Slashdot Mirror
Study Says Cosmic Rays Do Not Explain Global Warming
flock2000 writes "A new study conducted by Norweigan researchers finds (again) that changes in cosmic rays most likely do not contribute to climate change. Previously, other researchers have claimed to have found a link between cosmic rays and surface temperatures."
So, even if this is not the mechanism, it changes very little. We're still in solar minimum, instead of a peak that was originally predicted for 2006. Not surprisingly, the global climate is also in a cooling trend.
Talk about inconvenient...
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Correlation is not causa... wait... huh?
Anyway I think the fortune cookie logic here is, as usual, misapplied.
FTA
They're not saying "A happens with B, therefore A causes B." They're saying "A does not happen with B."
I guess the converse is possibly true, that lack of correlation does not indicate lack of causation per se. Didn't read if there was a possibility of a non-correlating causation, or maybe if I did, I don't have enough of a background in atmospheric science to realize it.
Some real nice attempts at "Argument from Authority" there.
So far it seems that the scientific consensus is that warming is real and likely to be contributed towards by human activity.
My favorite of your quotes is, "Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined." ...". And that's that. Anyone who's afraid to say "I was wrong" isn't a good scientist, or a scientist at all.
No real scientist needs to figure out how to do that. They would just say, "Ya know? I looked at the data again, existing and new, and I've changed my evaluation because of the following points:
All I see in those quotes are buzzwords and alarmist phrasing targeted at grabbing headlines. There may be just as much of that on the other side as well, but you'll need to do better than a list of quotes to convince anyone, or me anyway.
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
Name this passionate movement. No one said that making "things more shitty" is good. All that's being said is that increased CO2 is not necessarily a bad thing and that CO2 is not a pollutant.
Plants (and therefore most life by weight) don't seem to view C02 as a "shitty pollution". Actual, precisely the opposite.
Azural - instrumentals
You're a fucking genius. In the entire history of climatology, no scientist has ever considered the possibility that the sun impacts climate. I wonder why that is, but no matter, clearly you are their intellectual superior.
Oh, wait, they've considered that, and solar variation explains at most 30% of the observed temperature change. Guess you aren't a genius after all. Sorry about that!
The enemies of Democracy are
There will still be cold winters and warm summers no matter whether the mean global temperature is rising or falling. The variation from year to year swamps the slow, gradual rise in temperatures.
Think of the stock market. After one or two days of going up, we don't suddenly say the bear market is over. Once again, it's long-term change we're looking for, and you're noticing short-term change.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
I really don't understand what motivates you to lie and construct straw man arguments. Is intellectual honesty and integrity so difficult?
A disbelief in anthropogenic planetary warming is not an implied argument for the destruction of the environment.
"Exactly when did you stop beating your wife?"
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
You don't even need to look as far as politics. Just look at some of the moderations around here and you'll see a clear agenda behind some of them. If that can drive us at this level there's no telling where things will go when there is money and real power behind the same kind of thinking that gets totally valid posts modded down as over rated.
Seeing some facts being shot down around here because they're not in line with someone elses way of thinking has made me a cynic about geekdom in general. All of the mouths yammering on about truth via scientific reasoning are completely drowned out by those who feel the need to push their ideas on other regardless of the truth being 6 inches from their faces.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Yeah, I did took chemistry courses for the first 2 years of my physics degree, so I know what carbon dioxide is. I also typo-ed "actually" as "actual".
Broadly speaking, I'm skeptical about fragile natural balances, given the continuously changing climate of Earth, stretching as far back as we can measure it.
I'm skeptical that this particular climate is somehow miraculously the best of all, given that it's by mere chance we are alive at this point.
And humanity is the most adaptable of all creatures, living in the frozen tundra, and in the Sahara, and everywhere in between. So I'm not particularly worried.
We need more objective science, and less scare-mongering.
Azural - instrumentals
it indicates that the connection between CO2 and Global average temperature may be correlational and not causational. Effect does not, under normal circumstances, preceed cause.
I don't pretend to know the Truth about global warming, but I am damn sure that most of the people claiming they do, are talking out of their collective asses.
We have not been directly recording global temperatures for long enough to draw any conclusions about global cycles that extend into the centuries and millennia. Hence the use of indirect measurements such as polar ice cores and other approaches. The problem is that indicrect measures are not as accurrate as direct measures, and are all dependent upon the validity of the models they are based on.
All models are wrong, but some are useful. That's the first think I learned in my statistics courses when we discussed modeling. All the evidence I've seen shows that the models that have been developed to explain our direct measurements of the environment have very poor predictive value when trying to predict wheather paterns we've already seen, and yet the acolytes of the Holy Church of Human Caused Global Warming (now climate change because global temperatures haven't changed in the last couple of years) seem to simply ignore this.
Is global climate change a concern? YES!
Has it been shown that it is definitely happening? Not in my opinion!
Is it the fault of humanity? Quite frankly, we can't know becuase the models are so bad!
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
The seas have been rising 1.7mm/yr for the last several hundred years. They are up over 3 1/2 meters since the 17th century. Holland still has not flooded, even though they built dykes to dry-out and farm the Zuderzee over 400 years ago. If we can't match 17th century public works with 21 century science and equipment, then we deserve our fate...
Those who follow the rantings of a politically motivated activists seeking social justice need to wise up about what social justice really means.
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.