Slashdot Mirror
Consensus On Consensus: Climate Experts Agree On Human-Caused Global Warming (theguardian.com)
mspohr quotes a report from The Guardian written by Dana Nuccitelli, environmental scientist and contributor to SkepticalScience.com: There is an overwhelming expert scientific consensus on human-caused global warming. Authors of seven previous climate consensus studies -- including Naomi Oreskes, Peter Doran, William Anderegg, Bart Verheggen, Ed Maibach, J. Stuart Carlton, John Cook, [Dana Nuccitelli] and six of her colleagues -- have co-authored a new paper that should settle this question once and for all. The two key conclusions from the paper are: 1) Depending on exactly how you measure the expert consensus, it's somewhere between 90% and 100% that agree humans are responsible for climate change, with most of our studies finding 97% consensus among publishing climate scientists. 2) The greater the climate expertise among those surveyed, the higher the consensus on human-caused global warming.
Quoted from IOPscience: Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%-100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al based on 11 944 abstracts of research papers, of which 4014 took a position on the cause of recent global warming. A survey of authors of those papers also supported a 97% consensus. Tol comes to a different conclusion using results from surveys of non-experts such as economic geologists and a self-selected group of those who reject the consensus. We demonstrate that this outcome is not unexpected because the level of consensus correlates with expertise in climate science. At one point, Tol also reduces the apparent consensus by assuming that abstracts that do not explicitly state the cause of global warming ('no position') represent non-endorsement, an approach that if applied elsewhere would reject consensus on well-established theories such as plate tectonics. We examine the available studies and conclude that the finding of 97% consensus in published climate research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies.
Quoted from IOPscience: Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%-100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al based on 11 944 abstracts of research papers, of which 4014 took a position on the cause of recent global warming. A survey of authors of those papers also supported a 97% consensus. Tol comes to a different conclusion using results from surveys of non-experts such as economic geologists and a self-selected group of those who reject the consensus. We demonstrate that this outcome is not unexpected because the level of consensus correlates with expertise in climate science. At one point, Tol also reduces the apparent consensus by assuming that abstracts that do not explicitly state the cause of global warming ('no position') represent non-endorsement, an approach that if applied elsewhere would reject consensus on well-established theories such as plate tectonics. We examine the available studies and conclude that the finding of 97% consensus in published climate research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies.
That fixes it.
Global climate change is happening now with current negative results https://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Threats-to-Wildlife/Global-Warming/Global-Warming-is-Happening-Now.aspx. Moreover, how would you feel if previous generations had taken your attitude about lead in gasoline or about the ozone layer because it wouldn't happen to be a problem for a few years?
A more accurate statement: 1. Over 90% of scientists think the Earth is more likely to be warming up than cooling down. Even skeptics usually agree with this. 2. Most of these scientists said humans had some sort of impact on the climate, but exactly how much was under debate. In fact, the consensus view at present is that the impact of CO2 is overestimated. Sources: IPCC using too many weasel words https://www.google.com/url?sa=... https://www.google.com/url?sa=... Sorry for the messy links.
Setting aside that it is unclear that 100% of cartographers believed anything like that, considering that it was known since Ancient Greece that the Earth was round, a cartographer, particularly in that period, did not work under the scientific method.
In any case, I am less concerned with the truth of the statement as I am with the effects and the proposed solutions. There's some pretty crazy shit out there for how people want to deal with the issue, some of it impossible unless you end modern civilization.
If the effect is that we get some more tornadoes and hurricanes and ice melt and all of that, its a problem but not insurmountable. We'd have to move people away from the seacoasts a bit and some island nations would cease to exist above the waves. Not good, but not worth chucking civilization for, since even more people would die or be extremely inconvenienced without it. We've dealt with climate change before as humans lived through Ice Ages and a Little Ice Age in recent memory. So, let's not go doing anything rash.
If it means we end up like Venus, that's a much bigger problem. I don't think anyone is suggesting that, however.
Carbon caps are shit. 1% increases in efficiency here and there are shit.
This leaves a few options:
1. A tech breakthrough in energy production.
2. Massive decrease in energy consumption, meaning a loss of lifestyle for a couple billion people.
3. A stopgap until item 1 happens. This means nukes.
Why is it we are not afraid to dump tons of radioactive elements into the air from coal plants (dilute yes), not to mention the ash and slag? We are not afraid to blow mountains to bits to do this: http://explore.org/photos/6235..., but we are afraid to set aside areas for relatively safe plants and storage? WTF is wrong with us as a species where we will keep giving money to barbaric warlords for fossil fuels, but not invest in better sources? Who is responsible for the drumbeat of fear that prevents makes this our current reality?
Silence is a state of mime.
There's some pretty crazy shit out there
And if you actually try to make some concrete suggestions that don't agree with crazy, the whole thing becomes a screaming match.
Carbon sequestration through reforestation: Good. But only if its forests in the Amazon where we can funnel money to indigenous people (and Al Gore). If ADM comes up with a GMO tree that grows faster and gobbles up more carbon, no sale. The climate crisis people just retire to their corner and whine. If the climate is a real problem, then we can't afford to ignore ideas that don't fit some secondary agenda. On the other hand, if we do rule them out, then maybe climate wasn't as bad a problem as some claimed.
Have gnu, will travel.
Who cares if the experts agree. After all, they are not the politicians seeking to get elected/re-elected by saying the opposite while putting cash in their pockets from polluters.
they are selling this hard. I mean when Einstein's theory of relativity was in question, did they take a survey and consider the matter settled? I mean that took nearly 40 years to have experimental proof, and they want to put it to bed now?
The theory of (CO2 forced) climate change has been around for 150 years. For the first 120, it wasn't particularly controversial. I'm not sure why we would consider it particularly controversial now, random guys on the internet trolling the science notwithstanding. Mostly because this makes for more views if the media frames it as a controversy, rather than merely pointing out what we've known for a long time which is that CO2 in the atmosphere impacts the climate, so changing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere changes the climate. Sorry.
The point of highlighting the consensus is to ensure that people who want to dispute the established science understand that they need to provide proof.
The problems don't start till 2100, and I'll be dead by then. Global warming is future people's problem, NOT mine!
This is the true consensus, exampled by humanity's action (or lack thereof.) I personally don't care what/who caused it, blaming is pointless. The fact nothing is changing to slow it down (if that's even possible at this point, science is still out on that) is all I really care about, and there's of course the 'I won't be around to see the effects.' thought too.
From the few articles I've read, it seems like even if we stopped all CO2 emissions this very instant, we're still in for some rough changes to the climate. So it's pretty easy to get on board with the 'future humans are fucked, no matter what, so why even care?' line of thought.
But again, blaming does nothing, it doesn't fix anything, it doesn't make positive changes. So just spinning our wheels doing 'science' to prove the science is right. How about some solutions people? And cutting emissions is not going to fly, we need a different solution than just cutting emissions, we're past the cutting emissions is gunna amount to much of anything. And it's never going to happen anyway, so solutions that work with the emissions are what is needed.
Who needs the scientific method when we have CONSENSUS? Let's just call it a day and go home now.
Improving the electric grid, switching to a grid supported primarily by nuclear, solar, wind, hydro with small amounts of natural gas will not crash civilization. Switching to electric cars and hybrids will not crash civilization. Reducing meat consumption will not crash civilization. All the necessary changes are small. And you can support the easy ones without much effort. You can eat less meat and take public transport or buy a more efficient car or an electric car (the new Tlsa 3is really nice!) . You can put solar panels on your house or improve your heating system.
You can also donate money in ways that will help. Good charities are Everybody Solar http://www.everybodysolar.org/,and the Solar Electric Light Fund http://self.org/ as well as the Wind Energy Foundation http://windenergyfoundation.org/.
That a few extremists have bad ideas about how to solve things is not a reason to ignore the problem or not take the actual steps that we can do to help solve it using good methods.
I mean when Einstein's theory of relativity was in question, did they take a survey and consider the matter settled?
That was about a subject of not large importance back then. Einstein didn't say that all industrialized and industrializing countries should invest trillions to re-design their energy processing systems to not rely on climate harming material. He did not say that countries whose economy bases on export of oil and gas should stop extracting in order to save the world. All he said was some theory about stuff whose influence you need a telescope or have to build satellites with atomic clocks in order to tell a difference. That was pretty far away from reality on earth back then.
Somewhere between 90 and 100% of /.ers are in agreement that this should be fun.
A recent meta-study concludes that the remaining 0-10% are actually correct in believing this will be a fairly shitty time, but are being silenced by a global cabal of carefree internet commenters who just want to have fun.
Nothing posted to
Every "denier" or sceptic I've ever dealt with accuses the politicians of trying to monetize it, and the scientists as being on the take. IMHO its a case of projection.
C|N>K
Of course your seemingly reasonable argument in favor of the status quo falls flat when you realize that the dollar cost of fixing the problem is actually less than the dollar cost of dealing with the ever-increasing problems.
Once and for all? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Science is not a once and for all deal *ever*. So odd thing to claim.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
The Guardian is a newspaper. It's reporting on a scientific article published in a peer reviewed journal. If you don't like The Guardian, you can read the original article (both are linked in the summary). If you don't like science... well, I don't know what to say.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Lets get on with it. Everyone kills themselves except for me and 30,000 of the most genetically fit women. It will totally work. Problem solved.
So who now is in denial?
How much the planet will heat up and what level is even harmful, instead of helpful, is very much up for debate.
Since the next ice age is an inevitability, it's a race to see how much we as a people can prosper and prepare before we are all encased in a thousand years of winter - which is in the end vastly more a danger than even the most extreme warming forecasts.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
here ya go
Why would Watts try to suppress a video calmly showing how his 'discovery' of bad weather stations was totally bunk? They compared the stations Watts' said were good with the full set...and the data from them was *exactly* the same as the whole data set Watts claimed is flawed because of the bad stations; which the gov readily admits have issues. I.e. they know about the issues and mitigate them as any good scientist does when working with imperfect data where you know the imperfections.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
The hypothesis is that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas; adding more of it to the atmosphere will cause the atmosphere to get warmer, and this is the primary driver of climate change from, say, 1900-2100. The greenhouse effect is undeniable, otherwise the Earth would be a very cold place. It's pretty damn certain that adding more greenhouse gases will cause warming. The problem is that the models (hypotheses of how Earth's climate system behaves) predict a much larger warming than has been observed. The models are run with a variety of emissions scenarios ranging from stopping virtually all carbon emissions (low end; little warming) to business as usual (high end; lots of warming). Our emissions have tracked at the high end of the range, yet temperatures are at the low end of the spread among models. While we're establishing records, they're not nearly as high as the models predict.
Turns out that this is not true. Not that it matters. To avoid "significant negative impacts" to the global economy and environment from climate change, we need to restrict the change to a maximum of 2-2.5 degrees from pre industrial baseline. We have already observed a change of approximately 1 degree. Which means we are halfway there already. It doesn't take anything other than high school maths to figure that we need to do something, and right now. The models are certainly useful, in predicting a large number of parameters (sea level, glacial behaviours, changes in weather patterns, etc.) they will help us save money by highlighting areas where we can mitigate against the effects of climate change. But they don't really contribute to proving the underlying hypothesis - that happened long ago.
Who needs the scientific method when we have CONSENSUS? Let's just call it a day and go home now.
Consensus is PART of the scientific method. It's the only way we actually get to DO "science".
Imagine "science" without the possibility of consensus:
"Hey, that whole gravity thing could be bogus! I know other researchers have verified it thousands of times, but maybe they're wrong. Let's just do some calibration tests every day in the lab to be sure stuff doesn't randomly start floating UP instead of falling down. After all, we can't accept consensus!"
"Well, I was going to do a chemistry experiment today, but I don't really believe that whole atomic theory of matter. I mean, there's 'consensus' on the idea that molecules are made up of atoms, and a substance has consistent properties based on that. But maybe water isn't really made up of H2O. Maybe if I zap it with electricity, it will turn out that it's actually made of microscopic gnomes! The gnomes could be magically giving the illusion of molecular structure. Before I start my chem experiments, I need to be sure my hypothetical gnomes aren't going to ruin the properties of my solvent. So let's test for gnomes every day!"
Obviously these are ridiculous examples. But actual science in practice requires that we accept a bunch of "givens" to actually make progress. Those are generally derived through scientific consensus. Yes, sometimes even those fundamental assumptions are shown to be wrong, at which point we have a "paradigm shift" (in Thomas Kuhn's terms) or modify the "hard core of our research program" (in Imre Lakatos's terms).
But "normal science" simply couldn't operate without foundational assumptions. Acting like there's no role for consensus in science is just ridiculous.
Now -- I understand that there may be greater range for doubt in the scientific community about how climate change works exactly than, say, for the basic idea of gravity or that water molecules are H2O. That's reflected in TFA -- the numbers vary from 90% to 99% consensus... I assume for gravity and water the numbers would be more like 99.999%.
There's still room for people to try to question the foundational assumptions within normal science. But TFA notes that for most scientists, they consider questioning the assumption itself to be less worthy of attention than refining the models within the paradigm. That's how science works... in reality. The bizarre pseudo-Popperian nonsense that sometimes gets spouted around here that "every scientific fact is always up for falsification!" simply isn't true.
If your lab equipment seemed to indicate that your water was made of tiny gnomes, the vast majority of scientists would probably assume there was something wrong with the equipment -- or that someone was playing a prank. And that would be a heck of a lot more likely than that they had just falsified the atomic theory of matter by discovering tiny magical gnomes that produced the illusion of molecular structure. Realizing this is part of being a scientist, and that involves accepting current consensus about foundational concepts.
"Denial much, guys? Do you work for coal/oil companies?"
If you want to see industrial-strength denial, just point out to a Church of Warminetics Operating Thetan that eliminating carbon would mean switching from fossil energy sources to nuclear.
become the leaders in the new energy economy
We had a chance with Solar...but the GOP stopped any grants to an industry until it could stand on it's own. Now it's all in China.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the historyWhen people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” – UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
"According to Google Scholar and Yokohama National University, Dr. Itoh has not published any work in the area of climate change in peer-reviewed science journals." (http://www.desmogblog.com/kiminori-itoh).
Also of interest is this which is the article which (for some reason) you seem to have copied verbatim. Not sure why, since the guy who was actually in the debate says:
I had a debate with a denier on Google+ the other day. He quoted 18 scientists to support his argument. But when I actually had a close look at them, they weren’t very persuasive. Of the 18, only 12 of the quotes were specifically denying man-made climate change. The rest were just peripheral. And of the 12 that specifically denied it, only 1 was from an actual climate scientist (Dr. Steven M. Japar).
Really, you shouldn't post things that can be so easily googled.
Well not every little change really needs to be about save the planet stop global wappa.
Just look at Tokyo I'm sure they wish they had started working on emissions controls years ago as its going to take something like 30 years to get everything switched out with things that pollute less.
But still yet its worth doing for the quality of life improvement alone.
Led bulbs are now well priced taking less than 2 years to break even.
In my living room I have 6 65w bulbs when I get them switched out with LEDs the total for all 6 LEDs will be 60w for all 6 so less than 1/6th the power usage for the same amount of light.
I'm not doing that to stop global warming I'm doing that because it makes very good economic sense to do so.
India is making plans to become the first 100% EV country.
And from what I've read they want to do it because it will be cheaper not because of some concern for the environment.
Yet all of the above will likely still help anyway even if helping wasn't the reason it was done.
So next time you have to explain to someone why they should do x for the environment start out with explaining how much money it will save them.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Ah, the usual bait and switch: taking a plausible but inconsequential result ("humans probably have contributed to warming") and then pretending as if any climate activist policy were justified because of it.
The climate crisis people just retire to their corner and whine. If the climate is a real problem, then we can't afford to ignore ideas that don't fit some secondary agenda. On the other hand, if we do rule them out, then maybe climate wasn't as bad a problem as some claimed.
You mean like nuclear power? I see this a lot, the claim is that global warming is the greatest threat to humanity, national security, whatever, and therefore we must have some radical plan to solve this. I then propose nuclear power and people go nuts, "we can't do that, people will die!" or some shit. Well people will die, we've established that. What we should to is make it so as few people as possible die and the people that survive can live a healthy and happy life. This is assuming of course that future nuclear power plants will blow up like Chernobyl did, which they won't.
Nuclear power has the best safety record of any power source we have. Big failures that happen once every thirty years or so make the news but little failures don't. By little failures I mean people falling from windmills and solar panels, people crushed to death in a coal mine, people suffocating from a natural gas leak, or people run over by trains and trucks carrying coal, oil, and ethanol. I'm not saying people won't die from nuclear power, it has its industrial accidents like any other industry, but fewer people would die if we used nuclear power.
Instead of real solutions like nuclear power we have distractions like wind, solar, and ethanol. Instead of actually solving the problem we have dictators with their hands out at the UN demanding money from the free nations of the world because the poor people of their nation are harmed by the carbon released by the wealthy free nations. Never mind that this money would never actually reach the people harmed, it would just buy them a bigger palace to live in. Never mind that these people would be much better off with coal power to light and air condition their homes, and things like clean water to drink and sewage treatment plants.
The problem isn't that these people are seeing sea level rise, or more extreme weather events. The problem is that they don't have the freedom to build a better life without some war lord coming along to burn it all down.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Explain? Why you can't form a complete sentence? There are plenty of scientists that disagree. There are literally TENS OF THOUSANDS. You just choose not to listen to them. The IPCC itself has lost over 180 lead authors since it began...they all left with the same complaint: the system was rigged to fit a political narrative. Science was being cherry-picked. The same corrupt peers are reviewing each other's papers. It's a mirage.
I agree with your sentiment.
I've found a few intelligent people who adamantly deny global warming, and their reasoning usually revolves around "If someone says don't do something or something bad will happen, it's purely an attempt to control you".
I somewhat understand that as the call against terrorism has always seemed like a giant power/vote grab to me, but then again we're all free to see the numbers of how little terrorism is a threat in day to day life.
The fact that different scientists all over the world do studies and come to a general consensus just makes them nervous of a global conspiracy instead of it might be the underlying truth, or somehow by default the more experts that agree on something the wronger it is.
The universal truth for these people is authority is bad and will always try to lie to you and screw you 100% of the time. I'm not sure how you educate against such an absolutist view.
It's turtles all the way down.
Consensus is PART of the scientific method. It's the only way we actually get to DO "science".
No it's not, the scientific method is based on proof and a chain of reproducibility. If you ask, "How do we know X is true?" You can find a paper, and reproduce its results. The paper is probably based on other papers, and if you want to, you can reproduce those results. If you want to, you can follow the chain all the way back to Galileo dropping balls off the leaning tower of Pisa.
As soon as you get to a point where someone says, "We know X because we voted and have consensus," the chain of reproducibility has been broken. Suddenly you are relying on the authority of the group, not on evidence. There always needs to be the option to reproduce, otherwise it's not science. Surveys are not climate science, they are political science.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Climate science isn't science.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
So a meta study on several crappy papers with significant methodological problems can yield a sterling paper?
Science!
It's interesting that all the climate science deniers do is complain about "crappy" papers when the studies that produced those papers are relatively easy and inexpensive to do? Why don't they publish their own rebuttal paper? Probably because they know they couldn't produce significantly different results than said "crappy" papers. All they've got left is to do is to nitpick.
Skepticism means demanding to be disproved by evidence. You seem to have the word confused with cynicism, which is being distrustful of the motives of others.
Generally I find that climate change deniers fall into the latter category.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
Whether climate change is caused by mankind remains a theory at best.
Great! So you're saying that climate change being caused by mankind has achieved the highest level of certainty that any scientific conclusion can reach?
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
Well, I do think this part is fun:
The new paper cites as evidence Cook's old paper (referenced as "C13"), which has been pretty thoroughly refuted by now. I mean, it's pretty amazing that these people can be caught red-handed lying about their methodology, beyond any reasonable doubt, and then act like nothing happened. The "C13" paper is utter garbage. I haven't read the entire new paper yet, but if it cites "C13" my expectations are extremely low.
And just FYI: I'm not going to argue about that fact. If anybody doubts that "C13" was garbage, all they have to do is spend a few minutes on Google and view the evidence. Deliberately (and repeatedly) lying about your data and your methods is a cardinal sin. Not to mention the just plain errors.
Anyway: as I say I haven't read the entire new paper yet, but there are already people ripping it to shreds. I don't really expect it will get much better reception than C13 did. But I do think it will be fun to watch what's coming.
I lump the people who are anti-GMO right in with the people who are anti-AGW, since they are both anti-science (when it comes to things they disagree with for non-scientific reasons, so yeah, anti-science).
I would LOVE for someone to come along with some real scientific evidence that shows AGW is bullshit. I have absolutely zero vested interest in it being true. But unfortunately I don't get to pick and choose when the scientific method applies and when it doesn't.
As an aside, the GMO CO2-sucking-super-tree sounds like a fantastic idea... is anyone actually working on such a thing? 'Cause seriously I will start planting those things everywhere like Johnny Fucking Appleseed (fun fact: actually his middle name).
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
Strange how the naturalist position is that species extinction is perfectly to be expected, even essential, in the context of evolution. Unless it happens now, where it is some sort of moral travesty.
Ah, the famous "it would have happened anyway" fallacy. According to your logic, we shouldn't investigate homicides and prosecute murderers, as people will die anyway.
Climate science is the same science that puts out the weather predictions every morning.
Basic scientific fact: all species drive the evolution of all other species, and thus form interdependent chains. Natural extinctions tend to be caused by calamities that hit very nearly *all* species at once, meaning the leftovers can start from scratch.
Taking out species one at a time however is almost entirely unprecedented in evolutionary history, and it happening repeatedly in a short space of time IS entirely unprecedented in evolutionary history. There is no way to know how the death of *any* species will end up impacting us (contrary to common belief: we are not special or any less dependent on the interdependent networks of species than any other). The cause of our own species end could be the extinction of one unknown single-celled organism we didn't even know existed. That is an entirely LIKELY scientific scenario.
The main reason to preserve biodiversity is because it's utterly impossible to even begin to predict the impact of any extinction on all other species -and we're one of the species being impacted.
Extinction is part of nature, but so are we - extinction should be something we, like all other species, try to avoid - not something we fucking cause. There will never be a time when doing so is not self-defeating to the point of insanity.
Seriously "things go extinct naturally so we can cause whatever extinctions we want and it doesn't matter" has about the same effect on a biologist as you would have on a physicist if you told him you were busy banging two pieces of subcritical uranium together to keep warm.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Solutions exist. You might not like them, but they exist : http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/... ... ;)
Smaller cities, less car, less meat, no planes, less useless gadgets that break after 1 year, smaller flats, better insulation, seasonal and regional food, solar thermal energy, photovoltaics, nukes,
As I said, there are solutions to both global warming and peak oil, but you might not like them. Don't kill the messenger
who the hell is Brandon Shollenberger , what are his qualifications?
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
As much as I hate rewarding lazinness. Plenty of papers out there that argue TCR is well south of 2deg per doubling of CO2: a position that surely will get you labelled as a filthy denier. What value TCR/ECR actually is is the ultimate 64 trillion dollar question that heavily influences what is a sensible policy response to CO2 caused global warming (mitigate, adapt or do SFA)?. Be careful handling subversive materials not sanctioned by your tribal elders...
http://link.springer.com/artic...
Suddenly you are relying on the authority of the group, not on evidence. There always needs to be the option to reproduce, otherwise it's not science. Surveys are not climate science, they are political science.
Exactly. Surveys among scientists are a way to derive policy from science. How else would you do it ? Have the President and Senate go out with thermometers and test it themselves ? Of course, scientists themselves are not basing their opinion on consensus. They are free to disagree and show evidence for their position.
Really? Insightful for this?
Just because we know the answer to some questions, doesn't mean we know the answer to all of them. There is plenty of good research yet to be done.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Scientists now are not trying to prove that human-made global warming is true, they are trying to quantify it, like they always did. The consensus is simply the result of error margins being smaller.
The error is still present though, and it is big, that's why now we don't know much besides "global warming is happening" and that's why research is still going on.
Quantifying is very important because we have solutions but none of them are without drawbacks. There is the solution of doing nothing, which may not be that bad, and there are ridiculous solutions like covering the oceans with white stuff and there is everything in between.
Solutions exist. You might not like them, but they exist : http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/... ... ;)
Smaller cities, less car, less meat, no planes, less useless gadgets that break after 1 year, smaller flats, better insulation, seasonal and regional food, solar thermal energy, photovoltaics, nukes,
As I said, there are solutions to both global warming and peak oil, but you might not like them. Don't kill the messenger
You missed the most important, and most difficult to swallow solution: reduce the population.. by a lot.
All for phasing out fossil fuels: many good reasons for doing so beyond any AGW impacts that can actually be mitigated by any sort of realistic and achieveable migration pathway. But cannot just phase them out, we have to replace them with an alternative that actually works. Renewables capacity to scale to meet global need is dubious, poor EROEI, excessive land use requirements, no storage solution to provide base load. If people are truly serious about the dire need to phase out FF ASAP then nuclear needs to be on the table.
You missed the most important, and most difficult to swallow solution: reduce the population.. by a lot.
That's actually what the nukes were to be used for.
As usual, Jane, you don't fail to amuse. The "people ripping it to shreds" is one guy, with what appears to be a personal grudge against John Cook and the Skeptical Science web site, complaining about one chart used in the paper with much histrionics and hyperbole.
Is this some new meaning of "ripping it to shreds" that I've never heard of before or are you just repeating what you read on some retired weatherman's blog?
Fanatically anti-fanatical
As I said, there are solutions to both global warming and peak oil, but you might not like them. Don't kill the messenger ;)
You missed the most important, and most difficult to swallow solution: reduce the population.. by a lot.
So are you saying that we should kill the messenger? Well, if it'll save the planet, I suppose...
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant