Slashdot Mirror
Global Warming Endangered by Hot Air?
oldwindways writes "The BBC reports that leading climate researchers are concerned that the tone of speculation surrounding many reports (scientific as well as in the media) could be making it more difficult for legitimate science to make a case for the future. Is Hollywood to blame? Have we 'cried wolf' too many times with global warming? Or is this just a case of some researchers who are not ready to face the truth? Either way, it raises the interesting question of how greater public awareness of Global Warming might be affecting the course of research and vice versa. Not to mention what happens when public awareness is shaped by factors other than scientific findings. This is especially troubling during what some are calling the warmest US winter in years."
"I was born in the 60s. When I was a child the world was supposedly facing castastrophic global cooling according to "compelling evidence"."
I was born in the '50s, and I distinctly remember discussions of global warming in school in the '60s. There was a knowledge then that CO2 was being added to the atmosphere and the physics of it trapping heat. Since then, we have built up a tremendous ampount of evidence about accelerating global increases in temperature and CO2.
There was, after some extreme cold winters in the 70s and early 80s, discussions in the press speculating about the coming ice age and how it was due to arrive any millenium now. There was also discussion on how quickly an ice age could emerge
(apparently some scientists believe that once the tipping point is reached, it can come pretty quickly, though I don't know if quickly is decades or centuries in that context.). But the mainstream science correctly dimissed the few cold spells as not predictive of any long term trends.