Another problem is the all or nothing mentality. Either do it in Java or do it in PHP. The reality should be to be selective.
The problem is that this is not a good way to build up expertise and a good versatile code library in a company. The result of trying to always choose the 'right tool for the job' is often a lot of duplicated code in a range of languages.
Certainly for customer/web facing functionality PHP usually has enough steam, but I suspect that J2EE's container functionality seems attractive to developers, but they rarely seem to actually exercise this capability and end up with a mess of JSP.
Why should JSP be any more messy than PHP? Why start with something that 'might' have enough steam - surely using a technology like JSP which is just as simple to code, but gives you the possibility of using more advanced J2EE capabilities is a better approach?
90% of the stuff on the web is just a bunch of SELECT statements and some minimal logic. PHP is fine for this.
Surely JSP is equally suited for such small work?
When you get to the tasty bits that need transactions and failover and loadbalancing with session awareness, then you can jump to Java.
But if you use JSP, there is no need to jump - you are already there.
We have a huge haystack to search for a needle we can only poorly define with poor eyesight and have anly piddled around about finding it. I find it no suprise we've had no luck yet.
I am still not convinced.
I strongly support the views of the writer Stephen Baxter that if there was intelligent life out there, it would be blindingly obvious, unless absolutely all spacefaring cultures make an effort all the time to hide all traces of everything they do, which does not seem reasonable to me.
I think we have great eyesight - we can see minute ripples in the light from billions of years ago, and we use that to test subtle theories of physics. We can see individual stars in distant galaxies, and we are now even measuring the atmospheres of planets around other suns. Nowhere do we see anything that needs explanation in terms of intelligence - from microwaves, gamma rays, neutrinos etc. - its all pure physics and chemistry. It is all pristine and un-harvested and untouched as far back as we can see.
I think there are two (remote) possibilities of how there still might be other intelligent species. Either intelligences move quickly to a nano-scale, with minimal energy requirements and they tend to stay in one place, or they quickly find some way to use other dimensions, so it is as if the universe we can see is like the bottom of the ocean, and far above us in other places it is full of intelligent life. These are rather far-out suggestions, but I can see no other way that the universe can appear so untouched and there still be other intelligent technical civilisations.
That's not evidence, that is lack of evidence, therefore proving nothing.
It is evidence. I have a hypothesis that all astronomical objects can be explained using physics and chemistry alone. Combine that with the reasonable assumption that any intelligent life even moderately more advanced than us would have some effect somewhere on something. Does the evidence support my hypothesis? It does.
There is a huge amount of evidence of absence - all observations back in time to the microwave background, all explained by (relatively) simple physics and chemistry. Would ALL civilisations have been so careful to leave no footprints in the universe?
I don't think your statement holds up logically. Even if innovation is greater (which might not be the case if they have to shut down research facilities due to high cost), it's not a win unless it's better than what we had before.
But it is likely to be. The problem at the moment is that the fossil fuels we rely on are going to become increasingly expensive, and are present in politically unstable regions of the world, and pollute heavily. We are potentially subject to an oil crisis at any time. It is good sense to make ourselves independent of such matters.
If we set ourselves back by limiting fossil fuels, we have to get something better than fossil fuels in a reasonable amount of time.
We already have - nuclear.
And in the interim, when the economy is hobbled, why aren't we burning the fossil fuels we do have?
Because they contribute to global warming?
Limiting fossil fuels artificially is not a net win for the economy, and you have no evidence to back you up, aside from handwaving about "if it doesn't kill us it will make us stronger" reasoning. If it were really true, why not impose all kinds of artificial restrictions all the time? The economy will do great!
We impose artificial restrictions all the time - things like legal controls on business and monopolies. The whole of the economy is regulated all the time. It seems to work!
So if we're coasting on a free ride of cheap oil, why cut ourselves off now? Global warming will be reduced as fossil-fuel burning slows. The problem might correct itself this way.
It might, or it might not. The problem is that there are positive feedback situations with global warming (such as - less ice cover, more solar radiation absorption, resulting in less ice cover): it may not simply stop as soon as we stop CO2 production. The less damage we do, the better.
Sofar there isn't even that much data to suggest we are alone.
There is a HUGE amount of data to suggest that we are alone. The stars are undisturbed. There is nothing that we see in our galaxy or anywhere else in the Universe that needs to be explained by life or other civilisations.
So, is it dramatic compared to climate changes that happened in the past?
Yes. Much faster.
Is it more damaging than if we just let the Earth change the climate on its own?
Certainly.
How much more damaging? Is it worth grinding the world economy to a halt?
What nonsense! Economies have always thrived on challenge! Innovation has often been greatest in times of war and crisis. Forcing a change in technologies (reducing CO2 production) is likely to provide a long-term stimulation of the world economy, rather that letting it settle into oil-burning stagnation as at present.
But you don't have a majority of scientists agreeing to those statements. You draw your own conclusions and then you pass them off as fact by putting words in the mouths of "a majority of respected scientists".
Sorry, you are wrong. I used to be a global warming doubter, but the scientific consensus has changed my mind.
What we really need are honest predictions of damage, and honest predictions of the costs to mitigate that damage. Everything is a cost-benefit analysis.
We have never had to perform such an analysis on such a scale before. We can barely begin to estimate the damage - the best we can do is wait and hope for the best.
How is that a humming bird, the size of a ping pong ball can navigate the EXACT path of his 3000 mile migration route every year? The same birds have been caught in the same nets year after year. How is that 300 birds can fly in unison through some reasonably complex path without one going astray? Why is that dogs seem to be able to sense fear, anxiety, and happiness, or detect tumors for that matter? It seems reasonable to believe that we posses that ability as well, however less in touch with it we may be.
Actually, these are reasonably simple to explain and have nothing to do with a sixth sense.
How is that a humming bird, the size of a ping pong ball can navigate the EXACT path of his 3000 mile migration route every year?
Birds use a variety of navigational tools, including positions of Sun and stars, magnetic direction and learned landscape features.
How is that 300 birds can fly in unison through some reasonably complex path without one going astray?
This is called 'emergent behaviour'. Birds simply watch the nearest few birds around them. If all birds do this, you get a pattern of behaviour over the whole flock. The same thing works with shoals of fishes.
Why is that dogs seem to be able to sense fear, anxiety, and happiness, or detect tumors for that matter?
Dogs have good sight! Also, they can not only see how we behave, they have an amazing sense of smell and can detect excess sweat etc. As for tumours, when that has happened it is thought to be due to changes in smell.
Now as far as the problem with they've had time to colonize the galaxy at even sublight speeds at least with probes, I have no answer there other than ALL this assumes other civilisations would do these things.
Yes, but I think it's reasonable - after all, life expands and grows. I think that arguing that there must be very few cultures and none of them expand is pushing things. My view is that technological culture is so rare that we are the only one.
Though I don't know we would have enough in common with such a civilization to carry on a meaningfull dialog even should run into one by chance.
I used to think this, but I have changed my mind. There are examples on our planet of intelligence that has evolved independently but we can still communicate in some way with them. The cephalopod (octopus/squid) brains and the brains of birds such as parrots have very little in common with ours.
In other words only if they are next door right this minute and not past the noisy stage we're starting to get out of.
Are we?
If you're assesment of our current detection abilities isn't shy at least an order of magnitude seti would have to be pretty lucky indeed (lottery levels at least) to pick up anything.
Only if we were watching out for everyday TV and radio signals. If we looked for a directed signal we could detect it half way across the galaxy.
The thing about space is it's not big, but mindshatteringly hugely enormously big.
Well, not really in terms of SETI. Even a very slow moving civilisation that drifted across space at far less than sub-light speed, spending a long time colonising each new solar system, could have filled the entire galaxy dozens of times over. If not organisms, then robotic probes could have done this. We are nearly at the stage of being able to do this. The galaxy looks empty.
There's no such thing as an independent scientist, because they all get money from somewhere. Environmental groups, for instance, have a very vested interested in making sure global warming turns out to be fact and not fiction. Do you think such groups are going to be sending grants to folks who are busily disproving their alarmism? I think not.
Do you have any idea how science works? You don't get anywhere by trying to falsify results, no matter who pays you. The only science that counts is published in peer-reviewed journals. That means that even researchers who are competing for money with you have to agree that your work is not only worthwhile but statistically correct. That statistical correctness can be independently questioned and verified.
Scientists are funded because they do research - they allow organisations to find out what is really going on. If you want to put forward a point of view, you should hire a politician, a PR guy or a spin-doctor. You are wasting your time if you expect a scientist to confirm whatever view you support.
It seems like most "scientists" these days start out with a hypothesis, and then set out to prove it no matter what the facts are.
Er - that is logical nonsense. You can't prove something no matter what the facts are.
..which supposes that the CFCs, etc. are the cause of global warming, which is the part that is, so far, anyway, more belief than fact.
Not at all - it is very well understood. The electromagnetic absorption and radiation properties of CFCs, CO2, Methane etc are very well understood. If you don't believe that CO2 can cause global warming, look at Venus.
Science is (and always has been) rife with cronyism, and group-think. Dissention from the group is punished constantly by ridicule and censure.
Absolute nonsense. It is not dissention that is punished - it is bad science. Science has always been full of controversy and opposing views. What gets funded is work that has a prospect of obtaining useful results. In most areas of science dissention is welcomed, and competing groups work to continually to disprove the ideas of others - that is part of the fun of doing science!
And yet, very often the minority, or even the one that sticks to his guns is the correct one.
Its not often, as that is not the way science progresses. It moves mostly in small steps. Even Newton and Einstein (who most people think of revolutionaries) built their ideas on the work of others.
The idea you are proposing - ignore the majority and only take note of controversial views - would not get us anywhere.
I find it hard to believe that computer models can't tell me whether or not it will rain on Thursday, but can suddenly "absolutely nail" the predictions for temperature patterns of oceans.
Yes, this is well known philosophical approach known as 'argument from incredulity' - to summarise: "I find it hard to believe so therefore it can't be true".
The trouble with this argument is that it does not look sensible when you are arguing against hundreds of experts who do believe something because they have been studying and researching it for years and decades.
To tell the truth, I find it hard to believe that hundreds of tons of metal can be held up by the air, but as I look through the windows, there go the planes....
A fact huh? And what data is this based on? The average yearly temperatures as taken by weather stations?
Far more than that now. Ice cap thickness, significant changes in the period of ice presence in areas of the world each year, glacier retreats, sea surface temperature from boats.
Would this be before or after the urban heat effect adjustment? And I thought people were still debated about exactly how much they should reduce the temperature by to adjust for the weather station's proximity to urban areas...
That is for just one of the measurements. There are plenty of other temperature sensor systems and mechanisms for climate change detection. One of the most obvious is the sea level itself, which has already increased due to thermal expansion.
Having spent years applying for them, I know in detail.
Which researcher would you give money to, the one that says he might be on the edge of proving a catastrophe is in the works, or the one who just did a study that suggested everything is fine?
This has nothing whatsoever about how grants are allocated. Grants are given to those who have published past work that has proven useful to fellow scientists, or who demonstrate in a proposal that they expect to be able to uncover new information using good scientific method.
Science almost never progresses with statements of 'fine' or 'catastrophe' - you may get small steps. A review of glacier shrinkage - an analysis of ocean temperatures. These are then either backed up or rejected by other groups over years.
Actually, the majority of respectable climate scientists think there is no evidence to support the "impending eco disaster" myth.
http://zwr.oism.org/pproject/
The number of signatories of this letter is more than six times the number of signatories of the comparable letter that provided the support for the Kyoto protocol.
Putting your name to a petition of questionable origin, based on a single non-peer-reviewed publication, does not make you a 'respectable climate scientist'.
Of course Spring comes earlier! It also leaves earlier each year as well. It is called the precession of the equinoxes.
But that has nothing to do with global warming...
So you are trying to explain an advance in the arrival of spring of several days per decade in terms of a 26,000 year cycle??
Of course, if you are trying to also explain the delay in the start of winter as well, you would have to have the equinox precessing in both directions at once - very, very fast!
When two groups of people are proposing a position, and one relies upon the scientific method, and one relies on a popularity contest, which do you think is the one with a more sensible position? Apparently the one that writes clearly-marked science fiction for entertainment, and not those that write science-fiction under the guise of actual science.
Why do you suggest that global warming is science fiction? The studies have followed the scientific method and have been peer-reviewed. That is a very strange accusation. Science is NOT based on popularity - its based on the ability to demonstrate repeatable findings. When these findings are repeated often enough a consensus is formed. This is not about popularity, its about what is useful.
Yes, look at it. Glaciers have been in retreat for 12000 years. That is what happens in interglacial periods.
This is incorrect. Glaciers both grow and retreat depending on temperature changes and precipitation. The fact you seem to be ignoring is that this is not a gradual retreat over thousands of years, it's a rapid shrinkage over decades.
First of all, I still doubt the "The earth is dying" theology.
The earth is not dying, and the expected degree of warming will do little harm to most life. The problem is that we humans have built our cities close to sea level and we rely on current climates for agriculture and water supply. Climate change would be very unpleasant for hundreds of millions of people, and cost trillions as cities are threatened by rising water. Even a few feet change in sea levels (which looks inevitable now) would be serious.
Clearly CO2 levels have increased but scientists don't really know if this explains the small change in global temps.
The change is not small. There may be a small change at the equator, but at the poles its much greater - hence the thinning of Arctic ice.
We very well might be in a natural warming trend.
We have temperature data going way back. Natural warming trends don't happen this fast.
those 'respectable scientists' were also the ones in the 70s claiming that the planet was going into another ice age
It is! Nothing has changed about that. We are in an interglacial period, and we don't know when it will end. Global warming may postpone this a while.
What I find disappointing is that once someone came up with a climate change theory, concensus took over and practically all others have been ignored.
They haven't been ignored. They have come together.
Maybe all of it is due to the Sun's output and if the data is correct about Mars warming up too, then whatever cuts we make in emissions isn't going to help at all.
Just because some global warming does not mean that CO2 doesn't cause it too. If the Sun is a significant factor, cutting back on CO2 will, of course, help.
Given that the planet has gone through several warming and cooling phases w/o any help from humans makes me question all of the hand wringing.
What you are ignoring is the timescale. The timescale of global natural changes is usually millenia. We are now seeing significant changes on a timescale of decades.
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Another problem is the all or nothing mentality. Either do it in Java or do it in PHP. The reality should be to be selective.
The problem is that this is not a good way to build up expertise and a good versatile code library in a company. The result of trying to always choose the 'right tool for the job' is often a lot of duplicated code in a range of languages.
Certainly for customer/web facing functionality PHP usually has enough steam, but I suspect that J2EE's container functionality seems attractive to developers, but they rarely seem to actually exercise this capability and end up with a mess of JSP.
Why should JSP be any more messy than PHP? Why start with something that 'might' have enough steam - surely using a technology like JSP which is just as simple to code, but gives you the possibility of using more advanced J2EE capabilities is a better approach?
90% of the stuff on the web is just a bunch of SELECT statements and some minimal logic. PHP is fine for this.
Surely JSP is equally suited for such small work?
When you get to the tasty bits that need transactions and failover and loadbalancing with session awareness, then you can jump to Java.
But if you use JSP, there is no need to jump - you are already there.
We have a huge haystack to search for a needle we can only poorly define with poor eyesight and have anly piddled around about finding it. I find it no suprise we've had no luck yet.
I am still not convinced.
I strongly support the views of the writer Stephen Baxter that if there was intelligent life out there, it would be blindingly obvious, unless absolutely all spacefaring cultures make an effort all the time to hide all traces of everything they do, which does not seem reasonable to me.
I think we have great eyesight - we can see minute ripples in the light from billions of years ago, and we use that to test subtle theories of physics. We can see individual stars in distant galaxies, and we are now even measuring the atmospheres of planets around other suns. Nowhere do we see anything that needs explanation in terms of intelligence - from microwaves, gamma rays, neutrinos etc. - its all pure physics and chemistry. It is all pristine and un-harvested and untouched as far back as we can see.
I think there are two (remote) possibilities of how there still might be other intelligent species. Either intelligences move quickly to a nano-scale, with minimal energy requirements and they tend to stay in one place, or they quickly find some way to use other dimensions, so it is as if the universe we can see is like the bottom of the ocean, and far above us in other places it is full of intelligent life. These are rather far-out suggestions, but I can see no other way that the universe can appear so untouched and there still be other intelligent technical civilisations.
That's not evidence, that is lack of evidence, therefore proving nothing.
It is evidence. I have a hypothesis that all astronomical objects can be explained using physics and chemistry alone. Combine that with the reasonable assumption that any intelligent life even moderately more advanced than us would have some effect somewhere on something. Does the evidence support my hypothesis? It does.
There is a huge amount of evidence of absence - all observations back in time to the microwave background, all explained by (relatively) simple physics and chemistry. Would ALL civilisations have been so careful to leave no footprints in the universe?
I don't think your statement holds up logically. Even if innovation is greater (which might not be the case if they have to shut down research facilities due to high cost), it's not a win unless it's better than what we had before.
But it is likely to be. The problem at the moment is that the fossil fuels we rely on are going to become increasingly expensive, and are present in politically unstable regions of the world, and pollute heavily. We are potentially subject to an oil crisis at any time. It is good sense to make ourselves independent of such matters.
If we set ourselves back by limiting fossil fuels, we have to get something better than fossil fuels in a reasonable amount of time.
We already have - nuclear.
And in the interim, when the economy is hobbled, why aren't we burning the fossil fuels we do have?
Because they contribute to global warming?
Limiting fossil fuels artificially is not a net win for the economy, and you have no evidence to back you up, aside from handwaving about "if it doesn't kill us it will make us stronger" reasoning. If it were really true, why not impose all kinds of artificial restrictions all the time? The economy will do great!
We impose artificial restrictions all the time - things like legal controls on business and monopolies. The whole of the economy is regulated all the time. It seems to work!
So if we're coasting on a free ride of cheap oil, why cut ourselves off now? Global warming will be reduced as fossil-fuel burning slows. The problem might correct itself this way.
It might, or it might not. The problem is that there are positive feedback situations with global warming (such as - less ice cover, more solar radiation absorption, resulting in less ice cover): it may not simply stop as soon as we stop CO2 production. The less damage we do, the better.
Sofar there isn't even that much data to suggest we are alone.
There is a HUGE amount of data to suggest that we are alone. The stars are undisturbed. There is nothing that we see in our galaxy or anywhere else in the Universe that needs to be explained by life or other civilisations.
So, is it dramatic compared to climate changes that happened in the past?
Yes. Much faster.
Is it more damaging than if we just let the Earth change the climate on its own?
Certainly.
How much more damaging? Is it worth grinding the world economy to a halt?
What nonsense! Economies have always thrived on challenge! Innovation has often been greatest in times of war and crisis. Forcing a change in technologies (reducing CO2 production) is likely to provide a long-term stimulation of the world economy, rather that letting it settle into oil-burning stagnation as at present.
But you don't have a majority of scientists agreeing to those statements. You draw your own conclusions and then you pass them off as fact by putting words in the mouths of "a majority of respected scientists".
Sorry, you are wrong. I used to be a global warming doubter, but the scientific consensus has changed my mind.
What we really need are honest predictions of damage, and honest predictions of the costs to mitigate that damage. Everything is a cost-benefit analysis.
We have never had to perform such an analysis on such a scale before. We can barely begin to estimate the damage - the best we can do is wait and hope for the best.
How is that a humming bird, the size of a ping pong ball can navigate the EXACT path of his 3000 mile migration route every year? The same birds have been caught in the same nets year after year. How is that 300 birds can fly in unison through some reasonably complex path without one going astray? Why is that dogs seem to be able to sense fear, anxiety, and happiness, or detect tumors for that matter? It seems reasonable to believe that we posses that ability as well, however less in touch with it we may be.
Actually, these are reasonably simple to explain and have nothing to do with a sixth sense.
How is that a humming bird, the size of a ping pong ball can navigate the EXACT path of his 3000 mile migration route every year?
Birds use a variety of navigational tools, including positions of Sun and stars, magnetic direction and learned landscape features.
How is that 300 birds can fly in unison through some reasonably complex path without one going astray?
This is called 'emergent behaviour'. Birds simply watch the nearest few birds around them. If all birds do this, you get a pattern of behaviour over the whole flock. The same thing works with shoals of fishes.
Why is that dogs seem to be able to sense fear, anxiety, and happiness, or detect tumors for that matter?
Dogs have good sight! Also, they can not only see how we behave, they have an amazing sense of smell and can detect excess sweat etc. As for tumours, when that has happened it is thought to be due to changes in smell.
Now as far as the problem with they've had time to colonize the galaxy at even sublight speeds at least with probes, I have no answer there other than ALL this assumes other civilisations would do these things.
Yes, but I think it's reasonable - after all, life expands and grows. I think that arguing that there must be very few cultures and none of them expand is pushing things. My view is that technological culture is so rare that we are the only one.
Though I don't know we would have enough in common with such a civilization to carry on a meaningfull dialog even should run into one by chance.
I used to think this, but I have changed my mind. There are examples on our planet of intelligence that has evolved independently but we can still communicate in some way with them. The cephalopod (octopus/squid) brains and the brains of birds such as parrots have very little in common with ours.
In other words only if they are next door right this minute and not past the noisy stage we're starting to get out of.
Are we?
If you're assesment of our current detection abilities isn't shy at least an order of magnitude seti would have to be pretty lucky indeed (lottery levels at least) to pick up anything.
Only if we were watching out for everyday TV and radio signals. If we looked for a directed signal we could detect it half way across the galaxy.
The thing about space is it's not big, but mindshatteringly hugely enormously big.
Well, not really in terms of SETI. Even a very slow moving civilisation that drifted across space at far less than sub-light speed, spending a long time colonising each new solar system, could have filled the entire galaxy dozens of times over. If not organisms, then robotic probes could have done this. We are nearly at the stage of being able to do this. The galaxy looks empty.
Look at it this way, can we detect earth over many lightyears just by searching for human activities with our current technology?
Yes, easily. With an instrument like Arecebo telescope we could detect human-like transmissions over hundreds if not thousands of light-years.
Here's a list of glaciers that are actually GROWING
So you won't believe global warming unless ALL glaciers are shrinking?
There's no such thing as an independent scientist, because they all get money from somewhere. Environmental groups, for instance, have a very vested interested in making sure global warming turns out to be fact and not fiction. Do you think such groups are going to be sending grants to folks who are busily disproving their alarmism? I think not.
Do you have any idea how science works? You don't get anywhere by trying to falsify results, no matter who pays you. The only science that counts is published in peer-reviewed journals. That means that even researchers who are competing for money with you have to agree that your work is not only worthwhile but statistically correct. That statistical correctness can be independently questioned and verified.
Scientists are funded because they do research - they allow organisations to find out what is really going on. If you want to put forward a point of view, you should hire a politician, a PR guy or a spin-doctor. You are wasting your time if you expect a scientist to confirm whatever view you support.
It seems like most "scientists" these days start out with a hypothesis, and then set out to prove it no matter what the facts are.
Er - that is logical nonsense. You can't prove something no matter what the facts are.
..which supposes that the CFCs, etc. are the cause of global warming, which is the part that is, so far, anyway, more belief than fact.
Not at all - it is very well understood. The electromagnetic absorption and radiation properties of CFCs, CO2, Methane etc are very well understood. If you don't believe that CO2 can cause global warming, look at Venus.
Science is (and always has been) rife with cronyism, and group-think. Dissention from the group is punished constantly by ridicule and censure.
Absolute nonsense. It is not dissention that is punished - it is bad science. Science has always been full of controversy and opposing views. What gets funded is work that has a prospect of obtaining useful results. In most areas of science dissention is welcomed, and competing groups work to continually to disprove the ideas of others - that is part of the fun of doing science!
And yet, very often the minority, or even the one that sticks to his guns is the correct one.
Its not often, as that is not the way science progresses. It moves mostly in small steps. Even Newton and Einstein (who most people think of revolutionaries) built their ideas on the work of others.
The idea you are proposing - ignore the majority and only take note of controversial views - would not get us anywhere.
I find it hard to believe that computer models can't tell me whether or not it will rain on Thursday, but can suddenly "absolutely nail" the predictions for temperature patterns of oceans.
Yes, this is well known philosophical approach known as 'argument from incredulity' - to summarise: "I find it hard to believe so therefore it can't be true".
The trouble with this argument is that it does not look sensible when you are arguing against hundreds of experts who do believe something because they have been studying and researching it for years and decades.
To tell the truth, I find it hard to believe that hundreds of tons of metal can be held up by the air, but as I look through the windows, there go the planes....
A fact huh? And what data is this based on? The average yearly temperatures as taken by weather stations?
Far more than that now. Ice cap thickness, significant changes in the period of ice presence in areas of the world each year, glacier retreats, sea surface temperature from boats.
Would this be before or after the urban heat effect adjustment? And I thought people were still debated about exactly how much they should reduce the temperature by to adjust for the weather station's proximity to urban areas...
That is for just one of the measurements. There are plenty of other temperature sensor systems and mechanisms for climate change detection. One of the most obvious is the sea level itself, which has already increased due to thermal expansion.
And where do you think research grants come from?
Having spent years applying for them, I know in detail.
Which researcher would you give money to, the one that says he might be on the edge of proving a catastrophe is in the works, or the one who just did a study that suggested everything is fine?
This has nothing whatsoever about how grants are allocated. Grants are given to those who have published past work that has proven useful to fellow scientists, or who demonstrate in a proposal that they expect to be able to uncover new information using good scientific method.
Science almost never progresses with statements of 'fine' or 'catastrophe' - you may get small steps. A review of glacier shrinkage - an analysis of ocean temperatures. These are then either backed up or rejected by other groups over years.
Actually, the majority of respectable climate scientists think there is no evidence to support the "impending eco disaster" myth.
http://zwr.oism.org/pproject/
The number of signatories of this letter is more than six times the number of signatories of the comparable letter that provided the support for the Kyoto protocol.
Putting your name to a petition of questionable origin, based on a single non-peer-reviewed publication, does not make you a 'respectable climate scientist'.
Of course Spring comes earlier! It also leaves earlier each year as well. It is called the precession of the equinoxes.
But that has nothing to do with global warming...
So you are trying to explain an advance in the arrival of spring of several days per decade in terms of a 26,000 year cycle??
Of course, if you are trying to also explain the delay in the start of winter as well, you would have to have the equinox precessing in both directions at once - very, very fast!
When two groups of people are proposing a position, and one relies upon the scientific method, and one relies on a popularity contest, which do you think is the one with a more sensible position? Apparently the one that writes clearly-marked science fiction for entertainment, and not those that write science-fiction under the guise of actual science.
Why do you suggest that global warming is science fiction? The studies have followed the scientific method and have been peer-reviewed. That is a very strange accusation. Science is NOT based on popularity - its based on the ability to demonstrate repeatable findings. When these findings are repeated often enough a consensus is formed. This is not about popularity, its about what is useful.
Yes, look at it. Glaciers have been in retreat for 12000 years. That is what happens in interglacial periods.
This is incorrect. Glaciers both grow and retreat depending on temperature changes and precipitation. The fact you seem to be ignoring is that this is not a gradual retreat over thousands of years, it's a rapid shrinkage over decades.
First of all, I still doubt the "The earth is dying" theology.
The earth is not dying, and the expected degree of warming will do little harm to most life. The problem is that we humans have built our cities close to sea level and we rely on current climates for agriculture and water supply. Climate change would be very unpleasant for hundreds of millions of people, and cost trillions as cities are threatened by rising water. Even a few feet change in sea levels (which looks inevitable now) would be serious.
Clearly CO2 levels have increased but scientists don't really know if this explains the small change in global temps.
The change is not small. There may be a small change at the equator, but at the poles its much greater - hence the thinning of Arctic ice.
We very well might be in a natural warming trend.
We have temperature data going way back. Natural warming trends don't happen this fast.
those 'respectable scientists' were also the ones in the 70s claiming that the planet was going into another ice age
It is! Nothing has changed about that. We are in an interglacial period, and we don't know when it will end. Global warming may postpone this a while.
What I find disappointing is that once someone came up with a climate change theory, concensus took over and practically all others have been ignored.
They haven't been ignored. They have come together.
Maybe all of it is due to the Sun's output and if the data is correct about Mars warming up too, then whatever cuts we make in emissions isn't going to help at all.
Just because some global warming does not mean that CO2 doesn't cause it too. If the Sun is a significant factor, cutting back on CO2 will, of course, help.
Given that the planet has gone through several warming and cooling phases w/o any help from humans makes me question all of the hand wringing.
What you are ignoring is the timescale. The timescale of global natural changes is usually millenia. We are now seeing significant changes on a timescale of decades.
Huh? A majority of respectable scientists are saying doom is around the corner? I don't think so.
Ignoring this fact won't help. The term used is not 'doom', but dramatic and damaging climate change.
Glaciers shrink and the grow all over the World,
True. The problem is that most are shrinking, and on a timescale of decades.