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26 Common Climate Myths Debunked
holy_calamity writes to mention that New Scientist is revealing the truth behind the '26 most common climate myths' used to muddy the waters in this ongoing heated debate. "Our planet's climate is anything but simple. All kinds of factors influence it, from massive events on the Sun to the growth of microscopic creatures in the oceans, and there are subtle interactions between many of these factors. Yet despite all the complexities, a firm and ever-growing body of evidence points to a clear picture: the world is warming, this warming is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and if emissions continue unabated the warming will too, with increasingly serious consequences."
Fact: Flamewars do, in fact, contribute to global warming. The increase in post count burdens servers and thus uses more electricity. Ad revenues increase allowing rich business men make more money to put gas in their hummers. Considering some 40% of the internet consists of flamewars of one type or another, the impact is rather significant.
Eastern Canada is currently experiencing its thickest strongest ice in 30 years. Coast Guard officials I've spoken with say the ice severity follows a 30 year cycle and current conditions are the same as in the 1970s.
Nobody was trying to support a population of six billion settled agriculturalists at the time, though.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I'm a firm believer in verifying scientific claims, especially when they are used to drive policy on a global scale. I just think that a) the topic has been played out, and b) Climate change discussions on slashdot have moved from discussing the science behind it to silly flame wars (I know so, because I pretty much started one the last time around).
I seriously would like to put a moratorium on these stories until there are some new and credible theories that come up. Relinking to the same old arguments (both ways) does nothing to advance the discussion, or the knowledge of the topic.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Also, in TFA, I see this: Myth: Polar bear numbers are increasing Then I see this.
So, other than the standard response of "Global warming deniers are liars", can anyone tell me, why the discrepancy? It seems to me that TFA is as much a myth as the 26 myths it points to.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
How do you know previous climate fluctuations were without, as you put it, "zomg serious consequences" for the species living at the time?
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
The article missed the two biggest causes of global warming:
1. George Bush hating black people
2. Bears
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
And not all change is bad. Yes, we should do something about pollution of all sorts. A clever observer will notice though that warmer climate equals more arable land at a time when there are more humans to feed than ever. Opportunities abound.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
So what do we buy if we want to kill babies?
Having looked at the Firehose for some time now, I find it amusing that same-old, same-old (read: non-newsworthy) articles like this appear on the main page so quickly, whereas all articles that present a dissenting conclusion never get here in the first place. I doubt the "votes" have much of anything to do with that.
Slashdot editors please give both sides a fair chance here; this isn't science vs. religion; it's [supposedly] science vs. science and people should be promoting that.
I like basketball!!1!
I, for one, welcome global warming. See, I hate Massachusetts winters. And how cool would it be to pick coconuts in my back yard?
FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
You didn't even mention the appreciable levels of hot air that emanate from those commenting.
u-bend
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
So what do we buy if we want to kill babies?
Hammers.
Yes, the earth has been much warmer in the past. When the dinosaurs roamed the earth, for example. However, they didn't have up to a billion people living within a meter of sea-level.
It really doesn't take much melting of currently land-bourne ice to cause massive displacement problems for a lot of people. Look at a map of your country. See how many of the major cities are coastal ports.
Were it not for the very expensive Thames Barrier, London would already have ended up like New Orleans at a couple of points. It may well still be over-run this century.
Don't worry what may happen to most of the coastal cities. I'm sure you live well away from the sea. Shame so much trade, and thus the global economy runs through them.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
You just don't want to believe in global warming because you want to think of yourself as a good, responsible person, but you don't want to change your lifestyle. You were already convinced of your point before you started to read the article, and as soon as you found one point that you could attempt to refute, you stopped reading.
The fact is that they are saying that the Earth's weather, as opposed to climate, is a chaotic system. It's like boiling water, which is a chaotic system. When it comes to predicting where a bubble will form or burst, it's impossible. But predicting that adding more heat will make bubbles form more quickly is simple.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Having spent many hours arguing with people who will jump on any conspiracy theory they can find, and who will happily trust a 2 hour program on channel 4 instead of a plethora of peer reviewed scientific journals, I don't know if I should laugh or cry at the posts in this thread. Lets get this straight once and for all, you will not debunk anything with two sentences. Simply explaining what global average temperature is, or what is meant with a greenhouse gas, or what radiative forcing refers to, requires an entire article on its own. I don't know how many times I have seen some statement along the lines of "Solar radiation changes" completely ignoring matter of relative magnitude, time-scales, research on the topic, and whatnot. At the end of the day the issue is so complex that the only one-liner that has even the slightest legitimacy is "this is what the vast majority of experts on the topic believe" and even that one requires credible references ( as so many sceptics will contest it ). Anyway, the most useful bit of text that will appear in this entire thread follows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming There you go, it isn't perfect but it is the best that will appear on slashdot.
So what do we buy if we want to kill babies?
I saw a hot deal on the Bay-B Shred-O-Matic the other day...
This guy's the limit!
That was the 16th myth on the list.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
The scientific community isn't bickering about the basic things: that warming is occuring, and that human activity is contributing to it. The "the scientific community is divided so there's nothing we can do" line is just used to prevent action. It's the same very effective tactic used by big tobacco for decades in the 60s to prevent recognition of the cancer causing properties of tobacco.
Lies about crimes
Well we'd ask them but they're all extinct. Oh... wait...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
... bringing more facts into the discussion is obviously biased.
I hear so many times from folks, especially in the media, that the planet is warming because of 'X'. They always want to blame it on one thing. My favorite is that "the Sun is getting hotter! It's not the human race!" Or others love to blame the SUVs or coal fired power plants exclusively.
What I'm getting at is the folks who reduce the argument to one variable, regardless of your point of view on the matter, are muddying matters even more and making is difficult to get folks on board to solve the problem. So by saying, "the Sun is getting hotter." tha just gives people the rational to throw their hands up and say "There's nothing I can do.
My wife had a great answer to a neighbor who believes that global warming is myth. She said to him, "By taking the steps to reduce greenhouse gases that cause global warming, we will be cleaning up the air. And I don't know about you, but I like clean air."
Here in Metro Atlanta, most of the Summer is "Smog Alert Day" and it's miserable. Everybody, pro or con, wants clean air - even the global warming naysayers.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Then we can decide for ourselves whether there's any link between smoking and cancer.
You can't take the sky from me...
Reading just one of them...
Climate myths: They predicted global cooling in the 1970s
"Indeed they did. At least, a handful of scientific papers discussed the possibility of a new ice age at some point in the future..."
"This scenario was seen as plausible by many other scientists"
"However, Schneider soon realised he had overestimated the cooling effect of aerosol pollution and underestimated the effect of CO2, meaning warming was more likely than cooling in the long run. In his review of a 1977 book "
Ok... so remind me how this is a "myth" again? Scientists did predict global cooling in the early seventies, and the idea caught on. The fact that someone disagreed near the end of the seventies doesn't eliminate the fact that they did believe it would happen in the early seventies.
There's a lot that can be said about climate change, but that article was not it. I was disappointed in that publication. The most eggregious error from a computer science perspective is that it requires no great talent to train a model that predicts your training data, and even your withheld data, and still have the model prove worthless when confronted with unknowns from the real world.
I read articles every week about major new terms being proposed or incorporated into these models, I hold about as much faith in these models as chess computers from 1980 that regard castling through check as a legal move. Three decades later, the progress with chess programs is a wonder to behold. Our present climate models are perhaps good enough to suggest strong grounds for concern, but looking back 30 years from now, they'll seem like toys.
I'm sorry if it sounds like bickering to you. You are most welcome to not listen if you don't like it (and to not read Slashdot stories on topics you are now bored by), but if you want science to continue progressing then accept that the scientific community will be in a constant state of debate. That's a good thing, by the way.
And if you're waiting for "irrefutable proof" and "cure-all solutions" on *any* topic (much less climatology) then you may as well just give up on scientific inquiry entirely. There is no such thing as irrefutable proof, and no such thing as a cure-all solution without drawbacks.
A British au pair.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The problem with "peer review" is the "peers". If the individuals doing the review have a bias, the approved, reviewed information will reflect that bias.
I don't aggree with Gore's "case closed" statment. I think human activity has an effect on the climate, anybody who thinks we have no effect is either ignorant or a fool. However, I don't know that we are the determining factor. We simply don't have enough information yet. There is a LOUD chorus of individuals who claim to be sure, and they drown our the scientists that say we need more study.
I am WAY more worried about more serious pollutants. We are pumping materials many times more toxic than CO2 into the air and water. I think we will face problems like rising cancer rates, mutations and sterility that will effect us decades before this minor (yes, minor) climate change.
But I also hate the frakking heat.
Quite to the contrary of the GP's assertion, climate has caused catastrophically large extinction events in the past. Thankfully, climate doesn't swing wildly very often on it's own.
Also, notice that it's not, say, a high temperature or high CO2 levels that are bad. It's the *rapid change* that is bad, and as far as rate of change, this current one is only really bested by asteroid/comet impacts and supervolcanism. A disturbing example of this is the "Great Dying" (the Permian-Triassic event), largely brought about by Earth's largest known volcanic event (the eruption of the "Siberian Traps"), which doubled Earth's CO2 levels, created acid rain, and all sorts of other effects that mimic Man's impact on the modern world (the other major theory also involves global warming, but from methane unleashed by the traps instead of CO2; either way, the warming aspect is generally uncontested, as the evidence is so strong). Over a million or so years (most concentrated in a few hundred thousand), the vast majority of multicellular life died as ecosystems were thrown out of balance, and hundreds of millions of years of evolution were undone. For a while after this eruption, the dominant species on the planet were fungi -- decomposers. Slowly eating all of the dead.
The only way I would lionize Dick Cheney would be while he was still alive, and it would involve actual lions.
Shrug. Looking through this thread, there are a bunch of obviously over-emotional "there is no global warming people", and they all either make the argument that, "90% of the scientists in the world are wrong because of *insert anecdote here*" or that the whole thing is completely political and manufactured by the liberal media.
You at least bothered to make some citations, but the citations you made are irrelevant...Drudge talking about the weather? Jim Inhofe's blog? That bastard is so conservative he doesn't believe in fire, and he sure as hell doesn't know the first thing about science.
Now take the article that is the point of this thread...It's on New Scientist, which is at least scientific in nature (unlike either of your examples), and each point is made with citations to sites that also deal in science, some of which are quite reputable.
Given those arguments, who would you believe if you didn't have an obvious bias?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
http://www.xkcd.com/c258.html
Thank you xkcd.
Think of it like snopes. "They predicted global cooling" if by "they" you mean a handful of scientists, and by "predicted" you mean in an unspecified future. Usually, the people posting this want you to infer that "they" refers to a scientific consensus, and "predicted" means "soon". Yes, certain magazines totally got this wrong. So, in the sense that the poster usual means when they say "They predicted global cooling", it is not true.
Did you read past the first sentence?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Article 2 http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/ climate-change/dn11658 states "The great majority of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was put there by the developed world, with the US alone responsible for an estimated quarter of emissions since 1750" right after the first article http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/ climate-change/dn11638 states "It is true that human emissions of CO2 are small compared with natural sources."
Which it is ? How can anybody know what to believe in the face of such huge inconsistencies ?
Look at the rainfall predictions.
s /cms/dn11657/dn11657-1_365.jpg
http://environment.newscientist.com/data/images/n
Their best estimate is that there will be 10-20 inches less rainfall in some of the poorest areas of the world, not to mention most of europe. What exactly do you think less rainfall is going to do? People are going to starve. Maybe that's not a concern for you when you can drive down the street to the McDonalds and get a big mac, but for people who live by subsistance farming its really bad news. The whole "won't affect me" attitude is a lot of the problem. Crank up the A/C and keep watching Fox news.
And by the way, the "more arable land" would be in areas that aren't currently farmed, so we'd be chopping down even more trees and compounding the problem by wrecking even more carbon sinks.
Instead of listing 26 reasons that global warming is real and caused by humans, wouldn't we all be better served by a list of 26 things that a single person can do to improve our quality of life and the health of the environment (that just so happen to also reduce global warming) that aren't prohibitively expensive or that demand levels of sacrifice that we all know Joe Blow won't make?
Oh wait...sorry. That would be productive and require more brainpower than the "yes it is! no it isn't!" shouting match.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
try and post facts other than those supported by group think in relation to global warming and it will get editted out.
Example, the section about glaciers retreating has its own page, go make one showing all the growing glaciers and watch it vanish. I seriously do not believe them anymore when the say pages don't vanish. Its even more fun when your id goes missing too.
There is no place for intelligent discussion on global warming anymore. Too many of the people running sites have already decided and its evident in the stories that get posted and the comments that get nuked, stripped, or otherwise put into oblivion.
any scientist who supports something other than man made global warming gets labeled as an industry lackey whereas the obvious government we need continued funding lackeys get respect second to God.
The only science I trust now is that dealing with space. Too much of science about earth and mans effect is polluted by political ideaology.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Those people who talk about ice melting and water logging the cities of the world haven't taken into consideration the increased evaporation in the Oceans. The Indian ocean for example is 30cm lower then what gravity says it should be due to an increased evaporation. The oceans haven't been going up in fact due to such evaporation. Water evaporates from the ocean and gets deposited elsewhere Like in the east antarctic where the ice sheet is actually growing not shrinking. That is the balance of the globe.
How do you know about what is happening now is almost as bad as a comet? Were you around at that time? Yes we have fossils, but fossils don't tell the complete story and I wish people would understand this. What fossils tell is a probability of something that maybe happened based on interpretation. Its like the Bible. Did it happen, probably, but did it happen how people recounted it? Probably not.
The problem I have with many of these theories is that they attempt to extrapolate to situations that we experience everyday, which is a major mistake. Here is my reason why the dinosaurs died. The reason why the dinosaurs died is because the aliens that kept feeding them left the planet. Don't believe me, right? But am I wrong? You ask where is the proof that there were aliens?
Proof is interesting because until recently we thought Columbus was the first European to reach North America, now we know it was the Vikings, and if you read Farley Mowat he even says it was earlier and not the vikings. There is even a theory that the first Europeans came to North American during the Ice Age and they think this due to the genetic imprints of the Native North Americans.
My point is that we don't even know the exact truth 5000 years ago. History has this odd behavior to become lost and found again. Constructive mostly unbiased history started about 40 years ago. Everything before that was selective information. And now you are telling me, something that happened 65 million years ago is similar to today? Yeah right, maybe it did, maybe it didn't and unless you can say "I was there" everything any scientist says is a formal form of handwaving.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Anecdote, meet data.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I, for one, welcome our new scientist myth-debunking overlords.
I enjoy my re-education and only wish to serve the greater good of mankind, as defined by those who know more than I do.
I reject calls for understanding that science is about observation, theory, and reproducible results. Instead, I whole-heartedly accept that science is about consensus, caring for others, and saving the planet. As a computer expert, I give up my knowledge that computer models are almost pointless when dealing with ten-thousand variable systems and accept that scientists know what is important and what is not.I reject my selfish way of wanting to keep my rich lifestle. I understand that sacrifices must be made, mostly by me, in order for the poor to survive. I gladly give up my wealth to those central managers who will take my resources and apply them where they make the most scientific sense.
Gosh. I feel so much better! This was a lot more fun than surrendering to the last overlords. Now that I've joined, do I get a brown uniform and a cool set of black leather boots? Is there a cool hand salute or anything?
Apologies if I appear cynical in any fashion. I am sure some more re-education will fix me right up. We unwashed masses are in constant need of education.
The problem is that "global warming skepticism" already has developed into a fully-fledged pseudoscience, in the same league as creationism, astrology, homeopathy, crystal healing, etc., etc., etc.
The core characteristic of a pseudoscience is that is carefully constructed to weave its way around the facts, and that is highly adaptable: Like a nasty disease, it will rapidly develop resistance to any argument used against it. Also, it is inherently unfalsifiable, because a pseudoscience is not a theory that can be used to generate predictions that can be tested (as a science should be), but a collection of objections and statements of ignorance that does not make predictions. Science predicts. Pseudoscience only objects.
It is important to understand that distinction. If a scientific theory predicts, say, a temperature of 23C, and the measurement is 12+/-3C, then that theory cannot be correct -- it has been falsified, as Karl Popper argued. But if a pseudoscience claims that something cannot be right because the temperature is 23C, and you react by showing data showing that it actually is 12+/-3C, then that fails to destroy the pseudoscience, because that was just one of the potentially infinite number of objections that constitute the body of the pseudoscience. You can, therefore, spent an infinite amount of time carrying on counter-arguments.
So although I applaud New Scientist for making the effort, sadly, it is a complete illusion that this will convince anyone. You cannot convince people who have already made up their mind to ignore factual arguments, by using factual arguments. As tempting as it can be to enter such a debate, I have to warn that almost every possible way to spend your time and energy is more rewarding and more fun. Most science students make that error sooner or later. Most will learn that it is just a pointless waste of time. Much better to work on the real scientific case, and ignore the loonies.
My excuses for the 0.001% of climate change skeptics who are actually using a scientifically valid argumentation. I regret that they are getting the dog's fleas by involuntary association, but they still have their colleagues to find intelligent conversation and solace, even if they may not agree.
And at the end of the day, it probably won't matter that much. I am confident that the majority of people is sane, and that democratic government will (slowly but with some inevitability) result in an acceptable policy. There may be some hold-outs, but in those cases there is always Sarkozy's suggestion of taxing the exports of countries that don't address global warming.
You want to hear from scientists? Perhaps you should go read what these scientists have to say (The scientist's comments are a little way down the page.)
Suffice it to say that the scientific community is not unanimous on the issue of anthropocentric warming.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
From TFA: Finally, the claim is sometimes made that if computer models were any good, people would be using them to predict the stock market. Well, they are!
A lot of trading in the financial markets is already carried out by computers. Many base their decisions on fairly simple algorithms designed to exploit tiny profit margins, but others rely on more sophisticated long-term models.
Major financial institutions are investing huge amounts in automated trading systems, the proportion of trading carried out by computers is growing rapidly and some individuals have made a fortune from them. The smart money is being bet on computer models.
There's a huge distinction between using software to handle stock trades and using software to model the stock market. The author blurs this distinction.
A very large hedge fund tried modeling the market in the 90's. Hired a bunch of analysts and some Nobel prize winning economists to create the models. Bottom line - the fund went belly up. Almost took the rest of the market with it. (See Cramer's "Confessions of A Street Addict" for details. Note: it was not Cramer's fund). The stock market is too large, complex, and chaotic a system to accurately forecast.
[Insert pithy quote here]
This argument is insane. I live in East Anglia (United Kingdom). 10,000 years ago it stretched right across to Europe. The north sea didn't exist. Mammoth roamed where the channel is today. Sea level has risen 300 feet since then and you are concerned about a rise of 1 or 2 meters over 100 years? Let me ask you a question: would you prefer global temperatures increased or decreased? They sure as hell aren't going to remain the same and you have no idea whether or not the current climate and temperatures are optimal for supporting anything, from Orange tree frogs to Mum and Dad. Your whole argument is predicated on the fact that we can actually keep global climate as it is today. I'm in dispair at the irrationality of the whole ridiculous argument.
So demonstrate the bias. Wild claims of "there could be bias" without actually pointing out the bias are worthless.
Why don't you think that human activity is a determining factor in the atmospheric CO2 levels?
Who are the scientists that say we need more study before taking action? How many of them are not getting paid by fossil fuel industries (e.g. coal, oil, and natural gas) or fossil fuel consuming industries (e.g. automobiles, electric power)?
The professional community had been worrying about and working on fixes for Y2K for more than a decade prior. It was only as the deadline approached that the general public got a hold of the issue. Of course the companies that had procrastinated until the last minute were forced to pay outrageous sums of money to get their systems fixed - the engineering adage of "Fast, Good, Cheap - pick any two" was in full force and "fast" was a requirement.
Yeah! And you know, four out of five dentists recommend chewing sugarfree gum. I go to Dr. Kyle Charles Finnegan, the "out out of five dentists" who recommends gum with sugar in it.
The only way I would lionize Dick Cheney would be while he was still alive, and it would involve actual lions.
Good one. It's funny to listen to a hundred scientists argue about this issue with so much more certainty and passion than scientists like me have. I'm not going to touch the issue, other than to lament the way that it has become politicized to the extent that random people buy ridiculous individual arguments and defend a position that has no scientific support.
/.
What I really wanted to point out, though, was that "organic" products are actually a major problem to the "let's emit less CO2 and remove more" strategy. "Organic" crops take up more that twice as much land area per unit output, which has led to huge sections of rainforest cleared out to allow for more land-hungry organic food production. Organic food was never meant to be a pro-environmental movement. When the labeling was first conceived, the idea was to imply that the food was healthier because it contained bugs instead of poisons. The idea that pesticides would then be less prevalent in water supplies became tied to it, with good reason. But then from that pro-environmental argument, people got the idea that organic food must be good for the environment in every way. It's certainly not. Organic food is an important cause of deforestation in Central America, both directly (organic food grown there) and indirectly (increased organic production in the United States means lower overall agricultural output, which then increases the demand for agriculture in Central America). Organic food in some cases may be better for your health. In some ways, it's better for the environment. However, it's a big problem for the environment in other ways, so you'll have to make an educated choice.
Okay, one more thing. "Does 1 person make a real difference? Hell no" is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen posted on
Instead of listing 26 reasons that global warming is real and caused by humans, wouldn't we all be better served by a list of 26 things that a single person can do to improve our quality of life and the health of the environment (that just so happen to also reduce global warming) that aren't prohibitively expensive or that demand levels of sacrifice that we all know Joe Blow won't make?
Exactly. In fact, if you read the article, you would have noticed a few that specifically are What Can I Do issues.
Let's break it down:
First, Primary, Big Impact: your cars, SUVs, trucks. This accounts for probably 50 percent of your lifestyle choices that impact global warming (or cataclysmic global climate change, since it oscillates like crazy when pushed).
What can you do?
A. Easy - take your vehicle(s) in for regular tuneups. Keep the tires PROPERLY inflated. Amazingly, this can affect 10 percent of your impact from vehicles.
B. Moderate - next vehicle(s) you buy, new or used, just get one that gets 5 mpg BETTER than your last.
C. Real Change - increase transit use, walking, and bicycling instead of car/SUV/truck use. Switch from a low mpg class like an SUV that you use for in-city driving to a passenger car with twice the mpg. Carpool. Move closer to where you work. Have fewer cars in your family (for example, drop the kids off en route and make them take the bus home).
Second. Flying. If you visit Europe, consider only flying to the first destination, and using their high-speed passenger rail system (same time as a jet) to travel from one city to the next, and then using local transit once you arrive. This will save you money, and sometimes time. If travelling to Germany, but wanting to see London, consider flying to London and then taking the train the rest of the way, stopping along the way to see other spots. Or use one of the new Boeing low-fuel plane models on a flight leg if you can (they use 50 percent as much jet fuel, a MAJOR impact on global warming, and it cost YOU the SAME or less to fly on it).
Third. Lightbulbs. Seriously. Just consider replacing lights as they burn out with high-quality inexpensive 4 or 6 packs of Compact Flourescent Lights (CFL) at Home Depot - usually I can get 4 for about $6 or 6 for $9. Worth a trip. This will SAVE YOU MONEY. Each lasts five to seven years, they use 1/8 as much energy. Or consider the slightly expensive LED lights - they use 1/20th the energy - new ones are WHITE light. These should be as cheap as CFLs by 2008, and will be required in most US states and all of Canada, so it's not like you have a choice anyway.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I have learned that past sky-high CO2 concentrations have been documented in peer-reviewed research journals. If we have hit peak oil, I doubt we will ever be able to reach these levels.
This data is available from a variety of sources, with interesting commentary:
RES: Professor Robert E. Sloan, Department of Geology, University of MinnesotaJC: Dr Joe Cain, interviewer
There is a great rejection of the global warming panic in the scientific community (it is unlikely that "big oil" funds have "bribed" so many faculty members of such prestigious universities, despite a smear campaign). Because of the tremendous expense of implementing Kyoto, should we pause in global warming remediation efforts that may border on the alarmist? It is not in any way difficult to find distinguished scientists who reject all calls for panic.
However, I don't know that we are the determining factor. We simply don't have enough information yet. There is a LOUD chorus of individuals who claim to be sure, and they drown our the scientists that say we need more study.
I agree completely; however I don't think that means it's ok to not do anything. There is a lot of evidence that we are an important factor. It's not obviously a closed case, and it does need more study, but we also need to avoid the trap of "paralysis through analysis." We can commission study after study and await results until it is either too late or the costs of fixing it have gone up. At this point, the evidence is strong enough that it should be clear we are better off starting to solve the problem *now*, while continuing to study it, than we are postponing a solution while the problem gets harder to solve in hopes that we've been wrong.
Put another way, "needs more study" vs "fix the problem" is a false dichotomy -- there is nothing to say we can't start solving the problem now, while it's still tractable, while *also* continuing to study it to make sure both that we're solving the problem in the best manner and that it actually exists / is solvable.
For example, the 'myth' on chaotic systems - the whole definition of chaotic system is that if you have two very similar sets of input data, you can get two very different sets of dissimilar outputs - so using the kind of prediction that the global trend in a chaotic system will remain the same is bullshit.
This should probably be Myth #0.
Thermal noise is the symptom of molecular movement being a chaotic system. That hasn't stopped people from developing statistical mechanics and thermodynamics which, ask any mechanical engineer, are still highly deterministic and useful with sufficiently large sample sets. While weather is a chaotic system, and localized climate is relatively unpredictable, the average behaviour of the Earth's system as a whole is much more predictable.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
The point is, that climate change is happening at a much faster rate than it has in the past. You're right, it will get warmer or cooler - eventually. The point that you're missing is that it actually matters how quickly that happens. If it happens slowly enough, people and animals can adapt.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
That moves you from merely correlation to causation. It's nice to see the goal posts moved yet again. Do they actually have to prove they are the sole cause, or can they demonstrate with 90-99% certainty that we are the primary cause?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
How can I debunk your debunking, when you can't even be bothered to read the article?
"Just believe in ID, it has more prove that the stuff you pull out."
Oh really? Care to site sources for this proof?
Most of the so-called "proof" for Intelligent Design rests on claims that the probability of life coming about as it did is so low that some mind has to be behind it. However, if the universe is one big roll of the dice than every possibility is equally likely, and thus while any one particular possibility can occur by chance w/o the help of God.
Furthermore, the ID supporters assume that there was only a single chance for life to occur in the universe. From what we have seen from studying the universe and space exploration this is probably far from the case. Mars, Venus, and several moons in our solar system may all have at one time or in some cases may still support microbial life. A single chance in a million will probably not yield much, but a billion runs at a one in a million shot should give several successes. There are billions upon billions of stars. We have already seen several with planets.
All that said. I do believe that there is a higher order to the universe, but simply putting things as "God did it" is both a disservice to mankind and a thoughtless disrespect for any such God who I am pretty well sure put us on this earth for more than just kissing up to him.
Peer review only works if the skeptics are allowed to poke and prod without intereference. Which is not the case with global warming. Given that non of the computer models can properly measure the effects clouds have on the climate, I'm extremely skeptical of any evidence produced thereby. Not to mention apparently we're responsible for a proportionate amount of warming on mars.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Did someone mention Greenland yet again?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
If you'd like to do some of the experiments discussed in the article yourself, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.
Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.
Posting anonymously so I can moderate too.
Nothing curbs population growth as much as development. Most (if not all) industrialized nations have zero or negative population growth. It basically works like this: in a modern industrialized country, children are a liability in preparation for a time when you are too old to work. In a third world country, children are insurance that you will be cared for when you are too old to provide for yourself (not to mention they are free labor on a farm, in a sweatshop, etc...)
Politicians are like diapers - they should be changed frequently and for the same reasons.
However, if I have to choose between siding with scientists from MIT or Oxford - or "scientists" that got project grants or paid jobs because they mentioned "Global Warming" in their project name - guess what I'll choose... This whole silly thing reminds me of Y2K panic.
FYI, your heroes at MIT/ Oxford seem to agree with global warming and are trying to educate you, but
perhaps the real problem is that you don't understand it.
There are several predictions by the global warming theory that would have a very severe, immediate impact on humans as well as other species. Even if they are wrong on most things, if they are correct on any one of these items the consequences would be very serious and irreversible (at least not reversible in any short amount of time).
Several key, non-controversial observations of the world we are living in:
The list could go on. Now for the potential consequences:
So, why should we risk these severe consequences? We have the technology and resources to significantly dampen the rate at which greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere. Oil companies certainly have the resources to help out in this regard (considering they made billions in pure profit last year alone). Frankly, I think it is the height of irresponsibility to just keep going along and doing nothing until some catastrophic event occurs.
The motivation for most, if not all, of the prominent critics is quite clear. They are almost always funded directly or indirectly by oil companies. Some executives go so far as to describe the benefits of global warming while simultaneously claiming humans aren't the primary cause of the current trend.
What motivation would all of these scientists have to deceive everyone? You could say they wouldn't get research grants if they were to try to publish reports that countered the global-warming theory. But how did it get to this point? Global warming wasn't commonly believed until relatively recently (only the last couple of decades). Meaning that scientists changed their minds. In whose interests would it have been to change these scientists' minds? How could they have convinced them without sound scientific data? The great majority of climate scientists are payed by public funds and aren't easily fired so there really is not an incentive for them to knowingly lie to or deceive their peers.
So I repeat: watch 'An Inconvenient Truth'. Just because you don't like the messenger doesn't mean he's wrong. And if you doubt Al Gore's intentions consider that his professor in college was one of the original proponents of global warming and Gore has been pressing this issue for decades. What would motivate him to do this if he didn't honestly believe in it?
We have a history of global warming or cooling alarmists. My fist assumption by looking at just a small history of reporting is that we don't have a friggin clue.
Example:- In 1895 The New York Times wrote "Geologists Think the World May Be Frozen Up Again."
- In 1924 New York Times ran stories about "A New Ice Age."
- In 1933 the New York Times wrote "The Longest Warming Spell since 1776."
- In 1975 the New York Times wrote, "A Major Cooling Widely Considered to be Inevitable. "
Now Time Magazine's turn:I have no idea whether these scientists or climatologists really have a clue or not, but we should be focusing on cleaning up are act regardless. Cleaner energy is a great thing regardless if global warming or cooling is looming. Purely recyclable products should become mandatory. I think we have a moral obligation to have as little impact on the environment as possible. We are clearly intelligent enough to know that most of our byproduct aren't good for the environment and intelligent enough to figure out how to clean it up.
It really shouldn't matter whether you believe global warming/cooling is real or not. It shouldn't matter if your of some political affiliation or not and it shouldn't matter if your an environmentalist or not. What matters is that you do your part and make a statement by doing whatever you can to help reduce pollution and waste.
This is a reasonable position to take, given the ongoing inquiry nature of science itself. Sure, there's a consensus, but it's all still theory and there's still a lot of good science to be done on this one.
We should take action *and* do more study- and we should do our best to make irrelevant the folks who want to dogmatize science.
If there's one thing I won't stand for, it's intolerance.
So, claims that the planet has been warmer in the past can't be justified using temperature reconstructions or local phenomena.
What is clear, both from the temperature reconstructions and from independent evidence - such as the extent of the recent melting of mountain glaciers - is that the planet has been warmer in the past few decades than at any time during the medieval period.
Yet, somehow the same "guesswork"-ey temperature reconstructions and local phenomena *can* be used as evidence to support claims that the planet *hasn't* been warmer in the past.
Here's my issue: I'm not sure of the extent of our part in that warming, but I think we ought to minimize our negative impact as much as possible. But the polarized rhetoric about all of this is obfuscating the real, candid debate we ought to be having. You can't claim that it's a fact that we are causing a catastrophic warming trend that will kill billions based on what we know now. But you also can't claim that there's nothing to worry about, either!
The only way we're going to ever have a productive conversation about this is if we can get past the politics and posturing and admit the shortcomings of our knowledge, but at the same time, acknowledge that we can't ignore the issue.
I am assuming you wanted a real list of scientists. Now this is only a partial list. Many of these scientists fought to have Canada leave the Kyoto treaty and are firm Global Warming skeptics.
= Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927b9303-802a-23ad -494b-dccb00b51a12&Region_id=&Issue_id=
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction
Some of these scientists are dyed in the wool environmentalists as well, not a big oil employee.
Point: Your numbers are wrong.
Point: Your characterizations are wrong.
Not every scientist who says "no" to human-driven change is employed by the oil industry.
Not every scientist who believes climate change is occuring, believes it is man-driven.
Take a look a look at this list of significant scientists that are now abandoning the "man-driven" idea. Some even say they felt pressured to lend their voice to the "man-driven" cause because that was the side their bread was buttered on.
The fact is, this argument has now become a religious argument and the science is actually second, or even third to the argument and agendas.
Do try to step back and become a dispassionate.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
I've heard it said that changing the climate is like steering an aircraft carrier, only a whole lot slower. The main thing I would have people consider is that panicking about the state of the atmosphere is counterproductive, and that's the biggest thing I'd complain about as a "climate myth". We are not working against some sort of impending carbon countdown doomsday clock to doom and oblivion. We're just making the climate slowly, but measurably and somewhat predictably, worse, over the coming decades.
Certainly we want to do something about this. But what we don't need are radical, crazy things to change the course of things: it's disruptive, and won't work. We need strong measures, but they need to be flexible, and they need to give people time to adapt. Real change takes time - much longer than anyone with a political stick to shake can hope for to boost their career. You probably can't change your driving habits overnight. You probably can't go out and buy a new super-fuel-efficient Prius at the drop of a hat. (If you can, you have too much money.) Industry needs time too. I have an acquaintance who is a power plant engineer. The new plant coming online in several years' time is basically some sort of gypsum factory, or something like that (probably not actually gypsum, but I've forgotten what it was) that also happens to produce electricity. It puts out very little carbon into the atmosphere. But a power plant takes a long time to build - decades.
Of course, I think many people, and many good environmentalists, realize this. But the current state of affairs isn't a state of Good Environmentalism. It's a state of Moral Panic, of pseudoenvironmentalists chanting the "Bush-Republicans-and-Industry-are-Evil" mantra, and politicians giving handouts instead of promoting real change (*cough cough* I'm looking at you, Ethanol - and also some of the stupider handouts to industry for E85 engines that never actually see a drop of the corn squeezings). What we need isn't, as Tony Blair put it, "radical international measures" because you can't possibly hope to cut global emissions in half overnight, short of global thermonuclear war. What we need a good dose of Truth, and not just what Al Gore thinks of it. We need reasonable measures. I'm sick of the hackneyed, black-and-white, us-versus-them approach to The Environment we have today. The world needs real solutions, not career-boosting buzzwords and political propaganda.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
The fact that you fall so easily for Viking marketing is quite telling to your position of global warming: Thre's one of you born every minute.
You can't take the sky from me...
Climate change sceptics sometimes claim that many leading scientists question climate change. Well, it all depends on what you mean by "many" and "leading". For instance, in April 2006, 60 "leading scientists" signed a letter urging Canada's new prime minister to review his country's commitment to the Kyoto protocol.You want to hear from scientists? Perhaps you should go read what these scientists have to say (The scientist's comments are a little way down the page.)
Suffice it to say that the scientific community is not unanimous on the issue of anthropocentric warming.
This appears to be the biggest recent list of sceptics. Yet many, if not most, of the 60 signatories are not actively engaged in studying climate change: some are not scientists at all and at least 15 are retired.
Compare that with the dozens of statements on climate change from various scientific organisations around the world representing tens of thousands of scientists, the consensus position represented by the IPCC reports and the 11,000 signatories to a petition condemning the Bush administration's stance on climate science.
The fact is that there is an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community about global warming and its causes. There are some exceptions, but the number of sceptics is getting smaller rather than growing.
You can't take the sky from me...
Yes, some scientists in the 70s claimed that we were entering a cooling stage, but his point is that it was only a handful of scientists and the media took it and ran with it. Once the data was investigated further the scientists backed off. I was just a little shaver then and I remember the hype, but I can't say if the whole scientific community was behind it or if it was just a few mavericks. And judging from your posts, neither can you.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Overall global warming could disrupt the oceanic currents, and actually make it _colder_ in Iceland and Europe. The reason Europe is temperate is because of oceanic currents bringing warm water to its shores. If those were to change too much, the climate in Europe could become like the climate in northern Canada.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
Rubbish, apply the inverse square law to the temperature increases for both Earth and Mars and it becomes obvious that the 2 are totally unrelated.
You never catch me alive
There is no "evil" from a earth point of view. From a human being point of view however that's another matter.
- There could be change in habitable area, resulting in necessary population displacement and probably a lot of dead.
- There could be change in local climate resulting in variation of vegetation and animal meaning there will be famine. That means there will also be migration of diseases and parasites. For example, tropical diseases in the UK.
- Last time there was such a big warming there was also a massive extinction of animal(see TFA): the time evolution does its job and repopulate earth. Unfortunately human being will have to live in the meanwhile. ( For example in Europe, a lot of plant relies on the frost to clear the parasites. Without frost, that means the ecosystem will change a lot )
That enough to say that in case of real climate change humanity will enter a chaotic period with a lot of death and misery. Even the US and Europe will be impacted since they rely a lot on the poorest nations - and chaos is not good for business anyway.
That said, sure maybe a better humanity will emerge but I would rather live in the current one without a SUV.
If someone could CONCLUSIVLY prove that humans are the sole cause of global warming, and that global warming is not natural, and that it is bad, I would listen.
Actually, only that last clause needs to be proven. By your reasoning, an asteroid hitting the earth is nothing to be worried about because humans wouldn't be the cause and it is a natural process. If global warming is bad, then we should work to reverse it regardless of its cause. Some proposed solutions assume that CO2 increases are the cause and work to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but other solutions involve reducing the about of solar radiation absorbed by the earth (via microsats or changes to planetary albedo).
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
The real problem isn't the "is global warming happening" debate.
The real debate should be, "ok, what can we do about it?" And, remember, one of the options should be "nothing."
Once that's been discussed, we need to move on to, "ok, what do we do about it?" And, again, remember that "nothing" is an option.
All I know is that a lot of the energy saving tips the media frequently puts out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6636521.stm are idiotic. Partly because many of them are unworkable (how much power does turning off your broadband connection really save? Seriously? I could run my home router for a year on the power my water heater uses in half an hour.) But mostly because they don't know how generating capacity works... we need enough generators online for peak load, regardless of whether your broadband router is turned off or not. As long as all those generators are running to meet peak load, you're burning the exact same amount of fuel and releasing the exact same amount of carbon.
Figure out how to ACTUALLY slow down the release of carbon (hint: nuclear power does it) and I'll be happy to follow your stupid tips. But as long as you're asking me to unplug my router which won't make a whit of difference except to annoy me, then it's just not going to happen.
(Oh, also, stop being pissy to people who already do more than most to reduce pollution. Every morning I ride a train to work; you tell some people this and they say "wow, those diesel locomotives put out a lot of pollution." Oh yeah, sorry, me and the other 400 people who ride it should all drive our cars instead, thank you Mr. Genius Environmentalist.)
Comment of the year
The warming of CO2 is actually relatively well established; what is uncertain is how much it is amplified by feedbacks. We're talking increasing the CO2 concentrations by a few hundredths of a percentage point as a percentage of the mass of the atmosphere over the next century. What matters is the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, as weighted by each gas's warming potential, not the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 is a major greenhouse gas (although not the strongest), and it may more than double over the next century. I saw references to the simulations but could not find the methodology as to how they were conducted. The full Working Group I report (not just the Summary for Policymakers) has references to the literature. If they were based on the Vostok ice cores they are suspect They're based on both instrumental and ice core data, among other sources. The ice core data is not the long-term Vostok data for ice ages you're referring to, but just over the last few centuries. I would love to talk with someone about actual data and methodologies used to come to conclusions Ok, what do you want to know?
In fact, I'm considering starting a class action suit against those who are descended from the Vikings for false advertising. Who's with me?
Besides, the point is not to make it look "threatening", but to zoom in on the region of interest. Second. this guy is even worse. Where's the calculated effect of terrestrial water vapor, i.e., the stuff near the ground? Water vapor isn't on that chart because it is a feedback, not a forcing. It's wrapped up in a quantity known as "climate sensitivity", which is the key quantity being debated in the literature. "Anthropogenic?" Uh, sorry, but contributing less than half a percent to that CO2 value annually doesn't make all that carbon "anthropogenic." In fact, virtually all of the ~35% increase in total CO2 levels is anthropogenic. I really fail to see how having half the highest CO2 concentrations of the past million years is going to do anything, Why not? Do you dispute that CO2 concentrations have changed the climate in the past? and especially with the relatively minute contribution Homo sapiens, As noted, homo sapiens has not made a "minute" contribution to CO2 levels. would be warming the world more than having an atmosphere in the first place. Humans aren't warming the world more than having an atmosphere does. They're still warming the world. What's your point?
Where a bunch of people who have only a vauge idea of what it even means to qualify as "science" or "proven" argue with research done by experts in the field because a letter to the editor they skimmed in Readers Digest while waiting for the Dentist said "Global warming is a bunch of hipe".
Any dissenters please prepend your objection with:
Of course, this is where you say "well who the fuck are YOU?". Well, I'm just a lowly computer engineer who tends to side with the experts in the field and the volumunous amount of research indicating we are experiencing abnormal temperature increases caused by man and primarily his entry into the industrial age.
Thing is, if you disagree with the experts but you a) are not an expert and b) do not have the proven skills to comprehend the experts, then c) you don't think you believe gobal warming isn't happening. Yes, I just called you ignorant if you don't meet the above qualifications. I can do that. I'm on slashdot.
You will note in your linked image that the biggest increase in precipitation is over that "arable land" I was talking about. For the most part they get big temp increases as well. Of course I care that people are going to starve. That's why I care about arable land. That much more water over such large areas suggests viable hydro power also. You're suggesting they stay where they are. Don't you care that they're going to starve?
Now if there was some way of getting the hungry people from where they are to where the food will grow... Some way that involved them applying some self help to earn their escape from darwin's cut... O, if people were only equipped with some method for moving themselves about lest they perish!
Seriously, I use these redundant articles to grind my favorite axe about this subject. Too many people are possessed of the notion that they're committed to live out their lives within 50 miles of where their mother first dropped them, and their children also, as if the world promised them it would be theirs and their progeny's forever. It doesn't work that way. Climate changes. Move or perish. Spread the word.
Trees do not sink more carbon than crops. Especially not the scruffy 4/acre trees that grow in permafrost vs modern managed crops.Help stamp out iliturcy.
"We know today how to stop increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. If the situation was really as dire as articles like this seem to pretend it is, and if the outcomes were known to the level they would like us to believe, there would be no reason not to turn the switch off."
Knowing how to top increasing levels is very different from actually being able to do it. The long term solution is conceptually easy but practically difficult. All we have to do is stop dumping greenhouse gases into out atmosphere. Easy right? All you would have to do is to convince the entire world to stop driving cars, flying planes, heating there houses will fossil fuels and generating electricity in ways the generate greenhouse gases.
We currently DO NOT have the technology to continue to use fossil fuels without poisoning out planet. Even electric cars require a source of power to recharge them. It is questionable if you gain anything by not burning gas but rather charging your car via a coal burning plant.
Then there is the added difficulty of corporate greed. There is perhaps 100 trillion dollars worth of oil remaining on our planet. Do you believe that Exxon is going to go along with losing its market?? Hell no! They want to sell every drop of oil and transition us into a new source of power that will be as lucrative as possible for them. In short if we leave our future energy needs to the corporations that are raping us today, they'll position themselves to continue to bleed us tomorrow.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Cold is only one limit on the growing cycle in the higher latitudes. Higher latitudes also receive less sunlight, which also limits plant growth.
So if Iceland's average temperature became the same as Kansas, they would still not be able to grow as much food per acre.
Like Kansas and the rest of the U.S. midwest? Woo, that's alotta corn to be growin in what was recently (from a forward looking point of view) tundra and permifrost.
And besides, the whole 'it's okay cause we'll grow on greenland' crap is so myopic it's sick. Billions of people live near the equator, and they need the be able to grow food too. How many refugee mouths will the vast bounties of greenland feed exactly?
Or is it like New Orleans all over again? Fuck them for living in the wrong place, or what?
I am likely to be skeptical anytime someone...
(1)...tells me that I should believe something because other people believe it
(2)...isn't capable of discussing alternate theories
(3)...is intolerant of other theories
(4)...insults me for not accepting their theory
Basically, the more it looks like a religious issue, the more likely I am to be
skeptical of it.
I do believe it's important to reduce our emissions and our consumption of "dirty" energy,
and so one the one hand, I'm sympathetic to global warming since it would encourage people
and governments to do things that I think they should be doing anyways. On the other hand,
however, most proponents of the human-caused-global-warming theory fail at least 3 of the
4 criterion above.
If you want to convince me of something, the first thing that you need to do is demonstrate
that you're capable of thinking critically about it. Only then can we actually discuss the
issue.
*sigh* back to work...
WHY DO ALL PEOPLE HAVE ONE TO FIVE MEMES THAT THE MEDIA THROWS AT THEM THAT THEY LATCH ONTO AS IMPORTANT? The groupthink in the world is at just an absurd level.
-knewter