Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Respond to Gore on Global Warming
ArthurDent writes "For quite a while global warming has been presented in the public forum as a universally accepted scientific reality. However, in the light of Al Gore's new film An Inconvenient Truth many climate experts are stepping forward and pointing out that there is no conclusive evidence to support global warming as a phenomenon, much less any particular cause of it."
I found it interesting a bit back when it was reported the ice caps were diminishing on Mars due to its own "global warming." When a scientific issue becomes politically charged it is the most vulnerable to misconstrued notions. Perhaps scientists should leave politics to politians (which they mostly do) and, indeed, politicians should leave science where it belongs too. There are plenty of other reasons to want to end the usage of fossil fuels without mentioning global warming. Mr. Gore, please stick to what's sure and not what's "the buzz"....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Im in Antalya, Turkey. In mediterranean coast, western turkey.
This is a tourism spot, a mediterranean riviera if you will, no, not like italy, or spain, not like forest-deprived or barren lands, but lush, green, VERY HUMID, VERY HOT places. In winter warm and rainy.
Normally, at 15 June, we should be SWELTERING OURSELVES OUT, EVEN WITH AIRCONDITIONING ON, 99% humidity, 38+ degrees celsius IN SHADOW, HOT breezes and etc.
At least, this was the way since 2 years ago. Then things started going, as they wish, if you will.
As of this moment i can sit in front of this pc only with having fall gear on, long sleeves, even a polar shirt, although it is thin. Wearing socks, underwear and such. Normally i should be wearing only a short in this time of season. But im not. Its odd. It rains, it is cool, tourism industry, which is very big, is appalled with the situation.
Whereas, in netherlands, which is a cold country by definition, my cousin is sweltering in heat in 33 degrees celsius. I should note here that, friends in germany reported that they were able to see the face of the sun only 1.5 months last summer, rest being cloudy and rather cool.
To hell with the 'scientists' that trash gore's documentary.
I am MYSELF first hand witnessing the global warming and its awkward effects. I dont need nobody to tell me it is happening, certainly no business-interest-funded researches are going to change my view.
Last summer was hot as hell. Last winter, was WARM unusually. This summer, it is ABSURDLY COOL.
Read radical news here
I'm sure I'll hear that the plural of anecdote is not data, that it is too expensive to fix, that we should throw up our hands and accept things. Global warming is not happening; and even if it is, we didn't do it; and so what if we did, so what - we should write off Bangladesh, forget the polar bears, and be happy to grow wheat in Canada instead. Sure. But please, read some of these stories.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
This website hosting this article is just not very credible. It uses popup windows and hosts ads for dubious anti-aging products and precious metals investments.
I'm all for a debate on global warming, but this source doesn't pass my personal credibility filter.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
Here is a chart of the Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, going back to 1973.
ftp://140.172.192.211/ccg/figures/co2_mm_obs.png
http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/insitu.html
I consider myself a scientific conservative -- I don't want to find out what happens when CO2 hits the 430 ppm mark. Some people say that nothing bad will happen. They could be cataclysmically wrong.
Last summer was hot. Last winter was warm. This summer (which has not started yet) is cool.
So...extrapolate your observations into a long-term trend.
I'm not saying that you're not seeing the effects of global warming. I'm just saying that based on three observations in Turkey, one in Germany and one in the Netherlands over the course of less than a year, you can't really draw a conclusion. And that's part of the problem of the whole global warming "debate".
-h-
If they have solid scientific evidence to refute the solid scientific evidence in support of global warming, then they should publish it. If they don't, then as scientists they should know better than to spout off without any proof of their claims.
Absolutely. I attended a lecture at the Tyndall centre, Manchester a few weeks ago. In a room full of climate change experts, in the UK centre for climate change research, nobody was even remotely sceptical about the realism of Global Warming.
In fact, the point that shocked me most was that some of them were quite content that it was already too late to mitagate the effects, by a token reduction in our emissions. Argueing that the global strategy should be to prepare for the change that will happen rather than waste money trying to stop it!
My spelling isn't bad, I'm evolving the language
"Global Warming" as a scientific topic has many problems. Here are my questions:
(1) If the world heats up, is it bad?
(2) If the world cools down, is it bad?
(3) Are the natural cycles pushing us toward warmer or cooler conditions?
(4) If the natural cycles push us toward cooling (I've heard that we're due for an Ice Age any century now), is human-caused global warming still bad? Or does it just keep the planet a better climate for longer?
(5) If we're not really sure where the climate is going overall, is it better to err on the side of "too hot" or "too cold".
As you can see, I really don't care whether it is human caused or not. The only thing that matters is that we have a comfortable climate to live in for a while. And the last thing I want is for us to be thinking in 300-400 years "Wow. This Ice Age is cold. Too bad we can't think of a way to warm up.".
To me it seems more likely that humans would be hurt by global cooling than global warming. I understand that global warming can cause some areas to be colder (like Europe), but on the whole it seems like it would promote more life.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Science Magazine analyzed a total of 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming between 1993 and 2003. Number that challenged the consensus that global warming is real and caused by human activity: zero. Scientists don't debate whether global warming is occurring, or even that it's caused by humans. Only politicians do.
Here's my take on the counterpoint to Al Gore's claim of global warming... who cares if he's wrong?
If we worked hard as a society to get off the oil and coal crack pipe, would that be a bad thing? The socioeconomic reasons alone are totally worth it. Let's not forget that right now we're at war over the stuff, not to mention spending $50 for a tank of gas. Meanwhile the fatcats at Exxon are crying all the way to the bank, global warming or not.
Think about it, who cares if he's wrong, there's too much good to come out of us pretending that he's right! If you're interested in reading more, I have a longer point about this that I made on my blog last week (click above)
And just to add to your statement: While attending college some 10 years ago while working on my Masters in Computer Science, a very respected Micro Biologist Phd with some 30+ years under his belt (in that field only) gave a guest lecture which I attended. Among other things, no, he did not believe in evolution and cited several human structures (atomic in nature) which act like little machines in the human body (with no possible way of breaking them apart). What struck me, and follows your response (and others), is that within the last decade after he went public, he was cast out as a heretic. He had been publishing within the main Micro Biologist journal for decades and was well respected in his field, in fact, considered a leading expert. I forget what that journal is called, but it's comparable to the JAMA for physicians. Anyway, needless to say, none of his research was ever published or allowed in that journal again.
My brother in law is a physician and I'm very conscience of the Pharmaceutical influence upon that profession. It's a sad affair. Pharmaceutical companies even go so far as to buy him and his family dinner very often while lecturing him on their products (among other more substantial perks). In relation, I would imagine every scientific discipline has that same Industry influence. I can only infer that in the Geological, Biological, and other professions, there is that same influence. Thus, it comes as no surprise to me, as it should to others, that truth in science is as principled as the Industry which supplies it, or as authoratative from those who specialize apart from those financial mandates.
From the article:
r ter
Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change.
What a weaselly way of putting it. Here's what 30 seconds of Googling says about Professor Robert Carter: He's a member of the Institute for Public Affairs, a corporate-funded think tank.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bob_Ca
You see, he isn't working for the coal industry per se. He's working for a think tank that is funded by corporate donors that may or may not include the coal industry. See the difference?
In piling up scientist after scientist while failing to refute Gore's arguments, this article is reminiscent of the Nazi propaganda pamphlet "100 Scientists Against Einstein." Einstein's response still applies: "If I were wrong, one would be enough."
Quit pointing out who is funded by whom. If this is how you refute research, it proves how flimsy the science is on both sides. If Exxon funded Isaac Newton, we would still have his discoveries, because they were based on strong science. The funding is irrelevant if the results are solid or flimsy.
But if I were to choose, I would say there is less trustworthyness in the science funded by the government. The government is a large invester in research, and scientists have a financial interest in proclaiming global warming as a major problem.
I don't see you complaining when articles from Daily Kos are posted. Why is it so bad to hear both sides of a contreversy?
There is a slight difference between people posting political opinions on an openly political web site, and people who try to pass their political opinions off as science. Further, when they aren't actually anybody's political opinion, but rather paid propaganda as part of a lobbying campaign, the difference is even greater.
If they want to have a blog called "Exxon Outgassing" or something like that, and post their spin there, I have no problem with that. Or if this were a case where someone actually had some research to present, that would be fine. But so far as I can see, this is propaganda, pure and simple, and trying to pass it off as "the other side of a controvery" is dishonest.
--MarkusQ
P.S. The odd thing is, I used to be a HCGW skeptic, until the sheer duplicity of the oil lobby convinced me to look into it more. So in my case, at least, their money backfired on them.
1) Global atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing:
. stm
. stm. html3 .html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4803460
2) CO2 dissolves in water
3) The oceans are water
4) CO2 dissolves in the oceans
5) When CO2 dissolves in water the PH of the water goes down
6) When the PH of the water goes down, Calcium Carbonate concentrations go down
7) When calcium carbonate levels go down the plankton dies
8) When the plankton dies, so does everything else by starvation
9) Ergo, people who think disproving global warming will let them drive their hummers without killing their own species, and a lot of others with it, are total asswipes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4803460
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/265052_acid31
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/265241_coral0
Someone had to do it.
In 1942 and 1980 the global mean temperature was approximately the same. In every year between those two the mean temperature was lower than those years. Since CO2 output was continuing to increase during this period of nearly four decades, why didn't the global mean temperature increase as well?
The pro-global warming camp never seems to explain this. Indeed the record setting 1969 Atlantic hurricane season happened during this "cool" period. If positive increase in global temperature are associated with more powerful storms, what happened here?
Keep in mind that the onus is on those pushing the new theory to fit these facts into their model. Behind all the media glitz, there are some serious questions being asked with very poor answers being offered. Is this warming bad? How much is natural variation vs. human made? The data really looks like it's a bit of both, but there simply isn't enough data to speak conclusively.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
I'd say it's pretty obvious where they're coming from. Slashdot's really going to hell. This is a sample from just their front page:
"The images are slowly coalescing out of the smoke of the progressive anti-war campfires, the bonfires in New Jersey, where our Constitution and Ann Coulter's latest book are being consumed by the current purveyors of charitable lock-step liberalism, and from the super heated mind of Howard Dean, the showman extraordinaire and carpet gnawing Democratic spokesman deluxe."
"Once again, the gay marriage issue has come before the Senate. And with no surprise, Senators motioned to strike down a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. What a sad state the Senate has become! It should have been a no-brainer to stand up in the defense of marriage! "
'As the price of gasoline and the myriad products that utilize petroleum in their manufacture rises, Americans are going to ask why the Congress has resisted accessing the billions of barrels' worth of oil and natural gas in our offshore continental shelf. "
"It's so darned funny and I am such a naïf. I thought it would take a day or two for the left to begin to down play the death of Zarqawi, one of the premier death dealers on the planet today, and a guy responsible for a litany of murder and mayhem among our troops--OUR TROOPS. You know, the guys everybody pledges to support even though the liberal cognoscenti and the progressive Nomenklatura all hate the war."
"Great rivers of destiny are churning just below the Electoral dam.
It looks like the stage is being set for the next round of heartbreak for the Democrats, their quest for 15 seats in the House and their need to overthrow the Republicans in that charnel house of the Senate, should this, their greatest of all electoral endeavors, not pan out."
The revolution will NOT be televised.
McCullough, M. E., Tsang, J., and Brion, S. (2003). Personality Traits in Adolescence as Predictors of Religiousness in Early Adulthood: Findings From the Terman Longitudinal Study. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 29: 980-991.
If you'd like to run your own NASA Global Climate Model (GCM) on your own computer, the EdGCM project has ported a GCM to Mac & Windows and wrapped it in a GUI so you can point-and-click your way around. Turn the sun down or add some nitrogen, whatever you want...
Disclaimer: I'm a developer on the project.
Space and Computers.
Technocrat: "We ran a pointer to a global-warming-doubter story this morning. Here's the link. I decided to pull the story after reviewing the author attribution (he's from a paid political PR agency), and the venue's other coverage on this issue. Sorry."
The top of that article alone is worth reproducing here:
... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. Most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.
The consensus among climate researchers is outlined by the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
Human activities
This conclusion is endorsed by the National Academy of Sciences, The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union and its parent organization, the American Institute of Physics, the national science academies of the G8 nations, Brazil, China, and India. and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
How can specifically Gore be an emberrasment to science if all of these others back him? Sounds like if anything, there's honest debate. But then the next paragraph from this page utterly destroys that possibility:
The consensus was quantified in a Science study by Prof. Naomi Oreskes (Dec. 2004) in which she surveyed 928 scientific journal articles that matched the search [global climate change] at the ISI Web of Science. Of these, according to Oreskes, 75% agreed with the consensus view (either implicitly or explicitly), 25% took no stand one way or the other, and none rejected the consensus.
Education is the silver bullet.
Actually, it's not as easy as you'd think with an area like this. Consider for a moment how many scientists working on climate change would lose their grant money should it appear likely that climate change is not occurring
That said, from the arguments presented by http://realclimate.org/ (which also had a mostly favourable review of the Gore film) I would have to say that climate sceptics aren't getting published because their work is subjective and flawed, rather than any inherent bias in the system.
When you say the left you are being inaccurate. Not everyone agrees on one side or another. You should try and stick with the science. As for your last paragraph, engaging in a debate adapting to a changing world while keeping up what we're doing if we're the cause is pretty disturbing. That's like saying we screwed up, it's too late, everyone needs to move to higher ground but keep it up with the oil. If there is something that can be done before someone you know dies wouldn't you do everything you could do prevent it? We know the problem, it is the oil companies. There are alternative sources of energy, all new cars can have requirements to use ethanol or be hybrids starting in two years but we know who is in control of congress right now. Exxon. In addition do you really think if we weren't in this war and had some money and put $100 billion toward developing alternative sources of energy instead of one that we couldn't do it?
Also when you say economists believe adaption is cheaper. What thought are they giving to the human race 200 years for now? There needs to be some priority of importance. If 50000 jobs are lost in the oil industry to ensure that we have enough land to live on 500 years from now and we don't need to start looking for another planet I'm okay with that, I really am. But, it depends on what the science says. I'm a scientist as well (experimental psych) but I try not to characterize one side or another with statements like "they ignore economics." I happen to know a democratic economist.
"In 1942 and 1980 the global mean temperature was approximately the same. In every year between those two the mean temperature was lower than those years. Since CO2 output was continuing to increase during this period of nearly four decades, why didn't the global mean temperature increase as well?"
You put your finger right on the problem for the "CO2 is all of it" crowd. From the late '30s to the mid-70's the temperature went down. The CO2 believers have no explanation. The solar cycle people do.
Right now, both camps say we should be hot. We are. In 2020, the CO2 people say we'll be hotter than now, and the solar cycle people say we'll be cooling down. So the argument will be settled then.
Until then, I have to listen to all this noise. sigh.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Or did they form those opinions and become vocal about them just because they knew they could get paid for having them? :-)
Bruce Perens.
I don't have the proof in front of me, and frankly, I don't see how it's my responsibility to find it for you. It's in several published papers--if you're in the field you'll know how to find them. The models that are projecting increased temperatures--and pointing a finger at CO2 as an important forcing in that trend--are capable of simulating the temperature trends of the 20th century. In fact one even correctly predicted the affect of an eruption--confirmed by Pinatubo in 1991.
Of course if you were in the field you'd also know that there are many more forcings than just CO2 that affect the global mean temp. You'd also know that a chaotic systems don't respond linearly. You'd probably also know that although there have been cool years and hot years since the beginning of the 20th century, the overall delta to now is clearly positive. And presumably you'd understand that global trends are not local trends, therefore local anecdotes like the 1969 hurricane season do not prove or disprove global mean phenomena.
If you're not in the field, I recommend realclimate.org.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
People vote with their feet. The fact that some people choose a Hummer rather than a Prius demonstrates that they, for whatever reason, prefer a Hummer to a Prius.
Remember, though, that at least some prefer the Hummer to the Prius for safety from the other guy in the Hummer. It's a size arms race.
As I said on another site:
I think as an economic environmentalist. That is, I believe the environment should be protected via economics. Pollute or otherwise damage the environment? Pay a tax based on the damage done. Generate clean power? No additional tax. That would apply to automobiles too; buy a clean-burning, efficient vehicle, and you should pay less tax than the guy in the 9 mpg H2. Coal plants would pay based on the pollution they put out; nuke plants for the cost of storing the nuclear waste. If this could be followed with reasonably accurate evaluations, then if nuke plants really are the way to go, economics should work to encourage their building. If wind is the big winner, money should flow that way. Don't have the government try to pick favorites (ethanol, hydrogen, hybrids, etc.)
This would replace things like direct subsidies, as the guy who wants to put solar cells on his roof would be comparing to a higher cost of energy from his power company, not based on some arbitrary tax break.
I recognize, however, that's a tricky thing to evaluate; how much is a lower level of airborne particulates worth? The cost per pound of low-level nuclear waste? But I think it could be more reasonably approximated than is achieved currently, with arbitrary tax breaks for hybrids, etc.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Look at that graph again
a nning/New_Data/IceCores1.gif
http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Pl
Yes, both lines seem to follow the same pattern. But which one is the independant variable? It is impossible to tell. It very well could be that raising temperatures CAUSES the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere, and not the other way around. There are logical paths that could serve either purpose.
a. CO2 in the atmosphere blocks low freq EM waves, heating the earths surface.
OR
b. Higher temps cause more seawater to evaporate, meaning more water vapor travelling into the atmosphere, carrying with it more CO2
Now the real thing to note here is the rapid increase in CO2 emissions in the most recent years, and the temperature variation is at ZERO. To me, this says that Temperature is the independant variable, and CO2 is the dependant variable. To you non science folk, this means that rise in temperature, caused from who knows what...be it other man-made chemicals or natural earth cycles, CAUSES the rise in CO2.
I have always thought of myself as a dirty liberal. I'm a registered independent but find myself identifying with the left. My stance has been you have a social responsibility if you belong to society. I have also always believed in leaving the smallest footprint possible, clean air - I even have a green peace sign tattoo.
Having said that, I would not justify my sense of social responsibility and desire to have a clean enviroment based on the warming of the earth. Global Warming is irrelevant with this regard and frankly not as it seems. Ianac, but if you look at *actual* data and past trends on geological time scales, the argument for it seems pretty thin - thinner than those against it.
ymmv
How many of those scientists work for research organizations funded by oil companies? This has been covered extensively before. There IS a broad scientific consensus on global warming and its causes. The only scientists saying otherwise are on the payroll of oil companies. This is just like the "scientists" who the tobacco companies paid to say there was no proven link between smoking and lung cancer.
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
And if you think for a moment that corporations wouldn't sell their grandmothers (well, maybe not those of their manager's, but those of their employees) for a measly buck, you are living in a non-regulated Libertarian dream world. But as long as corporations know what's good for them, everythings great, right?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
So True. The REAL professionals on this matter are saying there is potential trouble. Their website might not be pretty, but the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society represent lot of individuals working with weather and/or climate information as a day-to-day job and/or research. (Members includes individuals from Envirronnement Canada, severals universities research departements as well the The Wheather Channel (itself, a corporate member))
I live in Soviet Canuckistan you insensitive clod!
Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame.
t ok.co2.gif h ics/tempplot5.gif
CO2 and Temerature plots for the past 450,000 years from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/vos
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/temp/vostok/grap
No meaningful correlation!!!
Nutter: A person who is regarded as eccentric or mad.
As far as I know, the earth's biosphere is pretty-close to a closed system [Sure, there's radiant heat transfer in, and out, plants use up CO2, there are bacteria that use up CH4, &c. - but not on this scale]. It has been shown that arctic [and antartic] ice is melting at an accellerating rate. Anyone who has access to a glass of ice-water and a thermometer can verify that the water will stay at a relatively constant temperature (~0C) as long as the ice is melting, and the system remains well-mixed... even under the heat load of a blow-torch. Once the ice is gone [i.e. melted], however the water heats up until you reach the next phase change point (~100C).
We're cooking the planet, dudes. Don't worry about coastal flooding, once the ice is gone -- worry about roasting in the convection oven that Venus^WEarth will become.
Unfortunately, thay have yet to provide a model with useful predictive power. Until we can develop a model, its silly to say "We know...". Until we have a model that fits our observations, we have only hypothesis.
Get a life, not a lifestyle. - Hikem Bey