Slashdot Mirror
Global Warming To Be Put On Trial?
Mr_Blank writes to mention that the United States' largest business lobby is pushing for a public trial to examine the evidence of global warming and have a judge make a ruling on whether human beings are warming the planet to dangerous effect. "The goal of the chamber, which represents 3 million large and small businesses, is to fend off potential emissions regulations by undercutting the scientific consensus over climate change. If the EPA denies the request, as expected, the chamber plans to take the fight to federal court. The EPA is having none of it, calling a hearing a 'waste of time' and saying that a threatened lawsuit by the chamber would be 'frivolous.' [...] Environmentalists say the chamber's strategy is an attempt to sow political discord by challenging settled science — and note that in the famed 1925 Scopes trial, which pitted lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan in a courtroom battle over a Tennessee science teacher accused of teaching evolution illegally, the scientists won in the end."
3 million businesses pressuring 1 judge to decide whether or not the work of millions of scientists is trustworthy.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Common typo, what they meant to type was "popular opinion over climate change".
Is to try to overrule the verdict of the scientific community because they don't like what it says. The climate change battle is over, and it is now a conclusive scientific consensus that it is happening and that human action is contributing to it. We need to slash our emissions dramatically, these guys just want other people to do it.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
So an organization that loves to complain, loudly and vocally, about "judicial activism," now wants judges to rescue it from the policies of the Congress of the United States and the unary Executive that they helped to create? Now that's a rich vein of hypocrisy.
The 'business community' wants to put Climate Change on trial to test the veracity of the data. However this really means that the don't believe the data is true and just want someone powerful to side with them
But if the trial goes through and the judge supports the climate change data, will this actually convince these people that the data is correct? I'm guessing not.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Are they serious? A fucking *law court*?
What a wonderful idea, perhaps it can be extended to other areas. Perhaps I, as a scientist, could try criminal cases, I'm sure I'd be perfectly qualified since apparently science and law are the same thing now.
Once again we see an over simplification. Why are those who don't believe GW is caused by man referred to as not thinking it's real? They're not the same. I can accept that global temperatures are rising without being convinced that a) it's mankind's fault and b) we have to throw money at it. The debate has been politicized and therefore forever tainted. The science has been lost and those involved pushed to their respective sides so much so that the truth is getting lost. We're all citing our science celebs in some kind of battle royale of evidence. The scientific debate will hopefully go on, as it should. Let's hope the political debate is stifled until some meaningful consensus can be reached.
That said, this trial idea is stupid and a judge who would take this case would be a fool.
Um, we HAVE been seeing this cooling trend for a few years now, which is why misanthropic environmental hate groups have been trying to scrub the phrase "Global Warming" from the public lexicon and replace it with "Global Climate Change." See how clever that is? It now covers BOTH warming and cooling.
Who cares if global warming is caused by humans or not? Do we actually need to prove that to reach the conclusion that polluting its own environment is a rather stupid behavior for any living being?
I fail to see how any action by the USA short of nuclear devastation of China will stop China from building a coal plant equivalent every week.
And I still fail to see how limiting CO2 emissions in SOME countries will actually solve the Climate Change problem....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said the agency based its proposed finding that global warming is a danger to public health "on the soundest peer-reviewed science available, which overwhelmingly indicates that climate change presents a threat to human health and welfare."
The EPAâ(TM)s endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, as proposed in April, warned that warmer temperatures would lead to "the increased likelihood of more frequent and intense heat waves, more wildfires, degraded air quality, more heavy downpours and flooding, increased drought, greater sea level rise, more intense storms, harm to water resources, harm to agriculture, and harm to wildlife and ecosystems." Critics of the finding say it's far from certain that warming will cause any harm at all. The Chamber of Commerce cites studies that predict higher temperatures will reduce mortality rates in the United States.
What's basically happening here is that the EPA is trying to get "Greenhouse Gases" to be covered under the "Clean Air Act," which currently only regulates the amount of toxic emissions that industries and products are allowed to produce.
My question is this: What is the EPA _really_ trying to accomplish with this? Covering CO2 under the Clean Air Act would completely hamstring American businesses, forcing them to severely cut CO2 emissions. At this point, that is barely even technologically feasible, much less cost-effective, much less profit-producing. So what, are they _trying_ to bankrupt America businesses? Are they _trying_ to return us to the Stone Age? Are they _trying_ to give American companies as much of a handicap as possible in the global market, such that they will now have to compete with now even cheaper alternatives made in countries that don't have such off-the-wall regulations?
I hate to resort to calling the EPA malicious, because I want to believe that they think that what they are doing is right, but, seriously, that's the only alternative. They certainly aren't trying to _actually_ clean up the air, since worse offenders than the USA already exist and won't be affected by this law at all. In fact, I would speculate that these countries are simply going to grow and gobble up whatever materials we're no longer able to use under this law, and completely take over what little markets American products still have a place in.
This only effect of this law will be to hurt businesses, and they know it, and they're fighting back. And make no mistake, this isn't just Large Evil Corporations, either, this includes literally millions of "little guys."
Exactly. There is still very little _EVIDENCE_ of mankind-created global warming.
You have Al Gore and his people making money by owning companies that sell exhaust rights.
You have oil companies making money out of ignoring or pushing the issue forward.
What we don't have is a consensus, as the OP points out.
For example, right now (since 2000) we have global cooling (around 0.5 degrees). We are also heading towards a small ice age, our eliptical orbiting around the sun is about to change as it does "frequently" leading to us being further away from the sun in the coming millennias.
The IPCC still refuses to provide either the data from which they created their apocalyptic graphs from, or the models they used to do the predictions. This goes massively against the scientific standpoint of providing an open view into research to allow valid verification or falsification.
And what most people are forgetting: There is a climate change going on, it has always been going on and it will always do so. The question is how we are to adopt to it, not if we are disillusioned enough to think we can stop the planets natural processes and freeze it in something that we right now think is a global optima.
And I think you missed this one: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/08/10/un-s-ipcc-accused-possible-research-fraud
The minutes of a meeting of scientists cherry-picked by the UN for their universal agreement with the man-made global warming hypothesis hardly counts as a credible source. "Everyone agrees with us" is not a scientific argument. Saying it over and over again doesn't make it true.
Did I miss a meeting?
Do you subscribe to any general or climate related scientific journals? Because the consensus seems quite clear to me. Where we're lacking a consensus is in marketing material directed at the general public, but that will remain the case so long as there is money to be made. Don't mistake one for the other.
You're right. And if SOME people stop killing other people, what's the use? Others will just continuing killing people.
Back in the day, Iceland still practised blood feuds. With a limited population, this was a very very bad thing, as they were effectively endangering themselves as a species because they were killing each other faster than than they could reproduce. So the families got together and agreed to put an end to blood feuds. Obviously some families had to set the example, despite being the latest victims in the feuds, and yet they managed to put survival ahead of honour.
We have the same issue currently, just on a slower but much larger scale, and instead of honour it's money on the line.
Sometimes you need to set an example for others to follow. Once upon a time, this was what the United States purported to do. Now the US apparently refuses to set an example unless they can get a monetary advantage from it. And I suspect that even if they get a monetary advantage, they'll still refuse if they can get a larger monetary advantage by refusing to be an example.
I suspect that one of the best things that could happen for US politics would be to reform political fund raising laws slightly:
0) Make companies non-human entities
1) Make it illegal for companies to donate money to political parties and candidates
2) Make an upper limit of donations of $100 per year.
That way you'd end up with a system, where a political campaign doesn't end up costing hundreds of millions of dollars (since no political party could afford it). This would make the playing field a lot more even for outsider parties. It'd minimize the influence of huge conglomerates of companies, and improve the influence of individual citizens instead.
But who am I kidding? Why would the ruling parties (D and R) cut their own money trains and death grip on the political process?
We're after all not sitting over man made laws. Then, by all means, the court would be the correct place to go.
We're sitting over nature's laws here. And as much as we deem ourselves important, nature doesn't care jack about our laws. She has her own set and they break ours any time. You can rule as much as you want that this hurricane can't go through your home town, if you put it to the test you'll notice that your law is ignored with impunity and ther's jack you can do about it. "I hereby fine the storm a fine of 20 million dollars..." is that what you want to say about it if it dares to ignore your law, little man?
Global warming is or is not. That's something scientists can find out, if anyone. No court can make a final decision on that.
Oh... OH! It's just about liability, we don't give a shit about whether or not the planet is doing the Dodo, what matters is whether we have to pay for it? Ok, my bad, carry on. Hope your money buys you another planet when you win this case and then mommy decides you weren't.
Answer me this: Can you risk being wrong? Do you have a spare planet, just in case? Personally, if there's even a small chance that we're going to heat up our blue marble beyond the point of what we commonly call "habitable", I would try to avoid it. Just in case. 'cause ... well, dunno about you, but I don't have a spare planet in my back yard where I can go when we trashed this one for good.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Cite please. You lambast the GP for his unsupported assertions but fail to support any of your own.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
What they are actually doing is the latest modern improvement in the scientific method:
This is the new step where a non trained and non qualified person gets to make a final determination on subject that previously could only be judged by waiting for the results of experimentation.
This replaces the previous doctrine of popular acclaim in the mainstream media.
("Did you know the average 50 year old man has 5 pounds of undigested red meat in his colon?")
Hogan has written some entertaining science fiction, and he's got a fairly broad grasp of a lot of scientific fields, but he suffers badly from blind arrogance -- he decides what ought to be right, and then focuses in on evidence to support it, dismissing evidence that contradicts it. Not that this is particularly uncommon, of course, but since his successful fiction career has earned him a wide readership, he's in a better position than most to spread disinformation.
Just remember that he's no Clarke or Asimov when it comes to science writing.
C02, something we exhale with every breath you take. Without this gas life on earth would not be possible. Plants require this gas to live, indeed when this gas is abundant plants thrive. This gas is given off by all animals. A gas that is turned back into O2 by the plants, plants which we require to survive. All these things are well established facts, as valid as the earth is round.
Now a group of people (they are just people after all, not gods) come along and literally say "We may not have all the data, we don't even know if the data we have is valid, in fact we know we don't have all the data, and what we do have is invalid or at the very best incomplete, and even if we did have all the data we haven't a clue how this "weather" thing works anyway, but we put this partial and incorrect data into this computer (apparently called deus ex machina) and it says that C02 is actually bad for the environment because we predict it will alter the weather! Even though our predictions thus far are incorrect, just take our word for it. And anyone who does not believe us or pokes holes in our data or logic is a stupid AGW denier that also believes the earth is flat."
Anyone want to explain why I should believe someone who would say such a thing? If that isn't the AGW argument, perhaps someone can explain what part is inconsistent with the AGW argument. And now the government and politicians wants to grab the helm of this out of control religion (after all it does require a degree of faith) and start telling people what they can and can't do "because of global warming" while they (the politicians) make millions of dollars by robbing us blind. This whole thing stinks! And if that really is the AGW argument, why on earth would anyone, without some ulterior motive, believe such a thing.
ok let me rephrase because you clearly didn't understand.
If global temperatures are going to go up by 2 C, then it would be useful to find out when the last time in history the earth was 2 C warmer than it is now and what happened as a result, no?
Because of the constant change in global temperatures (I assume you're not going to argue against the fact that there have been ice ages) it is likely that this temperature has happened at some point in the past.
If it has happened in human history (and evidence suggests that it has) then any catastrophe that they are predicting would have happened already.
I'm not denying that the climate changes, and I'm not denying that humans have had an impact, I'm simply questioning the doomsday senarios that appear hyped up in the media and from politicians. It is you, by angrily dismissing this out of hand, that is showing religious fevour, not I.
I don't care about what the planet can handle, I care about a comfortable environment for humans.
(and I don't think it is clear that anthropogenic contributions are leading us to a world of cataclysm, but given that there are lots of other reasons to reduce human emissions (I like forests, coal power puts more radioactive material into the environment than nuclear power, oil is economically and politically unstable, etc.), I don't mind there being a push to at least examine the costs of exchanging those emissions for something else; maybe it will even turn out like sulfur emissions)
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I'll bite. What competitive advantage will we have, exactly?
And if using renewable power is so advantageous, why do we require legislation to make it happen? If it were profitable, wouldn't those people who are concerned solely with money be leaping in to reap the economic benefits?
Note, by the way, that I'm not arguing that fossil fuels are Good, and renewable power is Evil. But I am curious about how you solve a problem requiring that everyone be on board NOW without, well, everyone being on board now....
China has already said that it's not going to accept any binding limits on its pollution this next round of CO2 limiting. So has India. Which means that, whatever we do, CO2 levels are going to increase. Dramatically, since there are a lot of Chinese and Indians who are going to want a standard of living in the same timezone as our standard of living.
So, we set an example that China and India have already said they won't follow. Yah, it makes us less dependent on foreign oil, which is a good thing. But, no, it doesn't really do anything about Climate Change. Nor does it cause all those nations that aren't required to limit their CO2 emissions to suddenly say "Oh, noes! We must get with the program since the USA has joined in!!!".
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
In a word, yes. I find human causation of global warming to be unproven. What we have are a collection of climate models that only reflect the last 50 years or so and that show a correlation between increasing green house gases and increasing temperatures. Correlation is not causality.
What the parent poster and I both want to see is how well these models describe the past. That is, we want to see these climate models back tested over at least the several thousand years of history for which we have climate data. Using tree ring analysis and other methods, we have climate data going back tens of thousands of years including the last ice age. If the climate models are correct, they should also show, at a minimum, the gross climate swings that resulted in things like the "little ice age", the warm period the parent poster referred to, etc. If these models don't work when back tested then they are worthless.
I have yet to see a single result published in which a climate model being used to show humans are causing the current warming that also predicts any past climate changes. I'll *accept* that humans are causing global warming when such a result is published. Until then, we have a large segment of the scientific community who are doing a disservice to science and the rest of the population by jumping on the "humans cause global warming" bandwagon because it's a great way to get funding.
This isn't a question of belief. It's a question of when the folks who are blaming the current warming on human activities provide some reasonable proof that their models accurately predict previous, known, well-documented climate changes. Until they do, they and their followers are the ones who are following an unproven set of beliefs.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
It shouldn't be a "belief". That isn't science.
Science is testing, testing and more testing. You eliminate variables, then you test some more.
You can then say if your data fits with your hypothesis. Then you submit it to a journal and people pick it to pieces to find the mistakes. They retest, they tweak, they report.
No theory should ever be considered absolutely concrete, and to be honest from what I've read (and I have read) there are many, many unknowns going on in the climactic systems that we haven't even begun to quantify. I think its arrogance alone that leads to this apparently unquestionable theory of human caused climate change. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying its not happening, I'm just saying we can't talk in absolutes. It's unscientific, and anyone who says it is absolute isn't a very good scientist.
To quote a sometimes controversial bloke from another time:
"I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved and I cannot resist forming one on every subject, as soon as the facts are shown to be opposed to it."
- Charles Darwin - Creator of the Darwin awards
Temperature changes of this size have already occured in the course of human history and were non-fatal.
If by 'non-fatal' you mean 'didn't kill all humans, then yes.
Likewise, why should we be worried about diseases that might kill 80% of the population? We've already had multiple ones of those, and we're still here!
I swear, it's like you think we're worried all people might cease to exist. Um, no. We could get hit by a damn dinosaur-killing asteroid and there would be people living through it!
However, unlike you, we have a problem with a huge amount of the population dying, and all of the civilization collapsing, even if humanity makes it through it.
Or, in short: Humans will exist in a post-apocalyptic world. That does not mean we shouldn't worry about the apocalypse.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Disclaimer: I shop local, walk to the grocery store with my cloth shopping bag, I recycle, and keep driving to a minimum -- I fill up my tank maybe once or twice a month. My family's energy usage is very low. While I'm an advocate for a personally responsible lifestyle, I have many many reservations about the "Green" movement and the scientific rigor used to arrive at such a consensus, and especially many of the illogical financial programs derived so that people can profit from it ("cap and trade"? "carbon offsets"???)
"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."
That almost seems to be a call to scientific elitism. I.E. "You disagree, so you don't understand the nuances of climate change like I do, so you're out of the club." -- to my unlearned and cro-magnon mind it seems like Climate Change is an extremely inexact science. We don't have accurate test points, we don't understand all of the factors that go into this, we don't know the causes of previous cooling/warming cycles (even during human existence, much less before), nor can we isolate human factors in real-world experiments, nor do we have remotely representative simulations to perform isolated tests.
It seems that any climate scientist whose employment and financial well-being is tied to the results of his research is naturally suspect -- whether an oil company or an alternative energy company or a lobbyist group.
It feels like a bunch of self-congratulatory people who puff themselves up and call themselves experts in a field, where they have financial motivations for proving their case. Just as climatologists in the employ of oil companies are naturally suspect, it seems that political fat cats who work for environmental agencies are somehow immune to such criticism, because they're the ruling oligarchy. Al Gore isn't the only one who stands to get even richer from the "Green" movement, but somehow people view him flying-his-private-jet-to-collect-carbon-emissions-awards as somehow "altruistic". I call BS.
There are many groups of "experts" that I have innate distrust for, because their fields lack scientific rigor, and this fact is not acknowledged by its chief advocates. Psychiatrists and climate scientists would certainly be two of them.
I say bring the trial on. lets get everyone cards on the table.
Where is the evidence that global warming is NOT caused by man? There is plenty of evidence that can back up the theory that man (i.e. gas emissions) most likely is the cause.
Show me the peer review studies that point to another cause. That does not mean studies that try to disprove anthropomorphic CC, but studies that actually have evidence that there is another cause.
It's not like climate science consist of two scientists who decided to agree that there's a global warming.
What do you think the word "consensus" means. Look it up in wikipedia if you have to. The entire "proof" of global warming is a consensus of a bunch of politions, actors, ace reporters, groopies, and some scientists. The rallying cry seems to be "but what if it is true?"
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
C02, something we exhale with every breath you take. Without this gas life on earth would not be possible. Plants require this gas to live, indeed when this gas is abundant plants thrive. This gas is given off by all animals. A gas that is turned back into O2 by the plants, plants which we require to survive. All these things are well established facts, as valid as the earth is round.
Oh, FFS. "Insightful"? Really?
Crap is also necessary to life. All animals crap. Plants need crap to live. So I'm sure you're ready to campaign against the health and safety regulations "the government and politicians" set up to prevent me from taking a big, smelly dump all over your restaurant table just as your main course is arriving. After all, it's necessary to life!
Or maybe, since water is also necessary to life, I should just pump a few thousand cubic meters of it into the basement from which you're posting. After all, it's necessary, so more must be better!
Bingo!
I have no doubt that human activity has caused climate change in the past (can you say "dust bowl?") and is continuing to cause changes now (desertification, various climate changes in what used to be the Soviet Union due to massive river diversions, etc.). Human activity *may* even be causing global warming but we will only be able to prove that when we climate models that back test over some of the more significant climate changes of the past.
Existing climate models that only correlate an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases to increasing temperature don't prove a thing. As far as I'm concerned, the only way to show that greenhouse gases are causing global warming is to back test the climate models that purport to show this over as much of the climate record as possible. This would show that whatever mechanisms drove past climate change isn't responsible for the current warming. There have been much larger changes in the climate in the past than the current "global warming" that had nothing to do with human activity. Only a back test that models such changes shows that whatever drove these prior climate changes isn't also responsible for the current warming.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
I don't see where that was claimed.
Are you seriously arguing that a judge (presumably someone who went to law school) would have no trouble with the statistics and models that trained scientists have spent years developing, after years of education in how to develop them? I mean, I have a degree in computer science and a solid background in computer engineering, but no way in hell would that qualify me to double-check Intel's engineers' work, and that's in a *related field*. It'd be ludicrous for me to think that I could, say, walk into Canon and tell them that they're building their camera lenses all wrong.
If it goes to trial, it will at best come down to which side's "expert witnesses" give the most convincing arguments, regardless of the correctness or honesty of the arguments.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal