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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.
The trolls are out in full force on this one. After all these years (decades) they still confuse the science (which will never be "settled", that's not how science should (and often does) work) with the POLICY. ("they" being both the pro-CC and the anti-CC (or should I say anthropogenic global warming?). I wonder how many here agree that ideally, our policies surrounding this question should reflect the science (scientific evidence)? The people who don't haven't much to contribute, as far as I'm concerned. On the other hand, the pro-CC morons would be willing to literally wreck the economy in order to reduce potential warming by 0.1 - the ridiculous Kyoto Treaty is a prime example - and note: its policy, not science. The biggest problem with AGW is that CO2 directly contributes so little - it's a trace gas in the atmosphere (tell that to the plants!). Its effect on the net global energy balance is due to its indirect (i.e. non-linear) effects (mostly). Which increases accurate models' complexity enormously. In the period 1990-1995, the pro-CC scientists were saying that climate is not meaningful for periods less than 20 years. Now they (a lot of them are the same people) as blaming a particular hurricane or drought on it - or should I say the media is extracting that sort of lame claim out of them? Anyway, its a moving target with their 2050 estimates decreasing with every IPCC report issued, and their own models constantly changing. I concluded long ago that their models were too incomplete to be relied upon. I forget, its 20x or 50x, the amount of energy stored in the Oceans compared to the atmosphere, yet when they speak publicly about CC, its always surface (air) temperature. And after over a decade of stalling temperatures, suddenly it's the oceans or its an artifact of the measurement statistics. I can't tell you if they've got a model which accounts for every sink or source which involves (globally) at least 5% or 10% of the energy attributed to CO2. I suspect they don't. Without that, their models are justifiably suspect. (For instance, the science of particulate formation and destruction, as well as their effect on IR (emr, in general) transmission and reflection is poorly constrained, and yet it has a major effect on Earth's heat balance. I'm a CC skeptic, and yet I also tentatively accept the consensus science as being the best we have, and to the extent that it's sufficient to show that delay is more expensive than implementation now, we should have policies in place to act now. In the book Freakonomics, it was pointed out that assuming the global total GDP continues to grow at the rate it has historically, then few of the economic consequences of CC should be addressed now - its better for our grandchildren (who will be much richer than we are today) to spend more (in constant dollars) to fix the climate then than it is for us to defer spending more directly tied to economic growth to alleviate CC now, simply because they'll be much more able to afford it. This thread does nothing to persuade me that the audience here is any more interested in having the best science inform our policy debate, than the average high-school drop-out. pro-CCers overstate the evidence and then pretend that their policy "solutions" are science, and the anti-CC crowd cherry picks their "facts". Same old, same old. Well, at least under Trump, we'll know that the Federal Government isn't interested in the facts.
You confuse knitted yogurt uneducated environmentalist activists with climatologists. The science says CO2 is driving climate change but says nothing about how to achieve a reduction in emissions. Sure the knitted yogurt brigade want us to live short brutish lives in caves to achieve this. Most scientifically literate people prefer the direction we have actually taken with a mix of better building insulation, electric cars, cheaper renewable energy sources, safe nuclear power, telecommuting, even fracking if it is regulated to prevent environmental damage - which it is not in America (Don't you think it is time to fix your corrupt politics to look after the voters instead of donor corporations?)
Live in an unheated cave? Or kill millions of brown people through sea level rise in places like Bangladesh? Fuck that, I think we have smarter things to do than either of these options.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
A bunch of academics found no fault with a bunch of academics. W o W
You know what is the dream of any scientist? Have their name immortalized in History next to Darwin, Einstein, Newton, Euler, Curie, Mendeleev, etc.
You know how to do it? You prove the scientific consensus is wrong. If scientists could prove the current theories on climate change are wrong, they'll be all over it.
I've read about the science from reputable sources and I have somewhat of a science background myself but even if I didn't believe in that, my own common sense suggests that it's more than likely that climate change is real. Why would I think that? We're burning millions of tonnes of fossil fuels everyday that nature has locked away in our planet for millions of years. Fossil Fuels in nature isn't remotely being produced at the same rate, our entire human species hasn't even remotely been around that long and somehow out of some miracle releasing that much carbon into the atmosphere by some miracle isn't have some effect? It's like saying oh well I'll just cut down the whole forest, it grows back right, no loss? The amount of energy Fossil Fuels release is incredible, I'm sure you've heard or thought of the expression you can't move mountains. Well the truth is we can and we do, thanks to this "cheap" energy, our mining equipment can actually move mountains. The problem is nothing is truly "cheap", there's always a cost even if we can't directly see it.
I also dislike the folks who panic and say the world is ending. The world isn't going to end with climate change but it's going to get expensive and uncomfortable for us. For my city it already has, they've had to spend millions for upgrading the storm sewer system to deal with a massive increase in nasty downpours in the last few years to hopefully prevent flooding and while yes I'm sure we've had this sort of flash flooding before, I've lived here long enough to notice that it seems to be an increasing trend. No amount of no it's not happening is going to save folks from being flooded. It's ended up putting the city in debt but no one thinks of it that way. All folks argue about is how taxes are going up.