Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources Site No Longer Says Humans Cause Climate Change (theverge.com)

The website of Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources has been updated with new language and no longer says that humans and greenhouse emissions cause climate change. Instead, the site says that the causes of global warming "are being debated and researched by academic entities." The problem is that almost all climate scientists agree that human-made greenhouse gases are responsible for climate change, and that global warming is a big issue that needs to be addressed. Prior to the revision, the site said "human activities that increase heat-trapping ("green house") gases are the main cause." The Verge reports: DNR spokesperson Jim Dick told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in an email that the "updated page reflects our position on this topic that we have communicated for years, that our agency regularly must respond to a variety of environmental and human stressors from drought, flooding, wind events to changing demographics." This does not address the question of why the new language implies that we do not know what causes climate change. This is the latest anti-environment move from Wisconsin's government, which has de-emphasized global warming since Republican Gov. Scott Walker took office in 2011. So far, Wisconsin is the only state that appears to be revising its website, but more states could follow suit now that it's clear climate science will be attacked under President-elect Donald Trump.

Comments

Misleading Summary

[hackwrench]

I did not read the article, but the website does not say that the causes of "global warming" are being debated, just unspecified changes, of which global warming is only a portion. I doubt I need to point out also that global warming and climate change are not the same thing, but there you go.

Just the same old Republican strategy

[Patent Lover]

If you repeat a lie long enough it becomes fact.

Re:Just the same old Republican strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

The same can be easily said of Democrats or climate the pushers (you know the same ones pushing in the 70's that the earth was cooling and that we'd be out of oil shortly). I guess that lie didn't work out so they needed a new one to push there agenda....

Re:Just the same old Republican strategy

[hey!]

In fact from the mid 40s to around around 1980 there actually was a slight decrease in measured temperature at surface stations around the globe, although not to early 20th C levels. This was due to the rise of SO2 above many of the temperature stations, which reduced sunlight reaching the surface. You probably aren't old enough to remember, but this is what cities often looked like in the 60s.

So in the mid 60s the future direction of climate was still somewhat open. On one hand increasing CO2 (by then measurable) was warming the Earth; on the other natural variations in the Earth's orbit and increased SO2 would have a cooling effect. The question was which effect would prevail. By the mid 70s the vast majority of papers concluded that the balance would tip toward warming, successfully predicting the warming seen after 1980 before it actually happened. Of course public understanding of the current state of science is usually a decade or more out of date. In the case of AGW, almost nobody outside of Earth Sciences was aware of the newly emerged consensus until An Incovenient Truth came out -- which left people feeling blindsided. But you can go back in Google Scholar and watch that consensus emerge some thirty years earlier. I was aware of it in the 80s because I'd married a geophysicist.

As for peak oil that's a much tougher nut to crack because it depends on predictions of future oil recovery technologies and the discovery of future energy reserves. If technology hadn't improved since the 1970s we'd surely be looking at much more expensive petroleum. Economists have never predicted we'll "run out of oil", by the way, because that's not how markets work. What will happen is oil will someday become too expensive to use to power things like cars. We're still headed there eventually, but nobody can say exactly when.

Re:Just the same old Republican strategy

[brit74]

Here's a video on the subject of 1970s "global cooling" for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Studies of the scientific literature in the 1970s reveal 7 papers suggesting global cooling (but not an ice age). They also found 44 papers suggesting global warming.

If you don't watch the video, then it proves that you are deliberately remaining ignorant on the subject. And if you're going to remain deliberately ignorant on the subject, then you should stop talking about it.

One you read what the facts really are, you realize just how much climate deniers are lying about the facts. Why would they do that? Because the right-wing media hates democrats, and the oil companies are giving them a global warming conspiracy story to legitimize their hatred. Why would oil companies do that? Because there's trillions of dollars of oil reserves still in the ground, and if people keep pumping it, they're going to be very, very rich - like trillions of dollars rich.

Re: we saw that the science was falsified by the C

[Anonymous Coward]

Untrue.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy

Re:variables that affect climate

[PopeRatzo]

Climate change alarmists are doubling down on more command and control.

Reading this article, I don't see that it's "climate change alarmists" that are scrubbing references to AGW from public documents.

It kind of sounds like the climate deniers are the ones trying to exercise command and control.

In Florida, the GOP government went so far as to ban the term "climate change".

http://www.miamiherald.com/new...

Re: Just because there is no evicence..

[cfalcon]

> Science is a democracy

Science is most assuredly not a democracy. Leaders may be determined by geography, tradition, and popularity, but truth is not determined in such a way.

Re: we saw that the science was falsified by the C

[Namarrgon]

Since you refuse to look at the evidence for yourself, the eight major investigations that cleared CRU of any scientific misconduct include:

  - House of Commons Science and Technology Committee: "the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact"

  - Independent Climate Change Review: "we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt."

  - International Science Assessment Panel: "We found absolutely no evidence of impropriety whatsoever"

  - Pennsylvania State University first panel and second panel: "Dr. Michael E. Mann did not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community"

  - United States Environmental Protection Agency: CRU critics came to "faulty scientific conclusions" and "resorted to hyperbole."

  - Department of Commerce: "We did not find any evidence that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data or failed to adhere to appropriate peer review procedures"

- National Science Foundation: "We found no basis to conclude that the emails were evidence of research misconduct or that they pointed to such evidence."

Re: we saw that the science was falsified by the C

[VernonNemitz]

This is more of an addendum to the just-above msg, than a reply.
Fact One: Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. It is more transparent to frequencies of visible light than frequencies of infrared light.
Fact Two: The total content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been increasing as a result of human activities. The two largest sources are the burning of fossil fuels, and the production of concrete.
Fact Three: The exact amount of greenhouse effect of existing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is unknown. We only know that it must be some magnitude greater than zero. See Fact One.
Fact Four: Adding still-more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere can only increase the existing greenhouse effect. See Fact One.
Question: On what basis could it be called a "good thing" to keep increasing the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

Re: we saw that the science was falsified by the C

[GrumpySteen]

If you'd bothered looking at any of those links, you'd have seen that half of them are to statements by government organizations that are filled with politicians and bureaucrats which are about as far from academics as you can get.