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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?
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!
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
Dude, don't worry, after this there are still lots and lots of places for you to move the goalpost to. You have plenty of options left to preserve your denial until you are dead. You will never have to face the truth.
Even after the anthropogenic part is undeniable even to folks like you (having been proven in the 1990s), you can move the goalpost to "but it's insignificant", and then to "okay, but it's too expensive to fix", to "okay, but it's too hard to fix", to "okay, but humanity will never cooperate to fix it", to "oh, well I just don't want to fix it". I bet there are even more steps in between you can fall back on.
So don't be too concerned. Your denial is as safe as any other denial. Toward the end of your life, you can just devolve into a delusion of universal conspiracy, where even your tending nurse is getting paid off.