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Global-Warming Skepticism Hits 6-Year High
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Chris Mooney writes at Mother Jones that a new study, from the Yale and George Mason University research teams on climate change communication, shows a 7-percentage-point increase in the proportion of Americans who say they do not believe that global warming is happening. And that's just since the spring of 2013. The number of deniers is now 23 percent; back at the start of last year, it was 16 percent (PDF). The obvious question is, what happened over the last year to produce more climate denial? The answer may lie in the so-called global warming "pause"—the misleading idea that global warming has slowed down or stopped over the the past 15 years or so. This claim was used by climate skeptics, to great effect, in their quest to undermine the release of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report in September 2013—precisely during the time period that is in question in the latest study. "The notion of a global warming "pause" is, at best, the result of statistical cherry-picking," writes Mooney. " It relies on starting with a very hot year (1998) and then examining a relatively short time period (say, 15 years), to suggest that global warming has slowed down or stopped during this particular stretch of time." Put these numbers back into a broader context and the overall warming trend remains clear. "If you shift just 2 years earlier, so use 1996-2010 instead of 1998-2012, the trend is 0.14 C per decade, so slightly greater than the long-term trend," explains Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at NASA who was heavily involved in producing the IPCC report. This is why climate scientists generally don't seize on 15 year periods and make a big thing about them. "Journalists take heed: Your coverage has consequences. All those media outlets who trumpeted the global warming "pause" may now be partly responsible for a documented decrease in Americans' scientific understanding.""
If the climate scientists have a model that accurately predicted the past 16 years then we can talk about the future.
Until then the predictions of gloom and doom are about as believable as the heavens-gate cult.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/22/3099141/climate-denying-groups-funding/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/
http://guardianlv.com/2013/12/climate-change-denial-a-billion-dollar-industry-of-fabrication-says-study/
(sampled from the first few hits for: https://www.google.es/search?q=climate+change+denial+lobby+billions }
No sig today...
Yeah it's amazing how every d*ck with an internet connection is suddenly an expert on the weather and climate change. The latest study on how many scientist's actually deny climate change found the number to be less than 0.01%. So Practically every scientist in the world, who isn't being paid off by the Koch brothers, says that climate change is happening and it is man made. Yet we all feel qualified to say its crap. Based on what studies that we've done? Oh, it's snowing out so the earth can't be getting warmer. One of the side effects of global warming is more extreme weather conditions. Thus extreme cold could also be a result of global warming.
because it's cold at my house.
Yeah it's amazing how every d*ck with an internet connection is suddenly an expert on the weather and climate change.
Yep. Education and/or experience is no barrier to being a fully qualified climate scientist. All you need is opinions and you're as good as the guys in white coats.
No sig today...
Why do people choose to misinterpret global warming? Because they are stress out from the endless guilt trip on everything they do.
The issue is everything we do has some sort of trade off. But it feels like we are being judge for every choice we make.
Do you use reusable grocery bags? Then you better be sure that you clean them good enough, otherwise you could get sick from the germs.
Do you use new plastic bag? Then here is this documentary about a sea torturous who dies from eating your plastic bag that you threw away.
How about if you stick with good old paper? Your Cold/Frozen food creates condensation and break the bag and you waste all this food.
How about the car you drive?
A hybrid, which needs more green house gasses to build.
A small, car which cannot carry enough people and good thus needing an extra car.
A medium sized car, which gives off more carbon, and yet still doesn't fit everything you need.
A large car/Suv/Truck you can carry what you need however a lot of time you just polluting gas.
Do you cut down that large tree in you back yard? If so you can prevent it from falling on your house, if not it can suck up so much more carbon?
Don't even get me on, food choices....
We do want to do good, however there are so many tradeoffs we need to think about, and with science showing us more, it overwhelms us, and in essence paralyzes us. So we choose what science we choose to follow and what we choose to disregard as a coping mechanism.
It is emotional, it isn't about being stupid, of ill informed, it is just about being emotional on your choice.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It's not a peer-reviewed study, it's an informal systematic review.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
...and it's 0.01% of published literature, not scientists.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
One third of us still deny evolution as a fact. A smaller percentage want "Creation Science" to be taught in school (well, there's no creation, nor the subject scientific to begin with). When people can deny 4 billion years worth of evidence for a natural process, what do you think make them better at understanding something with only 100 years of evidence. God bless the stupidity of Americans.
So, let me ask - historically speaking, what has California's rainfall averaged, since the white man first came on the scene?
The funny thing is, I do a Google search to check that out. I click several links, and none show the information I am looking for. In 1849, what was the rainfall? Nothing. 1850? Nothing. 1851? Still more nothing. Where do I find the historical data?
Now, is there REALLY this remarkable drought, or have we simply been over using the available water for several decades already? There are a number of places where we have millions of people, but the land historically only supported hundreds or thousands. Even with tens of thousands, the weather and the land supplied plenty of water for survival, and some thrown in for waste and recreation. But, MILLIONS? Oh-oh - not enough water to go around.
We have been pumping lakes, rivers, and aquifers dry for decades now. We pump water from wherever we can find it, not caring about where it came from, or whether it will ever be replaced, or how it might be replaced.
Do we really have exceptional droughts today, or are we simply running out of water to waste?
Show me the historical data, please. Does it actually support this climate change theory?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Of course, if you cherry pick 1996-2012 you can get a small trend line... but if you start in 1996 (instead of 1998 like the article states, as most skeptics avoid that since it's such an easy counter-point) you have no statistically significant warming 17 years. Benjamin Santer in http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011JD016263/abstract declared that "Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature."
Translated, it essentially means that if there is no significant warming for 17 year periods we need to start searching for the real causes and not just sink money in to finding more human causes to blame.
Then you add in that the sun goes in to a lull and suddenly we have no more warming and a huge number of record colds being recorded in the northern hemisphere yet the alarmist have been shouting it from the rooftops that changes in the sun are too small to affect climate citing the TSI changes rather than the changes in different frequencies (which are quite large). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25771510
Maybe instead of people having a decrease of scientific understanding they are just waking up to the facts and as they learn more they realize the alarmists are hand waving ninnies.
Try reading and you'll see it says nothing of the kind.
The country is facing growing public pressure from citizens to reduce air pollution, due in large part to burning coal. Its efforts to promote energy efficiency and renewable power stem from the realization that doing so will pay off in the long term, Figueres said. “They actually want to breathe air that they don’t have to look at,” she said. “They’re not doing this because they want to save the planet. They’re doing it because it’s in their national interest.” China is also able to implement policies because its political system avoids some of the legislative hurdles seen in countries including the U.S., Figueres said.
There's no "only", there's no "this is the right way to do it", there's nothing like that. There's just "China is doing these things, this is why China is able to do these things".
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
And USians still don't believe in climate change...
The rest of your comment aside, this is simply absurd. Aside from some blindly religious zealot goofballs who think the planet is 6,000 years old and that Jesus rode to school on a Velociraptor, I doubt very much that you'll find anyone in the US who believes the climate doesn't change; that it remains static for all time.
Of course, I'm sure that isn't what you were really saying. You very likely were meaning that some people from the US don't accept that human activities are, in any large way, directly responsible for atypical changes in the global climate. However, your language is quite interesting. First, the use of the word "believe" implies that they lack faith in a belief, rather than acceptance of truth. I would agree with that implication, based on how many "believers" in AGW come off as zealots. Secondly, your language attempted to marginalize the non-believers by equating their lack of faith with belief in a static climate; regardless of the fact that virtually none of them would actually agree with that concept.
Combined with the first part of your opening statement, I'd say this giant hunk of condescending and logical fallacy filled crap post is about par for the course for the True Believers(tm) of the AGW crowd. Based on the crowd noise, there seem to be a small number of rational people with a reasoned (if flawed, in my opinion) view of the available evidence among a sea of zealots basking in the glow of the holy texts handed down by the gods of the IPCC. I'm sure it's more about who's vocal rather than who's in which camp, but it sure doesn't seem that way sometimes.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Too bad this wasn't linked in TFS:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/recent-pause-in-warming
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
By linking to a rabid patiasan source like the daily caller you have basically invalidated your post here. Nothing you have said here can be taken seriously because you are linking to the Daily Caller for gods sake.
It does. End of story.
Oh, you wanted a document? What about doing your own research, you lazy slacker?
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glaciers/questions/climate.html
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence
http://www.geosociety.org/positions/position10.htm
(etc.. etc...)
And you are conflaing two things: the aquifer situation is the western United States, which is very preoccupying, to say the least, and global warming, which is definitely not going to improve the situation of said aquifers.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Well if it makes the Yanks feel any better, one can colour Australia blue from July 1 onwards, when the new senate repeals legislation as their first act.
Our new PM (back in 2009) "The argument is absolute crap. However, the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger." 4 years on and he convinced a majority of electors that action on climate change was "socialism masquerading as environmentalism".
So it's not just conservatives in the US that regard climate change as a big socialist conspiracy...
That's the big trend these days. We must respect everyone's opinions equally. It doesn't matter if they are expert in a specific field or know nothing but what they see on the "news". All are of equal value. That's why we don't tell kids who are getting F's (do any of them get those any more?) that they are stupid. We let them find out what the world thinks of dummies after we push them along and graduate them. Then they find out that they are dopes and can't get/keep a job that pays a living wage (are there any of those any more?) and start taking antidepressants.
The US is in the death throws of democracy. Future generations (in other countries) will study this period of US history to try to figure out what happened. How did stupidity and ignorance get elevated to virtues?
This kind of messages does not help your cause.
1) Stop insulting people. Maybe it is that the arguments where not convincing enough, or simply wrong.
2) The doomsday predictions that do not happen demolishes credibility
3) Revolutionary speech ("deniers"? "denial"? what scientific language is that?) does much more harm that help
4) Changing definitions and arguments do not help also: change means increase in extremes, but the original argument and studies used median temperatures? now in winter is climate change but then in summer it will be global warming again? the polar bears will go extinct in 2010, no, wait, in 2012, no, wait, in 2013, no, wait, in 2014... in the mean time, the climate scientists studying the phenomena got trapped in ice? The arctic disappears but the antarctic grows and the explanation is *global* warming?
5) Instead of name-calling and political agendas, the scientific argument must be addressed: How something with a (comparative) small influence of less than 0.01% of CO2 in atmosphere has such importance in models when something much more important (H2O as gas cause hothouse effect but as clouds increase albedo!) that is so complex that a really small variation in the model can cause huge changes in results gets no attention? why the uncertainty of the most important factor in climate (the amount of radiation in the sun) is not shown in uncertainty in the results? Those 2 really basic problems with the underlying theory never seem to be explained, lets not talk about more complex and subtle ones... instead, the results are presented as dogmatic-religion certain and whomever is not convinced is so a "denier" (I suppose the term "heretic" was considered too reveling). That the predictions does not concur with the observed results apparently is not important: "is a sort-term fluke", but whatever short-term observation that DOES concur with the predictions is considered a very important factor.
5) Attacking arguments not to the arguments themselves but only saying that they come from big-oil-lobby makes people suspect you come from the green-tech-lobby, the nuclear-lobby or the whatever-lobby, and in the end does not accomplish anything useful
If I google "California rainfall reconstruction" (because there weren't many rain meters out in California in the 1800s) I get a pile of articles on the subject showing data going back over 1000 years:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=california+rainfall+reconstruction
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Here's a Scholar link which gives more relevant results.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
This is an incorrect statement. Americans (and honestly, the general public worldwide) never had a great understanding of climate (or any) science. Many people who accept global warming are just as scientifically illiterate as those who reject it. Just because you are right about something doesn't mean understand it.
The brilliance of "climate change" is that the possibility range of "change" is kinda infinite.
In one stroke you can bin everyone who'd gainsay you in any way with Flat Earthers.
That there is some nifty rhetorical kneecapping. Bravo.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Saw this doing the rounds today:
'The Death of Expertise'
The basic problem, is because the Internet has convinced dumb and ignorant people that their uninformed bullshit opinions stand on the same ground as those of people who have been studying the subject for decades. It stems from the metastatisation of the retards' confusion of democracy with "equal air-time for ignorance":
http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise/
Apparently the UN Climate Chief just said that only Communism can stop global warming.
No, she didn't. She said that communism is good at dealing with that kind of thing, not that democracy was incapable of fixing it. She made the rather obvious point that communist states find it easier to act for the collective good, while in democracies people tend to act in their own interests.
This just shows how desperate the sceptics have become now it looks like they are losing the debate. They have to try and conflate dealing with climate change with that old enemy communism. Kinda surprised they haven't figured out how to link recycling to helping terrorists yet.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
People are under the erroneous impression that they are giving up something good. They feel guilty because they have been conned by the marketers. Fell guilty about trying to live more ecologically? Congratulations! You are a sucker! Big corps WANT you to be stubborn and keep buying their shit and sucking the money out of YOUR wallet.
Big cars? Look on the road. How many people actually fill them up? They are mostly single drivers - maybe two.
Food? We've been brainwashed into thinking eating what we evolved to eat (vegetables, fruits, nuts, a very small amounts of meat - which is optional) as being depriving. The big junk food makers have conned us into thinking that green salad is tasteless and we need a shit load of salt and grease. I've changed my tastes back to where they should be and I find prepared foods - pretty much anything that I don't cook - to be too salty and too greasy.
Grocery bags? Whatever. I do all of them. I reuse the plastic bags - they're great for picking up dog poop when you walking it.
AND -this part I LOVE - living ecologically saves money (use less expensive gas, cook healthier meals, medical costs go down, dont' get suckered by big corp America) AND it sticks it to the man!
No sir! The green and crunchy people have shown me that I can loose weight while eating as much as I like, reduce healthcare expenses (lost weight, better LDL/HDL ratio: 1.0 Baby!, and less stress on the knees and other joints), help local farmers - they grow awesome stuff, save on gasoline, and more money in MY pocket - all because I'm living like an eco-"whackjob" as Neil Boortz used to say.
responsible for a documented decrease in Americans' scientific understanding
Oh, FFS. The core of "scientific understanding" is critical thinking and questioning presented "facts", the possession of which naturally results in skepticism when doing so invokes this sort of garbage. "Clearly anyone who doesn't blindly accept what we're saying, without question, doesn't understand science" isn't "science", it's dogma.
I've still never had anyone offer me any reasonable answers to many of my legitimate questions on these "studies." e.g.:
Okay, admittedly #4 is more an expression of frustration. I'm not a geologist or meteorologist, so pointing me at the raw data doesn't tell me anything, but having it "translated" for my by "experts" has proven all but useless, since this "debate" still doesn't seem to have much to do with science as opposed to politicization of funding.
Ideology and science are incompatible, whether it's about teaching schoolkids about evolution, or the world catching on fire. As it is now, I still don't know if global warming is a thing, if it's a human-caused thing, or if it's bullshit. All that's come out of this whole thing is that I pretty much don't care, since the way it's being handled is more like two schoolkids arguing over whether Batman can beat up Superman.
actually what is happening is that most climate change skeptics do not dismiss that the climate is changing, We know you mean AWG change. We simply believe that either
A - there is not enough data or data has been cherry picked to push an agenda
B - there is change and it is natural, who do we think we are to believe we have as much power to actually change the climate or
C - The costs to "stop" if thats even possible climate change is far greater than we are willing to spend.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
You realised you linked to a search with one result about a pro-climate-change lobby, and all the rest are reports on anti-climate-change lobbying efforts several times it size?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I think americans have it pretty difficult. ... I simplified) El Ninjo and Al Ninja phenomens. Both phenomens my "sleep" for half a decade or longer and suddenly increase in strength (completely unrelated to the CO2 trend or any other trend).
Media works very differnt than in the rest of the world. There are much to many lobbies tying to "build opinions" in public.
AND: the country is simply huge. You will always have a few areas in your country which is hit by global warming a bit more server and lots of areas where you don't really feel it.
I guess in the "desert" states you don't really feel a difference. It might be slightly warmer over day than lets say 25 years ago, but well: it is just hot and dry, so what? And at night it is pretty cold, as always: so what?
The west coast is dominated by a cold stream comming from the south, the effect of that stream is surely 50 times stronger than the current effects of CO2.
The center of north america (both USA and Canada) is classic example for "continental climate". That means: regardless how hot the summers are: in winter it is damned cold! That means even if it is warmer on average, there will be an extreme winter every few years, depending how the jet stream situation over/around the north pole is.
On top of that we have alternating (does not really alternate
For some reason I never digged into the east cost is in winter pretty cold (considering that New York is on the same latitude as Rome - Italy) Colder than the equivalent latitude cities one the west. So New York has every few years a super Blizzard.
OTOH:
o In Australia we have every year a new summer heat record.
o In Europe not so much, but we have much more rain the last 5 - 10 years in summer.
o In Europe the winters are absurd warm, with a few exceptions which had a bit more snow (but where still to warm in comparision of 30 years ago)
o In Europe we have an increase of autumn and winter storms, this winter already 3 big ones (winter is just 4 weeks old, mind you)
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Show me the historical data, please. Does it actually support this climate change theory?
Now this is a really tough one. Who do I trust? Some random bloke on the Internet, or virtually every actual scientist on the subject in question? Decisions, decisions...
Yes, the data does support the theory. There are even meta-studies being done. One of the recent ones checked all studies published on climate in 2013. That was 2200 or 2400, something, I forgot the exact number. I do remember the exact number of the studies who disagree with climate change. It was easy to remember: One.
That's 0.05%. In a graphical diagram, it would be too small to print.
Now if you have a better theory - scientists are always willing to listen to better theories. However, given that tens of thousands of eyes have looked at the available data and agree that the current theory is the best one around, it's not you who gets to demand proof, it is you who must bring the supporting evidence for your pet theory.
Your water theory may even be in there somewhere, as a contributing factor. But it doesn't explain the ice caps melting, for example.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
That's fine to believe it. I fully respect your beliefs. But if you want to convince many others, I would suggest you provide some solid evidence that would lead others to believe the same thing. Now if you present an argument and it contains an obvious error in it, I will point it out. I don't respect poor reasoning. But if you just want to believe in whatever you want, go ahead...
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
How did stupidity and ignorance get elevated to virtues?
I wish I had an answer for you, other than the media. The last 20 years has been the "coming out" years for stupidity. Ignorance and stupidity are rewarded and intellectualism, logic and reason is to be avoided because it's "geeky". No one seems capable of critical thinking anymore. There are people who know they are stupid, and are proud of it! Really - with all thees low-brow TV shows like "honey boo boo", "duck dynasty" , " kardashians", etc - they seem to make being stupid vogue somehow. Then on the flip side of the coin, last month CNN did a short bit on CERN'S LHC and the 2 reporters were giggling, making jokes, couldn't keep a straight face during the piece. They were obviously uncomfortable reporting on this subject for fear they may get labeled a geek or something. Perhaps our future is shown in the movie "Idiocracy". I fear for our future generations. I saw something here on Slashdot the other day which I posted on my fridge; that sums it up:
"“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”"
Which is exactly how the debate on this should be going I can agree with that. I only wish more people on both sides of the debate would see that instead of simply negating the other side as crazy, which both sides tend to do
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I am by no means a global warming denier. It seems straightforward that human use of carbon-based fuels has massively increased CO2 in the atmosphere, a known greenhouse gas. This isn’t rocket science. Additionally, there are numerous other impacts we have on the environment, polluting natural resources, where we need to clean up our act.
But the sappy, apocalyptic dogma is getting really old.
My family and I went to Disney recently, and we spent one day at EPCOT. Tomorrowland isn’t what it was when I was a kid. Back then, it was cool stuff about how great technology will be in the future. Now, they appear to have run out forward-looking ideas, and the whole experience is up-your-nose enviromentalist brainwashing. We went there to have fun and instead got lectured. And this lecturing is happening everywhere, and it’s annoying. OK, I GET IT. I recycle, I professionally do research in areas involving improving energy efficiency, and I donate money to organizations that work on envronmental protection and political activism.
This reminds me of this “common core” education program, which its original creators won’t sign off on, because it’s all become a load of crap. Instead of teaching kids math, science, language, and critical thinking, it’s all about instilling certain specific attitudes. And both the liberals and conservatives are trying to get their bullshit in there. Enviromental awareness is never about the environment. It’s about two warrning political parties trying to brainwash people into two different dogmas that further their agendas, most of which is to keep big businesses and the politicians themselves in power.
Could be when spell-checkers made us sloppy about proper usage. It's "Death throes" unless you're talking wrestling.
Wouldn't you use a spelling checker instead of a spell checker, unless your name is Harry Potter?
If you had your mind made up in the 1980s, then you're part of the problem.
Science is a perpetual process.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Interesting quote regarding California rainfall from one of your search results.
"Results show that mean regionwide precipitation during the last 100 yr has been unusually high and less variable compared to other periods in the past."
So, is what we're presently experiencing an unusually dry period brought on by climate change, or just a return to historically normal conditions?
Most Americans cant tell you how many states we have, and they will gladly sign a petition to ban the use of H2O, So please do not judge global IQ based on the land of morons I live in.
I think we're a good stand in for global ignorance. Where we stand out is willful ignorance/ideologically motivated cognition in otherwise educated and numerate people. If you want to see an educated conservative republican lie about the answer to or subconsciously misunderstand a simple math problem, just phrase it as a gun control question. Figure 7:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992
A - there is not enough data or data has been cherry picked to push an agenda
There are over 10,000 published studies on the subject, and dozens of meta-studies checking on them. To be true, your claim A would require that 99.9% of the scientists in this subject are either corrupt and/or total idiots.
That is the kind of grandiose claim that can be dismissed without argument unless you have supporting evidence. You are probably familiar with the saying about extraordinary claims.
B - there is change and it is natural, who do we think we are to believe we have as much power to actually change the climate or
Again, a world-wide community of scientists, from every cultural and political background have been studying this subject for decades. They not only believe it, but have the data and the models and the studies to back up their claims. Where is your supporting evidence?
C - The costs to "stop" if thats even possible climate change is far greater than we are willing to spend.
That is the only valid argument, because it is political and not scientific.
Yes, we could absolutely argue that heck, to hell with everything, let's just ignore it. Except that the damage that climate change causes is already estimated in the billions per year.
The cost to "stop" is massive, because we've built our society on an unsustainable model. In simple terms, you have a family and a house and a car, but it's all built on credit - you spend more every month then you make. It worked this far because your bank and your credit card company are happy to give you credit. You don't know exactly how long you can maintain this, but you do know it's not forever.
In that simple model, it should become obvious that even though stopping will be painful (smaller house and car, probably), the longer you wait, the more painful it will become.
Unfortunately, we are human beings and pleasure in the now (which is certain) is psychologically more valuable than avoiding pain in the future (which is uncertain). It's just how evolution turned out to work best for us (unless you're also a creationist, in which case you believe in a truly terrible, sadistic and utterly fucked-up god).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
That study is presented in a fundamentally dishonest way. 0 TLDR version: It's deceitful to label that disagrees with any portion of the alarmist agenda (disliking a carbon tax for example) as a climate change denier. Taking all groups that fit under that broad category and totaling all of their funding regardless of what percent actually goes to climate issue magnifies the deceit.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
It's not major theories that will need to change, it is the details. We know that CO2 warms the earth, and we know CO2 is being added to the atmosphere.
.9 degrees to 7 degrees for a doubling of CO2 (the warming effect grows logarithmically, so each subsequent doubling has the same effect as the previous). CO2 by itself will only give around .9 degrees, but there are hypothesized feedbacks that could amplify the effect of the CO2. Some of those hypothesized feedbacks are a lot more doubtful than others, but the point of the computer models is to understand the interplay between the various feedbacks.
The question is how much, and it's still an open question (there's no scientific consensus on how much). The estimates range from
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"in the mean time, the climate scientists studying the phenomena got trapped in ice?"
"The arctic disappears but the antarctic grows and the explanation is *global* warming?"
You suggest erroneously that the ice trapping a Russian vessel in the antarctic was caused by cooler conditions leading to more ice formation. In reality the trapping occurred because sea ice was blown by the wind trapping the vessel during the antarctic summer. There is abundant evidence that the antarctic, both East and West, is also melting, which is one of the reasons there is more sea ice, since when glaciers calve at greater rates there is more floating ice. Indeed the grounding line for the Pine Island glacier is rapidly advancing inland at rates not previously recorded in recent geological times.
The answer is that you don't need to argue that the world is not getting warmer. The world got warmer and colder multiple times in the last billion year, and glaciers advanced and receded multiple times during this period. Still here we are.
Skeptics do not contend that there are climate changes, they defy the notion that human factors are as significant as the alarmists say, and the theory that what is happenign now is outside the bounds of what already happened to Earth many many times.
No but BoRegardless point is that the SUN could be having large temperature swings, because he doesn't believe the climatologists and just imagines that the huge sun isn't very stable - without actually checking on this presumption. But he's not going to believe in the Global Warming regardless of whether he's proven wrong on this pet theory or not -- I'm just going to make that prediction right now, without the benefit of Google.
Sorry but this pisses me off. These a-holes throwing stones at Climate Change don't bother to check that they've got about 9 excuses / theories of why the climatologists are ignorant -- and they can't be bothered to check that all of these suppositions have not only been proven wrong, but extremely stupid. Sun = Hot + Variable has been brought up about every year for the last 10. The "but Mars ice caps are melting" is due to follow next week. Rinse and repeat.
When the sun heats up (as it is won't to do), it expands, as it expands, this reduces fusion and self-stabilizes the output. In longer term trends, the higher output causes more lighting and more ozone production and more EM reflecting atoms created in the upper atmosphere -- which is damn lucky because it prevents us from having wild temperatures swings. It does have an effect -- but we can look at various inputs and STILL SAY THERE IS TOO MUCH DAMN CO2 in the atmosphere.
Our oceans are more acidic and our atmosphere has more CO2 than we've seen for about 75 million years. So WTF? Isn't that enough to say; "Houston, we may have a problem?" Without the Climatologists and just looking at measurements of air and water -- we should realize that Human activity has changed things and "we have a problem."
Without Hollywood, we can't do anything about the sun, of course.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Wow. Really?
If your doctor tells you that you need antibiotics, you weight the risk and cost vs the reward to determine your course of action. In this case, the risk to you is low, the cost is similarly low, the reward is that your infection likely goes away faster (in extreme cases, saving your life, but not in general).
If the AGW politicians tell you that you need to sacrifice your entire standard of living in order to curtail a problem that they still don't understand (and, let's face it, they don't understand it because they still can't predict it, even on a decade-by-decade basis, nevermind year-over-year), the risk is high (no understanding of likely outcomes), the cost is even higher (likely resulting in many human deaths), and the rewards are vague.
Those aren't even kind of similar. For an analogy to work, there must be a reasonable amount of similarity, and your analogy has almost none.
I'm all in favour of technology improving our cheap-energy viability. But the problem is that the only realistic cheap-energy that is currently technically viable is nuclear. And that has the same group of environmentalists opposed to it as are trying to decry AGW. They're shooting their cause in the foot.
Other than oil executives, most of the rest of us don't care where our energy comes from. But we know we need it. And most of us don't want to double (or more) our energy costs. We have a viable alternative. Use it. That will kill more opposition to AGW changes than any "scientific" argument you can come up with. Make our lives easier for less cost, and it will be adopted overnight (relatively speaking). Use your scientists to proclaim the actual safety of the nuclear industry. You'll do far more to remove carbon emissions than anything else currently being tried.
It's the old adage - catching more flies with honey than vinegar. Don't accuse us, attract us with what we want. Cheap, reliable energy. Remember Aesop's fable about the North Wind vs the Sun. The man wears a coat to keep warm - blowing a cold wind only makes him hold it harder, but give him warmth and he sheds his coat willingly. Give us what we want, cheap, reliable energy, and you get what you want, fewer carbon emissions.
Science is not democracy. 99% of the scientists can and have been often wrong in human History. There is no real scientific model that is able to predict climate changes. All we have are conjectures and giving the weight of fact to them is irresponsibility.
Wow, so much hogwash in so few sentences.
First, yes, most scientists were wrong for a time, with the available data, and as proven later by other scientists .
When science is wrong, it is almost always science which corrects itself. Very, very, very rarely (in fact, I don't know a single example, I just can't say for sure there isn't one) has a non-scientist disproven an entire field of science.
Two, of course we have models predicting climate change. Are you living under a rock? What you probably mean is that the current models don't predict what exactly will change where exactly when exactly. Which is normal given how complex a system climate is, and how many feedback loops it contains, meaning that anything that happens will change everything again.
Given the chaos (mathematically speaking) of the system, our predictions are fucking great. As someone said it in response to a similar bullshit "criticism": When scientists say "estimate", they often mean a precision that's equivalent to measuring the distance between New York City and Los Angeles to one millimeter.
I always find it funny how people trust science with their lives when it comes to cars, airplanes or medical emergencies, but not when it's a bikeshed problem.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Yes, denialist.
And here's a graph showing exactly how your denialism works, and exactly how laughably wrong it is:
Global temperature graph.
The wiggly red-orange line is global mean temperatures for the last 50 years.
The pale blue straight line on the right, that's the fictitious cooling period we've had for the last 12 years. The straight purple line is the preceding 5 years of fictional global cooling. And before that is the blue line in the middle, 8 years of fictitious global cooling. And the decade before that is the green line, another fictitious period of global cooling. And the straight red line on the left is the preceding 12 year period of fictional global cooling.
That graph shows that we've had nothing but (fictional) cooling periods or "leveling off periods" essentially EVERY YEAR FOR THE LAST FIFTY YEARS.
The series of straight lines.... average declining temperatures lines... is a blatant staircase going up. And it illustrates just how absurd and wrong it is when denialists trot out your claim that warming has stopped or flattened. It is blatantly fraudulent to claim any of the straight lines in the posted graph represent any halt or even slowing in the rate of temperature rise.
There has been no halt in the temperature rise. There has been no slowing in the temperature rise. You're just grabbing at cherry-picked random fluctuations to draw a fictional staircase composed of fictional horizontal (or declining) steps.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.