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The Global Warming Heretic
theodp writes "In The Civil Heretic, the NYT Magazine takes a look at how world-renowned scientist Freeman Dyson wound up opposing those who care most about global warming. Since coming out of the closet on global warming, Dyson has found himself described as 'a pompous twit,' 'a blowhard,' and 'a mad scientist.' He argues that climate change has become an obsession for 'a worldwide secular religion' known as environmentalism. Dyson has been particularly dismissive of Al Gore, calling him climate change's chief propagandist and accusing him of relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models and promoting 'lousy science' that's distracting attention from more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet."
Dyson himself wrote about the need for heretics in science not long ago.
I'm sure this discussion will be flooded with global warming deniers, but if you actually read Dyson's opinions, he believes that global warming IS happening and we ARE to blame.
His only complaint with the science is that he feels that some of the computer models are fudged to make the results look worse than they might actually be.
Of course, his opinion on this seems utterly pointless to me. The man is a physicist, specializing in solid-state and quantum physics. He's no more qualified to analyze the science behind climate change than an electrical engineer is to build a bridge.
Actually this is quite a bit of the problem.
Let me give you an example. I have been living here in Europe since 1994. In the past five years here in Switzerland we have been getting Canadian seasons. Yes the summers are warmer as well, but the winters are colder and more snow.
The media hypes the summers because they are hotter, but does not hype on the winter. They say, "oh this can be expected and normal". That bothers me completely because anybody who researches climate knows Europe is being kept warm by the Atlantic conveyor. If the Atlantic conveyor turns around further south then as paradoxical as it sounds with increased global warming Europe gets colder! The UK had its first snowfall in October in 74 YEARS!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3278378/Snow-covers-parts-of-England-as-winter-weather-sets-in.html
I remember a report in National Geographic about 5 years ago, and documentaries on TV that said Europe with increased global warming would become cold! The reason was the Atlantic conveyor. What was scary about this is that research has shown that the conveyor can shut down in a matter of a decade, but requires thousands upon thousands of years to restore itself.
I think it is happening! Though do you read about this in the media? NOOOOO because we all associate climate change with warming not change! It is much easier to sell deserts, no water, etc than people freezing their butts... Mentally we associate deserts = death, but cold as just being something we need to deal with...
Though look at the latitude of North Europe... It is freaken Labrador! Definitely not a place I want to live in... (due to its weather...)
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I have some first-hand experience in the field of climate science.
I got tired of fighting with trolls on forums, because people somehow think that their gut feeling is better than real science.
The current warming trend is NOT a natural cycle, its parameters are all wrong.
1970's smog: Pollution laws changed car emissions drastically
1980's Ozone layer: Pollution laws got rid of CFCs
1990's Acid rain: Pollution laws put scrubbers in factory exaust pipes
2000's Global Warming? remains to be seen where this goes. Dyson seems to be a very bright guy, and he is doing good service to science by being skeptical. He's not denying the global warming issue outright, he's saying there is not enough data to conclude either way, and that he's doubtful.
The article states he was also against the Hubble telescope, arguing against the cost. There's no question that Hubble has advanced the science of astronomy greatly, it's his judgment that the money could have been spent on more important things, which is also his concern on expensive solutions to the global warming issue.
It doesn't mean that Dyson is standing up for the antienvironmentalists who don't want to be held responsible for their own actions.
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
The last figure is from ice-core samples in Antarctica. And it's very misleading.
Look at the scale. One pixel on this diagram is about one _thousand_ years, and it takes tens of thousands of years for significant changes.
Yet we see MUCH more rapid changes. As in 100x more rapid than the changes on your graph.
The cycles on this graph are very well known, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles - they were first derived by purely mathematical methods.
PS: Do you REALLY think that all climate scientists are stupid idiots and/or parts of global conspiracy?