits of the oil companies and power companies? As someone else pointed out some kind of carbon trading system would generate whole new industries and opportunities. So again what is the far right so afraid of? And I dont understand why something that is agreed upon by a huge majority of scientists is in dispute here? What have the scientists got to gain? Scientists typically just want to do science, its up to us to decide whether to listen to their results. I guess its like evolution, I mean the majority of scientific consensus is behind it, and as someone once said 'we have the fossils, we win', but for some this is threatening in some way I dont understand. You can have evolution AND believe in God. You can take steps to reduce carbon emissions and maybe slow global warming AND still have a functioning economy.
As an alternative to killing several billion people (probably in a war orchestrated for the purpose, or by means of a genetically tailored virus developed under the sponsorship of a wealthy person who has affection for his or her offspring), I would suggest instead just solving the problem of excess anthropogenic carbon emissions. That will result in much less disruption and destruction, and less impediment to human technological progress -- which, I would remind prospective producers of genocide, is much more likely to extend your life than will merely eliminating the competition.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Maybe the folks at NOAA could hire the likes of Pat Robertson to run a P.R. campaign stating that if the world doesn't cool its respective ass off, then the Lord Almighty will do it for us.
Just a thought.
There is probably no more useless and self-indulgent class of people on the planet than so-called "scientists" working on the federal payroll.
I have had the miserable and thankless job of providing IT support to these clowns at several federal agencies for the last 20 years.
Ask them to give up a sun workstation for a Linux box to save cost - and it's a conspiracy to deny them their freedom to conduct research. Ask them to use the enterprise email system instead of sendmail from their workstation so that their email can be screened for viruses and spam, and you're accused of censoring their communications and cutting them off from peer review. Ask them to store their researech on a central database so that they can share results - and they REALLY panic because it might be discovered that 75% of their work is repetetive and redundant - and get their budgets cut.
Just for the education of the audience, ALL federal employees have to ask for permission before talking to the press about their jobs. This has been the case for decades. The problem isn't censorship, its that "scientists" consider themselves to be an elite race of superhuman enlightened beings for whom rules and laws don't apply.
At our agency we can't even get them to give up FTP to use SFTP to secure their file transfers. If we even make the suggestion we are the subject of complaints to the agency head for "interfering with their ability to conduct research".
If you had ever worked around federal scientists, you would very rapidly lose all respect due to their lack of integrity, and you would never take any of their claims seriously.
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
I'm an evangelical Christian, and I seriously considered assassinating Bush during the run-up to Operation Iraqi Liberation, in order to prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity.
I also am urgently advocating solving the problem of global warming due to anthropogenic carbon surplus. If you can spare a billion dollars a year, please consider solving the problem. I'm more than happy to collaborate with heathens to save all of our children from malnutrition and disease.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
> If you go into work and talk shit about your boss, you can't whine about freedom of speech when you get fired.
You can if your boss is an elected official. That's how the whole "freedom of speech" thing works, and even how it was intended. The First Amendment exists to prevent governmental control of the dissemination of information. Restriction of scientists from reporting the results of research by government officials because it doesn't ken with official policy is inexcusable, and is in fact reason to "whine about freedom of speech". Just because it's government agency is no reason to expect that they should have to restrict their results. Their "boss" isn't the Bush administration, it's the American people at large. Don't forget that.
Virg
The story is not a dupe that I can see, contrary to the tag that has been assigned to it: it was published by the AP on April 6th, today, and I don't see any other stories referring to it. If it's a dupe (just being "yet another" story on Bush science censorship isn't enough), could someone point out the story that it duplicates?
The story is not flamebait. It consists almost entirely of a quotation from the article, and the quote does not misrepresent the opinions of the researchers. The editorial perspective of Slashdot is pro-science, so they would certainly be on the researchers' side in this.
That the story is obvious (another tag): Considering that these things keep happening, it's certainly not obvious enough.
I guess I can't believe people are finding these faults with the story. Am I missing something?
The Internet can be used for publishing! It's very simple to use a blogging service to publish results or hire one of the many thousands of Slashdotters who are willing to make websites. Given the gravity of such research, I'll bet that many of the web-enlightened Slashdotters would be willing to make the site pro bono.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
What makes you think he's any better? McCain voted for every one of Bush's failed policies, stood shoulder to shoulder with him in 2004 and has his share of lobbyists on his staff payroll doing his part for the K Street Project. Oh, he stood up against Bush on torture. Woohooo, that was a pretty safe departure. He didn't stand up and slam the administration's response to hurricane Katrina, didn't start yapping about campaign finance reform until the Repubs got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. And didn't take a stand on the war in Iraq until the political wind started to shift. He voted for the Credit Card Company give back labeled bankruptcy reform, the Drug Company Medicare Benefit Plan and all of the spending in the 8 TRILLION dollar deficit. That's $90,000 for every family in America.
I say he's just as corrupt as the rest of them and you're one of the people who supported them.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It would serve us well to remember that there is a difference between rhetoric and dialectic. If we are talking about truth and logic, as those who subscribe to the whole Western thought process often do, then we stick to the Aristotelian dialectic and shun the rhetoric since rhetoric just confuses the issue at hand--truth. If you wish to compare the rhetoric between the IDer's and the Bush administration, I don't think it's a hard point to prove, especially given that they were both conceived from the same group--the conservative right. It seems natural that the rhetoric be similar, as it needs to appeal and seem familiar to the same people who have over the years grown to be comforted by it and possibly even need it in order to believe anything, whether it be news or science, fact or fiction, or even religion.
However, I have not seen much in the way of formal arguments with actual quotations and descriptions of the rhetorical devices used and direct comparisons made between these two groups. It might prove to be an interesting study in some academic sense, but where's the fun in that? It's easier to make sweeping generalizations and such at the problem instead of dealing with people and the issues.
In any case, back to the point, before we skewer all IDers in general let us make the distinction between the private IDer that keeps to him or herself and does not impose his or her belief upon others and the extroverted loadmouth with a loaded agenda to keep the wool over our children's eyes, thus giving anyone the power to use words to circumvent truth. Now why would anyone ever need to do such a thing... oh wait, maybe this will clear it up in a slightly more on-topic sense: So as you feel your skin cancer forming and watch the ice caps come washing over us, just remember it isn't because of mankind, President Bush says so.
--
Religion is regarded by the common people as true,
by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. -- Seneca
The basis on which the government was designed is that power corrupts. The whole idea people miss is that corruption is NORMAL. They should not get put off by that fact. The system is supposed to produce some good as a result of corrupt factions fighting for public support so they can keep their power.
The system does not work with a corrupt society or a lazy ignorant one...
We can not continue to allow politicians to "ebay" their votes, and that is just the 1st step towards reasonable recovery.
I can understand you wanting to save face for voting for the man who will go down in history as the worst president ever; however, self-delusion is not a healthy practice for any reason. On the environment Clinton was clearly BETTER.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
> If they can't talk about climate change, how come they're perfectly free to do something that looks even worse politically--claim that they are being muzzled? This is an excellent example of a claim so silly it self-refutes.
This isn't a valid presentation of the situation. In this case, scientists are being pressured not to discuss climate change, and as a result they came out and said, "we're being pressured not to talk about climate change." The pressure isn't intense enough to "muzzle" the scientists doing the complaining, but it's enough that they feel pressured not to reveal stuff they've learned.
Virg
I think some people are missing the point here. There is a good reason why the intelligent design issue keeps coming up in any discussion regarding the Bush Administration's science policies. Bush's decisions and public statements have continously undermined science in the United States - from his beliefs on intelligent design, the re-organization of NASA to emphasize manned missions rather than science, to the actions of his administration regarding the environment and global warming. The intelligent design debate and the censuring of scientists who warn of the impacts of global warming are intimately connected through Bush's personal beliefs and the policies he makes as a result of these beliefs.
/. isn't the most sophisticated, and it does tend towards flames from both sides of the ID controversy, and name-calling between Democrats and Republicans. However, the fact that these same issues keep coming up shows that a lot of people are deeply concerned about the way the U.S. government appears to be stirring up anti-science sentiment, undermining our educational system, and encouraging intolerance and religious fundamentalism.
Maybe the debate on
This whole thing sort of reminds me of what happened to Galileo. People didn't really want to accept the way his observations would change the way we view the world. He also really irritated a lot of powerful people in the church, through both his scientific studies and some of his political actions. The result was that the church imprisoned him, in an attempt to cover up what they considered a blasphemous and incorrect view of the world. Of course, most people now believe Galileo was right about the objects in our solar system. I'm surprised that the parallels between what happened to Galileo and the ID/evolution debate and the treatment of the global warming scientists hasn't been brought up here before.
Galileo supposedly once said: "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." Lately, it seems that politicians and the general public have lost all sense of reason, and are trying to deny what science is telling us about the world around us.
Thanks for the help.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Very interesting read. Makes one realize, that, even if the book is wrong, everyone has an agenda. Sure Bush and Cheney are on the side of the oil companies. But who's side are the global warming people on? The side of the planet? Trust me folks. The planet doesn't need our help. If we wiped ourselves off the planet, new species would evolve to replace us and the planet would go on until the next intelligent species finds our fossils. The only thing we're trying to save is OURSELVES.
I believe the literal understanding of Genesis is the most likely explanation of what happened,
Umm, which version of Genesis? Genesis 1 is very clear: plants and animals were created first, then humans. (The order is earth, plants, sun, animals) Genesis 2 is very clear: humans were created first, then the plants and animals. (The order is earth/sun, Adam, plants, animals, Eve) Genesis 1 is very clear that men and women were created at the same time; not true in Genesis 2.
Which do you believe to be true? Why is the other one not true? How can you claim to be a biblical literalist if you don't believe that both are true, even when they contradict?
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
"Although Bush and his top advisers have said that Earth is warming and human activity has contributed to this, they have questioned some predictions and caution that mandatory limits on carbon dioxide could damage the nation's economy."
Wars could also damage a nations economy. Good thing he didn't... d'oh!
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 (it's been getting hotter) 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.
What part of McCain-Feingold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCain-Feingold DON'T you understand? It took forever for that to get passed, and he still works for campaign finance reform.
The pharmacutical thing: He's from Arizona and there's a lot of retired people there.
See, Heisenberg applies to climate science too!
Yeah, some people have a problem discerning fantasy from reality.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"Help! Help! I am being repressed"
How about being on the side of humanity and it's continued survival on the planet?
I don't think solar particle radiation does much to heat the Earth's lower atmosphere, so I doubt changes to our magnetic field are going to do very much in terms of the actual climate.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
If you want to duplicate any of the work the climate scientists have done, you can try with EdGCM, a NASA climate model that has been ported to Win/Mac and wrapped in a GUI.
Space and Computers.
To get worrysome levels of global warming from CO2 levels you have to postulate a strong positive feedback between CO2 caused warming (which pretty much everybody agrees will be small but real) and water vapor levels. These elevated water vapor levels will in turn cause additional warming and drive even more water into the atmosphere. The extent that this feedback happens is the key unknown factor in climate models.
Of course there are disagreements. Modelers can plug pretty much any number into the model and look at the results. The confidence levels in any of these numbers isn't high. Hence the wide range of possible outcomes.
Getting backcasts right would be a great place to start. That's how most modelers validate their assumptions. Climate modelers have CO2 levels and IIRC long term temperature infered from isotope mixes in ice cores. This is by no means geographically complete and it is known that non-intuative things happen with weather patterns. In recent geological history the upwelling of mountain ranges and the resulting rock weathering has caused a drop in CO2 levels that we have basically undone. We have'nt undone the changes in weather patterns these mountain ranges have caused (little things like the asian monsoon pattern) nor do we have ice core data that far back. I will freely admit backcasting climate is to say the least problematic. It's still the only way (short of waiting) we have of validating models.
But what do I know, I've only modeled much simpler systems with much better historical data sources professionally (that being power generation and transmission). My intuition is that the historic climate data is also driven somewhat by political agenda and the modelers being aware of this will take it as license to throw out historic data that is'nt in line with their own agenda. Peer review will be tested, consensis science in such an environment is particularly suspect.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
This latest round about scientists being muzzled is utter and total bullshit. Between blogs, Slashdot, and environmental activist sites, these guys have absolutely NO problem getting out their point of view, either directly or indirectly.
a friend and I our currently debating this topic part of it with good links follows: >>> Here's a very professional, non-sensational letter sent to Senators Frist and Daschle from more than 1,000 scientists across the country Many are from major research universities. Notice this particular point "computer simulations do not reproduce the late 20th century warmth if they include only natural climate forcings such as emissions from volcanoes and solar activity. The warmth is only captured when the simulations include forcings from human-emitted greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere."
http://go.ucsusa.org/global_environment/global_war ming/page.cfm?pageID=1264#Inst
This is actually one of the few things that I can find, that the IPCC overall releases reports supporting global warming, and this is why I am still pretty much undecided, they release good research and facts supporting their theory. The problem is even their reports never paint near as dire of situation as all the media tries to report about global warming. It still puts out many good points, but all their findings are less than a degree of change and we have records of other rapid temperature changes in the past such as the link jesse first sent out. Also, we dont have the good of temperature data for more than 100, years or so seeing heating in one half doesnt seem to be a large data set. Seeing some warming when on a large climate scale we are still coming out of an ice age and expecting to be warming (http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html). In fact the IPCC report says we have shown most of the heating in the last 50 years (and some reports claim it is even more noticeable around the most industrialized countries, because we also are the most deforested, and our gauges are nearest to cities(see below)), but if you look we actually cooled from 1950 until 1975 according to public data.
During the last 100 years there have been two general cycles of warming and cooling recorded in the U.S. We are currently in the second warming cycle. Overall, U.S. temperatures show no significant warming trend over the last 100 years (1). This has been well - established but not well - publicized. (same link as above)
Dr. Patrick Michaels has demonstrated this effect is a common problem with ground- based recording stations, many of which originally were located in predominantly rural areas, but over time have suffered background bias due to urban sprawl and the encroachment of concrete and asphalt ( the "urban heat island effect"). The result has been an upward distortion of increases in ground temperature over time(2). Satellite measurements are not limited in this way, and are accurate to within 0.1 C. They are widely recognized by scientists as the most accurate data available. Significantly, global temperature readings from orbiting satellites show no significant warming in the 18 years they have been continuously recording and returning data. -A scientific Discussion of Climate Change, Sallie Baliunas, Ph.D., Harvard- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Willie Soon, Ph.D., Harvard- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
(Ziegler, 1998). Again, we have a natural mechanism, correlated to periods of high sea level, for warming the poles that is independent of CO2 levels. -http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~polsen/nbcp/phyto.h tml (sorry for the bold and colors copy and past does weird stuff)
I did have a harder time finding alot about computer simulations that weren't directly tied to the IPCC. Computer simulations can't reproduce next fridays weather, couldnt predict Katrina until days away, can't predict historic weather based on known test data with in the ranges we have
Dan Mayer: my blog, essays, art, etc
Whether global warming is occurring and to what extend humans are involved is not the question! How we prevent or at least slow down its effects (desertification, floods, hurricanes etc.) is the question that needs to be answered.
When looking for solutions for complex problems you have to ask the right questions.
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
false
from sci.environment today:
these can't even predict the weather beyond four days with any reasonable accuracy
Irrelevant. Waves are not predictable but tides are.
we find engineering solutions to the problem, hm?
yes please. Nukes, I think.
we can sure as hell figure out how to build carbon dioxide sinks and somehow get this out of the atmosphere. If engineering is the problem, engineering can sure as hell find a solution.
Not much surer than hell, though. The scales are daunting, and by the nature of the problem we can't solve it by applying more energy. People are working on it, but the solutions so far all turn out to be either non-functional or more expensive than just finding ways to cope with less energy. I'm sure if you have any specific ideas you can find some funding to develop it, though. Don't let me discourage you in this regard. We NEED such a solution. It's just not sure there is one.
mt
Since the models will never be perfect they will always have a weakest link. At present, on the radiative timescale at least, it is not the water vapor feedback but the cloud radiative feedback. Paleoclimate validation of models as you suggest is seriously pursued. My guess is that the reason you don't hear about it in the general press is because people are walking on eggshells around the huge subset of the population who have convinced themselves that time started a few thousand years ago. Nobody wants to stir that mess around.
mt
To Quote George Carlin on "saving the planet": "The planet is fine.... its the people that are fucked."
consensis science in such an environment is particularly suspect.
I definately didn't mean to imply that it must be true just because most people say it is... regardless of if the people we are talking about are wearing lab coats or have a Phd next to their names it isn't science to take their word for it.
My point was just that it is not merely a correlation between observed warming and observed rises in CO2 levels. We have testable theories that can be tested. And that is the point of science. As you point out some of those test rely on suspect historical data, and future trends will be proof too late in some models of climate change.
Personally, I find the reasoning compelling that global warming is happening and is caused by gas emmisions from people's activities. And I think it is compelling enough to take action. But what is not clear to me is that negative effects will ultimately outweigh the positive effects. There will be winners and losers for sure, but if we just stopped harnessing fossil fuels in any wholesale way today, then there would just be losers. So, even if you agree on the science I think you can disagree on the politics reasonably based on the tenuous details of global warming.
But I live in the Northeast US which under some models sees a rise of perhaps 10 degrees of average winter temperatures and small increase in rainfall. So, I stand to gain from global warming. I am just hoping sea levels don't rise by more than a few feet, or else I could be living on an island. Even that doesn't sound too bad as long as ocean temperatures go up a bit around here.
Our elected officials must be accountable for how our tax money is spent (that's how we the people get control, even if it's indirect) and therefore they must have the power to say Yes/No to these expenditures.
Yet, at the same time, it's ridiculous that they should be allowed to influence the progress of science.
The only solution to this dilemma, is for tax money to not be used for science. (Or education, or religion, or any of a thousand other things where there is not a 100% concensus on what our all our values are.) We should be directly funding this stuff outselves, without government's involvement. If you want to fund weather research, you should be able to do so, and someone else should be allowed to fund "faith-based initiatives" if that's what they care about, instead. Nobody should have to lose.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
In the reference above, there are several ways to remove the CO2. The most productive remover of CO2 is the ocean, but not enough of it reaches the surface to interact with the atmosphere to reverse the trends. The second most productive is plants (so yes, do plant a tree). However, I read on Slashdot of a third mechanical means of removing CO2 that I can't recall, but produces a toxic by-product. Why not focus on getting the public involved in a solution? We can all bitch and complain until our trousers are soaked but if there's a solution to global warming, should we be focusing on that? Maybe we can convince a member of our congress that the toxic by-product will be benificial to the military machine.
Namaste
Um... yes. And for only $50. ;)
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
For Shrub to have been voted in a fair vote would have needed to occur. Last time I looked into it the evidence suggested to me that the vote was rather less than fair and clean. I couldn't stomach voting for either of the buggers. Without a rational voting system (google for condorcet, approval or instant run off voting) there is zero hope of ever having a representative or sane government.
90% of the wealth is in 2% of the pockets. Bummer to be in the majority.
But even in the presence of PSCs you need stratospheric chlorine levels above a threshold value before substantial ozone depletion takes place. That's there wasn't any ozone hole before 1980 despite plentiful PSCs over Antarctica. By the time anyone thinks we'll have enough cooling for significant PSC levels over the Arctic, CFC concentrations will have fallen well below the threshold for ozone hole formation, so it's very difficult to imagine a polar ozone hole even in the presence of very strong global warming.
Though I used the word censorship, I wasn't referring to the First Amendment. Obviously these guys don't have legal grounds to sue, or this would be in the courts already (assuming US courts haven't been compromised by the past 40 years of right-wing dominance, another story).
The problem is, the government works for us. We, the taxpayers, pay for these services, including responsible and accurate scientific information. Because we, through our representatives, created and staffed them, we respect and trust government agencies. People who work at government agencies have a lot of credibility. If our representative goverment has placed mid-level bureaucrats in agencies for the purpose of muzzling some of their people in order to suppress information we need, they are violating the trust we place in them.
Unfortunately, we only have the opportunity to kick our government to the curb every 2 years - and that'll only work if our election system hasn't been compromised by 40 years of right-wing dominance. Unfortunately, I'm hearing from a lot of scientists who ARE seeking new employers - in other nations. Unless things change real soon, the US is close to driving off a very big cliff...
Energy: time to change the picture.
I'm asking for a model to reasonably backcast before it is used to justify turning the economy upside down. Current ranges of predicted outcome go from 'no problem' to 'learn to swim'.
My impression is that backcasting is not reported because the researchers that are interested in validating there models are'nt the same ones that sell newspapers and secure grant money with dire predictions every three months.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The port is running back at near 100% right now. So is the off-shore oil terminal.
How's the city doing?
That tells you what's important.
Face facts there is no money to be made rebuilding one of the worst slums in the USA. It will not be done. Look for the nineth ward park in ten years. Perhaps I'm giving the government too much credit for common sense.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Not that I would be acidic, how much money do these guys want that they didn't get? I have absolutely no reason, without knowing them, to believe that they are remotely telling the truth. For all I know, someone in the Dems could be telling them - if you help us, we'll help you. It goes on all the time.
The amazing thing is not that Bush is manipulating science - all political parties do. For years Democrats have muzzled any inquiry about the cost effectiveness and economic impact of a wide variety of government regulation, and blithly ignored for four decades mountains of economic evidence that show the welfare state posited by LBJ has utterly failed. And they still do. And what's affirmative action but turning science of natural selection and free enterprise upside down? And of course, Rachel Carson's DDT damnation has probably killed at least 100 million people since she wrote it. So right off the wheel, this whole Bush anti-science thing is so much lies from the Democrats. Scientists that work for the government are like puppets that are made to do whatever each political party wants. For christ sakes, Roosevelt took a bunch of peacenik communists and got them to build the atomic bomb for us!
Be that as it may, why is that whenever a scientist cries foul, there's a crowd of that political ilk that runs to their defense like they are little angelic victims, little jesus's on their little crosses of knowledge for the benefit of all mankind. They aren't. The persecuted scientist is a myth. Even Galileo really went to jail more calling the pope and idiot, and get this, for making claims that he himself could not devise an experiment to prove. Read, please read, some of his work directly, before buying into that nonsense.
Fortunately, the public as a whole sees the scientific establishment for what it is: guys and gals researching new products to try and make a few bucks. When the general public thinks of "scientist", they don't just think about the 1950's image of the brave man of knowledge working feverishly to develop a cure for cancer, they think of the doctors that stop by in the hospital for two minutes while billing for an hour. They don't think of Doctor McCoy, they think of the Doc that left a sponge in Aunt Sarah. They don't think of Spock. They think of Ron Popeil or that Carl guy that said the earth was going to freeze to death. To their company, you can add the guys that appear on TV with Phds talking about how cheeseburgers will kill you, how you aren't supposed to eat this or that product, and then two years later have someone reverse them. The public eats up the sensational stories about how universities are suing each other trying to patent human genes, about how, and yes, the one that soured me on the hallowed nature of science, about how scientists deliberately gave bogus drugs to patients dying of sepsis all in an effort to pump up their stock price. In the meantime, the quiet, slow and steady successes that generally constitute real science are completely and unfortunately ignored, becuase, the tv preachers of science have so completely dominated the field.
As a result, scientists complaining about being muzzled have very little credibility. You people wonder why folks would be so stupid as to buy into crap like intelligent design, or how Americans could blithely ignore a fairly large body of evidence that suggests human induced climate change is a reality, and, all they do is see it snowing in april, think about the doctors that screwed them, the promises of cures and research that failed, and rightfully decide that scientists are probably full of shit and there's no reason to believe them at all.
The bottom line is this: If cars flew, fusion actually arrived, cancer were cured, and the docs did not leave a sponge in aunt sarah or could make up their minds about what drugs to take and what to eat, then, scientists would probably believable to the average joe. But right now, they have about as much crediblity as a TV preacher, which is to say, not a lot.
This is my sig.
A month ago, it hailed in San Diego. HAIL... not a little bit, but a lot; sustained for atleast an hour or two, and keep in mind were aren't talking about the Yukon here, but San Diego. In the mountains, maybe Big Bear or Alpine? Noooo...
Mission Beach, Mission Valley, Mira Mesa, La Jolla, Kearny Mesa, Downtown San Diego... San Diego, in all it's sunny glory got hail. Where you can go the entire year without a "coat", frozen precipitation formed below 800 millibars. Even Tijuana Mexico got the surprise package...
We don't need to be told by scientists that the climate is changing.
You might want to keep up on these issues.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Last time I looked into it the evidence suggested to me that the vote was rather less than fair and clean.
I agree. I believe the last two(at least) elections were rigged, but we are in the minority. Thus no re-count. The majority has spoken, mostly by their silence. That's the way the cookie crumbles. Respect for the law in general suffers as a result. If the law isn't applied to these people, then how can you apply it to anybody?
Without a rational voting system...
We just need to vote one in...
What?
I firmly believe this link will settle the whole debate, once and ferrell.
Now give me your Jew gold!
What was the CO2 atmospheric concentration in the Mesozoic? Perhaps you's understand why it was a greenhouse age. What is the average atmospheric CO2 concentration over the last 25million years? Perhaps you will understand why we live in an icehouse age? What is the current atmoshperic CO2 concentration? How does it differ from the max and min range of icehouse concentrations? What is the residence time of CH4 in the atmosphere? What does it oxidise to? Answer these questions and ponder the consequences.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
Please, please prove my "theory" wrong. Please. Someone out there. Someone *so* smart that, unlike me, they see beyond this petiness to the solutions. Profit from fuel cells. Profit from bio diesel. Profit from some common fucking sense. That's all I've ever asked.
Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
Oh, I believe in that. But I don't believe Global Warming is going to wipe us all out, because the climate of the planet changes all the time. I tend to think, if there is a warming trend, then it's part of the natural state of the planet, and not due to the burning of fossil fuels all over the place.
Way back in the 1970s (remember them?) the flavor of the day was the impending ice age! TIME magazine(http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview
Now I know that there are a lot of paleoconservatives in the Republican party, but I'm pretty sure they weren't around 400,000 years ago! The facts are:
and
So we can spend trillions of dollars limiting CO2 emissions, which will probably have little or no effect on the climate, or we can put that money to better use by improving construction techniques and hardening our utility systems against violent weather.
Change happens people, deal with it!
If you're right then we go blindly along without changing our habits and nothing happens. If you're wrong, as most of the scientific community appear to believe, then it's the end. If we act progressively and curb emissions in a reasonable manner what harm is done? The oil executives don't make as much of a profit, but the rest of us benefit.
I see the Crichton argument as an excuse as to why we shouldn't make any effort to change and be more "responsible" in our behavior. I also see his perspective as being very selfish and lazy. At what point does it become reasonable to make those changes? Our adaptability isn't limitless.
Your little 4-banger from the early 80's may get great mileage but it pollutes a lot worse than a modern SUV.
If the environmentalists had their way, the 80s 4-banger would have been cleaner then, and modern SUVs would be non-polluting. Oh, and the modern SUV does put out more CO2 than the 80's 4-banger. Also, based on the current age of the average vehicle, vehicles are retired pretty quickly. So the impact of the average 80s vehicles is negligible. But don't let me stop your emotional rants.
Learn to love Alaska
Well, why do we, as humans, feel so arrogant that we NEED to survive the next mass extinction? The planet is going to do what it is going to do. Sure, we should curb emissions because the air quality sucks. But say we should curb emissions because air quality sucks, not because of global warming. And where does the air quality suck? In LA, in New York. Does the air quality suck in the woods in Montana where there are no homes? Nope, the animals there seem to do OK.
And, sure, nature exists in a delicate balance. And that balance is disrupted all the time by nature itself. Those disruptions take evolution in new directions and introduce species that would never arise otherwise. Volcanos, Earthquakes, Tsunnamis, Hurricanes and other disasters have the ability to shape continents and wipe out entire species off this little rock of ours, yet somehow we feel man is the greatest threat to the planet.
If we're all so damn worried about the natural balance of things, why don't we introduce wolves back into areas with deer overpopulation so that NATURE can properly thin the deer herds to what they should be.
If you're worried about balance, sell your house, break up all that concrete that f**ks with the water table and drainage, and live in a teepee like the Native Americans did, so you don't cause issues with erosions, so your fence doesn't mess with an animals natural migration patterns, and so your house isn't in a spot where a dozen trees provided nests for various North American birds before it was built.
I'd be happy to do what you suggest if there was some realistic way to live off the land these days, but the fish from the great lakes, the rivers and streams and the oceans are filled with mercury and other heavy metals. Most of the native wildlife has been killed off or forced into such a small area that it isn't possible to survive for long in the world today. The water has become so polluted due to this laissez-faire attitude that you and so many others have that it's not realistic anymore. The areas with a reasonable climate to support our species are so overrun with development and pollution that your suggestions are jokes, and they aren't funny ones.
Sure the planet disrupts things without our help, but your apathetic position is just what I described, lazy and selfish. I admit that I am selfish because I want a better environment to live in and I do a little bit every single day to try and improve things the best that I can. While people like you sit back and throw stones and suggest that the beliefs of the majority of scientists and the general population today are wrong because you aren't willing to make the changes necessary to improve things yourself. One person or family changing their habits isn't enough, according to the science, it's got to be everybody working together to improve things. People with your attitude don't have any real evidence to support your positions, but you're completely unwilling to make any effort to change things in case you're wrong. If I'm wrong, the changes might improve things even though we're doomed, if you're wrong things just get worse as that balance tips. It doesn't matter why you do the things to attempt to improve the situation, it just matters that you do them.
The saddest part is that, like the scientologists, you're using some science fiction author's perspective to justify your position. Your position seems to be purely a lazy one.
It'd be great if you just admit that you just don't give a shit and turn your back, instead, you attack the position of those that aren't as lazy as you are.
However, I am a serious fan of the process of elections...
Actually, so am I. It's a great spectator sport. I'm not sure which is more exciting, elections or baseball.
I suspect what we need are not better presidents or laws but better politicians and lawyers. If we don't get them, we have only ourselves to blame.
You got it.
What?
"Is warming a catastrophe? Even IF you buy into the Cassandras, for every "coral reef is gonna die because the water's too warm!" it's hard to believe that there's not a corresponding expansion (northward) of coral-reef-able zones. For every acre of expanded desert, there's another acre of former-tundra that now has a growing season."
Sure, maybe your picture makes sense. Here's a question which assumes it's correct: where are the myriad marine species that need the nutrition, temperature, current signatures, and other facets of our colder waters going to go? What happens to them? We're seeing some pretty major effects of climate change up here. I live and work in a fishing village in the Aleutians. We are perfectly situated to view the ecosystem interaction between the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Our economy depends on the health of the ecosystem, and yes, we all know it (we're not mindless resource extractors up here). We want sustainability, and so we work - slowly, as an institution - towards making our livelihood (and thus that of the fish, etc.) as sustainable as possible.
But there is not a whole lot we can do about climate change on our own. The ice edge is farther north every year. There are fewer and fewer salmon. Other fisheries are suffering too. Recent research on a few different marine species indicates that there are a lot of environmental signals that guide migrations, and lots of these are strongly affected by climate change. Look too at the sea between Japan and Russia/Kamchatka, which used to freeze over. Nutrient levels in the water are dropping.
The tundra needs to remain tundra for so many different reasons, and not all of them are explicitly conservationist. Traditional sustainable ways of life become impossible when the traditional food sources cannot survive even without harvesting. This land is not exactly suitable for agriculture, but humans have been living on it for many centuries with success. The conservative estimate is that the Aleut civilization was continuously successful for 8000 years. Eight thousand years... some say ten. In other words, one of the oldest continuous civilizations anywhere on the planet, and in one of the harshest environments. And as in much of Alaska, life here is considerably better with subsistence methods than without.
This climate change stuff is lot more serious and a lot more urgent than most people think. Look at what the northern people are doing and thinking. You can almost use us as an indicator class - when traditional methods begin to fail, examine them for longevity and then consider the contributing factors.
Please, take this issue seriously.
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