Don't Worry About Global Warming, Say 16 Scientists in the WSJ

An anonymous reader writes "According to an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, there's 'no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy'. From the article: 'The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2. The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle.'"

Comments

I am not worried about it

[Osgeld]

its rather nice having 62 degree days in the last weeks of January when it should be -3, let our children's children figure it out, they need to have something to do anyway as we keep doing it all for them as it is

Re:I am not worried about it

[the linux geek]

While we're playing anecdotal games, it was well below zero Fahrenheit last night when it should be around 10. Global cooling!!!!!!!

Re:I am not worried about it

[Thangodin]

Thank you, Mr. Murdoch. We can always count on you for honest journalism. (/sarcasm)

Re:I am not worried about it

[rolfwind]

To add my single data point.... I lived in my area my whole life.... the whole winter it was unseasonably warm except for maybe 7 or so days. We're talking late April/October temperatures. One of the days it was cold, it snowed on Halloween, and we never used to get snow before New Years/Christmas. Freakish.

It used to be a mild area with no significant weather of any type. And the last 5 years was so much the opposite. Previous two winters we got so much more snow dumped on us than usual (this year almost nothing), every week more and more of it. High winds at certain times of the year. Blistering summers where the grass is parched now.

I know I'm a single data point in a short amount of time, but compared to what it was like growing up, it feels like a real change has been taking place.

Re:I am not worried about it

[danbeck]

This morning it was very cold and I needed a jacket, but by the end of the day I had to take it off because it was so hot. It's getting real people. We are seeing massive swings in only a day's time. Our poor children will have to suffer because of our inaction and folly!

Re:I am not worried about it

[fahrbot-bot]

but local anomalies can occur

Basically: weather != climate

Re:I am not worried about it

[SerpentMage]

There is a change taking over. I have been living for 16 years in Zurich and this was the warmest winter yet. The mountains have plenty of snow, but in the valley it is just nuts. We are supposed to get some cold in the next week, but this winter has been completely out of whack. The fact that you are getting plenty of snow is actually correct. Having lived in Canada for 18 years snow = warm temperatures = changing fronts where cold meets warm...

Re:I am not worried about it

[cgenman]

According to the NOAA, 9 of the 10 warmest years since 1880 (the first year we kept records) have been since 2000. And they've all been in the top 13.

But it's the personal anecdotal evidence that people really respond to. And this is the year where Winter skipped the east coast. The past few years have been off, but it's crazy now. Everyone seems to see the weather doing something bonkers.

Re:I am not worried about it

[crutchy]

maybe its not the weather that is out of whack, but our expectation of it.

maybe the seasons have decided they don't want to conform any more to the three monthly slots we've allocated for them.

Re:I am not worried about it

[Savage-Rabbit]

Thank you, Mr. Murdoch. We can always count on you for honest journalism. (/sarcasm)

What are you complaining about... is there anything more honest in the world of journalism than a creatively written summary of a wiretap?

Re:I am not worried about it

[Snocone]

> What was it like ... Before 1300?

Good bit warmer than now. We can tell because in Greenland receding glaciers are exposing Viking settlements, where beech tree stumps can be found in permafrost.

> ... Before 800?

Good bit warmer than it was just before 1300. We can tell because receding glaciers in the Alps are exposing Roman trading routes through passes that were considered permanently glaciated until the last few years; and unknown in the records extant at the time of moderate climate in Greenland, evidenced above.

> ... Before 300?

It is generally suspected that the Minoan Warm Period was warmer than both the Roman Warm Period and Medieval Warm Period because of descriptions of crops grown, but there's no "go look for yourself" smoking guns like the above.

Re:I am not worried about it

[Elrond, Duke of URL]

Keep in mind the global warming predictions are things like "1 degree Celsius in 20 years", not "January 2013 will be 50 degrees hotter than normal!!!!!"

Oh, come on now. Those predictions are for changes in the average temperature. And I think you probably know that already.

For a long time now the predictions have been that we will likely see a 4-5 degree Celsius increase in the average global temperature by the end of this century, and along the way we will experience an increasing number of extreme and/or unusual weather conditions and patterns.

These changing patterns could be an increased number of hurricanes due to warmer ocean surface temperatures, unexpected tornadoes during the Winter months, unusually warm Winter months, and so on. And single one of these, or even a couple, could easily be explained as a one-time fluke. But when every season and every year brings some new bizarre weather change, it's time to do something about it.

Re:I am not worried about it

[jc42]

... this is the year where Winter skipped the east coast. The past few years have been off, but it's crazy now. Everyone seems to see the weather doing something bonkers.

Yeah, but here in New England, we're hearing even more comments from the natives, to the effect that they think global warming sounds like a fine thing. ;-)

And on a very tiny scale, we have at least one good bit of "anecdotal" evidence of the growing problem, in our yard. We have a lot of herbs planted (some invading the neighbors' yards). One our our real successes was a infestation of a rather nice variety of thyme. But last spring, it was almost all dead. Last winter was one of the mildest on record, though colder than this winter has been. The only clump of thyme that survived was growing on a small ledge with a northern exposure, next to a sidewalk that didn't get much sun. Its root system was frozen solid for the entire winter, which is just what it likes. Everywhere else, conditions were milder, with repeated thaws every few weeks. The thyme couldn't take those conditions, and nearly died out. It's likely that this spring, that one remaining clump will also be dead.

Of course, our side-yard thyme crop isn't what you'd call a serious problem to the world. Our Greek and Italian oregano are still strong and healthy, and we can probably get a more heat-tolerant thyme variety. (We still bring the pot of rosemary in, because it isn't frost tolerant, and we have had several mild frosts.)

OTOH, an important commercial crop in New England is its apples, which require a good frost to develop their fruit. If an apple tree dies, you can't just plant a few sprigs of another variety and have a crop next year. Migrating apple groves will be a much slower process. The farmers in both the old and new apple-growing areas will have go through the long process of learning to make a new crop profitable.

Also, humans have imposed national borders in the paths of most crops' migration paths. This will further slow down the adaptation to the new climate regime.

But around here, we're looking forward to the plant nurseries supplying palm trees, to replace all the old cold-climate trees that are on the way out.

Re:I am not worried about it

[Lennie]

That was my idea too, it is shifted this year. Mostly last year.

Here in the Netherlands, It was the wamest june, wettest august, warmest winter and I hear it is going to be cold this week. Eventhough they didn't expect any winter-like weather anymore this "winter".

Re:I am not worried about it

[abe ferlman]

> ... Before 0?

Good bit colder than it is now. In the sea of Galilee there are sunken cruiseliner with iceberg-sized holes in their hulls.

> ... Before 300 B.C.?

LOTS colder than it is now. The story about the nose of the sphinx being used for target practice are well known, but the story about its earmuffs being used for mortar target calibration are not nearly so well known.

> ... Before 1800 B.C. ?

Wooly Mammoths would huddle for warmth with carnivorous dinosaurs in crowded caves. Titanic ice sculptures of ancient swans dotted the landscape, carved by the frost titans before they left the quickly warming earth for Jotunheim.

Re:I am not worried about it

[Jane Q. Public]

Ahem... except... you should look up the actual statistics. We have not been experiencing an increase in extreme weather.

Certainly, as news has become more global we have learned about more extreme weather events, but when you look at the actual statistics, there has not been any increase. There just hasn't. In fact, hurricane and typhoon activity have been at a 40-year low.

Re:I am not worried about it

[jc42]

... and no, personally anecdotes aren't data

Sure they are, when you collect enough of them. ;-) A contrary saying might be that all large bodies of data are made up of nothing but insignificant, local anecdotes.

Also, there are many situations where single anecdotes are quite useful data. Thus, biologists try to keep track of the ranges of zillions of species. This primarily means keeping track of the edges of each species' range, and at the edges, a species tends to be rather sparse. A local example is that our backyard bird feeder is regularly visited by cardinals and chickadees. Not very many, as we're fairly far north in both species' winter ranges. But the few scattered reports every year of where they are seen in January is valuable data. These reports have been coming from places farther and farther north over the past couple of decades. Birders collect such "anecdotes" and send them to various databases, and have documented the range shifts for many species.

Actually, a real shocker of this sort happened here in southern New England just a few years ago. One of the regular signs of spring has always been when the first robins arrive. Several years ago, they didn't arrive at all -- because they never left. Well, some of them did, but there was a population of robins that spent the entire winter here. I watched a small flock of them in our yard all winter. This got a bit of publicity hereabouts, and it's happened most years since then. This has helped get the message across to the local population of humans that something significant is going on. The robins obviously think that Boston is now subtropical.

But I wouldn't expect the WSJ editors to notice "anecdotal evidence" of that nature. ;-)

Re:I am not worried about it

[Galactic Dominator]

Biologists have determined that Polar Bears probably evolved in an area somewhere around Ireland, believe it or not. So a bit of warming will probably not hurt them a hell of a lot.

First a correction:

A team of 18 biologists whose findings and methodologies are questioned by other experts in the field have determined that Polar Bears probably evolved in an area somewhere around Ireland, believe it or not. So a bit of warming will probably not hurt them a hell of a lot.

Interesting supposition. What is it exactly which makes you think the Ireland of 110,000 years ago resembled the Ireland of today in climate? Another fascinating part of this is the fact that experts in the field think this might harm the species, yet a seemingly layperson who appears to have read a headline on the topic thinks everything is A-OK.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/07/polar-bears-rooted-in-ireland.html

Re:I am not worried about it

[Snocone]

Nope; the CET temperature record, our longest instrumental record, shows that the beginning of the 1700s had a steeper slope than the last couple decades. So even that position doesn't hold up soundly. We're somewhat unusually higher than the 350-year trendline right now yes, but that'll have to continue for another 18 years and top the ending in 1730ish warming cycle before unprecedented in magnitude and length is a true statement.

Re:I am not worried about it

[phantomfive]

I don't know, people have been talking about weird weather for as long as I've been alive. They've been talking about it as long as my grandmother has been alive.

I suspect that the natural cyclical variations in weather are longer than the human lifespan, and thus for any given human, he will always be seeing weird weather. Once I looked up the annual rainfall for my region, and the years it was 'normal' were much fewer than the years that were 'strange.'

Re:I am not worried about it

[Coryoth]

Good bit warmer than now. We can tell because in Greenland receding glaciers are exposing Viking settlements, where beech tree stumps can be found in permafrost.

Can you provide a reference for "receding glaciers ... exposing Viking settlements"? All the historical documentation of Vikings referred only two Greenland settlements -- the Eastern ad Western settlements. You can look at Googlemaps images of the sites for the Western and Eastern Settlements:
 
  Eastern settlement area, and Eastern settlement map
  Western settlement area, and Western settlement map.
 
Just for reference, here is a zoom of the area of the Brattahlid and Gardar farms (two of the largest/richest farms), and a zoom of the Sandnes farm area from the Western settlement.

Want more? How about on the ground photos of the ruins?
Gardar ruins
Bratthlid ruins
Hvalsey church

They are a long way from receding glaciers, and quite green in summer. So again, at least some reference for these newly discovered Viking settlements that were underneath glaciers would be appreciated, because otherwise I'll just have to assume you are making shit up.

Re:I am not worried about it

[ssmokee]

maybe its not the weather that is out of whack, but our expectation of it. maybe the seasons have decided they don't want to conform any more to the three monthly slots we've allocated for them.

Careful with that opinion, it could get you fired. ""Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job."". Quote sourced from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Re:I am not worried about it

[wytcld]

First off, glaciers are never just stable. They're always growing and shrinking locally, due to differences in local climate. So it's not proof that the Earth as a whole was warmer in some past period, just because something from that past period has been found as a glacier recedes now.

Proof of the Earth as a whole gaining or losing temperature comes from looking at what the world's glaciers, as a whole, not individually, are doing. Right now they're rapidly melting, pretty much everywhere they exist. This is not entirely from greenhouse heating. Black soot from fires (largely ours) also lands on glaciers and cause them to absorb more heat from the sun. But it's happening, nearly everywhere, rapidly.

Now, the thing about the Greenland glaciers is they can take ice cores and fairly accurately date the ice. And the current glaciers are far older than the Vikings. It's not plausible that Greenland had no ice just a few centuries back and then suddenly the glaciers formed, because those glaciers are known to be many thousands of years old.

And, like glaciers just about everywhere, they're melting now with surprising rapidity.

Re:I am not worried about it

[axx]

I can hardly believe you folks are still seriously using Farhenheit.

I mean, the power of social norm and all, but really, Farhenheit? What's next, miles? Stones?

Re:I am not worried about it

[incer]

Yeah, I know your position is desperate, but seriously, Celsius can't be rounded? And EVERYONE knows that body temperature is around 36C, that -10C is freaking cold and so on.... And if you want to play games, c'mon, water freezing at 32F? Boiling at 212F?
There's a reason the whole world uses Celsius.

Re:I am not worried about it

[hairyfish]

Fahrenheit makes excellent sense for what most people use air temperature to refer to: human comfort.

Don't even try to rationalise it. You use Fahrenheit for the same reason I use Celsius, because that's what we've always done.

The Celcius equivs are harder to remember: 37.777...., -17.77..., -12.22...

That's because they're not the equivalents that a Celsius using person would use. 0 is freezing, 10 is cool, 20 is nice, 30 is hot, 40 is unbearable, 100 is the boiling point of water. Not so hard if you open your mind a little bit...

Re:I am not worried about it

[FPhlyer]

Climate fluctuations over the course of a single decade, or a single person's lifetime does not allow for enough data to seriously consider the question of Global Warming/Global Cooling/Climate Change. We, as a species, have only been accurately recording global temperatures since around 1850. This record itself is not sufficient for providing a true picture of Earth's changing climate. For this we must resort to Paleoclimatology.

Anecdotal evidence in the form of "this winter has been really warm" is totally unhelpful. Where I live this year has been pretty warm... but last year was one of the coldest that I can remember since I've lived here. Both statements are true, but neither of them indicates either a global or regional trend.

Climate change is very real. The Earth's climate has changed dramatically over it's 5.5 billion (6,000?) year history. Change is inevitable whether it is caused by humans or other natural processes. What we as a species must decide is whether or not we want to affect that change in a way that benefits humanity or if we want to allow these processes, whether natural or man-created, to determine the fate of our species. I for one support the global engineering of climate to benefit humanity and preserve as many other species as we can in order to sustain nurture our species to create a better tomorrow.

Re:I am not worried about it

[tbannist]

Arctic sea ice is right now at above average levels.

How can you look at a graph that has an average line and shows the current level as more than 2 standard deviations below the average as "above average"? It's right there on the graph. It's right there in the text too:

For the Arctic as a whole, ice extent for the month remained far below average.

Arctic sea ice extent for December 2011 was the third lowest in the satellite record. The five lowest December extents in the satellite record have occurred in the past six years.

This is the third lowest December ice extent in the 1979 to 2011 satellite data record, 970,000 square kilometers (375,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average extent.

It's almost a million square kilometers below the average extent. Could you be more wrong?

Re:I am not worried about it

[FPhlyer]

One possibility is that global temperatures have been cooler than the norm for the past several thousand years and whatever caused that global cooling trend has now corrected itself and Earth's temperatures are returning to more normalized levels that were experienced around 5-10 thousand years ago.

What we should be debating is not Climate Change but Climate Engineering: engineering Earth's climate to be most beneficial to humanity and other species as we and they exist today. We should focus on maintaining the climate to which we have become accustomed rather than being puppets of either natural or man-made climate variation.

Re:I am not worried about it

[DG]

Au contraire, mon ami.

When Europe came out of the Little Ice Age, temperatures warmed up even faster than what has been observed lately.

Look, when it comes to the whole "Global Warming" thing, I'm an agnostic. I have no dog in the fight; no ox of mine will be gored one way or the other. I am perfectly willing to be convinced either way, and I'm equally skeptical of both sides.

It is not lost on me, for example, that the big oil companies and other major industrial emitters tend to be on the side - by which I mean "fund" - the studies that argue strongest for the "it ain't happening" side. That's as you'd expect; that the short term profit motive and general bad behavior of these sorts of organizations would motivate them to attempt to refute and deny any soi-disant "inconvenient truths".

But on the other hand, the "it's happening and it's all human activity" side is RIFE with corruption, falsified studies, poor models, groupthink, and generally shitty behavior too. Some of this we can chalk up to normal primate "Gorillas in the Mist" social (bad) behavior - but certainly not ALL of it. Not even MOST of it.

If the case for man-made global warming was so compelling, there would be no need for all these shenanigans. The science should be able to stand on its own. And yet, it clearly does not.

There are aspects of the "reduce the carbon" movement that I can fully support. Fuel efficiency, for example (energy efficiency in general for that matter) is a great idea on its own merits. We really don't know what the fossil fuel supply reserves really are, and anything that conserves fuel is ultimately a good thing. The same thing with protecting forest areas and reforestation/greening in general (green roofs and the like) These measures all have compelling arguments for them without playing the global warming bugaboo.

But as it sits right now, all the arm-waving and Strongly Worded Claims aren't doing anything to address the problems that people like myself have with the underlying science. The case is not at all made.

DG

Re:I am not worried about it

[Zontar The Mindless]

I live in Stockholm, where 30C is fucking hot, you insensitive clod!

Re:I am not worried about it

[sirlark]

If the case for man-made global warming was so compelling, there would be no need for all these shenanigans. The science should be able to stand on its own. And yet, it clearly does not.

Science is never able to stand on its own when challenging broadly held opinions. It takes 20 to 30 years on average for cutting edge science (i.e. the stuff getting published in per reviewed journals) to filter down into textbooks used to educate children where the ideas will gradually, over the 12 ~15 year course of those childrens' educations, be absorbed and start to form a new boradly accepted social idea. That's 32~45 years before non-radical science gets accepted. If the anthropogenic climate change camp are even half right, we as a species can't afford to wait 45 years, maybe even longer because of such organised resistance.

But on the other hand, the "it's happening and it's all human activity" side is RIFE with corruption, falsified studies, poor models, groupthink, and generally shitty behavior too.

Some might call it fighting fire with fire ;)

Re:I am not worried about it

[Eunuchswear]

In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.

Of course that isn't what happened at all.

De Freitas was an editor, not the editor.

De Freitas arranged that Soon and Baliunas's paper was published without proper peer review. When people complained about the poor quality of the paper to the editors for Climate Research five of the editors (half the editorial board) resigned in protest of the actions of De Freitas.

So now the WSJ publishes simple lies in it's Op Ed pages. Interesting.

Re:I am not worried about it

[DG]

*facepalm*

I am agnostic not because I am "ignorant", but because my analysis of the studies that I have read - many, many of them - arrives at the following conclusions:

1. Neither case is particularly compelling; and

2. Both cases are presented by people with vested interests and evidence of fraud, so neither side is particularly trustworthy.

Thank you, by the way, for providing an example that proves my point. You regurgitate the groupthink, and instead of relying on science to make your argument for you, instead immediately go to an attack on the man, rather than the facts. This is the sort of behavior that makes me profoundly distrustful of the proponents of "global warming" as a postulate.

DG

Re:I am not worried about it

[iocat]

No offense, but... source?

Re:I am not worried about it

[chrismcb]

There's a reason the whole world uses Celsius.

And what is that reason?

Fahrenheit is a human scale. 0 is cold, 100 is hot to humans.

Celsius is a scientific scale (for water). 0 is cold to water, 100 is hot to water.

So essentially your average human doesn't really care about temps above 40c.

Re:I am not worried about it

[Eunuchswear]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon_and_Baliunas_controversy

Oh no, not again.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this global warming denial nonsense was long sense refuted for anyone willing to look at the facts in an objective manner.

Re:Oh no, not again.

[Troyusrex]

RTFA. The scientists agree that there's been warming. The main thing they say is that the climate benefits of massive curbing of CO2 emissions aren't worth the substantial costs.

Re:Oh no, not again.

[kermyt]

RTFA this article is trying to suggest that there has not been the well documented +2c rise in global temps in the last decade. From the Article: "Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 "Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2."

Re:Oh no, not again.

[Snocone]

> Then, WHY is there global warming?

Short scale: We're climbing out of the Little Ice Age, just a hair above the three-century trendline right now, but not unprecedentedly so; early 1700s had quicker warming than the last half-century.

Long scale: We're approaching the end of an interglacial period, and that's when it's warmest.

> Regardless of the cause, that change must be stopped,

No, we should do our damnedest to speed it up, and hope to God the alarmists are right in everything they say. The wildest forecasts I've heard are that a billion, maybe a billion and a quarter, will be killed off by AGW. Beats the hell out of the six and a half billion or so that would be killed off by the next Ice Age, which we're a bit overdue for already; and if they are right than we can get the average temperature up 6, hey that's just about the amount than an Ice Age lowers it. How convenient!

Re:Oh no, not again.

[Faffin]

I've never seen any documentation for a +2c rise in global temps in the last decade. If you check NASA and IPCC, the article is correct about stable temperature in the last decade. It is stable at an historic high though. About 1.6c above "normal".

Re:Oh no, not again.

[Ambitwistor]

No, what? That graph doesn't contradict anything I said.

Re:Oh no, not again.

[Snocone]

> First, it is still hotly debated when the next glacial period is due, and most geological studies I've read actually put it at closer to 50,000 years from now.

You're misremembering that I'm pretty sure. Quick google shows this at the BBC couple weeks ago:

"The last Ice Age ended about 11,500 years ago, and when the next one should begin has not been entirely clear...In the journal Nature Geoscience, they write that the next Ice Age would begin within 1,500 years - but emissions have been so high that it will not..."

Everything I've read is that the average is about 11,000 years before the next one starts, which means if we were on average track the Little Ice Age would have been the start of the next one. If the Modern Warm Period recovery is due to us, well then good for us I say!

> But even if the next ice age were imminent, and you actually cared about preventing it, you'd argue for saving our fossil fuels and doling them out slowly to stabilize against the gradual cooling, when we need them, rather than using them all up now and overshooting, when we don't.

A clever argument, but no: I'd argue for throwing up nuclear power stations now so they can pump out water vapor when the need arises. Water vapor is a way more effective GHG than CO2 is. Indeed, it's not actually clear that water vapor leaves enough stray IR around in the appropriate wavelengths for CO2 to have anywhere near the effect that IPCC models assume. That we're not seeing temperatures rise under clouded conditions as much as under clear conditions is a fairly sound piece of evidence that it doesn't, and the Modern Warming Period is likelier to be due to historically low cloud cover, pace the Svensmark cloud seeding theory; all the 20th C. warming can be explained by a 2% decrease in cloud cover without having to invoke GHG at all.

But since we only have 30 years of reliable (ie, satellite) cloud cover measurements, anything before being deduced from ship's logs and the like, and being able to measure the Sun's activity in any kind of quantitative fashion is of similar lack of vintage, we have no idea what changes in cloud cover there's been; nor how the models should account for them. Currently accepted models assume, with absolutely no supporting evidence for that assumption whatsoever, that they are a positive feedback. Actual measurements are unclear but support more the idea that they're actually a negative feedback. Should have a pretty good clue either way in another five-ten years or so.

Re:Oh no, not again.

[owski]

The +2c rise "in the last decade" is actually relative to the 1850s (and it's not quite +2c). There hasn't been a rise within the last decade, which is what the article is referring to. It's called a "plateau" and it's something that a surprising number of ./ readers don't seem to understand.

Even if global warming was an issue

[Anonymous Coward]

No action will be taken anyway.

Re:Even if global warming was an issue

[rubycodez]

yes, action was taken. Tens of billions of euros worth of carbon tax and trade scams, with several billion euros worth of known fraud already.

They found 16?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see your 16, and raise you 16,000.

Re:They found 16?

[superwiz]

That's not how science works. Reality is there to be discovered. Reality is not there to be voted into office.

Notice this wasn't published in a science journal

[mozumder]

But instead, was published in a right-wing newspaper.

The global-warming deniers obviously have no evidence, because if they did, they'd publish it in a science journal.

What exactly are these right-wingers trying to hide? Their corporate oil-industry donors?

This is what I would choose as the thesis

[phantomfive]

Here is the sentence I would choose as the thesis of their article:

Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.

Actually that's two sentences. The first is the one I would choose as the thesis, and the second one to back it up. I don't know if there is much evidence they are wrong on that point.

Re:This is what I would choose as the thesis

[cr_nucleus]

...aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.

The key word here is "economically".

Of course it makes no economical sense to do that.
That's because we're not trying to solve an economical problem.

You could also add that there's no economical reason to have children and you would certainly be right while totally missing the point.

Re:This is what I would choose as the thesis

[martin-boundary]

Their point is that any problem caused by increased CO2 in the atmosphere could be more cheaply solved in other ways

Look at the signatures. How would physicists, chemists and meterologists, but not a single economist, know what the cheapest economic solution to reducing effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be?

Regardless of one's personal beliefs about the warming issue, there's always a danger in accepting claims unconditionally when they agree with one's opinions, and rejecting them otherwise.

Re:This is what I would choose as the thesis

[ATestR]

Cheapest economic solution that would also reduce man's carbon footprint would be to eliminate 99% of people. 100% would fix the problem permanently.

Re:This is what I would choose as the thesis

[epine]

Of course it makes no economical sense to do that.
That's because we're not trying to solve an economical problem.

You've completely failed to grasp the scale of the actions proposed. The large sums of money sloshing around in the middle mediate one form of harm (climate) against another (e.g. setback of the fight against world poverty). Decreasing world economic growth rate to mitigate environmental changes due to the carbon economy will have severe impacts on many populations, most likely the least fortunate.

At this scale, all problems are economic problems.

Re:This is what I would choose as the thesis

[inglorion_on_the_net]

The key word here is "economically".

Of course it makes no economical sense to do that.
That's because we're not trying to solve an economical problem.

I think this is something that can be argued about, too. It sort of depends on what you include in your definition of economics. Is it about how much money the large corporations make? Is it about the gross domestic product? GDP per capita? Adjusted for inflation? Does it go beyond money - do we include things like having food on your plate? Perhaps average quality of life? Do we try to factor in externalities, e.g. effects on other countries or other generations?

I think there is no question that both taking measures or not taking measures to reduce COâ emissions will have _some_ effect under any reasonable definition of economics. But people like to pit the economy against the environment, and I think that is doing the world a disservice. They interact, and it's not one or the other. It's entirely possible that they would go hand in hand. Numerous green tech companies are likely to agree with me. Some people save money on their cars now that they don't have to put in as much gasoline.

In other instances, you may have to choose between more money and something else. I think that is an entirely economical issue. Even if you choose something else, that's entirely within the realm of economics. You're optimizing for something, and that something doesn't have to be money.

So, I would argue that we _are_ trying to solve an economical problem. We are concerned about the environment and what effects our activities may have on our future quality of life. We are trying to factor that into the big economic equation, and trying to figure out if we will get the best results with laissez-faire or with some sort of regulation. I think that we will find that (1) it is impossible to figure out exactly where the optimum is, but also (2) it won't be completely laissez-faire and it won't be completely puppet strings, either, and (3) there will be some terrible ideas, some brilliant ideas, and a lot of incremental improvements.

Re:This is what I would choose as the thesis

[Ichijo]

Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.

If carbon emissions have a nonzero cost, and if negative externalities are a type of market failure, then Markets 101 tells us that raising the price of gasoline by the environmental cost of carbon is entirely justified. And because our children and grandchildren will have to live with the environmental consequences, let's take the revenue and pay down the debt to give them one less thing to worry about.

Re:This is what I would choose as the thesis

[sonicmerlin]

Uh... no. That would destroy 99% of the world's GDP.

Re:This is what I would choose as the thesis

[Eunuchswear]

The key word here is "economically".

Of course it makes no economical sense to do that.
That's because we're not trying to solve an economical problem.

Nicholas Stern would like to disagree with you.

Don't worry about taking care of yourself

[microcars]

say 16 Doctors*,
"you're just going to die anyways."

*not necessarily medical doctors"

Re:Don't worry about taking care of yourself

[pitchpipe]

Right!? I mean Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics(?!), Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

I'm getting my degree in electrical engineering. Could I sign it too?

Re:Don't worry about taking care of yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

Right!? I mean Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics(?!), Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

I'm getting my degree in electrical engineering. Could I sign it too?

LOL. Looked him up on Wikipedia:

He is most well known for his solar and cosmic rays hypothesis of climate change. In 2002, Shaviv hypothesised that passages through the Milky Way's spiral arms appear to have been the cause behind the major ice-ages over the past billion years.

Well that sounds awfully like another "climate scientist". I'm sure he would have signed too.

Re:An outbreak of sanity?

[Xanny]

Average global temperatures are up 4c in the last century, 2c in the last decade, and it is more severe near the poles. Coastal water levels have risen by a few inches in the last decade.

Not doing anything possible to stop the planet from heating up until we get a runaway greenhouse effect is what is insane, especially when all we have to do is not even "that" hard - just stop burning fossil fuels that are just large amounts of carbon locked up in a solid as opposed to being in the atmosphere.

And next we'll hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that water is not a pollutant. It's a colorless and odorless liquid, consumed and expelled in high volumes by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's lifecycle.

And therefore we should disable all flood and tsunami advanced warning systems.

Re:And next we'll hear...

[TarMil]

The fact that water is not a pollutant.

Beware of dihydrogen monoxyde though.

Re:And next we'll hear...

[Lennie]

Floods and tsnunamis have a lot less impact on people if we don't live/work near the ocean. That would be the equivalent of man made.

Oxygen is also colorless and odorless.

[Anonymous Coward]

You will die without it. You will also suffer greatly if you have too much of it. Urine is natural. Do you want to swim in it? Poop is natural. Do you want to live in it?

Lots of things are natural, the concentrations are what matter. I don't need to read the flaming article if the summary is going to quote such moronic and specious reasoning.

It's like the wags who try to get people worked up with some flippant story about Dihydrogen Monoxide being a toxin, only to reveal it's water. Well, la-de-dah, but I happen to live somewhere we spent quite a few millions to stop flooding, so you know what? I'm going to regulate the stuff and be happy with interrupting that part of the natural process.

the 16 scientists are not climatologists

[RichMan]

Think about how much a can of fuel weighs. Think how many of those you put into your car in a year. Think how many cars are out there. How many trucks delivering food. All that weight, all that fuel goes into the air and converts oxygen into CO2 as it goes. That is a lot of mass of CO2 that is being added to the air that was not 100 years.

We know stuff we dump in the environment comes back to us. Lead, Ozone, Mercury, these are chemicals we have dumped into the air in the past and found they were affecting us. So we know our outputs can affect the global condition.

Re:the 16 scientists are not climatologists

[diamondmagic]

But it does not logically follow that we must do something about it.

If you want to find out how much CO2 a car releases, you ask an engineer. If you want to find out how much the CO2 will impact weather patterns as a whole, you ask a climatologist. But if you want to find out how to balance the two, you can't ask either, you have to ask an economist: http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities.html

Re:the 16 scientists are not climatologists

[thestudio_bob]

Think about how much a can of fuel weighs. Think how many of those you put into your car in a year. Think how many cars are out there. How many trucks delivering food. All that weight, all that fuel goes into the air and converts oxygen into CO2 as it goes. That is a lot of mass of CO2 that is being added to the air that was not 100 years.

Now let's think about people walking and riding their bikes instead. These people in theory, are breathing harding, hence making more CO2... only one solution...

Stop breathing. Save the planet.

Re:the 16 scientists are not climatologists

[RichMan]

> These people in theory, are breathing harding, hence making more CO2... only one solution...

You are correct. The cows we factory farm have a measurable impact on methane emissions. Methane is much worse than CO2.
Population crash due to self pollution and death or exhaustion of resources is an often observed trait. If we don't take control, it will just happen.

Termite mounds can die from self heating if they are not properly ventilated. To much population is bad.

Re:the 16 scientists are not climatologists

[geekmux]

Think about how much a can of fuel weighs. Think how many of those you put into your car in a year. Think how many cars are out there. How many trucks delivering food. All that weight, all that fuel goes into the air and converts oxygen into CO2 as it goes. That is a lot of mass of CO2 that is being added to the air that was not 100 years.

Think about nature. Think about how many active volcanoes there are on the planet. Think about how much control we have over all of them, or more to the point, lack of control to slow or stop ANY activity volcanoes naturally do. Now think about the amount of CO2 that gets dumped into the atmosphere with every eruption. Now try and remember that this kind of activity has been going on for tens of thousands of years now, not the last 100.

Now try and convince me that we humans are somehow MORE of a factor than nature when it comes to CO2 emissions, or even have a relevant impact. Don't get me wrong, I see the need for sensible emissions policies, but lining peoples pockets with sensationalist bullshit needs to come to an end.

We know stuff we dump in the environment comes back to us. Lead, Ozone, Mercury, these are chemicals we have dumped into the air in the past and found they were affecting us. So we know our outputs can affect the global condition.

You're trying to compare CO2 to actual chemicals that man has considerably modified from its natural state to create real toxins. No one should question lead or mercury dumping, but we still have every right to question what has been a natural occurrence that has been going on long before we started driving around Hummers.

Re:the 16 scientists are not climatologists

[RichMan]

> Think about nature. Think about how many active volcanoes there are on the planet.
> Now try and convince me that we humans are somehow MORE of a factor than nature when it comes to CO2 emissions

-- volcanoes emit 200 million tons a year.
- the global fossil fuel CO2 emissions for 2003 tipped the scales at 26.8 billion tonnes.

Care to reverse you position ?

Look at the facts. Human CO2 is more than 100x that of volcanic CO2.
Humans are a very significant impact on the atmospheric composition.

Re:the 16 scientists are not climatologists

[phantomfive]

The change in atmospheric composition has been about 100 parts per million, from CO2 levels of around 280ppm before the industrial revolution to around 380ppm now.

Re:the 16 scientists are not climatologists

[j-beda]

Think about how much a can of fuel weighs. Think how many of those you put into your car in a year. Think how many cars are out there. How many trucks delivering food. All that weight, all that fuel goes into the air and converts oxygen into CO2 as it goes. That is a lot of mass of CO2 that is being added to the air that was not 100 years.

Does it seem like a lot to you? Be careful to consider it against the size of the atmosphere, which is huge.

Ultimately, all the CO2 burned in all the time since the industrial revolution has caused a change of atmospheric composition of less than 1%. Surprising, but true.

Well, it is only a fractionally small part of the atmosphere, a few hundred parts per million, so sure, we have not changed the atmospheric composition by more than 1%. So what? Amazing how changing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere by about 2.2% per year over the last decade, how "the present level is higher than at any time during the last 800 thousand years,[4] and likely higher than in the past 20 million years" has changed the atmosphere by less than 1%, but again, this is just a demonstration that CO2 is a small part of the atmosphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere

Just because it is a small fraction of the atmosphere does not mean that it cannot have a large influence on the climate.

Re:the 16 scientists are not climatologists

[turkeyfish]

Humans produce about 330,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. In contrast all the world's volcanoes produce average about 220,000,000 tons annually. The problematic aspect is that each year what we put in previously is still there, so the effect is cumulative.

No kids, live in Maine

[Hnice]

That's how I removed myself from this jackassery.

Personally, I think that the preponderance of the scientific evidence suggests that we ought to be worried about climate change. However, there are people who seem to have a chip on their shoulder about this, and they seem to be centralized in the very states that are going to have it worst if they're wrong. Frankly, I hope they're right and that their already-sun-belt homes don't wind up in the middle of a new desert, and that their kids don't end up with some kind of mutant skin cancer.

But if they do? I don't care. Maine could use an extra degree or two, and it'll be funny to watch all the Red States run around begging the federal government for disaster relief like they do when a river floods or there's a hurricane in the gulf. "Oh, noes! Hotness! Who could have guessed! Please help us, evil socialist elitists. Our kids can't play outside and we're all so THIRSTY!!!! Waaaaaah!"

I'm smiling just thinking about it.

Re:No kids, live in Maine

[Dragonslicer]

I grew up in Maine. Living there is never the solution.

Obligatory cartoon

[Albanach]

Obligatory cartoon

Re:Obligatory cartoon

[jmichaelg]

What if it's a hoax and we incur societal costs we can't afford?

California is levying carbon taxes on business and as you might expect, businesses are leaving California. That means more unemployment in a state that already leads the country unemployment figures.

There are very real costs to carbon reduction.

Re:Obligatory cartoon

[Anonymous Coward]

The question in the cartoon got it wrong.

A lot of people in the 3rd world will die because of higher food and energy prices, for nothing.

Re:Obligatory cartoon

[LordLucless]

Yay, a false dichotomy in cartoon form.

I'm dubious about the effectiveness of pushing CO2 reductions as a means of controlling global warming (due to international politics as much as science), and yet I strongly push for renewable technologies for many of the reasons listed there - sustainability and energy independence chief among them.

Even of those claims made there, a good half of them are irrelevant to CO2 reductions. Healthy children? CO2 isn't a pollutant, it's not going to make your children sick. Livable cities? Again, smog, not caused by CO2. Clean air, water - again, not CO2. Green jobs? Depends on how many other jobs are lost in the process. Preserve rainforests? Rainforest deforestation is being scaled down for entirely different reasons than global warming. The amount of CO2 released from old forest destruction is a very minor contributor. CO2 sequestering might result in more trees being planted, but probably not rainforests - their trees aren't the best suited for that task.

Re:Obligatory cartoon

[Albanach]

There are very real costs to carbon reduction.

Correct, it's not like anyone has ever associated California with smog or anything. Not like employees lose millions of potential work days per year to illness from poor air quality.

Of course there are costs to reducing carbon output. There are also very real costs to keeping carbon output at current levels.

Re:Obligatory cartoon

[gtall]

A hoax? From the scientific community? Maybe you could lay off the magic mushrooms for a bit.

I'm a scientist. We live or die by how well our theories explain the natural world. You seem to be suggesting that there's a cabal of scientists who are for various reasons trumpeting "the hoax" for precisely what? Our reward system would make any of us fabulously rich if only we could conclusively prove man-made warming is wrong. It hasn't happened.

And that's the rub. Can anyone conclusively prove that we aren't forcing the world to warm? But that only leads to the real point. If we do not know, why should we conduct an experiment for which there's no turning back?

This somewhat reminds me, and here I'm betraying my own bias, of the controversy over smoking. Does it cause lung cancer or not? It took years and many "scientists" on the take form the tobacco industry to swear it didn't before it was finally resolved. And it wasn't resolved within the scientific community (they were adamant that it did), it was resolved when the public finally decided whom to believe.

So we have the current debate? It will not be resolved by scientists, per se. Most have already decided. It will be resolved by the public and what they can see with their own eyes. But then if we have turned the world into one with a runaway greenhouse effect, does it matter? Do you feel lucky? Should we wager the planet on, "Gee, I don't think it could happen" when most scientists are telling you it could?

Re:Obligatory cartoon

[Alomex]

Let me explain. I'm not criticizing that the early figures AIDS were pessimistic. Where the scientific fraud lies is that when the revised data from the field started streaming in, projections were barely adjusted.

The CDC kept predicting a million HIV Americans every year, in spite of the failed prediction of previous year, and more importantly, the clear models showing that such figure was not likely to be reached. Eventually it might** have been reached, not because of the consequence of an increase in the infection rate as the CDC was claiming, but because of a decrease in the mortality rates at the other end.

** I say might, since the number of diagnosed HIV positive in America is, today, about 680K.

The rest are just predicted future innovations that turned out to be harder to achieve and less useful than predicted.

Much of the GW debate is still in the prediction phase, so there is still a lot of room for big mispredictions. Let me be clear, GW is here and it is real, I'm talking debate about the shape of the growth curve only.

Moreover in the cases of the exaggerated benefits of Artificial Intelligence scientists were making statements as if this things would come to pass automatically, not possible, potential maybe-baby benefits in the future.

I'm not saying GW is a hoax, I'm just saying scientific fraud has happened, and if you believe that it takes "magic mushrooms" to see one (like the OP by gtall claimed) you are far, far too naive.

is there a more scientific version of this?

[Trepidity]

This reads, unfortunately, like a WSJ op-ed, with lots of polemic, and relatively little science. Have the 16 scientists in question written up a more sober whitepaper that I could read? I'd actually be interested in reading their analysis, if there were a version with more data and less rhetoric about "those promoting alarm", drumbeats, and CO2 being colorless.

Re:is there a more scientific version of this?

[The Master Control P]

But the idiots the Murdoch-owned WSJ sets out to manipulate wouldn't read or be capable of understanding a research whitepaper.

Now, emotional button-pressing and pushing them damned scientists as the evil out group? That they understand.

And Forbes shot back

[RichMan]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkable-editorial-bias-on-climate-science-at-the-wall-street-journal/

Quote --
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has long been understood to be not only antagonistic to the facts of climate science, but hostile. But in a remarkable example of their unabashed bias, on Friday they published an opinion piece that not only repeats many of the flawed and misleading arguments about climate science, but purports to be of special significance because it was signed by 16 “scientists.”
--

Re:And Forbes shot back

[UpnAtom]

Indeed. Why is this obviously oil-funded advertorial on Slashdot?

Re:And Forbes shot back

[forand]

Degrees do not a scientist make. A scientist practices their art. Having a degree in a science does not mean one uses that degree. It is similar to who someone trained in law cannot claim to be a lawyer unless they have passed the Bar exam and are currently in good standing with the Bar. If you look at the titles claimed by the authors of the WSJ piece you will note that many are not practicing scientist and many do not have degrees relevant to the discussion.

Claude Allègre

[Anonymous Coward]

I see Allègre in the list of scientists. He is a very competent *geologist*. He has no clue in climatology. That did not stop him from writing a book about the topic in which he *falsified* data to fit his own personal views that are not supported by science. Here is one of several examples http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/04/claude-allegre-the-climate-imposter/ . No need to say that the people who published the original data are horrified by his fraud. So in the end the WSJ publishes crap. Nothing unusual.

That's unusual?

[Anonymous Coward]

Average global temperatures are up 4c in the last century, 2c in the last decade, and it is more severe near the poles. Coastal water levels have risen by a few inches in the last decade.

Average temperatures were quite a bit warmer and changed more dramatically in the middle ages. Greenland was not named sarcastically. Britain once produced wine. Find the connection between politics, power tax and lies.

Re:That's unusual?

[Anonymous Coward]

Global temperatures during the Medieval Warming Period were actually lower than they are today. The warming you are describing was a local phenomenon experienced in the Northern Atlantic region.

Re:That's unusual?

[jo_ham]

Greenland was not named sarcastically, it was named so people would want to go there.

This sounds awfully familiar

[v1x]

I recall reading about these sort of opinions before with regard to both climate change and evolution, and the common thread seems to be the amount of attention given by the American news media. Differences of opinion, although common in every field, don't quite seem to get that kind of attention unless someone conveniently benefits from giving them press. Would be interesting to find out years later, if this latest opinion-piece was somehow published in response to the recent interest by the NCSE to start educating people about climate change, also explained further here.

No global warming in the past decade? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are the hottest ten years on record, in the past 130 years, in order: 2005, 2010, 1998, 2003, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2007, 2004, 2001
Notice a pattern? How about the fact that they are all in the past decade.

I notice also that of the 16 scientists, only 2-3 have titles that directly related to the study of climate and atmospheric sciences. The rest are the usual mismash of experts in other subjects who (as "smart" people are won't to do) apparently claim equal expertise in global warming, who are simply doing the classic trick of "donning a labcoat" to look authoritative.

Relax

[Anonymous Coward]

Useful reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

Yes, we're currently in an ice age. It's one of the relatively warm bits of an ice age (an interglacial period), but its still an ice age.

The earth's been warmer than this on average - if we're breaking out of the current ice age early, so what? Better than the alternative - the interglacial period ending and the earth slipping back into the main part of an ice age. Most countries can't cope as it is when a bit of snow falls - imagine what they'll be like in an ice age.

Re:Notice this wasn't published in a science journ

[tverbeek]

Which is the more credible source for scientific analysis: reports written in terms of physics, and published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal; or an opinion piece written in terms of politics and economics, and published in the house organ of the financial-commodities-trading industry?

Some already use the global warming effect

[G3ckoG33k]

False flag.

"The lack of warming for more than a decade" is contradicted by e.g.

"An increasing amount of seaborne traffic is moving along a new Siberian coastal route, cutting journey time and boosting trade prospects"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/05/arctic-shipping-trade-routes

The sea north of Siberia is opening up, for the benefit of transport! So, some in the industry are already using the global warming. Russia is planning expanding some of these harbors for summer traffic.

So, even if those WSJ jerks are wrong, there are some beneficial outcomes. Not all parts in the world suffer from droughts or desertification.

Still, the poor people in Nevada, California, Spain, Italy and elsewhere will suffer from an even drier climate.

The winners are the already affluent people in high latitudes, with an already booming industry.

Re:Some already use the global warming effect

[BasilBrush]

http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm

Re:Some already use the global warming effect

[G3ckoG33k]

"Sorry, but anecdotal evidence of regional temperature changes do not a global average make."

Sorry, but the models predict that the global warming will lead to, hold on, regional temperature changes which actually do a global average make.

In fact, the changes will also be more severe around the northern hemisphere, as the Roaring 40s around Antarctica apparently level out the effect thee.

The main shifts in temperature are predicted to happen in the northern hemisphere, but still strong enough to change the mean global temperature.

Re:Some already use the global warming effect

[G3ckoG33k]

"'Medieval warming period' was NOT evidence of pre-industrial climate change."

Strange. Never heard that. To me it looks like a climate change. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

Still, the sharp rise the last century is not similar to the rise of the MWP.

"Oh, yea. I forgot that AGW is a religion."

I relegate religions to the religious.

AGW is testable and refutable and therefore has some true meaning, as part of science.

Religions have no virtues.

Re:An outbreak of sanity?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.skepticalscience.com/greenland-used-to-be-green.htm

Re:Notice this wasn't published in a science journ

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA. Someone actually tried that, then they got fired. Hell, I wouldn't do it if it meant not having a job when there's not an equally good one waiting for me in some other place, and that's in spite of the fact that I don't buy into this global warming stuff.

I don't recall anyone getting fired for conducting an experiment that seemed to show that neutrinos can travel faster than light(which is not something I believe most scientists would have considered possible). But when it comes to global warming, advocate it or lose your job. Firing someone because they disagree with you isn't scientific. There's a human element to this.

Opinoin piece from a Wall Street propganda outfit.

[Beelzebud]

Sorry, but I'll trust the climatologists, and not the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal.

Just remember....

[SwedishChef]

The same guy who owns the WSJ owns Fox News.

Let's put this in terms Slashdotters can grok

[jayhawk88]

"16 Marketing Managers,HR Directors, and First-Level Help Desk Technicians have decided that routinely testing backups is a waste of effort and not needed at all".

This isn't news...

[Esteanil]

It's a biased op-ed from a right-wing newspaper. To quote Forbes:

But the most amazing and telling evidence of the bias of the Wall Street Journal in this field is the fact that 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote a comparable (but scientifically accurate) essay on the realities of climate change and on the need for improved and serious public debate around the issue, offered it to the Wall Street Journal, and were turned down. The National Academy of Sciences is the nation’s pre-eminent independent scientific organizations. Its members are among the most respected in the world in their fields. Yet the Journal wouldn’t publish this letter, from more than 15 times as many top scientists. Instead they chose to publish an error-filled and misleading piece on climate because some so-called experts aligned with their bias signed it. This may be good politics for them, but it is bad science and it is bad for the nation.

Re:This isn't news...

[GameboyRMH]

I think that says it all. What surprises me most is that the top denialist "scientists" dug up an old, easily disproven, barroom-grade argument ("No *atmospheric* warning in the last decade or two! IT'S A HOAX!") as their primary argument. It's like the response doesn't even matter, and they know it.

Re:This isn't news...

[oldhack]

You misguided sheep were the ones playing "appeal to authority" nonsense compounding it with "truth through popularity".

And now you're accusing WSJ of bias instead of going after those who actually wrote and signed the editorial.

Worse thing is, though, as nerdy and one-sided as the slashdot readers tend to be (as I am), they pride themselves for cutting through the misdirections when it comes to science/technology, but throw in climate/"environment", it's no better than university literature/ethnic studies depts.

Re:This isn't news...

[PopeRatzo]

The National Academy of Sciences is the nationâ(TM)s pre-eminent independent scientific organizations.

But they're all taking money from the ultra-wealthy Sierra Club and PETA members, while scientists associated with the hard-working middle-class, main street job creators at Exxon and Shell are ignored just because their PhDs are in political science and mechanical engineering instead of pseudo-sciences like Physics, Math, Geology and Climate Science.

It's just not fair, I tell you. The left-wing bias of the so-called "hard" sciences is the reason I home-school my children The only textbook publisher we need is King James. If King James was good enough when Joseph and Mary home-schooled Jesus, it's good enough for me and my kids.

I swear, those liberal elites are living in a different world than those of us who are reality-based.

Re:This isn't news...

[Joce640k]

Nope. What says it all is: "The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us"

Lie. Lie, and um Lie.

I'd like to give the authors of that a sniff of pure CO2 to see how odorless it is.

Re:This isn't news...

[Gibgezr]

I read the rebuttal letter, it was printed in Science magazine. It wasn't a "comparable" letter, it probably was scientifically accurate, but it only stated claims, no actual arguments. The letter in the WSJ actually gave arguments. All the letter in Science did was rely on the weight of the names behind it. What they should have done was stated some facts and then drawn conclusions. I am a little confused as to why the letter was such a poor rebuttal (I believe in climate change, personally). Maybe next time they could show a little science. At least the original letter gave the reasons *why* they thought climate change was overblown, the rebuttal letter should have done the same, told *why* they believed in climate change. Instead, they basically just said "there's 255 of us and you better believe us or bad things will happen!"

Re:This isn't news...

[mevets]

Given the bullshit the authors are pushing, I think it is likely they have had more than a sniff.
These template arguments are so pathetic that you sometimes wonder if it isn't better to just club them to death than sort through the charade.
The Prime Minister of Canada used the same CO2 isn't a pollutant bullshit. Canada is a failed Oil Producing nation in the worst sense of the word.

Re:This isn't news...

[some1001]

You have to be kidding. Just look at the wikipedia page. Heck, go look at any MSDS for CO2.

"Odorless." "Colorless."

I don't know the exact concentration of it being exhaled by us, but seriously, don't go yapping about things being "lies" without at least looking it up.

Re:This isn't news...

[martyros]

And here's the reference, for those who want to take a look for themselves: Remarkable Editorial Bias on Climate Science at the Wall Street Journal The brief article contains a link to both the letter written by the National Academy of Sciences, and the WSJ.

Re:This isn't news...

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

Its not easy for them to do so. I think it starts off in the brain as "Some liberals said this, so it must be wrong". The brain then has to wash all of this actual data and supported information until anything that rejects the "some liberals said this, so it must be wrong" thesis. At that point, with a considerable absence of most of the original data and the presence of a fair sized can of bullshit, you can assuredly feel that this global warming stuff is all crap.

The folks that go through this process have absolutely no idea how our global climate works, and neither do the people supplying them with their own set of facts. In fact, I'd go so far out on a limb as to say that 95% of them just dont care one way or the other, but them there librals need someone to tell them off.

Re:This isn't news...

[Cyberax]

Pure CO2 has a distinctive odor (sharp, almost metallic), it's caused by carbonic acid forming on mucous membranes.

Here it's described as 'acidic': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#Physical_properties

It's not really a problem for MSDS datasheets, because at these CO2 concentrations you're going to faint in a few seconds.

Re:This isn't news...

[Gibgezr]

Like I said, I believe in climate change. Did you actually read what I wrote? I'm sure their arguments are invalid; the point is, the rebuttal letter did not actually rebut any of the arguments, it just ignored them. No wonder the WSJ didn't bother printing it; I wonder why Science did. We would all have been better served by a letter that actually deigned to debate the issues, one that proved the point. Right?

Re:This isn't news...

[PRMan]

When scientists start appealing to popularity instead of arguments, you may want to reconsider what they're saying...

Re:This isn't news...

[Ethanol-fueled]

The Wall Street Journal has always been a traditionally conservative newspaper, but it was at least respectable until Rupe Murdoch bought it out and Fox-ified it.

Re:This isn't news...

[alexandre_ganso]

I believe in climate change, personally

Please, do not BELIEVE in anything. Question, prove, discover, argue!

Believing is being controlled. It has been like that forever. Be it religion, the government or whatever.

Re:This isn't news...

[Jane Q. Public]

"(I believe in climate change, personally)."

Um... you are conflating two different things. Actually, not even that: you are apparently misunderstanding the letter completely.

The authors of that letter do not "disbelieve" in "climate change". On the contrary, they explicitly state that they know the climate is getting warmer. All the letter says is that it isn't getting as warm as the alarmists said it would, and that anthropogenic warming is probably not as big a factor as has been claimed by said alarmists.

Belief has nothing to do with it. And this is not even remotely a "denialist" letter. They list some scientific facts. So far, nobody has refuted those facts. So... where does that leave your "belief"?

Re:This isn't news...

[icebraining]

Parent said belief, not faith.

Re:This isn't news...

[colinrichardday]

Not according to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air

Air is the name given to atmosphere used in breathing and photosynthesis. Dry air contains roughly (by volume) 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases.

Re:This isn't news...

[oldhack]

No disagreement about WSJ's stand, though I don't know how much it changed since Murdoch's takeover.

But the point remains. Some of these people, I suspect many to be young, idealistic (and I respect that - I was young once, too), but misguided folks, resorted to "appeal to authority" and "truth by popularity". Now that WSJ put up an opposing opinion by some prominent members of science/tech community, they are going after WSJ ad-hom, instead of attacking the arguments put forth.

Lastly, again, I am disappointed because this is Slashdot. With all her (and her readership's) faults, they/we generally do a better job of cutting through the politically correct popularity fog, but climate/environment is one of the issues their brains suffer a short circuit. I can understand as part humor about some technical religious wars (you know, vi vs. emacs, even Apple vs. whatever), but climate/environment/eco stuff I find hard to swallow.

I wonder, maybe we're better off bringing back bit more of the "conventional" religions.

Re:This isn't news...

[ozmanjusri]

Given the bullshit the authors are pushing, I think it is likely they have had more than a sniff.

Claude Allegre is the first scientist cited. This is from his Wikipedia entry

Claude Allègre
In 1996, Allègre opposed the removal of carcinogenic asbestos from the Jussieu university campus in Paris, describing it as harmless and dismissing concerns about it as a form of "psychosis created by leftists".[6] The campus' asbestos is deemed to have killed 22 people and caused serious health problems in 130 others.[7]

Re:This isn't news...

[pseudofrog]

Let's "inject a bit of reality" and admit that being odorless and colorless is not relevant to the question of whether it's causing global warming.

Re:This isn't news...

[Stephan Schulz]

I read the rebuttal letter, it was printed in Science magazine.[...] I am a little confused as to why the letter was such a poor rebuttal (I believe in climate change, personally).

It wasn't a rebuttal, it was an independent letter published ~18 months ago. The probably reason why there is little science in the letter is because actual science, as opposed to pseudo-science, is complicated. It's a favorite tactic of anti-science debaters to throw out large numbers of wrong claims that take some time to properly refute. So when time or patience run out, the audience is left with the impression of doubt and open questions. And since you are always playing to different crowds, there is no need to take out refuted arguments - just re-run the whole show. Even a very much compacted version of the science, on the other hand, requires not a short editorial, but a 104 page report.

Re:This isn't news...

[rtb61]

Well perhaps because in this case quite a few of use can't read the article. Don't be an enabler https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/murdoch-block/ cut off the air supply before their greed cuts off yours.

When it is part of the News Corp Empire, why bother, with so much advertising as news, blatant truth censorship and well all in all a PR=B$ (lies for profit). The Fox not-News network, why even bother to debate, they will have no qualms about spreading the biggest lies imaginable, basically a network whose motto is your pay it and they will spray it, fertiliser that is.

Let's not get to sucked in by the lies. Don't forget burning fossil fuels does not just produce carbon dioxide but also carbon monoxide, Nitrogen dioxide, Sulphur dioxide, Benzene and, Formaldehyde, Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon.

So comparing the exhalation of people to a car exhaust, well perhaps if those who choose to do so would do us all of the favour of sucking on a car exhaust for a while, likely the pollution problem will be solved more rapidly.

Re:This isn't news...

[jc42]

CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us"

Lie. Lie, and um Lie. I'd like to give the authors of that a sniff of pure CO2 to see how odorless it is.

Hmmm ... I've smelled CO2 on a number of occasions. Of course, it wasn't actually "pure", it was in the form of the "smoke" given off from dry ice. But it should have been concentrated enough to be able to smell, and it didn't have a smell. It was just cold, even a foot above the ice. So what's the pure stuff smell like?

Actually, on a number of occasions, the CO2 "smoke" did have an aroma. This was because I was working in some bio labs, where we had lots of dry ice "for research use". Some portion of it inevitably found its way into the punch bowls at various staff gatherings, where we'd have bowls of bubbly, frothing, smoking stuff that always looked sorta cool, and in fact was literally quite cool, due to the block of dry ice in the bottom of the bowls. I'd often nab a little chunk of the ice, drop it in my drink, and walk around with a glass of smoking, bubbling, evil-looking stuff, nonchalantly sipping it. The smoke smelled a lot like whatever I was drinking. It makes for some very interesting margaritas.

But the high levels of CO2 seem to be entirely inert to the human nose. And unless you're exercising vigorously, your body can easily deal with the slight rise in blood CO2 level that this produces. Any effects you feel is more likely from the C2H5OH in your drink.

And if I weren't so lazy, I'd go back and insert the <sub> tags in those formulae ... which the slashcode would strip out.

Re:This isn't news...

[speederaser]

I'm not sure you understand that the Science letter was NOT a rebuttal; it pre-dated the WSJ article. In fact, the WSJ saw the Science letter (and rejected publishing it) before they published their editorial, so in effect the editorial was a quasi-rebuttal of the Science letter.

Re:This isn't news...

[tragedy]

Absolutely agree. That's the scummiest lie on there. Just because something is natural doesn't make it not a pollutant. "The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle". The "high concentrations" bit is ridiculous. It's higher than standard atmospheric concentration, obviously, but they're completely icing over the fact that the carbon in the CO2 animals breathe out comes from a fairly closed cycle. We breathe it out because we got it from our food in the first place. Our vegetable food got it from the atmosphere. Our animal food got it from vegetable matter, or from other animals that got it from vegetable matter, etc. Some natural processes bring out more carbon from under the earth and the overall action of our biosphere is to sequester it under the earth again. Something that's already naturally present can be a pollutant if it's in the wrong concentration or in the wrong place. Too much oxygen would be a pollutant too (a very dangerous one since the world could catch fire). Ozone is a pollutant at ground level, but great for us in the stratosphere. The quote they give about CO2 applies equally well to excrement (well, minus the colorless and odorless part, and we don't normally exhale it, although those people who do are a great example of it being a pollutant when it's in the wrong place), but excrement is obviously a pollutant when there's too much of it in our water supply.

Someone should see how many of these "scientists" are willing to spend an hour in a chamber with 10% CO2. Then we can ask them if they still think it's not potentially a pollutant depending on concentration afterwards. We won't get much of an answer since they will have died painfully, of course.

Re:This isn't news...

[SplashMyBandit]

Please don't take me wrong, I agree with you about the bias of the author. However I would like to point out that generally asbestos sheets are harmless when left alone. Once you start cutting it and creating dust particles out of it then it most definitely is a carcinogen. So, while Allegre was probably wrong to oppose the removal of asbestos what people might be missing is the fact that it is doing things with the asbestos (eg routine renovating or the removal) that could release the carcinogenic particles.

How do I know this? I once asked this question of my country's national laboratory who test asbestos for these things - it is the job of the scientists there to test these things. They other thing they said is that glass fiber insulating material (here they go by the trade name, "Pink Batts") has the same problem as asbestos - actually inert, and safe when left, but creating dust can cause all sorts of probems, including leading to lung cancer/illness. The smoke from cigarettes has the same effect (if we ignore the other chemicals), where the smoke is not particularly (pun intended) reactive but irritates the lungs continuously which causes cancer.

So, Allegre was right and wrong at the same time (right under certain conditions, wrong under others - which made him effectively wrong since the consequences of the dangers of asbestos far outweigh the benefits of using it).

Re:This isn't news...

[pseudofrog]

Quick point-by point:

Methane breaks down in about 12 years due to ultraviolet light. We're also pumping far less of it into the atmosphere. Excess water falls as rain.

Plenty of scientists have looked at and are looking at the sun. There is no compelling evidence that it's causing global warming. (If you find some, please cite it instead of slurring scientists lazy).

Computer models are one of many tools used by scientists. They have their strengths and weaknesses, but they are not, by any means, the primary reason why climate scientists believe current global warming is human-induced.

Sometimes, some scientists are wrong. One of the authors of the WSJ article, for example, claimed that asbestos was completely safe.

Freeman Dyson is a quantum physicist.

Any other arguments you'd like me to refute in two sentences or less?

Re:This isn't news...

[microbox]

The WSJ refused to publish an open letter on the topic written by the NAS -- but publish this junk because it supports their politics. Yep, that's bias. Textbook case. Couldn't be clearer.

Re:This isn't news...

[ozmanjusri]

Instead of regurgitating conventional wisdom

Conventional wisdom? Are you insane?

I worked for many years on the WA Department of Mines Contam monitoring program which has been collecting airborn particulate data, including asbestos for several decades. In addition, I've consulted to many companies on asbestos identifiaction and management for the past 25 years.

Australia has the highest rate of mesothelioma in the world, and we've experienced three phases of asbestos related disease, from the mining of asbestos, asbestos use in industry and most recently from DIY home renovators who demolished their own asbestos structures.

The Australian Mesothelioma Registry tracks incidenses of mesothelioma and publishes an annual report: http://www.mesothelioma-australia.com/home-page.aspx

Re:This isn't news...

[Corbets]

To be fair, the same process works in reverse for "liberals." It's a sad human tendency, but clear.

Re:This isn't news...

[tbannist]

Check again, they rounded up a few know nothings about climate change with titles. I stopped reading about halfway through the list because I couldn't be bothered to finish reading the poorly laid out "signatories" section. The most relevent title I saw was "former head of climate change for meteorology". For the most part it appears to be the usual bundle of physicists and other people with little to no expertise in the field.

The Wall Street Journal is likely under the same orders that other Rupert Murdoch owned papers are under: Under no circumstances can they say anything positive about global warming. Much of the so-called controversy is generated directly from Rupert Murdoch's publications. I'd attack the arguments but they're just the usual gish-gallop of idiocy meant to reassure conservatives that climate change doesn't exist.

I skimmed the article and it looks like most of the stuff in there can be corrected from this article.

Climate change is here, it's happening, there's 14 separate lines of evidence that all indicate the world is warming, and 13 other lines of evidence that indicates the current global warming is casued by humans. It's time to end the idiocy.

Re:This isn't news...

[tbannist]

I think they would tell you this:

Every year since 1997 has been warmer than 1997. Every single one. Every one. So you're absolutely 100% wrong.

If you look at the second graph on this page you'll see how you've been lied to. It's getting warmer, the people who are trying to trick you are simply cherry-picking picking two arbitrary points on a noisy line and claimin those two points are the trend. In some cases you're being deliberately deceived, in other cases, the people telling you this junk are just completely ignorant. Oh and if you really believe in climate change denial, Not-actually-a Lord Muncton (one of the most prominent anti-global warming spokespeople), also has a pill that simultaneously cures AIDS and cancer. Seriously. That's the kind of people who claim that anthropogenic global warming isn't real and that you can't trust scientists.

Muncton also advocated that every man, woman and child in the United States should be tested monthly for AIDS and anyone detected with signs of an infection should be "permanently removed from the population". He a right-wing conservative crackpot.

Re:This isn't news...

[BasilBrush]

Right, yeah. The number of scientists backing evolution and gravity obviously calls them into question.

Re:This isn't news...

[BasilBrush]

Thesaurus's list words with related meanings, not the same definition. This is patently obvious from the list you give. For example "certainty" is obviously not the same thing as "guess".

Re:This isn't news...

[BlueStrat]

Well perhaps because in this case quite a few of use can't read the article. Don't be an enabler https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/murdoch-block/ [mozilla.org] cut off the air supply before their greed cuts off yours.

Amazing!

Who'd have thought someone would write a browser add-on for intentionally self-censoring one's information?

Or that people who would probably otherwise describe themselves as "open minded" would seriously consider using such a thing, and think it a grand idea?

I suppose some people are more comfortable only seeing information that confirms their own views. That's fine and their right. I just wish such people would refrain from participating in the political process. It distorts the results for the rest of us that actually participate in finding the best solutions for the society regardless of what party or ideological side came up with the best solution, and not policies dictated by some blind ideological dogma that can't and doesn't tolerate differing views.

That's just fanaticism, and we've suffered enough fanatics lately.

Strat

Re:This isn't news...

[ArcherB]

I find it sad to read this, knowing many actually think this way :'(

Don't be sad. Almost no one thinks that way. I would guess that as many people believe that the government is controlling our minds through HARP or contrails than believe like the GP stated. For that matter, anyone that doesn't teach the basics are not allowed to home school as home school kids must still be able to pass standardized tests based on subject matter that does not include the King James Bible.

But, the guy said it and it's justifies your complete contempt for Christians, so it must be true, right?

Re:This isn't news...

[turkeyfish]

All they did was sign an editorial. It does even say how much they were paid or if they were paid.

In any event, more importantly what these guys haven't provided is any kind of cogent explanation that if its not carbon dioxide that is heating the planet, then why on earth is virtually every single glacier on the planet that has been accurately measured for some time showing dramatic retreat. If the temperature were not getting warmer it would stand to reason that on average half the world's glaciers would be growing rather than melting and not only melting doing so at ever accelerating rates?

The fact these 16 guys are silent on this point and have no evidence, whatsoever to explain this, only shows that this isn't little more than the deniers forming their final "Alamo defense". Keep in mind its not as if the Wall Street Journal is a peer reviewed publication.

Re:This isn't news...

[Troed]

Someone should see how many of these "scientists" are willing to spend an hour in a chamber with 10% CO2. Then we can ask them if they still think it's not potentially a pollutant depending on concentration afterwards. We won't get much of an answer since they will have died painfully, of course.

Could you explain why 10% would cause painful death in an hour? I can find scientific research on 3% for several days with no ill effects: http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/xmlui/handle/123456789/6045

Re:This isn't news...

[tragedy]

Well, it would be painful because CO2 causes a burning sensation. It also regulates your autonomous breathing. Hold your breath for as long as you can, that desperate sensation to breathe you feel is caused by CO2 buildup. In a high concentration of CO2, you'll feel that way all the time. Around 10% CO2 and you'll probably hyperventilate to death. If you can manage to control that, it's still going to mess up the ability of your lungs to exchange CO2 out of your bloodstream and have similar effects to Carbon Monoxide poisoning (in the short-term, it won't permanently tie up your hemoglobin like CO does, but temporarily tying it up for the duration of an hour is enough to kill you).

Re:This isn't news...

[makomk]

It's not just "some liberals said this, so it must be wrong" - the current right-wing political ideology of so-called limited government in the US makes it impossible for them to actually do anything about global warming, so admitting that it exists would mean admitting their ideology was flawed.

Re:This isn't news...

[Jappus]

From the English Wikipedia:

"CO2 is toxic in higher concentrations: 1% (10,000 ppm) will make some people feel drowsy.[7] Concentrations of 7% to 10% cause dizziness, headache, visual and hearing dysfunction, and unconsciousness within a few minutes to an hour.[8]"

[7] is http://www.inspect-ny.com/hazmat/CO2gashaz.htm
[8] is http://www.epa.gov/ozone/snap/fire/co2/co2report.html

So, if they say that 7-10% causes already unconsciousness in a few minutes (at the upper echelon of 10%), you can imagine what a bit more than that must do. It's just like anesthetics. Up to a certain ratio, you only feel numbness and mild euphoria; at some percentage you fall unconscious; a little bit more than that and you reach induced coma; a little bit more and you stop breathing or your heart stops beating (depends on the drug).

Just like with anything -- water, oxygen, sugar, etc. -- the dose and circumstances determine what is a poison and what not.

Re:This isn't news...

[St.Creed]

There goes my mods for the discussion. Anyway: See http://www.uigi.com/MSDS_gaseous_CO2.html (no explanation but a confirmation of the statement). See also http://www.sae.org/misc/aaf99/visteon.pdf for a report on what happens when a CO2-fueled cooling system leaks its contents into your car.

What I know is that when you inhale CO2 the acidity of your blood will increase. At a certain point your blood will be to acidic to sustain life. This is what happens when, for instance, you have a heart problem and your body starts to "compensate". I put that in quotes because the way it compensates keeps you alive for a bit longer but kills you in the long run and leads to a lot of damage to organs, especially the heart. But I digress.

The rising of the acidity in your blood (lower Ph) is also cited as an important cause for its lethality in a report from the Dutch ministry for public health and the environment, http://www.rivm.nl/milieuportaal/images/20091002_Evaluation_toxicity_CO2.pdf, that writes:

"It is generally believed that CO2 toxicity is caused by displacing oxygen, leading to asphyxiation, similar to the mode of action as inert gases. This is only partly true. The inhalation of high concentrations of CO2 can lower the pH of the blood and thus trigger effects on the respiratory, cardiovascular and central nervous systems (HSE, 2007)".

Re:This isn't news...

[GameboyRMH]

Less free because it may ask you to put your recyclables in a bin and possibly have some kind of carbon trading scheme? OH NOES TEH HORROR!!!

As for the rest of it...well I don't see the point in trying to argue through that much sand and tinfoil. What's funniest is that denialists rail against the influence of "big green" but see no potential problems with the influence of Big Oil.

Re:This isn't news...

[minio]

CO2 is odorless the same way as onion don't make you cry.

Re:This isn't news...

[rtb61]

Perhaps you don't realise that clicks count when it comes to advertising dollars on the internet and as I enjoy using stumbleupon I want to ensure that News Corp is not financially enabled by my choice.

As for news choices, give it a rest News Corp troll, http://www.allyoucanread.com/, 22,800 online magazines and newspapers from all over the world. I think I can safely skip News Corp shit without missing anything ;D.

As for regulars I am quite content with http://www.bbc.co.uk/ and http://www.abc.net.au/. How much time do you think I have to take up news, especially when I don't buy into that "you will die if you don't read and watch" bullshit.

Cribbed from the Conservative Manifesto

[repetty]

Quote: "The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle."

Looks like someone found George W. Bush's notes.

Scientists on both sides of this debate...

[JabrTheHut]

I'm willing to concede that the clear majority of scientists, who do believe in man-made global climate change, may be wrong. We just don't know yet. But I'm not going to believe that a geneticist or an engineer know more about climate change and climate change modelling than those who have been studying it for 30+ years now.

I wonder why they signed it? They aren't subject matter experts.

The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle.

CO2 levels in the atmosphere are the highest for 450,000 years. There's been a steep rise since the 1950s, from 315ppm to 370ppm (parts per million). And, in case the WSJ has forgotten, we can't breathe CO2. Too little and too much oxygen will kill us. Too much CO2 would eventually lead to too little oxygen, among other things.

Oh well, maybe we'll start burning fossil fuels to create enough energy to split off oxygen from water and sell it in supermarkets, resulting in even less oxygen available. Oh, and we need oxygen to burn fossil fuels, so eventually we all lose...

2 Of The 16 Are Former Exxon Execs

[AddisonW]

Edward David
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_E._David_Jr.

Roger Cohen
http://www.durangobill.com/RogerCohen.html

Re:Notice this wasn't published in a science journ

[phantomfive]

Notice this wasn't published in a science journal

Polls and opinions of scientists have no place in any science journal. If you read the article, there is nothing in there (that I can find) that contradicts what's well known and has been published in scientific journals.

No one has any doubt about what has happened. The entire question is what will happen in the future. These scientists (and most skeptics who are also scientists) have extrapolated from what we have seen in the past, and feel that it indicates we will not see problematic warming in the future as a result of CO2.

The scientists, like James Hansen, who believes there will be a crisis, extrapolate on the basis of possible problems and feedbacks that so far haven't happened yet (but are predicted by computer models).

If we had a dozen earths we could experiment with, and test the effects of increasing CO2, there would be no disagreement among scientists. Obviously we can't do that, so there is disagreement about the unknowns.

Fun science experiment you can do at home

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Fill an ordinary pot with ice water.
2. Set the pot on a hot stove eye to boil.
3. Monitor the temperature of the pot's contents as the ice melts.

Amazingly, the temperature of the water will not begin to rise until the ice has melted. All the heat applied to the pot goes into melting the ice, not heating the water.

This is called a "phase change" (a reference to the phases of matter), and is a possible explanation for the Earth's not having burst into flames despite humans' venting unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

I suspect once the ice caps melt, the real fireworks will begin.

Re:Fun science experiment you can do at home

[cvtan]

Place one hand in the ice bath and the other in the boiling water. On the average, you are comfortable!

Re:Fun science experiment you can do at home

[proverbialcow]

If the Sno-Caps melt, it would be a nonpareil-ed disaster!

Re:Fun science experiment you can do at home

[martas]

As a statistician, I can assure you that this is perfectly reasonable and safe.

Re:Fun science experiment you can do at home

[gtall]

If the ice caps over LAND melt, it is a disaster. Over water the result is 0.

Re:Fun science experiment you can do at home

[Jane Q. Public]

Sorry, but the Earth is not a pot of water. Changes happen locally, not globally. If there are enough local changes, global change can happen. But as the other poster pointed out, on Earth you can have one hand in a boiling pot, and another one in a freezing pot, and there is no contradiction because it is not even remotely a homogeneous system like a small pot of water.

Re:Fun science experiment you can do at home

[Locutus]

you're only looking at it for sea level changes when I think the OP was making the point that when there's nothing left to absorb the heat energy, other things start heating up really fast.

if this is true and lots of energy is getting absorbed by the phase change of the melting ice we probably have far less time than we think.

LoB

Don't Worry

[MarkvW]

Don't worry. The global warming deniers are slowly buying the high ground.

Re:No global warming in the past decade? WTF?

[matchhead650]

1998 and 2001 are not in the past decade, just FYI

@RupertMurdoch

[Eth1csGrad1ent]

The problem with this is The Wall Street Journal is now just another rag spewing the opinions of its owner, Rupert Murdoch.

And Rupert Murdoch's climate change skepticism and his willingness to push this agenda through his news empire through conservative fanboys and other stories is long documented. A simple google search on Rupert Murdoch climate change shows just how ridiculous it is to put your faith in any climate change story from a News Corp, News International or News Limited organisation - even if they're right.

In fact Rupert Murdoch's fanboys have done such an excellent job of muddying the waters and inciting mindless division that its almost impossible now to have a constructive debate on the topic. Which was always the intention IMO. Arguments sell newspapers.

WRONG - "exhaled at high concentrations"

[RichMan]

"exhaled at high concentrations by each of us" is wrong.

The air that enters a person's lungs is 78% nitrogen 21% oxygen, 1% argon and less than 1% CO2.
The air that leaves a person's lungs during exhalation contains 14% oxygen and 4.4% carbon dioxide.

since when is 4% high concentration ?

The article is trying to hard.

Re:And this is why alarmists come off as flakes

[jo_ham]

Tell me, if you burn a gallon of gasoline in an engine, where do you think the products of the reaction go?

You have liquid hydrocarbons and oxygen and you react them in a chamber. Then you empty that chamber and fill it with new reactants. Do that repeatedly until you have no gasoline left. Where are the products of this reaction?

Where does all the mass go? I mean, I assume your car doesn't have a waste tank you have to empty every time you fill your car with fuel.

Score another for Judith Curry

[overshoot]

the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections

Ah, yes. Dr. Curry uses an inappropriate statistical model (simple linear regression) to the team's data set, which ends with two unusually cold months. The result is to nearly eliminate the warming trend in the result (end points have unusual weight in a simple linear regression.) Drop those two months and you get about the same warming trend as the models predicted, or add the following two months (which were unusually warm) and again you match the models.

Impressive work, and the WSJ makes the most of it.

Re:Money in Global Warming research

[the gnat]

The best sources I can come up with (things like this [wsj.com] and this [transworldnews.com]) suggest that hundreds of millions are spent on one side, and billions on the other.

The big difference here is that those billions are mostly spent on scientific research, while the oil company money is mostly being spent on PR and lobbying.

Re:An outbreak of sanity?

[BasilBrush]

- Stop heating our homes with anything other than wood (other avenue of pollution)

Build them with adequate insulation and they don't need heating at all.

Stop generating electricity with anything other than wind and solar (inadequate with current technology)

And hydro, wave, and tide. etc. No one is suggesting switching from fossil fuels to renewables overnight. Just that it can happen a lot faster than it is doing.

Stop commuting to our places of work. (Of course, as a software engineer, I wouldn't have a place of work without adequate electricity)

No one but you said there wouldn't be adequate electricity. And there is no reason why people can't live closer to their work than they do now.

Stop producing plastics (stop recycling them too)

There are lots of non-fossil fuel and biodegradable alternatives for lots of uses of plastic. And lots of plastic that just isn't required. for example: The fact that so much waste is plastic water bottles, when every home and office has tap water is a scandal.

Stop mining or refining metals (stop recycling them too)

Says who?

Stop large-scale farming (or, at least mechanical planting/harvesting)

You're an idiot troll.

Make sure you read the article

[mosb1000]

It makes a number of key points that have been left out of the public debate.

There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.

That's right, climate scientists are generally not keen to study economic effects, which means they are not any more qualified than anyone else to propose economic solutions. Most economists believe eliminating carbon emissions today would be disastrous, well beyond the scale of that climate scientists have predicted.

If elected officials feel compelled to "do something" about climate, we recommend supporting the excellent scientists who are increasing our understanding of climate with well-designed instruments on satellites, in the oceans and on land, and in the analysis of observational data. The better we understand climate, the better we can cope with its ever-changing nature, which has complicated human life throughout history. However, much of the huge private and government investment in climate is badly in need of critical review.

Even though we've learned a lot about the climate in the last 30 years, we still know next to nothing about it. We shouldn't be accepting the results essentially heuristic computer models as rock solid predictions for the future, and we should still be working to understand the climate better first and foremost.

I would like to add that improving the water infrastructure in most of the world would go a long way toward mitigating the effects of global warming, and that it's something that is badly needed today in any case. So if they wan't to put money into that, that would probably be ok too.

money keeps talking

[ThorGod]

This article just proves that an argument can be made, continuously, given enough money backs it.

Their hypothesis, as noted elsewhere, is that it's not economically feasible to switch away from the 'carbon economy'. The hypothesis ends there, but it should be read "it's not economically feasible, at the moment." The way our economy currently works, the full cost associated with energy generation is not paid by energy supplier nor demander. At some point, those external costs *are* paid, but usually later and by someone other than the people who used/supplied the energy. As long as that continues, there will always be someone making arguments against reality, such as this. This may change with regulation.

Re:An outbreak of sanity?

[cgenman]

just stop burning fossil fuels

That's pretty hard. We'd need an alternative vehicle infrastructure, including either a way of getting sufficient supplies of rare earth metals or hydrogen power stations. We'd then need to convert electricity production to nuclear, and manage to build those in a way where contractors aren't walking off with gobs of money for building Fukushimabombs. Even with clean nuclear, we need something to do with the spent fuel that doesn't allow it to become rogue state bombs. And we'd have to do all that under the nose of companies so rich they get away without paying US taxes.

Re:Wrong take

[FrangoAssado]

The thing that always annoyed be about the global warming fear mongering is that it puts focus on something that, as the article noted, is not ACTUALLY a pollutant.

That would be relevant if the discussion about carbon dioxide had anything to do with pollution. Nice way to muddy the waters, though.

Keeping with GP's line of thought: "Don't pay attention to fear mongering about smoking. You'll be far better of if you focus on your problems with cholesterol and sugar, which cause real harm to your health", say 16 doctors*

* not necessarily medical doctors

Re:Not a climate scientist, just an engineer here

[the gnat]

The last and most subjective objection I have is that the people screaming loudest for decarbonization tend to do so in a way that makes it hard for me to distinguish what they are saying from "blah blah blah Socialism Is Great blah blah blah I get to ride in private jets but you have to ride a bike to work and turn down your thermostat in the winter blah blah blah"

Funny, I have the exact same subjective response to the "skeptics": it's hard to take their arguments seriously when they keep claiming that global warming research is actually a massive conspiracy of socialists bent on world domination, and suggest that a cap-and-trade regime to reduce CO2 emissions would effectively revert us to a pre-industrial economy. (I've even seen a few claim that we should be increasing CO2 emissions because it will improve agricultural productivity.) You do realize that most of the actual climatologists doing real research (as opposed to, say, Al Gore) don't own private jets, right?

So who signed it?

[IICV]

Well, let's look at the sixteen climate scientists who signed this, shall we?

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris: Sounds reasonable, though it looks like the proper name for the "University of Paris" is the "Paris VI University", or "Pierre and Marie Curie University". Unfortunately, it looks like the man is kind of a crank, and he hasn't been the director of that Institute since 1986, which makes it weird that it's the one thing they list about him.

J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting: That's pretty reasonable, but forecasting and climate science aren't exactly the same thing; forecasting is the study of what's going to happen tomorrow or next week in any topic, while climate science is trying to figure out what will happen in the next year or the the next ten years with the weather. Also, Armstrong's professional background seems to be primarily in advertising, not forecasting, and he hasn't actually published any papers on climatology that I can see.

Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University: I'm not exactly sure what he's doing on this list, since presumably it's a list of climate scientists? I mean, just because he's a researcher in one field doesn't automatically qualify him in others; it's like taking your car to ten mechanics and ignoring what they say, then asking your doctor about it and following his advice.

Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society: This dude seems to be a writer for the NY Times, and I can't seem to find anyone by that name on the list of Fellows of the American Physical Society. Maybe he received his fellowship before 1990? In any case, it doesn't signify much in terms of his ability to evaluate any kind of science; those fellowships are kinda prestigious, but they're handed out for all sorts of things.

Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences: What can I say? He's an electrical engineer. Would you trust him to diagnose a heart condition? An expert in one subject is not automatically an expert in all subjects.

William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton: What can I say? Damnit Jim, he's a physicist, not a climatologist! Sure, they're related - but would you trust this guy if he was talking on the way that chemists all over the world are trying to fool us about the mind control properties of fluorine? (as a side note, he's also a Fellow of the American Physical Society - why didn't they mention that?)

Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.: This dude is kinda hard to Google because he shares a name with a fairly famous guitar company and a well-respected journalist (who died in 2003); however, it looks like he's done some pretty awesome work on semi-conductors. Unfortunately, that doesn't have anything to do with climate research.

William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology: Well, for one thing, he hasn't been the head of the ABM since 1998 (this seems to be a theme, you know?); for another, he's trained as a meteorologist, not a climate scientist. Just because they both deal with the weather doesn't necessarily mean that his word carries extra weight, but I do have to admit that he's one of the better signatories of this list.

Ric

Re:So who signed it?

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

Isnt it funny that whenever you do even a few minutes of research into who are the famous names behind something, or who funded it, or you read the paper/study in detail how everything is really completely made up BS?

Re:So who signed it?

[ironjaw33]

Virginia Technical University? I've never heard of that one and I've lived in Virginia for my entire life. I guess they mean Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, more commonly known as Virginia Tech. If the editors missed that error, they probably missed a lot more.

Re:So who signed it?

[proverbialcow]

...though I agree with most of what was said. I also noticed that their argument is against the economics of greenhouse-gas-reduction, and yet none of the signatories are economists.

Re:So who signed it?

[Splab]

No, in fact quite the opposite.

The sheeples of this world read headlines and form the uninformed opinions - a single article like this one can easily destroy 10 years of trying to educate someone..

Carefully defined

[overshoot]

thing that always annoyed be about the global warming fear mongering is that it puts focus on something that, as the article noted, is not ACTUALLY a pollutant.

Well, it isn't if you define "pollutant" carefully to exclude substances that aren't directly toxic in small quantities. Sort of like formaldehyde -- it's a natural product of human metabolism and is exhaled with every breath. I don't advise breathing large concentrations of either gas. But even if it's harmless to humans doesn't mean you want to fill up the atmosphere with it (e.g. insecticides.)

The debate is meaningless...

[AmazingRuss]

... since we are incapable of reducing CO2 production.

We're doubling the population every 40 years. If humans are causing global warming with CO2 production, it's just going to get worse, unless we get our breeding under control. That isn't going to happen, as will be proven by the replies to this. There will be variations on:

* The population is actually declining!
* Why do you hate babies?
* Malthus said we'd all be starving by now, but we're just fine, therefore we can make as many people as we want.
* Breeding is a human right! ... among other things.

Maybe we'll we can cut per capita C02 production, but the population growth will overrun it.

Re:The debate is meaningless...

[benjamindees]

* Breeding is a human right! ... among other things.

Actually just reproduction is a human right. And that means one copy.

I suppose that is important

[drainbramage]

If your world is not much older than you, and not too big.
Not like my mama.

Re:Wrong take

[Third Position]

And what problems do we still have today that we were having in 1912? What knowledge did those people have that would have allowed them to solve or prevent the problems we're having in 2012? A pollution control program in 1912 would have amounted to cleaning horse shit out of the streets.

Yes, I do plan on letting future generations solve their own problems, because neither you nor I nor anyone else is competent to know what sort of a world those people will be living in, and what kind of problems they'll be experiencing.

Clue: there's no such thing as a 100 year old problem. Issues which were pressing matters 100 years ago are irrelevant to us now, and issues which are relevant to us now will be of no consequence to people 100 years from now. Think about it.

when you read this folks

[circletimessquare]

remember, the threat is the liberal media pushing a liberal agenda

not a murdoch financed opinion piece pushing a corporate funded agenda

right? the threat to you is the liberal media, right?

Other Essay

[hambone_p]

From this article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkable-editorial-bias-on-climate-science-at-the-wall-street-journal/
"But the most amazing and telling evidence of the bias of the Wall Street Journal in this field is the fact that 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote a comparable (but scientifically accurate) essay on the realities of climate change and on the need for improved and serious public debate around the issue, offered it to the Wall Street Journal, and were turned down."

"The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. "

[jayveekay]

Critters that live in the oceans and are killed by increased acidification resulting from CO2 dissolving in seawater would disagree with the assertion that CO2 is not a pollutant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

Re:They aren't the only ones.

[Ambitwistor]

There are far more scientists who say there is no such thing as man-made global warming than there are who say there is.

False, if you're talking about scientists who actually study the climate.

The indisputable fact remains: Earth has warmed in the past, it has also cooled.

True but fairly irrelevant to what humans are doing to the climate now and what its impacts will be.

Climates change. It's normal and there's nothing we can do one way or the other to affect it.

False.

Re:Hmmm...

[speederaser]

The first one on the list, Claude Allegre, has been caught misrepresenting and making up data before:

http://brutishandshort.com/2012/01/27/shock-news-global-warming-denialists-are-dishonest-pt-1/

Here is the full list of authors. A disappointing lack of practising climate scientists:

  Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris
  J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting
  Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University
  Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society
  Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences
  William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton
  Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.
  William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology
  Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT
  James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University
  Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences
  Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne
  Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator
  Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
  Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service
  Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva

I don't give a shit if they're right or wrong

[AttillaTheNun]

I'll take sides based more on their underlying motives. Those that argue against global warming tend to have an interest in capitalizing on the exploitation of our environment for their own benefit while those who voice their concerns over the impact of industry to the environment tend to have an interest in the welfare of the rest of the planet.

Re:Wrong take

[PRMan]

Exactly. The earth seems remarkably resilient at growing more plants when there is more CO2. Venus had no such luxury. Comparing the 2 and saying that "look at the obvious outcome" is disingenuous.

Re:More hot things?

[Ambitwistor]

Their argument? Look at temperatures! Even if the temperature is warmer: that doesn't prove/disprove anything. The argument is causation.

"Look at the temperatures" isn't the actual scientific argument. The actual argument is causal and has to do with the atomic spectroscopy and radiative transfer physics of the greenhouse effect, along with the associated laboratory and observational studies that support that physics.

I'm not even going to pretend to say that I've thought out the science behind this, but I never hear anyone address: maybe things are warmer because there's more hot stuff?

World energy consumption is about 15 x 10^12 watts. Spread over the surface of the Earth (5 x 10^14 square meters), this is about 0.03 watts per square meter. Energy balance arguments show that you need roughly 4 watts per square meter to raise the temperature of the planet by 1 degree Celsius. (Divide this by about 3 or so if you include climate feedback effects that may amplify warming.) Let's say that "more hot stuff" raises the temperature of the planet by about 0.01 degrees Celsius. That's about two orders of magnitude smaller than the greenhouse effect of CO2.

Re:An outbreak of sanity?

[jc42]

No one knows why Greenland was so named.

The conventional explanation was that this was a bit of "marketing", to persuade people to 1) sell their land to local investors, and 2) pay shippers for transport to this wonderful new frontier where land was free. The same marketing was used in the 18th and 19th centuries to persuade Scandinavians that the US's upper midwest was a wonderful Golden Land. People who emigrated and moved to Minnesota or Upper Michigan were shocked at how much worse the winters are there than back in Scandinavia.

But I haven't read any of the primary documents that supposedly show this for 1000 years ago. It could well be a just-so story made up by more modern historians. Anyone know how well this story is documented? (And how many of us can read Old Norse? ;-)

I have seen first-hand a modern version of such propaganda. I grew up in the Seattle area, which is notorious for its cool, rainy weather. One of the local running jokes is explaining that we should keep telling people about the cold rain at every opportunity, so that people won't want to move to the area and turn it into another overpopulated California or Japan.

Re:And this is why alarmists come off as flakes

[Anonymous Coward]

It is about ~40% co2. The rest is carbon/water/ozone/other... (mostly water ~60%).

The heat from the reaction creates pretty much 2 major by products water and co2. Almost 99% of that ends up in the atmosphere. Some ends up in the filters (you change those every few thousand miles and is negligible). Some just blows right out onto the road (you see it as road grime). Some becomes particulate mater and floats around. But that is really a small percentage of the overall and is contaminates in the gas. For some cars there is even a percentage that comes out as gas. This is gas that did not combust due to lack of oxygen. It goes out the exhaust pipe onto the road usually.

To hear some people talk you would think it is 100% co2.

wait....

[joocemann]

... Rupert Murdoch said what?

Sorry, I was too busy listening to someone I trust... what was that? Fuckit... I need some toilet paper, can you hand me that so-called 'journal'?

They are the press

[symbolset]

Once upon a time (very long ago) the purpose of the press was to tell us what was going on in the world. Now the purpose of the press is to align us with their goals. It's a sad thing to see. Thank goodness for the Internet where we can get a vast array of biased viewpoints instead of just one.

Re:An outbreak of sanity?

[phantomfive]

Coastal water levels have risen by a few inches in the last decade.

Really? Where are you getting that number? Because from the numbers I can find, it's been about 40mm in the last decade. Not even a single inch. Also like to see what you mean by temperatures being up 2c in the last decade, I'm not sure how you're interpreting the data there.

Re:This isn't news...this is bullcrap

[Anonymous Coward]

The WSJ article gave arguments? I see a claim that the world hasn't been warming in the last 10 years (ignoring that the last 10 years have been the hottest on modern record), a claim that CO2 isn't a pollutant because trees need CO2 (and by similar logic I need water, therefor I can't drown), a claim that the evil AGW conspiracy tried to get some guy fired (but he kept his job), comparing AGW consensus to Lysenko, accusations of corruption by grant money (which having been paid by grant money for many years made me laugh, then cry when I thought about my finances), a strawman about AGW conspirators wanting to "decarbonize" the economy, and one mention of one economic study alleging that it's best to do nothing for 50 years as that will maximize the benefit to cost ratios, with the exact nature of the benefits, costs, and how no regulation bests any and all regulation left unexplained. What a pile of crap.

Oh, and that science article written by 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences wasn't a rebuttal. It was published in 2010.

Re:wow - what a huge sample size of 130

[jc42]

But if you really want to reduce C02, just stop cutting down trees in south america and asia. Stop buying solid wood furniture and tables.

Actually, that's one of the common examples that doesn't really work very well. Wood that's turned into furniture is carbon that isn't returned to the atmosphere; it's kept out of circulation for the long term. Granted, there are scraps to dispose of, but woodworkers (and furniture factories) try hard to minimize the scrap, because good wood is expensive (and getting more so).

We do live in a house with a fireplace, but right now it's blocked by a sofa and a coffee table, so we're not burning much wood in it. ;-)

What we really should do is persuade people to buy good quality furniture that won't be discarded after a decade or two. World-wide, people need a lot of furniture, and all of it that's made of wood represents CO2 that's taken out of the atmosphere for as long as the furniture lasts.

(OTOH, studies have shown that a good portion of the atmosphere's CO2 - and about 1/3 of the methane - comes from termites. So try to keep the little critters out of your local wooden artifacts, OK? ;-)

Re:Wrong take

[gtall]

Well, it depends. Right now, we're conducting a planet wide experiment of which no one knows the outcome.

(1) The increase in greenhouse gases is handled by the system that is the Earth.

(2) The increase in greenhouse gases overwhelms the system that is the Earth.

Now, the question is: Well, do you feel lucky, Punk?

Re:Wrong take

[Troed]

On 2, define "overwhelms" and post supporting data.

(We've had an order of magnitude higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere before* during Earth's history without the systems having been "overwhelmed", at least if the definition of it would have anything to do with Venus .. )

*) see Geocarb III

The WSJ the central organ of earth science

[prefec2]

The WSJ is a Murdoch-Paper focused on economics. While they might be biased on economics too, it is at least their topic. Earth sciences is definitely not their topic. Honestly, why is that news at all? It is the typical FUD from that side.

Re:wow - what a huge sample size of 130

[icebraining]

Except for outlaws cutting down on protected forests, that's not really true: wood producers want to actually continue to stay in business, so they plant new trees when they cut down the older.

Re:Opinoin piece from a Wall Street propganda outf

[Beelzebud]

Someone did some research down thread about these "scientists", and yeah I'm definitely sticking with the expert in the field. Being a scientist in an unrelated field, doesn't make you an expert on every single scientific topic. For instance, when it comes to particle physics; Do you trust the experts in the field, or what a climatologist has to say about it?

Re:The Wall Street Journal has been worthless.

[uvajed_ekil]

The WSJ is all about business, and caters to big business, so of course they say there is nothing to worry about and we should keep burning fossils fuels like mad. Continue business as usual, so the rich can keep getting richer! Afterall, even if all this "science" baloney turns out to be true, the fat cats will have enough wealth to be able to deal with it. They don't care about Vietnam, Brazil, The Philipines, or isolated islanders now, and they won't have to care about them in the future if those places are ruined for their poor residents, who will continue to be poor and largely irrelevant. It is in the interest of the WSJ to deny the threat of climate change, whether it is real or not.

Scientists?

[AftanGustur]

The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle.'"

With the same logic we can say that "shit" it not a polluant, and therefore we can dump it directly into lakes and rivers.

People exhale CO2, eh?

[DangerOnTheRanger]

Gives me an excuse to murder that guy from down the street I'm not exactly fond of. "But he was contributing to global warming, Your Honor!"

Re:Notice this wasn't published in a science journ

[rickb928]

I rarely read anything from the global warming camp that describe it as 'a possible problem'. They describe it as inevitable, certain, and beyond doubt. At least publiclly. It's the private discussions about lack of confirming evidence and why they can't find the expected results that concerns me. They can't admit any flaws in their theories. So much for scientific method. This is not about science, it's about politics. Just that way.

Re:For the denialists...

[j-beda]

Plants also take up CO2 to produce O2, the more the faster. Basic chemistry. CO2 is a life giving gas. We could do with more of it.

Most plant growth is limited by nutrients other than CO2. Making more CO2 available does not help if you don't have enough nitrogen to do your growing, for example. With that said, don't you think that the people studying this stuff seriously for the last few decades have thought of this issue and are doing their best to include it in their models?

Here is a link from 2007 talking about the issues:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11655-climate-myths-higher-co2-levels-will-boost-plant-growth-and-food-production.html

In short while there are a number of expected results for plants with higher CO2 levels, they are unlikely to be our saviour.

Quick to Assume Invalidation

[Niscenus]

In reality, the arguments actually are all valid on their face. Everything there is factual, except the laissez-faire attitude. The problem comes from the writer(s) choosing to strip the context of each point.

I'm literally going to read it now (I chose not to when it popped up on a science blog recently), just to see how quick it is to correct (being written after the fact, it was about an hour):

It starts with Ivar Giaever, who, despite expert work in Quantum Physics and a solid background on Biophysics and coming from the country bordering the one where the discovery of global warming happend...a century ago, has chosen to ignore recorded, glacial, oceanic and tree records to declare, not that global warming is fictional, but his distrust of anthropogenic climate, due to the apparent popularity among physical, atmospheric, oceanic and glacial climatological scientists. Skepticism based on popularity is not uncommon, and you could likely pull up a couple more nominated Nobel Prize winners. His attack on the APS seems to ignore the difference between theoretical physics and real world macroscale examination. I believe it was Planck who said, "Science advances one funeral at a time."

Then there's the COv2 is not a pollutant, even though, as a relative output outside of the natural chemistry of the Earth (the effect of living creatures and other processes) it does count as a deposit which changes the chemistry of the surrounding environment, ergo, pollution.

The now over-used 10 year decrease/steady state analysis ignores the natural wave of environmental change. If you look at the larger source, search for "Global Temperature Anomaly 1880-2010," you would find that there is always a downward period, but taking the total effect of cycles, it average has always increased. Claiming the effect is related to changes in evaporation truly ignores that heating that much ocean to increase the level of evaporation is and incredible amount of energy...we use steam power for electricity...imagine how much electricity it would take to move the increased precipitation as just water from one side of a continent to the other.

To hit on "ClimateGate" is quite humorous within itsown context. As those who know what the supposed terrifying things said were, it's great to poke fun at those attacking it. First, it's a group of people who were amazed that faulty meta-research was actually included in the IPCC assessment; then, the, "mathematical trick," that they used was not only a justifiable, "We know the energy is there since no satellites have shown it disappearing," logic, but that mathematical trick CAME FROM THE PERSON WHO SUBMITTED THE FAULTY META-RESEARCH. It's one of those moments that only look bad out of context, and that's how denialists want the public to see it.

Also, recently explicitly justified: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-029

The IPCC's own projections were, in part, based on the larger than average spike during the 80's, possibly assuming the aforementioned wave-effect might have become reduced. Calling the first set of projections embarrassing is, to say the least, childish, and suggesting it was alarmest ignores how frightening the 80's spike was then perceived. To dismiss extreme weather's effect as a mitigator ignores the point of the previous paragraph.

While I've already covered carbon dioxide as a definition of pollution, the unique mention of a benefit to plants have ignored recent studies that plant have been decreasing their stomataphors in count and opening period in areas of higher COv2 concentrations, thus indicating and upper-bound limit to COv2's usefulness to plants.

Next, skimming past the unidentified fields of study, unidentified quantity, unconfirmable scientists, we have Dr. de Freitas, who is another well recognised name to those aware of the field. He's had some interesting logic. One: Human beings didn't use significant amounts of fossil

Right-wing dog signals in the quote

[smagruder]

Here's the thing: Real scientists don't write or say things like this.

They don't talk about "embarrassment" of those who disagree, nor of anyone's "drumbeat". As I say in the title, these are right-wing dog signals.

Secondly, CO2 has never been called a "pollutant" in the sense these "scientists" want to portray -- they are using tools of propaganda with how they describe CO2 juxtaposed with how real scientists discuss it.

To top it all off, it's always been about _climate change_ -- there was no "shift" from "warming".

Re:"ultra-wealthy Sierra Club and PETA members" RO

[cold fjord]

"ultra-wealthy SierraClub and PETA members!" ROFLMAO!!!

So wealthy they're pitching tents on Wall Street.

On what planet are there "ultra-wealthy SierraClub and PETA members" ?!?

Good news! You don't have to save up to buy a rocket ship to find out!

Mayor Bloomberg Donates $50 Million To Sierra Club
Sierra Club - Green Home - Advisory Board

I want to live in your fantasy world

[SmallFurryCreature]

I HATE construction noises, all those people drilling holes in walls and cutting open ceilings for maintenance or some improvements. And those damn fire engines rushing to fires. So much easier to live in a world where a building is put up, some asbestos sheets are put inside and then never touched again until the end of time.

Wow - luddite central

[dbIII]

The mechanism is very well understood - hard sharp stuff the body can't break down gets in the lungs, can't get out, and then irritates cells, giving a small chance of cancer with every trapped fibre. Enough trapped fibres and that small chance turns into certainty.
It's also highly reflective and loose fibres drift in the breeze in the sunlight with a sparkling effect that looks very cool until you understand what it is. I've worked in a few power stations while it was being removed.
What we know about asbestos is very well established by scientists despite attempts to muddy the water by Lawyers paid to obstruct.

They should be ashamed

[mbone]

Really. I don't care if Scientist X believes in climate change or not (although we could argue about how many of the list of 16 are scientists) - but Lysenko? They had the frakking balls to compare what's going on today with Lysenko era genetics? Sorry, their credibility has just dropped to zero in my book. (Here is a clue - there were no billionaire brothers funding opponents to Lysenko. They went to the gulag.)

This is agit-prop, pure are simple. I bet half of the signatories drop out within the week, as I doubt they all agreed to this text.

Are these the scientists the Koch brothers own?

[HangingChad]

The Koch family has been spending a lot of money to buy influence at colleges and universities, I wonder if this is the payoff? 16 scientists on a Murdoch property.

Thought-terminating cliché

[microbox]

No amount of hand waving changes the fact that they push a political agenda.

Yeah... all truths are socially constructed, there is no difference between education and indoctrination, and no such thing as erudite disinterested investigation.

I happen to be one of those scientists -- and this nonsense about the NAS being political is just a typical ploy a partisan political position that is devoid of content.

This is from Lifton's famous book on thought reform in communist China:

The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.

You have suggested that every organisation is as objective as any other. (It is your opening statement.) This supposedly profound statement makes a mockery of a basic and nuanced continuum between ideologically polarised organisations (e.g.: a political advocacy group) and a loose nit association of professional scientists, using facts to compete for mind-share with their peers.

I'm guessing you are politically right, and opposed to totalitarian socialism. Way to go with the thought-terminating cliché!!!

Re:Global warming has been offset recently

[mmarlett]

The Wall Street Journal has published one of the most offensive, untruthful, twisted reviews of what scientists think of climate change; the WSJ Lies about the facts and twists the story to accommodate the needs of head-in-the-sand industrialists and 1%ers; The most compelling part of their argument, according to them, is that the editorial has been signed by 16 scientists.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/01/two_incontrovertible_things_an.php

Actually...

[Hankavelli]

When you said "notice a pattern", I looked at the numbers and thought: "no". Your subject says "in the past decade". Your argument provides good evidence that the past decade has been significantly warmer than other decades in the past 130 years, however it does not support the argument that significant warming has occurred during the past 10 years . I ran a quick regression of those rank order vs year pairs just to check my intuition that they were not noticeably positively related. Indeed, the coefficient was -0.0449. That is, later years on that list tended to have slightly (insignificantly) lower ranks than earlier years.

That inspired me to go the next step. Instead of using the ranks you gave, I grabbed the global temperature deviations for those years off of the Wikipedia instrumental temperature record page. Running another regression I got a coefficient of 0.001201 with a p-value of 0.7046 for an F-test. So, statistically significant warming was not detected in the sample of years you provided.

Actually if we ran 2002-2011 (two very recent years, 2008 and 2011, don't make the top ten list) to check the last decade, we get a negative but insignificant relationship. So it's pretty clear that there has been no global warming in the past decade. The authors were, technically, correct. One could definitely argue that this does not constitute evidence against global warming. But that was not your approach.

Not to be a dick. Just saying.

NASA's Evidence for Climate Change

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA provides an entire website dedicated to showing out of control CO2 levels are measureable and statistically significant over a long period of time.

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

"The Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.

The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is very likely human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1,300 years."

Re:Global warming has been offset recently

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

when Ruppert Murdoch is tried for crimes against humanity

Arguments like this are 50% of the reason people "oppose" global warming. Seriously.

Get a life.

Actually, what they are saying is not "dont worry"

[drolli]

(disclaimer: I am currently working on renewable Energies, so there may be a bias)

They ask for more funding for analysing weather data. They explicitly say: "we want to understand it better, because we want to control it in a *reasonable* way and prepare for it *as it is needed*". What they say (and that is a point which should have been argued better, taken into account that they ask for more observations....) is: we have roughly 50 years more to change it.

What they don't discuss is that the investment cycles in Energy Technologies are *incredibly long*. There is no energy technology which was ramped up from its invention to its massive use in less than 50 years (lets exclude civil nuclear reactors, which were a side product of building boms).

So my opinion (as a physicist who is convinced that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is a parameter of the system we should not meddle with too much and thinks that these scientist are affected by a bias to get more satellites) is: we wont change it rapidly on the short term anyway. Also there will be no big flood wave coming the next year. Instead of hyping electric/hybrid cars to be the salvation we should take the time (the next 20-30 years) and seriously develop the new (or old) technologies and combine them in the ideal way.

Rush at arctic resources vs. global warming.

[CdXiminez]

I wonder, are the global warming deniers the same that are rushing to get at the resources in Greenland and the Arctic Ocean and the Northern Passage?
Then, aren't they expecting the pole to freeze over again soon, making the effort pointless?

Slightly OT, but

[Kupfernigk]

Water at atmospheric pressure just happens to form most of the major environment of life on earth, by volume and by surface area. The second is air, the third is rock. Neither have convenient melting or boiling points.

Little things like the melting point of water probably determine whether a planet supports life or not - and its enormous specific heat of both melting and boiling have a huge effect on climate, acting as a thermal store that tends to ensure that there is liquid water around for a long time after the temperature drops below the freezing point, and that pools of water do not disappear almost instantly when the sun shines on them. Celsius was right.

Re:Global warming has been offset recently

[Smallpond]

• * Global warming isn't real
• * Global warming is real but it isn't caused by people
• * Global warming is being caused by people but there's no cause for alarm

So I guess we are to line 3 already.

Re:Global warming has been offset recently

[Walkingshark]

I guess it stings when people attack your religious beliefs, doesn't it?

Considering the complete lack of credibility of the "scientists" who signed this letter, no. No, not really at all. This is more like bad comedy.