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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.
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.
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.
You've said there that there's a known *localised* cycle, and that the ice is thicker because of it. What are you saying about global climate change, exactly? As far as I can see, all you're saying is that it's not as strong in that one location as the ice cycle.
Anecdotal Evidence is just fantastic. Way to go. I think I will trust the peer reviewed journals for just a while longer though.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
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
Is a subset of the whole Earth. Implying that something must be true of the Earth because it is true of Eastern Canada is the fallacy of composition.
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.
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.
That was the 16th myth on the list.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
If you read any articles about Global Warming you will see that some local areas will get colder, wetter, more snowfall, and more ice accumuluation because of shifting water currents and atmospheric wind patterns. The issue is GLOBAL WARMING, not is it warmer at my house.
Bobo Mahoney
As the publisher of J. Anec. Evid., I deplore the myth that anecdotal evidence is worse than your so-called "peer reviewed" evidence. We peer at each claim for quite a while, and only publish it if it meets our stringent two-pronged criteria:
1. It sounds good to us.
2. It makes some point that needs to be made.
Both Science and Nature have only ONE prong: repeatability. So citations from the Journal of Anecdotal Evidence are twice as sciency.
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.
Change is only good if you're okay with the fact that you will, like 99% of all the other creatures in the history of the earth, soon become extinct.
It is, as they say, the natural order of things.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I'm unsurprised that anti-climate-change folks can find a few PhDs who will agree with them. There are a lot of scientists out there, after all. But unless Morano's "more to come" has another 10,990 scientists on it, his "converts" are still nothing compared to the number of scientists who DO buy the global warming argument.
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.
At risk of getting modded down for saying something unpopular:
ALL data on climate change is anecdotal. There is only one earth! There is no sample set to compare to. The causal inseparability of the weather across the earth prevents you from testing lots of cases except over very long periods of time, which hasn't happened since forming the latest consensus model.
Yes, that sucks. No, please don't mod me down for pointing this out.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
No, it's still a myth, and TFA says that the trend of the total population -- the rising of which being the myth -- is unknown. A sub-population rising does not mean the overall population is rising. Especially when other populations are dropping, and there's a ready explanation for why the one that is rising is doing so.
The enemies of Democracy are
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Then we can decide for ourselves whether there's any link between smoking and cancer.
You can't take the sky from me...
It seems to me that TFA is as much a myth as the 26 myths it points to.
Whether or not it is a myth, it is extremely curious. The first "myth" is that "human CO2 emissions are too small to matter", and the text goes on to talk about the amount of CO2 being put into the atmosphere, not its effect on the heat budget of the Earth. This is odd, because the effect on the heat budget of the Earth (independent of any feedbacks) must be well-known, and that is the only figure that is relevant.
It is always bad engineering and bad policy-making practice to drive action based on INPUTs rather than OUTPUTs. The idiots ultimately responsible for Three Mile Island were the engineers who decided that the current running to a valve actuator could be used to measure the state of the actuator, forgetting that sometimes valves jam and so the inputs have nothing to do with the outputs.
In the present case, I don't care how many tonnes of CO2 humans are putting into the atmosphere, and neither does anyone else. I care how many W/m**2 they are adding to the Earth's energy budget. Until we start discussing that figure, we are not talking about climate change at all.
Part of the problem with this issue is that neither side is very honest. Climate change deniers start by denying the brutally obvious fact that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased dramatically in the past century. This is an empirical measurement that only a lunatic would dispute. Having thus destroyed their credibility, they go on to make some interesting and valid points. On the other side of the issue, climate change proponents spend an awful lot of time focusing on INPUT measurements, which doesn't do their credibility any good either, while at the same time doing all kinds of excellent science.
If we could focus on the EFFECT of increased CO2 on the Earth's energy budget we might learn something important because CO2 forcing is global and well-mixed in the atmosphere, and so can be compared to other global forcings like insolation varation.
It's a curious thing that a simple figure like W/m**2/ppm is not universally available and serving as the basis for all these discussions, because if it was, at least both sides would be talking about the same thing, and it would be the thing that matters.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
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.
http://www.xkcd.com/c258.html
Thank you xkcd.
Sounds like NS neglected to debunk the biggest myth of them all, namely that global warming means a uniform increase in temperature everywhere on the planet.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
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.
Let's recap shall we.
New scientist publishes an article "debunking" global warming scepticism in which they say it's a "myth" that polar bear numbers are not declining. They claim polar bear numbers really are declining.
A sceptic points to another article about reliable research that found polar bear numbers are rising in at least one specific (and very large) area.
True believer claims "we can't know for certain either way", it's still possible numbers are declining in other areas.
What a convincing argument - if that's really the best you can do give up now. Remember the old burden of proof (hint: it's why we don't believe in unicorns).
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.
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.
(Yes, it did take me a while to realise that Ibid. wasn't just some incredibly popular journal along the lines of Nature or Science...)
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
"The problem is the evidence for warming does seem to be selective. Everything "hotter" supposedly proves global warming"
Only to idiots.
Show me a scientific paper like:
---
Doofus, Martin. "Analysis of the Winter of 2005-2006 in Lansing, Michigan Proves Global Warming". Journal of Taxpayer-Fleecing Research, Mar 2006.
---
The only way I would lionize Dick Cheney would be while he was still alive, and it would involve actual lions.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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...
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.
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
Its not that it was never widely believed, it was that it was never a scientific consensus the way global warming is, and thus is not a parallel.
Saying we shouldn't pay attention to the broad scientific consensus on global warming because of a popular media craze in the 1970s around a prediction made by a handful of scientists which many others found merely plausible is, well, rather spurious.
So, yes, "they predicted global cooling, but now they predict is global warming" is a myth. More precisely, it is equivocation. The "they" that predicted global cooling aren't the same "they" that predicts global warming.
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.