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Wyoming Is First State To Reject Science Standards Over Climate Change
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: "Time Magazine reports that Wyoming, the nation's top coal-producing state, has become the first state to reject new K-12 science standards proposed by national education groups mainly because of global warming components. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are a set of science standards developed by leading scientists and science educators from 26 states and built on a framework developed by the National Academy of Sciences. The Wyoming science standards revision committee made up entirely of Wyoming educators unanimously recommended adoption of these standards to the state Board of Education not once but twice and twelve states have already adopted the standards since they were released in April 2013. But opponents argue the standards incorrectly assert that man-made emissions are the main cause of global warming and shouldn't be taught in a state that ranks first among all states in coal production, fifth in natural gas production and eighth in crude oil production deriving much of its school funding from the energy industry.
Amy Edmonds, of the Wyoming Liberty Group, says teaching 'one view of what is not settled science about global warming' is just one of a number of problems with the standards. 'I think Wyoming can do far better.' Wyoming Governor Matt Mead has called federal efforts to curtail greenhouse emissions a 'war on coal' and has said that he's skeptical about man-made climate change. Supporters of the NGSS say science standards for Wyoming schools haven't been updated since 2003 and are six years overdue. 'If you want the best science education for your children and grandchildren and you don't want any group to speak for you, then make yourselves heard loud and clear,' says Cate Cabot. 'Otherwise you will watch the best interests of Wyoming students get washed away in the hysteria of a small anti-science minority driven by a national right wing group – and political manipulation.'"
Amy Edmonds, of the Wyoming Liberty Group, says teaching 'one view of what is not settled science about global warming' is just one of a number of problems with the standards. 'I think Wyoming can do far better.' Wyoming Governor Matt Mead has called federal efforts to curtail greenhouse emissions a 'war on coal' and has said that he's skeptical about man-made climate change. Supporters of the NGSS say science standards for Wyoming schools haven't been updated since 2003 and are six years overdue. 'If you want the best science education for your children and grandchildren and you don't want any group to speak for you, then make yourselves heard loud and clear,' says Cate Cabot. 'Otherwise you will watch the best interests of Wyoming students get washed away in the hysteria of a small anti-science minority driven by a national right wing group – and political manipulation.'"
Standards? Politically-specified truth? In science?
Good luck, USA. The rest of the world has already seen through the scam...
It's called 'motivated reasoning', but I doubt these idiots have ever heard of it.
Must be a conservative state, because this peculiar strain of stupidity is generally right-wing in nature. It's all about me! me!! me!! and screw the consequences, especially for the environment, our grandkids, or poor people.
Or is it the money that rules?
no, I don't have a sig
...should a lawyer get to determine the science curriculum? Shouldn't it be, you know, people who are educated in science that decide the science curriculum? (yes, that was rhetorical, I know damn well what the answer is)
I think Wyoming can do far better.
I agree!
As someone who believes in climate change, I'm growing very uneasy with the language being used by both sides to describe dissenting opinions. It feels like the biggest threat we'll face in the future is not a changing environment, but one another.
But the union!
The holy union!
And Progress!
Who will step up to pollute our precious bodily fluids?
Who will teach it to rub the lotion on its skin?
Yes, in particular, language like the word "believe" being used for scientific theories.
Anyone that can make it through an undergraduate text on atmospheric science and still maintain that CO2 does not cause warming is fooling themselves. One one side of this argument we have idiots who fundamentally do not understand what they are arguing against. Radiative transfer is not that hard, and if you're going to argue that the science is bullshit, then you should know the science. Not the global climate simulations, but the absorbtion spectra of various gases in the atmosphere, because those can be trivially measured. The effects of anthropogenic climate change are up for debate, that CO2 causes warming and that humans are really fucking good at generating it is really not. If you don't like it, prove me wrong.
You could start reading here, or pick up a real textbook. It might take you a whole afternoon. Be warned, it's chock-full of actual observations and -- dare I say? -- inconvenient truths.
On a per-person basis, Wyoming emits more carbon dioxide than any other state or any other country
Yep .. that's what you get when you let corporations pay for the politicians bills. .. which they are not. .. rather .. it never existed. All an illusion.
They are owned by industry and will never side with the People they are supposedly there to represent
Democracy is dead in the US
it's not happening.
if it is happening, it's a good thing.
ok, it's happening, but it's not man-made.
ok, it's not good, but it's still not man-made.
jesus would fix it if we had prayer in school.
Well, the important thing is that you've found a way to feel superior to both.
Wyoming has the best politicians money can afford. It won't matter as kids get information from all over, so they will see this through this pretty quickly.
CM www.cometenergysystems.com Blog: http://caribbeanrenewable.blogspot.com/
So they are sceptical about man made climate change, that is good, science should not be taken as gospel. But once you read and understand the peer reviewed science the scepticism should be abated. Otherwise you not sceptical you are in denial, you are a climate change denier.
In the same vein I am sceptical about the existence of a man made Wyoming, can someone demonstrate scientifically (outside of a mass human psychosis) that this alluded/deluded place actually exists. Yes I've see some nice rock formations out there (devil's tower), but if some young person claiming to be from there comes to me for a job that includes science as a requirement do I:-
a) Send them to the funny farm
b) Ask for peer reviewed science to prove their alleged education
c) Once proved to my satisfaction reject them for having an inadequate education.
No doubt they're going to reject anything that blames these students' fathers and uncles employers for hurting the planet. Rewind back to the Kasnas' State Board of Education anti-evolution campaign...
Long live the Flying Spaghetti Monster!!
Amy Edmonds, of the Wyoming Liberty Group, says teaching 'one view of what is not settled science about global warming' is just one of a number of problems with the standards.
It's may be "one of a number of problems", but for some reason it's also the only "problem" mentioned.
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that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Have you been into space and seen the Earth revolve around the Sun? I didn't think so. Just look into the sky, clearly the Sun revolves around Earth.
This is why the US needs to import foreign knowledge workers. The US school system teaches falsehoods and outputs ignorance.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
As someone who is certain about his own observations about climate change- the real problem is playing the blame game. Assumptions about cause have obscured the effect to the point that we can no longer deal with the effect politically because everybody is too busy pointing fingers about the cause.
With the melting of the tundra 10 years ago, we hit a tipping point, it became too late to stop climate change. It is now a positive feedback loop. You could remove every human being from the planet, and global warming would continue.
Our only choice now is to adapt, not stop the process.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The question isn't whether "CO2 causes warming" but whether a change from 290 to 330 ppm in the troposphere can be the cause of a measurable change in the heat content of troposphere. Since it's all so trivial, I'm curious whether your undergraduate text explains why increased CO2 concentration in the stratosphere causes the stratosphere to loose heat.
They can read. It's just that they dismiss anything that doesn't agree with them.
Anyone that can make it through an undergraduate text on atmospheric science and be convinced about the propaganda in the undergraduate text on atmospheric science.
Wow, who knew?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I question why climate science needs to be part of the standards at all. It seems weirdly specific. When so many kids leave high school not knowing what an electron is, I'd say there are other areas where we might focus our pedagogical effort.
We're talking about public schools. Run by the government, at some level or another. So if "political debate" means "debate taking place in the context of government" then what they teach will always be a political debate.
I wish I could mod this up.
Scientific consensus is perhaps a better word than believe, but only the most simplistic approach to science do not understand that much of science works within uncertainties and changes. Science that even many climate sceptics take for granted have the exact same type of scientific consensus behind it.
Wyoming may not be "politically correct" on the issue, but they are correct that "global warming" being caused primarily by man-made emissions isn't settled science. (And no, computer scientists are not the correct scientists. ;) )
Regardless of local effects, the basic problem is that we should be warming right now, and we aren't.
Why should we be warming right now? The Medieval Warm Period (950-1250) was much warmer than the period that followed - and warmer than now. Wine grape grew in England back then. This was followed by the Little Ice Age (1350-1850). These are considered cyclical, so we should be getting warmer for a few hundred years, starting around 1950. Regardless of human-sourced emissions.
But the other problem is, we're not really, at least not on the activists' schedules. The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report concedes for the first time that global temperatures have not risen since 1998, despite a 7 percent rise in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Despite global human CO2 emissions in the last 15 years representing about one-third of all human CO2 emissions since the start of the Industrial Revolution, temperatures didn’t budge.
If man-made global warming is your religion, it looks like settled science despite the actual results. If science is your religion (rather than your credential), there's no enough evidence to support the hysteria yet, and a growing amount calling it into question. So why should it be considered "fact" in a kid's textbook? Are we trying to teach them to think or are we trying to indoctrinate them?
... we know better than people who devoted their lives and spent a decade being educated in a scientific discipline. We stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
Yea, I did not think so. You sir have no idea what a positive feedback loop is. The heat keeps building up under that theory, and currently temperatures are stagnant like they have been for the last 15 years. Warming stopped. Scientists don't know why, and as one famous scientist says "its a travesty we can not explain it."
It might very well be "too late" to stop climate change, but that is not because of a positive feedback loop as you explain, but mainly because we can not control the climate and it will change with or without us perhaps in the future. Heck, we ARE going to go into another ice age at some point, and what the heck do we think we are going to do to stop that? Stand in the tracks of that train with our hand held up to stop it?
I'm liberal (left). I feel we should focus on cutting pollution for it's own sake regardless of the effect on global warming. I do question how much humans are causing global warming. But see the part where I said we should cut pollution for it's own sake.
Yes, "believe" is the word. They should talk about the issue sincerely and in an intelligent manner, if they talk about it at all. In other words, they can show the correlation between the rise of the Industrial Revolution and increases in temperature over time. They can explain that correlation is not causation, then explain why they think the correlation is valid--that being the carbon dioxide and the effect in the atmosphere. They can explain that they are always learning new things, and that nothing in science should ever be considered a given.
The main skeptic with whom I dialogue holds the following beliefs:
1. Warming is happening.
2. CO2 concentration is atypically high.
3. CO2 concentration is atypically high due to man-made emissions.
4. CO2 concentration has some upward effect on global temperature.
However, he also holds these beliefs:
1. The earth's climate is too complex to accurately model and predict.
2. There are feedback mechanisms that mute the severity of CO2-induced warming.
3. Even if warming happens at the predicted rate, we can't really know what the impact will be in terms of human suffering.
4. From #1 and #2, the dire predictions on future warming can't be trusted.
5. Even if warming were going to happen at the predicted rate and the consequences would be as dire as predicted, the economic cost of transitioning of fossil fuels on a global level would induce a huge amount of human suffering on its own,
6. Given the cost, there's no way the various world governments are going to come to an agreement and actually make a significant dent in fossil fuel usage anyway. So the whole discussion is academic.
For someone not familiar with the science education standards, can someone explain how it is done? Generally, science education should be about scientific methods. Analyzing nature, finding a mathematical description of it, verifying or falsifying it experimentally. Whether this is done on topic X or Y doesn't really matter, as long as such topics are accessible to students - mathematics and experiments are within reach.
An alternative kind of education might focus on teaching results, common opinions without giving students the opportunity to learn scientific methods.
As global warming doesn't seem to be easy to tackle with tools available at school (both mathematically as well as experimentally), it would necessarily fall in the second category.
On both sides of the debate, its all about control, political power, and in some sititutions, money.
People are going to post about Christianity and Intelligent Design in a thread about climate change?
National or UN derived standards (common core) are wrong - keep education control local to meet local requirements. Way to go Wyoming.
I know you advocates want to say it isn't so.It may not even be your fault; possibly the Koch brothers are fully responsible for politicizing climate change.
The fact is, you got politics in your science. Possibly to fill in the fact that you haven't fully followed the scientific method on this one. The testing part is missing; the repeatable testability by independent parties of an hypothesis. So they're technically not wrong, it's not settled science. Yes btw, I do see the political self-interest. Let's look at that.
The politics you're offering them is tax increases and higher prices for nothing in return. If you want to say Wyoming's weather will get better, and that's the payoff, well; if you could prove that, then you'd have something. You got nothing. You got freaking windmills. And death ray solar compounds. I'm not so surprised it's a hard sell.
Easier to sell, would be something better than they have now. Dirt cheap electricity is about the only thing that will do it. This is where I would mention the 'n' word, but the most ardent climate change advocates are it's fiercest opponents. That right there, is nothing but politics.
We don' want none of yer pedagogical freakshow in our classrooms, son.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Wait, what? You needed A New Book With Shocking Discoveries to find out that skin pigmentation and plenty of other features are passed on from your parents? You also think it's something Extremely Controversial?
"Oh, did you know that higher concentration of melanin in the skin of people of African descent is a genetically inherited trait?"
"OMG WHAT THE FUCK U RACIST SCUMBAG STOP UR LIES!!!1"
Why do you denialists just ignore data? There has been no stagnation, you denialist.
Our "crazy" banks and governments won't allow nuclear but it's a lot easier to take to cowardly way out and blame a bunch of harmless hippies that won't fight back.
The major thing holding back nuclear power is that nobody wants to put the money in to build the things.
As for the insane German policy - any perceived insanity happened many years ago when they halted new construction. The only thing new is changing it from a slow slide down to nothing to a quick one. Their nuclear industry died years ago and all they have now is caretakers to keep it running.
You got one thing right. The state is evil. And by state I mean the government itself, not Wyoming per se.
If, in order to solve this problem, the liberty and freedom of the people in Wyoming to run their own lives and government needs to be sacrificed, then I will never agree with your "solution" to this problem.
If we must give our liberty in order to survive, then count me as your enemy. What good is life without liberty?
Oh and your all powerful government you require to solve this problem, if it's at all like all the all powerful governments that have come before, it'll have to destroy the environment in order to save it.
The greedy have been leading the flat-earthers by the nose for centuries, but the good news is that the gullible populous is dwindling each year. Education, knowledge and commonsense is winning the war on Ignorance. But hey, pillaging the publics natural resources for a quick easy buck, especially when those valuable resources are guarded by flat-earthers; all too easy.
I would say your skeptic friend is very astute (I am not a climate change skeptic). His point #6 is the salient one and probably immutable. So just as the climatologists can say with high probability that the climate will change as we pump CO2 into the air, the political scientists can say with high probability that the world governments (or anyone else) aren't going to do anything to slow it down significantly. Both may be inconvenient truths but inconvenience doesn't reduce the probability of being accurate descriptions of the future. So the smartest course at this time is to prepare for the climate to change and deal with those effects as they arrive. It's too bad that the profiteers from the current status can't be made to pay the costs to be incurred for this, but life isn't fair.
But natural causes is...and if you are not teaching children that the warming could very well be simply natural warming than you are not teaching them the scientific method
Luckily for us, there's an organisation dedicated to reviewing the best data that scientific studies have to offer, with contributions from thousands of practising scientists all over the world collected over more than 25 years. Let's see what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has to say:
Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and understanding of the climate system.
...
Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes (see [data citations]). This evidence for human influence has grown since [the previous IPCC Assessment Report]. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.
...
Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.
— IPCC, 2013: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
Just to be clear, those quotations are directly from the highlighted key points in the sections about attributing the detected changes in the climate and what will happen in the future. The emphasis was retained from the original publication.
I'll leave you with one more quote, from a slightly less heavyweight source but no less valid:
The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Wait, observations are propaganda now? Well, reality does have a well-known liberal bias...
Tell ya what, there is a new book out that shows race has a genetic factor.
A new book "shows" something? A book written by a "science writer, not a scientist himself.".
Got a reference to the peer reviewed science?
As someone who believes in climate change, I'm growing very uneasy with the language being used by both sides to describe dissenting opinions.
Concern troll is concerned.
Yes there has been stagnation in the rate of increase. The rate of change in not increasing. As the gp post states, increasing rate of change is the definition of a positive feedback loop. Right now warming due to carbon dioxide is being seen, but a positive feedback loop is not.
Curiously, your friend believes "The earth's climate is too complex to accurately model and predict.", but is certain that "There are feedback mechanisms that mute the severity of CO2-induced warming."
This seems like wishful thinking. If we really don't have a good handle on the severity of global warming then it is just as likely that the impacts will be much greater than anticipated.
Regarding the costs of mitigating, all published economists agree that it is cheaper to mitigate than to accept the impacts of climate change, and the sooner we start mitigating the cheaper it will be.
This is a conservative position, which I am more or less okay with (original AC). I disagree of course, on several points, but as long as we have the first four covered we're still talking about the real, observed world. It's these other crackpots I'm worried about, who deny the science without even bothering to read it. Case in point our Marxist Hacker above. I just feel bad for E++ though, for one thing there are papers which answer this relatively-irrelevant question, but more generally this idea that a theory isn't explanatory if it's not complete is just a hard way to go through life. "Does your undergrad text have all the answers??!!" No, dipshit, that's why it's an undergrad text. Still apparently beyond you, but it is supposed to be an introduction to the science. And science is what we don't completely understand -- I read Dracula lately, allow me to quote:
Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done today in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very man who discovered electricity, who would themselves not so long before been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life.
The stuff they were talking about are the most trivial parts of electrical engineering today -- we don't really have electrical scientists today. Someday climate science may be similarly known, but until then there will be mysteries. The physical properties of CO2 however are not mysterious, nor the effects of an increased partial pressure of the same. They are such very inconvenient truths, though...
1. The earth's climate is too complex to accurately model and predict.
Argument from disbelief.
2. There are feedback mechanisms that mute the severity of CO2-induced warming.
If he believes that (1) is true how can he know that (2) is true.
3. Even if warming happens at the predicted rate, we can't really know what the impact will be in terms of human suffering.
Argument from disbelief again.
4. From #1 and #2, the dire predictions on future warming can't be trusted.
But 1 and 2 are contradictory
5. Even if warming were going to happen at the predicted rate and the consequences would be as dire as predicted, the economic cost of transitioning of fossil fuels on a global level would induce a huge amount of human suffering on its own,
The real point - he doesn't want to do something, so it's impossible to do anything, so there is nothing that need to be done.
6. Given the cost, there's no way the various world governments are going to come to an agreement and actually make a significant dent in fossil fuel usage anyway. So the whole discussion is academic.
The final proof that he is arguing backwards from what he wants to happen (or not happen) to what he wants to be true.
Deniers! Start from the science! Don't start from your personal feelings and work back to the science, that's not how it's done.
The funny thing about humans is that they're pretty stupid as a whole. You might not think so, but light a fire in a building and watch how they react. Do they perform an orderly evacuation in minutes, or do they stampede and drag the process out to twice as long as it need be (killing people in the process)? The costs of NOT taking action FAR exceed the costs of implementing carbon emission control. There is no choice left in the matter. We're paying one way or the other and our only choice is which price we're going to pay.
What is in an undergraduate textbook isn't observation. It is edited history, aka propaganda. It's no better than eyewitness evidence at best.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Missing steps:
4.5 No One Could Have Foreseen This Problem. Let us not point fingers and play the blame game.
5.5 Fine, we're in a fix. It is time for the ideologues to step aside and the Level Heads and Professionals and People Who Have a Stake in the Game to take over and provide reality-based solutions. We'll start by proposing tax credits for owners of shore front vacation homes to move their properties, because summer recreation is a vital part of our economy. And cancel Social Security to incentivize Honored Citizens to get healthy exercise filling sandbags to protect oil industry facilities in the Gulf. And annex Canada to provide homes for citizens displaced by the Texas Hell-Cyclone. After all, Canadians sold us a lot of that oil . . . remember the XL pipeline they forced us to build?
Just to point something out.
In the case of climate change, the debate gets tinged with a touch of disdain for wet science.
Nerds like absolutes. They like believing they know better. The like to think that the wet sciences are lesser than engineering and physics.
And climate change, for better or worse, has this ... hint of doubt surrounding it. Climate swings are natural (although this current swing is happening particularly fast). It's more or less impossible to see the connection between climate change and and your car (unlike, say, the cause and effect nature of classical physics). And libertarians object, on principle, that their personal choices can have anything beyond short term, immediate effects; what is good for the self is good for everyone. And it's good that I can continue to do things as I've always done.
Let's face it. There's almost no point arguing climate change with some people; too many underlying beliefs would have to change.
We need to incentivise actions, corporate and personal, that improve our planet's chances of surviving our collective stupidity so that we can drag the deniers along for the ride. Hectoring simply isn't working now, and is unlikely to work in the future.
The question isn't whether "CO2 causes warming" but whether a change from 290 to 330 ppm in the troposphere can be the cause of a measurable change in the heat content of troposphere
Where do you get 330 ppm?
Is there an xkcd comic you can use to explain your view?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
The main skeptic with whom I dialogue holds the following beliefs:
3. CO2 concentration is atypically high due to man-made emissions.
It's not. All those fossil fuels, and we're just starting to burn them, have been living biological stuff before. Before they were, the C they contain was in the atmosphere as CO2. Given the aggressiveness of O2 it's quite probable, that there's enough fossils to burn until all O2 is used up. Even under those conditions (or even especially under those conditions) live was possible. Otherwise those fossils wouldn't exist for us to burn. Climate might change, possibly to a state less desirable for humans, but it's quite surely not "atypical". Just different than what mankind has seen in the few couple of years it exists.
The main skeptic with whom I dialogue holds the following beliefs:
1. Warming is happening.
2. CO2 concentration is atypically high.
3. CO2 concentration is atypically high due to man-made emissions.
4. CO2 concentration has some upward effect on global temperature.
That is the strangest definition of "skeptic" I have seen in this discussion.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
astute perhaps, but to highly influenced by the inertia of existing thought. renewables will win the economic battle. nuclear (should have won) the economic battle (and may still). solar energy equipment hit global grid parity some years ago (~2011). only the cheapest big hydro developments and best CF wind sites can compete with even moderately good solar sites. the only way one can argue that any fossil fuel energy has lower LCOE is to ignore substantial costs in their development and consequences in their continued use. some of these are transparent, some are deeply embedded within 100yrs of economic development & infrastructure, others and born by all of us. A shift toward solar energy is inevitable and economics will drive this and is driving this. The rate of this shift is and will be correlated to the strength of political will and inversely correlated to the size of the existing institutional interests who refuse to adapt. This is resulting in development that ranges from shockingly rapid, efficient, and cheap to excruciatingly painful, long, and inefficient. The latter never ceases to amaze me although it repeats itself throughout history. Apparently successful institutional interests will squander their prosperity in a hilariously inefficient economic battle that they will ultimately lose. They chose that instead of using their prosperity to adapt.
Climate change is political science not real science
The question isn't whether "CO2 causes warming" but whether a change from 290 to 330 ppm in the troposphere can be the cause of a measurable change in the heat content of troposphere.
Well, we blew past 330 ppm in the 1960's and are now at 400 ppm. That causes a direct forcing (not including feedbacks) of 5.35*ln(400/280)W/m^2 or about 1.9 W/m^2. For comparison, the output from the sun fluctuates by as much as 1 W/m^2 every 11 years. CO2 is now causing a forcing that is double the increase in solar forcing - but the CO2 forcing is constant while the solar forcing only peaks once every 11 years.
I'm curious whether your undergraduate text explains why increased CO2 concentration in the stratosphere causes the stratosphere to loose heat.
Here is what the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry says: "Greenhouse gases (CO2, O3, CFC) absorb infra-red radiation from the surface of the Earth and trap the heat in the troposphere. If this absorption is really strong, the greenhouse gas blocks most of the outgoing infra-red radiation close to the Earth's surface. This means that only a small amount of outgoing infra-red radiation reaches carbon dioxide in the upper troposphere and the lower stratosphere. On the other hand, carbon dioxide emits heat radiation, which is lost from the stratosphere into space. In the stratosphere, this emission of heat becomes larger than the energy received from below by absorption and, as a result, there is a net energy loss from the stratosphere and a resulting cooling." - http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/e...
And 1) is both true empirically (climate models are failing to accurately predict climate) and openly acknowledged to be true by, among others, the IPCC. Openly in AR3, relegated to selected paragraphs deep in the document in AR5, but there nonetheless.
2) is still an open question -- or rather, there are definitely feedback that mute the severity, but it is also claimed that there are positive feedbacks and it is not yet clear which one wins. CO_2 alone would produce between 1 and 1.5 C of warming by 600 ppm (some 0.5 of which we have already realized). Hansen believed (and probably still believes) that water vapor feedback would at least double, more likely triple it to between 3 and 5 C. Empirical evidence has gradually forced nearly all of the climate science community to cut back their "best estimates" (based on a statistically meaningless mean of the predictions of the broken climate models, see 1) above) of total climate sensitivity to roughly 2.7 C in AR5 and it is currently in free fall in the literature, increasingly constrained by the lack of tropospheric warming, "the hiatus" (as it is named and discussed in AR5) and Bayes theorem. Currently the argument is whether or not it will end up as high as 2.3C, with papers appearing arguing that it will end up being in more or less neutral net feedback territory -- 1 to 1.5 C -- and others covering the range of 1.7 to 2.3 C. Since basically this is a scientific crap shoot and has been from the 1980s on (partly because we are still learning about clouds, partly because the "physics" that the models supposedly are based on begins by averaging phenomena in a nonlinear Navier-Stokes equation from its Kolmogorov scale of around 1 mm to the cell size of around 100 km -- with adjustable parameters galore -- as if it does not matter) so you pays your money, you places your bet. Net negative feedback hasn't even been ruled out by the data, and the longer the hiatus continues the more likely it is that the feedback is indeed net negative.
4-6) are what they are. Sea level rise is almost invariably given as the primary cause of catastrophic damage, yet it has also proven to be the one place where there is absolutely no sign of catastrophe. SLR rates have changed little for 140 years. It is also remarkably difficult to predict the rates at which land ice will melt, given the problems with 1) and 2) -- Hansen (as the primary author of the entire claim for future catastrophe) goes on TED Talks and with a straight face says that he expects 5 meters of SLR. Any other sane climate scientist I've talked to is now talking about anywhere from 30 cm to as much as a meter. The data itself suggests that we'd be unlucky to make as much as 30 cm by 2100. Public media are full of egregious claims of ongoing disaster (melting Himalayan glaciers, increasing tornado or hurricane damage) often and sadly backed by public figures in the scientific community that should no better as there is no evidence of any of the above). This quite correctly reduces the credibility of the other claims of these individuals -- if one went back and looked at the predictions that Hansen in particular has made in fully public view ex officio as head of GISS and how badly they've failed, it would be difficult to see how he has any credibility left. Beyond that, many -- although not all -- of the claims for damage due to "climate change" (something that happens all of the time naturally and hence is impossible to attribute or refute) are marginal results that are not statistically significant. And estimates for the damage resulting or likely to result from climate change often fail to take into account benefits accruing from climate change or the simple fact that nature has already accommodated the change given the smear of temperatures and climate ranges available between the equator and the poles.
All of this greatly complicates the discussion of costs and benefits. Not everything about global warming is bad. Indeed, the global warming that has been ongoing
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Corporate AMERICA deceiving the people for GREED . EVIL
Humans are ants as far as "our" planet is concerned. Sure it is great not to contribute but... figure out how to plug a bunch of volcano's and harvest the methane coming from large parts of the ocean, oh and completely stop "all" forest fires even the ones started by lightning. Oh and while your at it find a way to control that damn light bulb up in the sky so it is more consistent over the millenia. Then come back and talk to the "ants" (if an asteroid, which gives exactly jack shit about humans and whether our not they caused, has not wiped them out first)about "climate change" or "AGW" or whatever #hashtag you are pinning on someone else's need to stay employed.
The main skeptic with whom I dialogue holds the following beliefs:
1. Warming is happening.
2. CO2 concentration is atypically high.
3. CO2 concentration is atypically high due to man-made emissions.
4. CO2 concentration has some upward effect on global temperature.
However, he also holds these beliefs:
1. The earth's climate is too complex to accurately model and predict.
2. There are feedback mechanisms that mute the severity of CO2-induced warming.
3. Even if warming happens at the predicted rate, we can't really know what the impact will be in terms of human suffering.
4. From #1 and #2, the dire predictions on future warming can't be trusted.
5. Even if warming were going to happen at the predicted rate and the consequences would be as dire as predicted, the economic cost of transitioning of fossil fuels on a global level would induce a huge amount of human suffering on its own,
6. Given the cost, there's no way the various world governments are going to come to an agreement and actually make a significant dent in fossil fuel usage anyway. So the whole discussion is academic.
We can model quantum atom movement accurately, on a scale large enough that we can simulate folding of molecules of tens of thousands of atoms. Most systems are much simpler, having only a few dozen variables. Besides, accuracy is a game were you get diminishing returns fast. Parabolas describe motion through the atmosphere well enough, but for higher accuracy, you need air resistance, shape of object, etc. 90% of the time you'll get something that looks like a parabola anyway.
Feedback mechanisms that mute the severity is wishful thinking. Many are taught homeostasis in Biology, but only a small set of cycles are homeostatic. (Body temp in mammals, etc) Many are not homeostatic, for example, if being starved, the body won't managed to regulate it's weight in homeostasis. Arguing that the climate can be homeostatic is arguing a desired outcome with no basis in reality. The only reason the climate moves so slowly is because there is so much inertia, it's huge.
Inability to predict impact is again relying on ignorance over observation. Basically we all have some capacity for logic, and the most likely outcomes all have a very bad impact on human life. Perhaps new inventions might lessen the impact; but, that's a gambler's logic, believing in that which hasn't occurred (or has yet to be seen) to save the day after all is lost. In the environment, that doesn't happen very often, most species go extinct instead of being saved in the last minute by a new invention.
from 1 and 2, the premises are flawed, so the decisions made on those premises cannot be trusted.
Economic suffering is a pittance compared to human suffering. Do these people love their family less than their cash? Reminds me of a man who lost his child in a Billionaire's swimming pool. Basically the Billionaire offered to make him a Millionaire as an apology. The man was insulted, implying that his son's life was at least twice as valuable. The Billionaire agreed, and offered to pay the man's new price provided that he pay it for both sons, implying the second would be killed for 4x the cash. People today forget their priorities, life is more valuable than cash; and, who knows, the economic suffering means more spending, which might actually stimulate things.
And this part is probably very true, the government will only do what the people actually want, to the point of the people forcing their government into it. Most countries are doing rather well in most fronts, leading to a lazy amount of activity in the government by the populace. Eventually the problem will grow to be an emergency, but if we cannot commit to handling something when it's cheap, who's to say we can handle it when it's extreme enough to rally people to change? The environment works on cycles that sometimes requires decades for some of the slower portions, as seen by the CFC mess back in the 70's and 80's.
Exactly. Even as sophisticated as they are, computer models can only be as good as our understanding of the phenomenon being modeled. It's the climate models that are showing catastrophic positive feedbacks for temperature with an increase in "greenhouse gases". But those catastrophic positive feedback scenarios present in the computer model may or may not exist in the real world, because of interactions that are not accounted for in the model because they're presently not known or not well characterized.
The comparison to modeling the macroeconomy is well taken. Both are complex nonlinear systems in which the validity of computer models are highly dependent upon detailed knowledge of the initial conditions, and in which the information content of the phenomenon being modeled cannot reasonably be captured except in a highly simplified fashion. The same information problem that plagues macroeconomic models (you can't really gather all the information necessary to know the initial state, because there's far too much information required, and even if you could gather it, by the time you've gathered the information, the system's state has changed) to some degree applies to modeling climate, particularly where there are direct interactions between human actions and the system.
Paleoclimate data appears to show we're on the downward side of the peak of the current interglacial, with the amplitude of short term warm periods actually decreasing over the last few thousand years. And the current computer models didn't predict the "pause" in increased global mean surface temperature observed since about the turn of the millennium. The models simply aren't good enough to restructure the basis of the entire global energy economy on.
I believe it's all real, but point number six there is still true. What does that make me?
When creationism, astrology, homeopathy, voodoo, and catastrophic anthropogenic global warming provide necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statements, *then* you can put them into science curriculum.
Just because famous politicians and some people in lab coats write thousand page reports trying to scare us about something, doesn't mean that it's science.
No all you may have proved - I'm not qualified to comment on the data is that no warming took place in those 210 months. In the same way you can flip a coin and get 30 heads.
He's not a skeptic of warming, but of our ability to model warming and it's effects and make predictions about future climate change. So he's more of a climate modeling skeptic than a warming skeptic per se.
This fluctuation in tropospheric temperatures is a behavour that we see emerge in the models as well. What you have to remember is that when you measure tropospheric temperatures you are measuring one small part of the system. Tropospheric temperatures have increased by about 0.2C over the last 15 years ( http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl... ). That is not insignificant but is somewhat slower than the previous decade. Meanwhile the ocean has also continued to accumulate energy.
Ultimately what we find is that fluctuations in tropospheric temperatures are the result of energy moving about within the system (from troposphere to ocean and back), rather than a violation of thermodynamics. So as you can see, energy fluctuations in one part of the system cannot contradict feedbacks.
In fact, we have observed many feedbacks first hand. For instance, atmospheric water vapour has increased by about 4% since the 70's. The more warming, the more water vapour the atmosphere will hold. Water vapour is a powerful greenhouse gas. Likewise, on average summertime polar ice is declining due to warming. The less summertime ice we have the less solar energy will be reflected back into space. This is another feedback that we can measure and have observed.
For the onslaught of paid trolls telling us how climate change is real and anyone who thinks otherwise is a dumbshoe.
So you personally design all bridges that you cross ?
He probably crosses bridges without checking, because he has seen lots of other people do the same safely.
Unfortunately for climate change, he HASN'T seen lots of people cutting CO2 and stopping the temperature rising. Quite the contrary. He's seen lots of people pump out extra CO2 and the temperature stabilised. That's why he's suspicious...
They're not standards, they're propaganda.
We want to teach students how to think for themselves, not to repeat rote consensus. Those standards are nothing more than yet another attempt to beat one viewpoint into their skulls, much like the Church did during the Dark Ages.
Teach kids how to think and then get out of the way. Don't tell them what to think.
Ferrret.
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
WHAT present climate change? We've had 20 years of flat temperatures...
Your repetitive IQ tests are not temperature data points.
Different kind of Carbon which is how we can tell the increase is from fossil fuels. You might also want to think about the difference in timeframes. It took millions of years to remove the carbon, but we have replaced it in less than 100 years.
Its funny how over 95% of the worlds climate experts already agree global warming is at least partially to fully man-made, however for a majority of Americans that is still not enough for them to think about making small changes in their own lifestyle just in case those 95% of the worlds top experts might actually have a point.
You beg the question though. If CO2 is having no effect, it is not pollution, if it does, it is.
Yes, a small change in the partial pressure will have a measurable effect, and this effect is relatively easy to calculate, to within an order of magnitude. The values for CO2-related forcing haven't changed that much in the 100 or so years since we first started calculating it. There is some uncertainty, but no one is talking about .2 C or 20 C per doubling.
The stratosphere is a complicated topic but I recommend that you start with the IPCC report and move on to Science of Doom. Were you just going to do this game of picking a random topic and saying that the science isn't predictive, or are you actually interested in the subject? Because really, you don't know enough to ask the questions that don't have answers, so pretty much everything that you're deeply ignorant about is going to have an answer, at least until such point as you know enough to actually get into the scientific literature.
It's okay, we understand if these things are too scary and full of math for you. They have charts and everything! There's not even anyone there to hold your hand and tell you it's all Obama's fault. But you don't have to think, learn, or understand if it's too hard for you. We would of course prefer in that situation that you shut the fuck up.
We look like retards when we rant about the AGW deniers, but at the same time host our own set of anti-GMO idiots.
Less wishful thinking perhaps and more based on the fact that we don't swing wildly from one temperature to another.
Seriously?
No wonder you posted as a coward if your best is to set up a strawman and then insult somebody over it.
Coward.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
So far it would appear that only the AGW cultists are doing so. Shows how weak their argument is.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Is that the place where circles are legally hexagonal?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I understand that the readers of /. tend to be more educated than the "normal" citizen. I also understand that as a result of this higher level of education, they have a higher level of understanding of the scientific models that are used in climate science.
Here's my problem, reading through all of these posts.
I see a bunch of "well these agencies said" "well these scientists said" "well this percentage of people said" "well it's accurate according to what we know" blah blah blah. I'm not saying these arguments have no merit... But what about scientists such as Richard Lindzen? One of the most respected and intelligent climate scientists in the world. What about the scientists that get canned left and right if they speak out against the man made climate change/global warming/whatever it's called now(simply type in "scientist fired for questioning global warming", there's more than just one, so I wont post a reference). I see people referencing NASA, but what about the former NASA scientists that dispute(http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-scientists-dispute-climate-change-2012-4)?
I know it's a hard thought to believe that you could be tricked, duped even. But claiming there's all this evidence, and claiming there's all these scientists claiming something is definitive, in a field that will destroy their career for going against the grain. IDK you're not really contributing anything new. The skepticism comes from the fact that there are skeptics in the field in question, and they are quickly drowned out, silenced, and discredited. And there are far more skeptics within the scientific community than those on here are claiming, a simple Google search would show this. But it seems like everyone on here is so busy researching the "proof" they don't even want to be bothered with the other side of the story.
Since pretty much every week brings announcement of some new climate process, I tend to agree with the folks who suggest that the real climate system is probably a lot more complex than we can understand -- hence the specific shortcomings of the models. That having been said, current climate conditions even around the eastern end of Lake Ontario (Canada, eh...) are changing. But then change is the norm, stability is just a myth. Even the insurance companies are starting to notice.
On the other hand, given the degree to which commercial interests have captured governments, I have no expectation that we are going to pull back from burning everything we can get our hands on -- too much money being made and nowhere near enough on the alternatives (despite Ontario's enthusiasm for sticking wind turbines on every inch of rural land -- and dialing back hydroelectric and nuclear in favor of burning gas). Besides, even if we did stop totally it likely would take centuries to undo the mess, nowhere near the kind of instant gratification everyone wants now. Wait until the tar sands start to run out, the fraking wells cough and spit and Manhattan gets wet streets and flooded subways regularly -- oh, yeah, maybe there is a problem [and not one moment before].
The visionaries are on a vision quest -- and the rest of us try to hide in visions of our own. The reality is much too much a nightmare. Will humanity survive this self-induced extinction event? I doubt it.
Science operates on observation, backed by experiment replication.
Science does not operate on consensus.
Anyone who starts talking about consensus in science isn't a scientist.
They're a social operator attempting to pass themselves off as a scientifically-founded personality.
Don't like this? Tough shit.
Liking a fact is also not part of scientific rigor.
2nd world country
My problem is that the denial argument is made against researching or even attempting anything that would mitigate #5 and hence obviate #6. Failing to teach our children isn't going to help here.
Nullius in verba
Also, for some who live in cold climates some warming - even a great deal of warming - would be a welcome thing.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Financial Times: ‘No one trusts Washington on climate change’
I guess you prefer the Taliban method of deciding school curriculum.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Pollution has MUCH MUCH more of a direct effect on the environment than CO2. Acid rain from all those other chemicals that get pumped into the air, groundwater contamination from landfills, soil contamination from factory run-off, masses of CFCs migrating to the south pole. These are pollutants.
Just a quick note, the CO2 in question that contributes to climate change is a very small fraction of all the CO2 in the air at any given time. Nature dwarfs humanity for CO2 production, but it likewise dwarfs humanity for CO2 removal. It just so happens that humanity's contribution pushes the production amount over the removal limits.
It is cold in Wyoming. Jackson, WY is the fourth coldest city in the US.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"With the melting of the tundra 10 years ago, we hit a tipping point, it became too late to stop climate change. It is now a positive feedback loop. You could remove every human being from the planet, and global warming would continue.
What we do about humanities 36 billion tonns/yr of CO2 emissions from FF, or not, will affect the rate of climate change. If at some point humanity starts producing a surplus of renewable energy, then we can extract CO2 from the oceans and use it to manufacture CH4 for later sequestration. At which point we really can reverse AGW.
But, first steps first.. We must reduce the amount CO2 emissions in the first place. By reducing wasteful energy usage(*), increasing the amount of renewable energy produced, and penalize fossil usage.
I.E. Wasteful energy usage, using a 10% efficient 2 tonn automobile where an Electric bike (600 to 1500MPGe), can accomplish the similar objectives.
Not really. More argument from example. He likes to point out how virtually every climate model has fallen down, badly, during the current warming pause.
He believes #2 for the same reason he admits that CO2 likely has a warming effect. Scientists can both explain theoretically and demonstrate the mechanisms by which they occur.
Just wanted to comment on this. The two are one and the same, when human suffering is caused by poverty and lack of economic development. If going carbon-zero significantly raises the cost of energy and retards the economic development of "developing" countries then that could have real and significant negative effects on the well being of the citizens of those countries. Of course, so could unchecked global warming.
The 1970's were a period with unregulated pollution - more CO2 annually than today. Yet, during that period, we experienced global cooling. 125 well-credentialed scientists signed this letter: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.... Here at slashdot, we (rightly) accuse M$ of spreading FUD against Linux et al ("open source is an open sore" etc.). Is is possible that politicians could use Man-made global warming (let's call it MGW) in the same way to extract money from large corporations? It is an appeal to guilt (think of the children), and fits neatly into campaign speeches. But I should think some of us will take a closer look.
To serve only self is the ultimate slavery.
Different kind of Carbon which is how we can tell the increase is from fossil fuels.
You might also want to think about the difference in timeframes. It took millions of years to remove the carbon, but we have replaced it in less than 100 years.
We didn't replace the carbon extracted from the atmosphere 500 million years ago in 100 years. Even the little part we didn't "replace", but simply put back to where it "originally" was. It just looks like a different "kind" due to not being exposed to radiation where it is stored. 500 million years ago O2 concentration was about 3% (now 21%, and it hasn't changed significantly in the last 100 years), and CO2 levels were somewhere around 6000-10000 ppm. We've put back about 100 ppm in 100 years. In the unlikely even that we continue like that (it'll be hard to exploit all those resources and decreasing O2 levels won't make it fun to live) we would need some 10000 years.
On a global scale the last 100 years don't matter. No significance compared to the bigger (possibly slower) natural things. It's just human arrogance that we think we do have a significant impact, and that the world as it is today is "typical". No. It just happens that we're living in it in is current state. Which is quite atypical.
Of course the upside is that this attitude speeds up the transition to renewable energies, hopefully before we run into problems of too hard to exploit resources and too low oxygen levels to breathe.
"teaching 'one view of what is not settled science about global warming'" is EXACTLY the problem. These so-called "scientists" (religious extremists) should earn the label "scientist" and admit they don't know everything and they're conclusions are mere probability, not certainty. Instead, we get these people teaching it like I would inist God is real, and being angry at anyone who has the unmitigated gall to disagree (of which there are many.)
Cranky educator.
No, Wyoming doesn't want to enrich private banker's schemes anymore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdqNds9pNuI
They aren't idiots. You're the dumb parrot motherfuck who still believes the faked IPCC data when it's been thoroughly debunked by all credible scientific organizations. Real scientists go by the data, and agendas, both which never lie. You keep repeating the lie, which is what "informed" people do best. Keep repeating, parrot.
Even the Alarmists at Real Climate don't support Arctic methane tripping points.
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There is quite a bit of inertia, but right now we are accumulating energy at a rate of 4 Hiroshima bombs per second. (http://www.skepticalscience.com/4-Hiroshima-bombs-worth-of-heat-per-second.html). That has started to nudge us out of the relative stability we have seen for the last 10,000 years. It was a relatively minor forcing that moved us from the last glacial period to the current inter-glacial - which is surely a wild swing from one temperature to another.
atmospheric water vapour has increased by about 4% since the 70's. The more warming, the more water vapour the atmosphere will hold. Water vapour is a powerful greenhouse gas.
And Water vapor transport vast amounts of heat from the surface to high altitudes and clouds are a great reflector of short-wave light reducing the amount of short-wave light to be re-radiated as long-wave IR; whether water vapor is a positive or a negative feedback is a point of contention.
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Lying while holding office should be a crime. Look at this clown:
teaching 'one view of what is not settled science about global warming'
Yeah, it's only 97% of the scientists in the field that hold this view, and of the remaining 3% most are in doubt of details or conclusions, the number of real scientists who think that there is no such thing as global warming or that humans have nothing to do with it can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.
If we want to improve our politics, the first thing we need to do is get rid of the crooks. There are enough idiots and misguided well-meaning fools in politics, we can't afford to have lying bastards in office.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Please, correct the headline on the above article to: Wyoming Is First State To Reject Climate Change Hysteria to protect Science Standards
I think you've been consorting with Lewandowski and his minions too long.
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Well, I was referring to observed feedbacks. We haven't observed changes in cloud cover, but you are right that if this did occur it would act as a positive or negative feedback. Clouds emit infrared radiation back to the surface, and so exert a warming effect. They also reflect sunlight and emit infrared radiation to space, and so exert a cooling effect. So if global warming does change cloud cover, the net effect could be warming or cooling depending on the type and altitude of the cloud.
Sure, there's inertia but we've been at this a few billion years and have gone through several cycles of rising and falling temperatures so there's at least a hint that there's some negative feedback at work. Not that that is necessarily sufficient or more than a local effect but that's not what was being claimed, merely that there's enough not yet understood to justify not going all chicken little.
I tend to agree. But pollution is a lot like weeds. A weed is just a plant growing where it shouldn't, pollution is just chemicals/particles in concentrations greater than are acceptable. Context is everything. I think the immediate jump to labeling CO2 as pollution is an attempt to achieve and end-run around debate as so often seems to be the case from the Fabian crowd.
The transition from glacial to inter-glacial is evidence of a massive positive feedback.
Yet, the left wing pushing man made Global Warming...err..excuse Man made Climate Change....err...excuse me, Carnon Tax Exchange.
That is A'OK.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear...
This scam, of climate whatever change, that is being run by the monied elite and their academic lap dogs, is so transparent, one really wonders why they even bother trying anymore.
Bernie Madoff would be proud.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Insightful but I'm not sure which side your referring to.
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The idea, they say, is to stress "the importance of developing students’ knowledge of how science and engineering achieve their ends while also strengthening their competency with related practices."
Their "practices for K-12 science classrooms" include things like:
"Asing questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering)"
"Planning and carrying out investigations"
"Analyzing and interpreting data."
"Engaging in argument from evidence"
But, when they get to the section on "Climate Change", all that goes out the window.
By the end of grade 12, they want students to "know" that
How does that stack up with actually teaching science:
How are students supposed to question computer models?
How are students going to investigate computer models?
How are students going to analyze and interpret computer models?
How are students going to engage in argument from computer models?
This is not teaching science. This is teaching trust in authority and their mysterious "climate models". Trust us. Trust our "climate models".
Actually, there are a great many kids in WY who are both smart and well educated.
The extraction industries pay a significant amount of taxes which leads to the good school system we have. It is, of course, up to each student as to whether or not to avail themselves of the education offered - just as it is in every other state. But if you want to excel, you can do so - depending of course on where in the state you live. The two biggest towns either now offer or have offered AP, IB, and honors courses to high school students who want to challenge themselves. They're the same IB courses you'd get anywhere else with the same tests at the end. The same is true of the AP and honors courses. Locally, high school students with good grades can take college courses for high school and college credit paid for by the school district as long as they get a good grade in the course. Smaller towns are a bit more challenged due to the correspondingly low number of students, but you can certainly get a good education if you want one. Most kids from WY who go to colleges outside WY do just fine.
WY is a very sparsely populated state, and most of the well paying jobs in the state are directly tied to coal, oil and gas. The decision by the governor to dump the science standards (an amendment to another unrelated bill proposed by the Republican legislature) was not well received. No one believes that science had anything to do with the decision. There was pressure applied at many levels because of the influence of the industries on the state. This is no different than anywhere else. It is entirely possible that this decision will seriously dim his re-election chances. A Republican will almost certainly still win - it is WY after all, but the governor may be out of a job.
Whatever you think of carbon based energy, WY coal is cleaner in many respects than eastern coal - even if lower in energy content. That's one reason why it is in such demand, even considering transportation costs. I think the latest stats are something like 39% of the coal burned in the entire US comes from WY and three of the world's 10 biggest coal mines are here. We ship to 35 other states. If WY coal were to be shipped overseas to replace some of the really dirty coal in use there, it would be a win for the environment. Would it be great if something else could be used instead and the world could afford it? Yes. Till then, I'm glad the power comes on when I flip the switch on my wall. I'm also glad that cheap local coal keeps my electricity costs down.
Even though coal is big in WY we also have many wind turbines. On the same per capita basis that everyone likes to marvel at when some bad statistic is mentioned, Wikipedia reports that at the end of last year we had more wind power capacity per capita than any other state. I'd bet I can see more turbines from my window than you can from yours - but that's just a guess. At any rate, even though coal is big here - we are trying to also do our part to expand to renewable sources. But realize that with any per capita statistic you see where WY is leading, our small population base means that even a small number of events will be blown out of proportion.
Just for the record, South Carolina blocked the standards in 2012.
Global warming is the religion of the left.
Why force religion in schools?
Why is it whenever one of these right wing fascists gets a platform it's behind some name with the word "freedom" or "liberty" in it when they don't believe in either.
Good post but CO2 concentrations won't return to historical levels for thousands of years unless we do something to actively remove it from the carbon cycle.
Should we remove it from the carbon cycle? All those fossil fuels used to be alive. If we dig them all up and burn them, we can give them the chance to be alive again.
Those poor little carbon atoms, trapped underground for millions of years. Shouldn't we set them free from their earthly prison, burn them to make them free, and then rejoice as they turn back into living plants and animals?
Considering that my messages here have been nothing other than a complaint about you opening with an insulting lie what do you expect? Why should everyone else meekly take your venom?
So if CO2 is a pollutant, then I suppose the optimal concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is zero?
The term "pollutant" applied to CO2 doesn't make sense. Not everything that changes the environment is, by definition, a "pollutant." Too much water can kill you. Does that make water a poison? It's pretty much the same thing.
When you have a small population, per capita ratios of anything mean very little. In 2011, 43 people were killed in the entire state. In 2012, there were 21 - again in the entire state if the news article was correct. Yet our population didn't drop by half. If one of the major population centers had their murder rate drop like that you would hear about it coast to coast. Here it just means that there are always going to be a few murders in any group of people. When your numbers are small to start with, per capita means nothing.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_by_state would contradict your statement at least as far as the 2012 numbers went. Per person - yes. Total contributed versus total received - no. I'd say the latter matters the most. Many states receive more money from the government than they contribute in taxes. Wyoming does not (354 million more revenue from the state than spending). 30 other states provide less revenue to the federal coffers than the federal goverment spends on them. Florida is particularly bad.
Federal dollars do help our state budget. That is completely true. Wyoming taxes are also low because of the severance taxes the coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium industries pay. On the flip side, Wyoming incomes are frequently lower because of the tax burden on these industries. We do have high property taxes though.
Where do the federal dollars go? Well, we have a lot of retirees. There are Indian reservations. There are military bases or VA facilities because like most of those rural states you are so upset with a high proportion of our young men volunteer for the military. There are a lot of federal lands - and not just the big parks that make up a lot of the state. Yellowstone itself is bigger than two states but the BLM administers 17.5 million acres in WY. That's more than the size of 10 states. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people in WY would be happy to trade the federal revenue stream for control of the federally administered land in our state. Then again, there's a lot of vehicles moving through either I-80 or I-90 on the way through the state. Keeping up the roads is certainly a fair use for some of the dollars you're so worried about since the vast majority of that benefit is to people who don't live here since there are so few of us. When you count higher costs to deliver mail across a big state and other costs, it's no surprise the federal government spends what they do. Still, I doubt they'd want us to leave. Florida - maybe.
And parts of it are very windy. Wind chill is real. We got snow today. Brr. Love those fossil fuels for heat though.
Those of us who accept climate science don't have to burn anybody. The Earth will do it for us if we don't get serious about the problem. :j
Yes, in particular, language like the word "believe" being used for scientific theories.
I don't "believe" in AGW or science in general. If I believe in anything it's that the scientific method is a valid and useful methodology for discovering our world and it's proven worthy of that belief.
NASA and NOAA are not individual people who are unbiased experts.... they're both government agencies serving a government that desperately seeks more justification for more tax dollars and more control over the populace and "we MUST do it to save the PLANET!" makes one hell of a more persuasive argument than "we want more power and money!". Furthermore, one cannot say "NASA says" or "NASA believes" in any accurate sense since there are certainly people with many varying opinions working within NASA. Yes, the current political appointees running NASA may have decided to issue reports saying certain things, and there certainly ARE people in NASA who believe those things and are willing to write such reports (James Hansen USED to be the go-to guy for climate calamity prognostication at ONE NASA facility (Goddard)). Honesty check: Did you all agree that "NASA said" everything it "said" when Bush was president, or did you insist then that NASA was oppressing the truth? hmmmmmmm?????
As for the UN IPCC... they're not only NOT the world's experts, but they are also not a REAL government; They're a group (mostly bureaucrats NOT scientists) working very hard on the cause of implementing a new global tax system outside the reach of any national authorities. The UN has long sought an independent funding stream that would finally free it from the limited accountability it currently has as it must go (generally annually) to various memeber countries to beg for funding. The UN leadership HATES having to answer questions about drunk diplomats, inept "peace keeping" missions, unmaintained facilities, missing money, etc thrown at it by lawmakers in places like the US Congress... which it considers "beneath it" as its leadership thinks of itself as an over-arching global government. The UN has long pushed for things like the "Law of the Sea Treaty" (which would tax use of ocean resources and ship the money directly to the UN), "international" regulation of the internet (which it thinks would be via the UN and which it thinks would allow it to eventually tax the net), and a global cap-and-trade carbon tax (which would provide funding directly to the UN) among many other schemes to free itself from answering to those pesky national governments that currently fund it. The UN is all the worst aspects of the American federal government - with NONE of the benefits. NO average person on Earth gets to vote on the people at the UN; most are appointed to those jobs by various tyrants and dictators, and the few that are in ANY way representatives are VERY indirectly so (being appointed by elected elected officials or people who were, themselves, appointed)
As for your insulting attacks on the poster you replied to (not me), let me turn the tables a bit: Do YOU really consider a problem solved if somebody in your business runs with his pet theory, denounces any skeptic as "bought-off by somebody", and has as his "solution" a prescription for a set of policies that will destroy the enterprise? And do you still prefer his plan after you discover he rigged the entire process by which the problem would be diagnosed and solutions evaluated? And do you continue to trust his diagnosis and plans when you observe that his models of the problem have all been wrong and, when fed data on previous problems, are unable to accurately model the events and predict the results which are documented to have actually occurred? Do you stick with him and his plan after it becomes obvious that he does NOT understand the underlying mechanisms, but has become so wedded to his pet theorites that he cannot consider alternatives? How about after you discover that he's completely "in-the-tank" with one political group within the enterprise and he is coordinating with them in their political activities againsts anybody with any competing ideas? If you stick with that dude, your business is going to crash... just like entrepreneurship under Obama has been doing (the worst new business creation track record in DECADES, and the worst job particip
Climate models are not even expected to predict a pause as short as 15 years. The results you see are the average of many runs of the code. Individual climate model runs may show "pauses" such as we are now experiencing but when you start averaging all the runs together you get a smoother curve. It seems like you ought to understand climate models better before you start criticizing them.
True, honest and trustworthy "Progressives" of the "early 20th century" sort... like Margaret Sanger (who founded "Planned Parenthood" as part of a eugenics play to eliminate all the less-evolved little brown people) and that noted German Progressive Dr Mengele (who thought experimenting on twins was a good place to start in progressing medical science) etc. Yeah, I know, Godwin's Law and all that.... but if you're gonna invoke an outfit funded by one of the planet's dirtiest dirtbags, who is PROUD of his Hitler-era NAZI collaboration (and says it was the best time of his life), you lose all right to cry about somebody pointing out the NAZI thing. Further, if you're gonna drag a Progressive rag into this as some font of truth, then I'm gonna go all Progressive-Hunter on ya and OUT that vile ideology. Like Polio, we Americans had rid ourself of that disease long ago... and, like polio, it's disturbing to see left-wingers bringing it back to our fine shores (polio, and other "conquered" diseases, via destroyed immigration controls)
The TRUTH of the fight over aid for things like hurricaine Sandy (which you are doubtless alluding to) is that the fight was NOT over providing aid but rather over whether to add it to the national credit card or to PRIORITIZE federal spending and cut something else. This is insane... under Obama we have DOUBLED food stamps, for example, boosting that program by $40 BILLION per year even though we have NOT doubled unemployment... so CLEARLY there's SOME room for reform (good economic policies that got people back to work would, for example, boost taxes INTO govt AND reduce payments OUT - a double "win")
USA, the rest of the world is laughing at you. Some of us are even cheering on this kind of idiocy -- we'll have a little less competition in the STEM arena.
> but is certain that "There are feedback mechanisms that mute the severity of CO2-induced warming."
300 million years of more or less continuous life on earth, despite gigantic meteors once in a while etc. with CO2 levels varying greatly make a pretty good point on that believe. If earth in all it complexity were not gigantic negative-feedback loop system it wouldn't last long...
Luntz was advising Republican politicians on how to operate in an atmosphere where Democrats had already hyper-politicized science and economics. He was, essentially, saying to Republicans: "The Democrats have already convinced most people you guys are the party of big business and anti-science (to protect big business) ... so if you bring-up things like economic arguments you play right into their hands, and you have a very limited time before they close the argument on man-made global warming, coinvincing the voters of that too". The Democrats get just as much money (often more) from "big business" as Republicans, but the accusation that Republicans are the tools of big business is something the left-wing press and left-wing entertainment industry has driven in all its outlets for DECADES... and you'll note that Luntz advises his clients to steer away from the traps they often fall into in that regard. Same on "global warming".
You guys on the left LOVE to point people at that Luntz memo (and the Florida Fox news affiliate lawsuit) because you KNOW the everage person will see the link as proof that it's a legit attack (and MAYBE even follow a link and skim part of a document, out of context, just far enough to see a sentence or two that seems to confirm the attack). The burden is always on your opponents to assume people will actually take the time to look deeper into the subject, read the full documents and related documents, etc. Sadly, the tactic works too well in an era of short attention spans and hyper-partisanship where you can count on most of your friends to never see any info contrary to the "party line" you push (as long as you can convince them to avoid the only news outlet that disagrees with your side - which you generally do with lines like "faux news" or "Fox lies!"). If people pickle their brains sufficiently on a constant stream of MSNBC, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Koz, HuffPo, etc, they'll fall for your deceptive agitprop too....but that does not stop everybody from pointing out the truth.
... anyone who has the unmitigated gall to disagree (of which there are many.)
Yes, but, interestingly, almost none of the people disagreeing are experts in the field, or even learned in the field. A lot of disagreement claims are being thrown around in the discussion from a lot of people who suddenly have graduated to armchair climate experts capable of understanding this better than all the actual scientists in the field.
He likes to point out how virtually every climate model has fallen down, badly, during the current warming pause.
But that happens to not be the case. The cause of the current "pause" seems to be ENSO. Climate models can't predict ENSO, because ENSO is weather not climate. If one constrains a climate model with the current ENSO conditions it turns out that the pause is modeled very well.
Kosaka and Xie (2013, Nature, doi:10.1038/nature12534)
He believes #2 for the same reason he admits that CO2 likely has a warming effect. Scientists can both explain theoretically and demonstrate the mechanisms by which they occur.
Which scientists believe that feedback mechanisms will "mute the severity of CO2-induced warming." will outweigh the feedback mechanisms that enhance global warming.
He's only seeing the things that reinforce what he wants to be true. Motivated reasoning at it's finest.
Regarding the costs of mitigating, all published economists agree that it is cheaper to mitigate than to accept the impacts of climate change, and the sooner we start mitigating the cheaper it will be.
On Climate Change, there is Scientific Consensus, and there is Economics Consensus. Why do people keep fighting it? What are you denialists waiting for? Taxi Driver Consensus? Barber And Hairdresser Consensus??? THEN will you believe it???
Politics. Its been about nothing but for a long time now.
But there are really somethings we can say. The models have not proven any kind of accuracy over the time frame we are told we must change everything. The changes most think would be enough are either so out of the park in cost or just not even several orders of magnitude enough to make any difference at all. And all things come with costs.
Long story short. Everyone wants someone else to do something about it. Even worse people think buying green is in fact green without looking at *any* data whatsoever.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
all published economists agree that it is cheaper to mitigate than to accept the impacts of climate change.
No they don't.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Are you going to tell astronomers that they are not real scientists either for your next trick or are you going to accept that we are not going to fall for your restricted personal definition that there is no science other than chemistry or similar bullshit? It may work on the kiddies but it's a gross insult to the intelligence of the readers here.
Can you cite one?
Economics. How scientific. /s
The current solutions to global climate disruption are economics. They say, "pay carbon tax! that will fix it!". Carbon will cost more so there will be less of it around. That isn't science, that's economics.
So how about a scientific solution? Everybody says "we have to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere! the only way to do this is by reducing emissions!".
Is that the only way? Why couldn't we reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide by increasing other gases? For example, carbon dioxide is up to dangerous levels of 400ppm. If we simply double the amount of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere this will reduce the carbon dioxide levels to 200ppm!! WOW!!!
As the wise man said, Think Different Outside The Box!
Let's reduce carbon dioxide by increasing other gases!!
The real point - he doesn't want to do something, so it's impossible to do anything, so there is nothing that need to be done.
That's not what #5 said at all. You just lost all credibility with that straw man.
Let's let TOM speak shall we:
"I'm having great conversations on this site with one of my alias accounts" - by Tom (822) on Monday April 07, 2014 @02:29PM (#46686259) Homepage FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
APK
P.S.=> Tom *tried* to libel me & failed after I destroyed him in a technical debate on hosts files... result?
Tom ended up "eating his words" here http://slashdot.org/comments.p... spiced with "the bitter taste of SELF-defeat" + HIS FOOT IN HIS MOUTH
... apk
Let's let TOM speak shall we:
"I'm having great conversations on this site with one of my alias accounts" - by Tom (822) on Monday April 07, 2014 @02:29PM (#46686259) Homepage FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
APK
P.S.=> Tom *tried* to libel me & failed after I destroyed him in a technical debate on hosts files... result?
Tom ended up "eating his words" here http://slashdot.org/comments.p... spiced with "the bitter taste of SELF-defeat" + HIS FOOT IN HIS MOUTH
... apk
I remeber when everyone was saying we are heading for another ice age. The Earth is cooling down too much. Now it the other way the Earth is heating up to much. Has some of the lets clean up the air been good? Yes it has. But over all it is just a way to get money from others.
I am saddened to see that the average /. reader is not smarter or more educated than the average American, and that's a pretty low bar to clear.
Of course they wouldn't, their entire funding stream is highly dependent upon human causes. By their standards, ALL climate change must be due to burning fossil fuels and eating meat, else they lose their funding.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Funny, I'm reading this just after I traded in my electric scooter on an electric bicycle.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
If there was ever a case to NOT allow lobbying, corporations and the like - this is a prime example of what NOT to do. When an entire state decides to ignore science for the benefit of ANY industry - good or bad, it's corruption. We will have to then assume that either by changing the law via legislation and/or forcefully rejecting non-science ideology, can we ever hope to move this country forward. I can see it now - "kids, you'll not want to live in Wyoming - pretty place and all, but the water isn't drinkable, and all the animals have died - but there's good jobs because of all the fracking and such. There was a law back in 2014 that passed, that said people could ignore science to benefit large corporations, so they simply re-wrote textbooks to be on "their side". Now, the beautiful state of Wyoming is nothing like it used to be...." Ultimate example of ass-holism
If you don't believe in climate change, and you go extinct because of this stubbornness, that is just natural selection at work. But, the name people who do not believe in climate change do not believe in evolution. Oh the irony.
Ahh, the one thing that is constant is the ever increasing arrogance of humans. In only 120 years or so, that we have been industrialized , we have managed to produce harmful by products to effect the climate. The earth is billions of years old, but we can destroy it in a century. Bullshit.
One volcano eruption produces enough ozone depleting material than all humans, ever. Climate change BS is an excuse to move forward a political agenda of increased govt. control and regulation. Wake the F up?
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
Wyoming's conflict of interest notwithstanding the science of climate is far from understood and is still in the middle of the "prediction and feedback" part of the process.
The point missed or ignored a lot is that to be "science" you have to make predictions based on your theory and measure results to see if your theory is correct or not. The climate models have been in epic fail mode for some time now.
So a valid question to all those who believe that CO2 controls the climate is "How long with rising CO2 and flat or falling temperatures before you admit that your theory is wrong?".
Other theories have stood the test of time with their predictions much better. Check out Dr Libby's prediction from the 1970s (3+ decades of accuracy), Dr Easterbrook's (12 years), Dr Abdussamatov (8 years). They all have correctly called for a cooling period of varying depths and lengths. So far they have been correct and the IPCC models wrong.
Like abortion, divorce, sex outside of marriage, euthanasia--meme me meme (pun intended)
See the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot.
Like when the pendulum on a clock swings from the left to the right?
Water could be a pollutant in the right circumstances. But otherwise, I think we're in agreement. My assertion is not that CO2 is a pollutant.
Good on Wyoming for rejecting the junk-science and social engineering project - also known as - Global Warming! It is going to take some time for this Liberal Fetish to work its way through our lives, but in the end you will come to learn that there are just some things even Liberals can't control.
So which is it? You said "we don't swing wildly from one temperature to another". But you also liken the wild swing from glacial to interglacial to the pendulum on a clock. Meaning we see wild swings all the time? It is really unclear what you are trying to argue.
Back in Roman times wine was made in England so if we do have Anthropomorphic Global Change maybe we are heading back to normal temperatures.
Another day, another slashdot click bait climate story, and of course all the usual suspects made all the same arguments they make every day.
Of course the original post - as always - is from Hugh Pickens dot com - the same place all the climate click bait comes from. Is it accurate and non biased? OF COURSE NOT!!! (Hint: It never is)
But you suckers (that includes OFA trolls, right wing loons, left wing loons, and the like)... you all fell for it, and entered 534 comments not worth reading.
Murphy was an optimist
My bs-o-meter immeditately goes off anytime a politician tells me we are in a crisis and the only way to solve the crisis is to give money to politicians...
than elsewhere in the paid-for opinionated politically inspired pseudo-science community inspired by the IPCC circus!
Face the fact, warmists, the plot is unraveling fast, the weather is not playing along and the "evidence" is slipping away faster than a polar bear swimming throught the North Sea.
Context is important, of course but I would not classify that as wildly. Boiling seas or solid CO2, perhaps...
Simple solution: Any serious University with applicants into any science-based degree program should no longer accept Wyoming high school certificates as meaningful and should require applicants from that state to test out to verify that they have a proper background to enter the program. When the climate deniers who run the Wyoming establishment start having their offspring turned away and stigmatized by Ivy League and other prominent schools, watch that curriculum change back to accurate science rather quickly.
I doubt most of them can spell science, much less understand it.
I've read all the IPCC reports. I've read dozens of climate papers published in the climatology journals. I've downloaded all the ice core data to do my own numerical experiments. What I am doing is pointing out some bad oversimplified reasoning.
Why do you denialists just ignore data?
Because they're exactly the same as geocentrists and creationists - they start with a conclusion and work backwards from there, and ignore anything and everything that doesn't support their conclusion.
Do you happen to have a the reference for those CO2 forcing numbers? Every time I've tried to follow footnotes from an IPCC report, it sends me on a chain of references that just ends up back at an earlier IPCC report.
Sorry bad numbers.... I meant to say 330 to 400 -- the change from the 80's to now which have coincided with the most recent warming trend.
Not saying I disagree on the sentiment, but before you call people out on being a troll because they listen to someone who "invented" a phrase, maybe you should use the 2 seconds it takes to google and see that the phrase "Useful idiot" wasn't invented by Beck, but has been tossed around since at least the cold war, and possibly long before that.
Wow.
Sure thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
Anything is a contaminant if it's where it's not wanted. But I also have a hard time considering something required by plant life as a 'pollutant' ... especially when some greenhouses deliberately increase the concentration to improve yields.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
How much longer can the US keep rejecting scientific facts? Allowing a state to reject proven science because they just don't like it, is insane, no country which has any respect would allow it. The US really is the laughing stock, education wise, of the developed world, it's gotten to the point I'm scared for students who have to attend school in the US, because of bullshit like this. I think new laws need to be set on a world platform to help govern education ( yes I mean world wide! ), this should be the required standards ( at least in part ):
1. You MUST teach global warming is a threat and a very real danger.
2. You MUST teach that evolution is the best theory we have for the progression of life.
3. You MUST teach men and women are equal ( sorry middle east! ).
4. You MUST teach that religion is man made dogmatic superstition ( which it is ).
5. You MUST enforce high scientifical thinking and reasoning in ALL cases, before all else.
Any educator not willing to side with this should be jailed, it's time not only the US ( who have the worst education system in the world ), but for the world to support a proper education system.
We all need to make good decisions based upon theories that accurately predict what is to come. The CAGW assertion on CO2 shows no skill. It is falsified by the IPCC's data. AKA the data doesn't match our predictions so it must be ome where else ...in the deep ocean where it can't be measured. Some one in Wyoming or a group of fairly intelligent people who understand scientific method should be commended for clear thinking amd not being intimidated.
It takes a long time for the system to reach equilibrium. There is quite a bit of inertia because of the oceans which can absorb massive amounts of energy. The CO2 increases of the 80's are not likely responsible for the warming of the 80's. Rather it would be prior CO2 increases that caused the warming of the 80's.
That republicanism was is and always will be a failure.
Just as much as the earth is flat pro claimer's.
The real point - he doesn't want to do something, so it's impossible to do anything, so there is nothing that need to be done.
That's not what #5 said at all. You just lost all credibility with that straw man.
You're right. That's not wjat #5 says. It is, however, what #1+#2+#3+#4+#5+#6 says. This is a pure example of motivated reasoning and if you're unable to see that that tells us pretty much all we need to know about you.
It's a sceptic's responsibility to form a consistent counter-position. They can raise any combination of concerns about a theory. It's also not their responsibility to prove they do not have some kind of agenda. By applying these unscientific constraints to the sceptical position, you are acting to undermine scientific discourse, and only helping to turn CAGW into a religion.
what about all the other ones?
Repeal Gravity! That one causes a lot of injuries every year. Why aren't they doing anything about that?
Thermo-Dynamics. Really gets me hot under the collar.
There are others, but you all can fill in your favorite ones for debunking.
Rah Rah Congress and all other legislative bodies, countermanding fact since, well, at least 2014. Probably the Scopes trial was before that, but time is an arbitrary concept, so WTF knows?
You got one thing right. The state is evil. And by state I mean the government itself, not Wyoming per se.
If, in order to solve this problem, the liberty and freedom of the people in Wyoming to run their own lives and government needs to be sacrificed, then I will never agree with your "solution" to this problem.
If we must give our liberty in order to survive, then count me as your enemy. What good is life without liberty?
Oh and your all powerful government you require to solve this problem, if it's at all like all the all powerful governments that have come before, it'll have to destroy the environment in order to save it.
Very stirring, moving, and utter anarchist bullshit. Freedom and liberty have never been absolute rights, not even the Founders intended that extreme.
We all compromise somewhat on our liberty. That's why we build this thing called civilization instead remaining belligerent apes howling over water holes. We accept traffic lights so we don't run our cars into each other at intersections, and that pedestrians can have a reasonably safe method of crossing the street.
Your "right to do with what your own property" stops when your pollution starts causing others to sicken, or impacts the long term health of the community. Your right to free speech ends when you call in fake bomb threats or yell "fire" in a movie theater.
We are all temporary residents on this planet. Maybe your libertarian values demand that you don't give two beans for the welfare of your descendants, but they are the ones who are going to bear the consequences of our choices, for good or ill.
If tobacco companies sponsored research showing that tobacco was good for ones health, one would be skeptical. But what if 97% of all research by dozens of tobacco companies showed that tobacco was good for ones health. Would it be fair to call the skeptics 'anti-science?'
The public is skeptical of climate science for the same reason. Since most of the research is funded ultimately by governments and since governments tend to prefer results which justify an increase in government power, people are skeptical of government funded climate research. People who favor greater government control of economic matters will tend not to be skeptical and those who oppose increases in government power will tend to be more skeptical.
There is no mystery here and there is nothing 'anti-science' about climate science skepticism.