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Global Warming 'Confirmed' By Independent Study
chrb writes "The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project — an independent study of Earth's historical temperature record partly funded by climate skeptics, including the Koch brothers — has released preliminary results that show the same warming trend as previous research. Project leader and physics professor Richard Muller, of the University of California, has stated that he was 'surprised' at the close agreement, and it 'confirms that these studies were done carefully.' The study also found that warming in the temperature record was not caused by poor quality weather monitoring stations — thus rejecting a frequent claim of skeptics. Climate skeptic Stephen McIntyre has previously said 'anything that [Muller] does will be well done.'"
Because that's the real issue that most skeptics have been questioning of late. Anyone who isn't an idiot knows that the earth's climate is ALWAYS changing (and always has been). The real issue that people are talking about when they say "global warming" is the question of how much influence human activities have had on the normal warming/cooling cycles, if this is a negative influence, and, if so, what can humans do within reason to mitigate any negative influences. And *those* questions are a helluva lot harder to answer than "Has there been a general warming trend over the last 100 years?".
I'm not sure pure science is up to answering those questions. And it doesn't help that the issue has become hopelessly politicized--to the point where I've grown very skeptical of BOTH sides and their respective penchants for self-serving hyperbole and increasingly shrill fear-mongering.
Of course, there is also the question of DEGREE of warming, an issue where it's getting harder and harder to distinguish between mainstream science and Chicken Little fear-mongering. IIRC, initial models were showing a 1-2 degree increase over the next 100 years, something that clearly needs to be addressed but not something that's GOING TO KILL US ALL TOMORROW!!!!!. Somewhere along the way this kept getting more and more ramped-up to the point now where I hear advocates claiming that the entire east coast of the U.S. is going to be underwater by 2050. I can no longer tell where the truth begins and the humbug ends.
Of course, I'm going to be criticized here for even daring to question the accepted narrative.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
There is no amount or type of evidence, even in principle, which would answer climate change sceptics. They will disavow the fundimental principles of science if that is what is necessary to protect their beliefs.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Not true. A depressingly large part of the climate change denial community still insists it isn't happening at all, and hasn't moved onto "yes, but...".
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
True. A lot of climate deniers talk like this:
- It is not warming
- Even if it's warming, it's natural fluctuation
- Even if it's not natural fluctation, it's not due to CO2
- Even if it's due to CO2, human didn't cause it.
- Even if humans caused it, it's not bad.
- Even if it's bad, I don't want to act.
Won't matter. Remember, Nixon had an independent commission study the issues surrounding marijuana (LaGuardia). They came back and recommended decriminalization. We're still fighting the war on drug users today. Right wingers are immune to science.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Yep that's basically a flowchart of the climate denialist life cycle. Once the evidence for one of their points of contention becomes incredibly overwhelming, they move onto the next.
It starts at the first step and ends at the sixth. Most are on step 4 right now, a few are still on step 3, and some of the go-getters have moved onto step 5. Once they all make it to 6...well, I dunno, we're fucked I guess :-( but at least we can stop wasting our breath on them.
Considering that in the late '90s they were on step 1, assuming linear progress they'll be on 6 somewhere around 2015~2020.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Question #1: Is the Earth appreciably warmer lately? Answer: Yes. There seems to have been some skepticism over this question but this appears to be where the nutjobs on the 'denier' side fell (we'll get to the nutjobs on the other side in a minute). To some extent we 'already knew this,' but the point of this study appears to have been that we need to start from this point -- that if we can't even agree whether the Earth is warmer, we certainly aren't going to agree on why or what to do about it.
Question #2: Is it our fault, i.e. is it anthropogenic global warming (AGW)? Answer: This study doesn't have anything to say about that, but as others have pointed out, it is 'consistent with AGW models.' This seems to be the most difficult question because there are so many variables. The earth is warmer, sure; but it's been warmer before without our having done anything to it and the crucial piece of information that would easily answer this question -- what would temperatures be if we hadn't been mucking about doing things for the last 200 years -- would require a control planet. I've been trying to educate myself about global warming for a while but it's been very difficult filtering through the noise and vitriol. It doesn't seem possible to me that can conclusively answer this question, and to some people, that's a reason to forget the whole thing -- but the realization that we can't prove it doesn't excuse us from having to make a decision. It just means that we have to make a decision with imperfect information.
(Question #2A would be 'if the Earth has been warmer before, is it necessarily a bad thing that it's warm again -- is that just a natural cycle? This is an interesting question but let's set it aside for the moment. Even if we assume that there is a natural cycle, let's still also assume that what we're concerned with here is the extent to which humans are changing that natural cycle, not whether 1 degree celsius is going to cause an apocalypse.)
Question #3: To what extent should we handicap our own consumption of natural resources or industrial production to alleviate AGW? If we aren't entirely certain about our answer to #2, it's difficult, but by no means impossible to make a quantitative analysis of the 'value' of reducing carbon emissions by, say, one ton a year. But this question is so political that it'd be tough to have a reasonable conversation about it even if it didn't depend on equally, but differently perplexing questions like #2, because it allows for a scenario where an elected leader has to make a judgment call that is going to favor the environment over his or her constituents' jobs. We don't like to think about it in those terms -- we prefer to just imagine that everyone will buy a Prius or bicycle to work -- but it's important to realize how far-reaching these decisions are. It's also quite naive to imagine that industrial interests only exist on one side of this equation. The green industry has just as many crooks in it as the oil industry does, as any industry does, because it is composed of homo sapiens. Throwing money at solar and wind is well and good, but it's a luxury that a rich country ('rich' being relative these days) like the United States can afford; it's a joke to imagine that India or Indonesia or China are going to handicap their economies when they've only just lately (to varying degrees) got round to having economies in the first place. That's not to say that they won't invest in wind and solar (China certainly has) but this is merely diversifying their own energy portfolio -- reducing their dependency on oil -- which is related to but not the same as pursuing green energy for its own sake.
Speaking as an American business owner for a moment, it's tough for me to accept that the solution here is to make it even more expensive to conduct business via something like cap-and-trade, though not because it will affect my own business (it won't, much). This is clearly a problem that requires huge expenditures of capital to solve, and a
OK so now we have proof that there has been a recent warming trend. Where is the proof that it was caused by human activity?
I see, so any question of existing consensus by highly skilled outsiders is arrogance and blasphemy and should be verboten, ja?
Questioning the unquestionable and challenging consensus is what science is about. A GOOD scientist will adopt a skeptical approach to anything being examined, just to encourage debate and to ensure that the answer he really thinks is correct holds up to scrutiny. Trying to discourage that is the realm of religion. Stop it.
Why is it so hard to accept that human actions can have consequences ?
Because God wouldn't allow that to happen.
No, seriously, that is essentially what many of these nuts believe.
http://www.cornwallalliance.org/articles/read/an-evangelical-declaration-on-global-warming/
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Unlike the Slashdot Editors, I actually RTFA.
The study does not "confirm" global warming, and certainly not man-made global warming. It confirms that the analysis from various temperature stations over the last 100 years has been fairly accurate. This indicates a light global average increase in temperature over this period. This tells us nothing about whether the planet is truly warming, or if we are in some sort of long term earth cycle. It also tells us nothing about man-made warming, if it exists. Finally their analysis still can't fully account for the so-called "fudge factor" which has to be applied when you consider the positive effect of concrete cities on temperature readings. All they can prove is that previous samplings of the data were adequate, and that our somewhat inherently faulty data shows a positive temperature trend over the last 100ish years. They also reconfirmed the El Nino impact.
Finally, I think it's important to note that if this study had come to the opposite conclusion, it would have been derided as quack science and laughed off of Slashdot. Furthermore, the fact that the Koch brothers funded an apparently legitimate scientific study is unlikely to challenge the conception of most on this forum that they are a bunch of purely evil monsters, but it should.
The problem with your argument is that the primary reason those who argue man is responsible for climate change want us to do something is because we're interfering with the natural state of the planet. If we actually found out man wasn't directly responsible, that would negate their argument to do something entirely (in fact, doing something to prevent climate change would be interfering with the natural state of the planet). So unlike the plane example, the cause of climate change (and I don't think anyone but the most deluded would argue the climate isn't changing) is vital in establishing whether we should address the problem or not. You can't take the moral "don't f*** with the planet" high ground when it suits your argument and switch to "screw the planet, let's make life comfortable for us" view when it doesn't, otherwise you're just as jaded as the anti-climate crowd you're complaining about. The truth should be far more important than point scoring, even if the truth goes against what your gut told you.