global warming denial

Re: Re: global warming denial

epepke said:


The problem is that the issue of global warming, even compared the the generally abysmal way in which scientific issues are dealt with publically, unusually and stupidly polarized.

Basically, there's Group A, who is absolutely convinced of a package deal. Not only does global warming occur, but it spells immediate disaster in the near future. They know exactly what do do about it, are sure exactly how to go about it, and know that they're smarter and more politically conscious than anybody else.

The there is everybody else who, regardless of their actual views and perceptions, are variously described by Group A as Randroid capitalists intent on chuckling while they stripmine the entire planet, baby-eating monsters, or as you have put it, holocaust-deniers.

This destroys science, because science thrives on questioning, and the polarization makes it impossible to question anything about it without immediately being branded as Dr. Evil and Mini Me combined.
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You forgot to mention Group B. Group B is absolutely convinced that Group A is wrong regardless of the data presented and, thus, labels Group A as scare-mongers, doomsayers, or (shudder) environmentalists.

Then there is everyone else who, regardless of their views, is described as either "one of them" or "one of us".

Of course, the above are blatant generalizations that the people in between Group A and B learn to look beyond so that they can get back to working on issues that are important to them.
 
Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

dsm said:
You forgot to mention Group B. Group B is absolutely convinced that Group A is wrong regardless of the data presented and, thus, labels Group A as scare-mongers, doomsayers, or (shudder) environmentalists.
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That's the problem, isn't it? There are any number of things that the people in Group A could be wrong about without being wrong about the whole kit-and-caboodle. Some of the people in Group B might reasonably consider themselves environmentalists as well but just question some of the particulars.

But those people must necessarily be judged as reacting to Group A as, in your own words, (shudder) environmentalists. Because people in Group A know for certain that they can be the only real environmentalists, right?

Thank you for clarifying my point.

Of course, the above are blatant generalizations that the people in between Group A and B learn to look beyond so that they can get back to working on issues that are important to them.
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Of course. Most people know enough to stay out of it. Which is a shame, because it is an important issue, and we need more thinking people on the problem.
 
Re: Re: global warming denial

RandFan said:
If the evidence does indeed show that there is a significant risk to global warming caused by burning fossil fuels then you are right.

My understanding is that there is no such consensus. Just a fear that fossil fuel is suspected by many as being a significant factor.

Can you post data that supports the notion that burning fossil fuels has been determined to be a significant cause?

Also what if there is contradictory scientific data? Would you consider this data or dismiss it out of hand?
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The evidence supports it, and the vast majority of scientists in that field believe it. You can find scientists who don't believe it, but I can also find you scientists who don't believe in evolution.
 
Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

a_unique_person said:
The evidence supports it, and the vast majority of scientists in that field believe it. You can find scientists who don't believe it, but I can also find you scientists who don't believe in evolution.
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Very bad analogy.

Scientists who don't believe in the big bang, abiogenesis and evolution have no falsifiable theories. They can only rely on faith and mythology to provide an alternate answer as to the origins of the universe and the contents therein. While it is true that they can attack the evidence they are left with nothing "scientific" to answer the questions of, "ok what then?"

Scientists who are skeptical of all or part of the global warming scenario can provide competing theories that can be tested. Furthermore the reason for the skepticism is based in real world data and evidence.

Comparing the two is to be ignorant of the position of the skeptics. Instead of putting your fingers in your ears and humming loudly why don't you take the time to find out what that those ideas are?

Global Waffling: When Will We Be Sure?

Still, the subtleties have allowed warming skeptics ample opportunity to challenge the idea. Some, like Richard S. Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have built durable counterarguments, saying the links connecting the earth's oceans, air and "cryosphere," its frozen places, are impossible to elucidate with sufficient confidence to predict much beyond next week's weather.

In an interview, Dr. Lindzen acknowledged the arctic warming trend and slight global warming measured in the last century, but said it all is well within the realm of natural variation or measurement error — and not yet within our power to understand.

"This is a field that was in a primitive state when it assumed a policy importance a few years ago," Dr. Lindzen said. "Suddenly we've declared thousands of people in a primitive field as world experts, and they're trying to have their day." And reports last week that boats had traversed the normally frozen Northwest Passage and northern rivers and lakes were freezing later and thawing earlier were countered with the response that this seeming meltdown could still be ascribed to natural wiggles in temperature or ocean currents.
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Global Warming Part 6: The Global Warming Debate
  • Understand that skepticism and debate surrounding scientific inquiry can actually be beneficial to dicovering underlying truth
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Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

epepke said:
Of course. Most people know enough to stay out of it. Which is a shame, because it is an important issue, and we need more thinking people on the problem.
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No, the people who are doing the thinking are in between Group A and Group B.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

dsm said:


No, the people who are doing the thinking are in between Group A and Group B.
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Oh, sure. I agree with that. However, most of them know enough to keep quiet about it, except in a strict research context.

In all seriousness, I did real research on environmental issues for five or six years. My specialty was in computational science and visualization, so I collaborated on a lot of projects. Maybe five or six years out of thirteen were spent on environmental issues, if they actually happened in a block, which they didn't. Mostly meteorological stuff, from local thunderstorms to El Niño to global climatology. The rest was in quantum chemistry, QCD, economics, etc., even the formation of glial cells and neurons and rat brains. But I digress.

I'm actually proud of some of this. Once I worked with two other people on oil spills. We were the first group to show that an oil spill actually threatened coral reefs on the continental shelf, that there were inverse "plumes" of contaminants that went all the way down, hundreds of feet. We were also the only group that predicted the direction of an oil spill in Tampa Bay when it was happening. That's because we had a full 3-D model of the ocean with 30 layers. Again I digress.

But boy howdy have I learned my lesson. Even in an ostensibly intelligent forum like this one, I can't say anything, even in general, about the state of actual research without some Group A dipweed telling me I'm a Nazi or something.

So I mostly keep quiet about it.
 
shanek said:
As someone who has studied economics, I'm familiar with the highlighted concept and how important and useful it can be. I'm also aware of the dangers of using it to draw fundamental conclusions.
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I agree, but I was pointing out that Milloy was drawing fundamental conclusions without addressing the highlighted concept.

The amount of the warming that has been accepted keeps decreasing as more and more information comes to light.
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You sure about that? Everything I've seen falls within the .5 to 1 degree range.

The prediction of global warming is that atmospheric temperatures will rise before surface temperatures. That just isn't what we find, either from the balloon measurements or the satellite measurements.
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Brian the Snail's link put this in better perspective for me. http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html
^Based on that study temp readings done at 4-7km are actually going up, at 10-12km they are close to even, and at 17-20 they are going down. Besides the already menitoned effects of ozone depletion and volcanic eruptions wouldn't it make sense that warming would be detetected at the lower levels first? CO2 is more concentrated at lower altitudes and since it reflects back (more of) the earths radiated heat the higher altitudes would be getting less heat from below than before. (For the record, I just made that up, but I think it makes sense. :p )

That's the long-refuted "hockey-stick" graph, where the measuring method was changed just before the rise and the Medieval Warm Period mysteriously disappeared.
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I was actually just focused on the last (light blue) section of the graph as a direct response to Milloys comments about GW and CO2 in the 20th century. Here's a nice chart of various temp studies that includes Mann's and Esper's:
http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/millennium.htm
^Hmm, a psychedelic hockey-stick maybe?
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

epepke said:
But boy howdy have I learned my lesson. Even in an ostensibly intelligent forum like this one, I can't say anything, even in general, about the state of actual research without some Group A dipweed telling me I'm a Nazi or something.

So I mostly keep quiet about it.
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"Ego, aint it a bitch?" Not your ego of course. People are too dogmatic. I left the forum for an extended period of time in part because I was tired of people bullying others to accept a point of view. Being a rather passionate person I tend to lash out at those who I think are unfairly attacking ideas that I care about. This of course brings me down to their level. My only saving grace is the recognition of my ego and I invariably am forced to apologize.

I agree that the questioning of science is important and I think everyone should educate themselves about environmental issues This discussion can be an opportunity for some to see the issue in a new light. In fact, my participation in this discussion has led me to rethink some of my previously held beliefs as it concerns global warming.

Hopefully, some people, in spite of their egos will consider the opposing arguments and become less rigid in their thinking and perhaps understand science a little better. And ego, well, it does have its purpose.
 
dsm said:


You're (intentionally?) misreading what the article says (and there are a number of questionable points in the article), but what is your point?

:confused:
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The point is to hijack this thread and turn it into a political discussion.
 
I'm appreciative for the arguments on all sides. I started this thread (fwiw!) and would like to return my earlier statement/question...
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varwoche:
We could debate "vast" I suppose. Fine, let's just say majority. Does it bother you that a majority of scientific thought considers there to be a reasonable possibility that global disaster will occur? What odds do you need before you are concerned?
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I'm not sure this has been answered. Several of you have asked that claims like this be substantiated. (And rightly so.)

Any climatologists reading this? OK then, we're dependent on experts. Hence, we're not debating the facts per se; the facts are far too complex for lay people; we're having a metadebate -- how do the experts stack up, and which experts are unbiased?

As to finding non-biased expertise: First, there are many scientists with an opinion, not all are climatologists. Second, given the volume of information available, it only makes sense to discount the sources where there is potential conflict of interest, i.e. scientists who work for the Sierra Club or for the Cato Institute.

That said, here is an interesting article:

msnbc article

It states:
-----------------------------
Scientists by and large accept that Earth’s climate is changing because of the amount of so-called greenhouse gases humans are pouring into the atmosphere. Most of those gases come from fossil fuels, particularly carbon dioxide, or CO2.
And much of the scientific community thinks these gases are causing unnatural climatic warming that could have unimaginable effects on life.
...
Some 2,000 scientists, experts and government officials prepared and signed off on the broadest international consensus ever on the issue: a 1995 report by what’s known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.
Based on 133 scientific publications, the report delivered a widely quoted conclusion: “The balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate.”
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Seeing that burning fossil fuel impairs local air quality, and seeing that it is clearly in US interest to reduce dependence on foriegn fuel, and seeing that it is possible (probable?) that humans are contributing to global warming, and seeing as the impact of global warming could be biblical in severity... Where is the patriotic call from the bully pulpit for Americans to be conservation-minded?

varwoche
 
shanek said:


No matter what you do, there will ALWAYS be individuals and corporations with political connections. Bans on special interest groups just keep people like you and me from trying to affect meaningful change. The only way to avoid this is to not give the government the ower to do these things in the first place. As Michael Cloud said, "The problem is not the abuse of power, it's the power to abuse."
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When scientists only get funding from business, then they will not be totally either. Business is there to make money, not fund scientists doing research that has no bearing on their business, or even worse, indicates that their business is not acting in the interests of the human race.
 
Lindzen = Liar

The IPCC report states that "most of the observed warming over the last 50 years" is of human origin. It says that late 20th-century temperatures shot up above anything the earth had experienced in the previous 1,000 years. Michael E. Mann, a geologist at the University of Virginia and a lead author of the IPCC's past-climate chapter, calls the spike "a change that is inconsistent with natural variability." Lindzen dismisses this analysis by questioning the method for determining historical temperatures. For the first 600 years of the 1,000-year chronology, he claims, researchers used tree rings alone to gauge temperature and only those from four separate locations. He calls the method used to turn tree-ring width into temperature hopelessly flawed.

Mann was flabbergasted when I questioned him about Lindzen's critique, which he called "nonsense" and "hogwash." A close examination of the IPCC report itself shows, for instance, that trees weren't the sole source of data--ice cores helped to reconstruct the temperatures of the first 600 years, too. And trees were sampled from 34 independent sites in a dozen distinct regions scattered around the globe, not four.
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http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00095B0D-C331-1C6E-84A9809EC588EF21&pageNumber=2&catID=2
 
Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

dsm said:
You forgot to mention Group B. Group B is absolutely convinced that Group A is wrong regardless of the data presented and, thus, labels Group A as scare-mongers, doomsayers, or (shudder) environmentalists.
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:rolleyes:

Perhaps you'd care to review this thread and defend the proposition that any of us here fit that category? And look at all of the doomsaying that HAS been going on here, with NO SUPPORT WHATSOEVER. And when we ask them to provide evidence for their gloom-and-doom predictions, we just get evidence for increasing surface temperatures and CO<sub>2</sub> concentrations, which is NOT the data being contended!

And for the record, I consider myself an environmentalist. I'm just not part of the environmental movement, which has been coopted by anti-corporate Socialists as a disguise for their true agenda. BTW, the founder of Greenpeace agrees with me on this one.
 
Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

a_unique_person said:
The evidence supports it,
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Whenever I have heard ANY GW scientist pressed on the issue, they say that the evidence shows that average surface temperatures are getting warmer, and that humans may be contributing to it. I've never heard any of them say it's a foregone conclusion that we're heading for disaster in the near future.

There are people like YOU who claim that they do, yet when you mentioned a scientist you were in contact with who believed that way you REFUSED to post any of his arguments or pass along any of our questions to him.

and the vast majority of scientists in that field believe it.
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There's that combination of argumentum ad populum and argument from authority again. Why don't you present the EVIDENCE that you say supports a global disaster in the near future?
 
clk said:
The point is to hijack this thread and turn it into a political discussion.
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You do realize that this is the POLITICS forum, don't you?
 
a_unique_person said:
When scientists only get funding from business, then they will not be totally either. Business is there to make money, not fund scientists doing research that has no bearing on their business, or even worse, indicates that their business is not acting in the interests of the human race.
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Then explain why it was research funded by the tobacco companies that conclusively proved the health dangers of smoking.
 
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