BNW???
I found a site explaining from the pro man made global warming side why they falsified data (although they don't call it that) (they call it changing the actual readings to better reflect what they should be if mankind and weather didn't keep messing up their experiments).
Which is what you do in very large experiments. Have you ever run a weather station? The temp in one can jump 5 degrees in a year... from someone cutting down a tree that provided shade. Or the paint getting old. Or down from getting a new coat of paint. Welcome to the physical sciences.
A quick web search revealed climate analysts make between 74k (Texas) to 105k (Washington DC) per year. I would like to know where your from that a bake sale raises enough to pay multiple 6 figure salaries.
That is what you pay someone when you demand a masters or higher (in any field but teaching anyway). There is no conspiracy here. If you can't understand that how on earth do you expect anyone to believe that you can handle the statistics behind removing outliers from a data pool? They remove BOTH absurdly high and absurdly low readings (including a lot of zero readings when the machine goes on the fritz)
BNW???
I found a site explaining from the pro man made global warming side why they falsified data (although they don't call it that) (they call it changing the actual readings to better reflect what they should be if mankind and weather didn't keep messing up their experiments).Which is what you do in very large experiments. Have you ever run a weather station? The temp in one can jump 5 degrees in a year... from someone cutting down a tree that provided shade. Or the paint getting old. Or down from getting a new coat of paint. Welcome to the physical sciences.
That is what you pay someone when you demand a masters or higher (in any field but teaching anyway). There is no conspiracy here. If you can't understand that how on earth do you expect anyone to believe that you can handle the statistics behind removing outliers from a data pool? They remove BOTH absurdly high and absurdly low readings (including a lot of zero readings when the machine goes on the fritz)A quick web search revealed climate analysts make between 74k (Texas) to 105k (Washington DC) per year. I would like to know where your from that a bake sale raises enough to pay multiple 6 figure salaries.
Hell, it isn't even a very good salary compared to other fields.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Again, a completely false statement. There are many peer reviewed, current papers that show the fallacy of the AGW crowd and there is a plurality of climatologists, if not an outright majority, that question the impact of man on the global temperatures. Also, how do you account for the complete failure of the actual climate to even come close to the computer models used by the AGW supporters?
Cursory searches on Google do not support your statements. Do you have an info to back them up? If not, I'm going to stick with the evidence I have seen, which indicates you're wrong.
And before you fire back "well where's your proof?". I've already posted many links in this thread. Feel free to quote and refute any of them.
Well, I just looked back at all your posts on this thread and didn't see a single link regarding this part. I did see this in another thread:
"A majority of climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming.97% agree that the surface of the Earth is warming
84% agree that this warming is caused by humans
50% agree that the temperature will rise another 2 degrees within 50 to 100 years."
Yet you offer no proof nor source of where you got those numbers.But let's just address the famous 97% fallacy:
97% fallacy
Alex Epstein is the founder and president of the Center for Industrial Progress. An organization that describes itself like this:
Center for Industrial Progress (CIP) is a for-profit think-tank seeking to bring about a new industrial revolution.
because
For the last 40 years, so-called environmentalists have held back industrial progress around the world. That's why we're helping industry fight for its freedom, with new ideas, arguments, and policies that will improve our economy and our environment.
Your "journalist" has a vested financial interest in helping promote fossil fuels. Literally. He works for an organization that promotes fossil fuels and is built around doing so profitably.
His article relies on cherry picking as well. The study included more than 10,000 papers and nearly as many scientists. Yet he picks out 4 quotes to prove his point instead of providing a number for how many they misrepresented.
Here's an article supporting that number.
In your article, it says that 1.6% of papers actually spell out that they think global warming is man-caused. Interesting fact, if you took a random sampling of theoretical physics papers of the last 20 years, how many do you think would fully spell out "we believe the earth centric model is wrong"? I bet it's less than 1%. Do you think that 99% of theoretical physicists support the theory that the sun revolves around the earth?
BNW???
I found a site explaining from the pro man made global warming side why they falsified data (although they don't call it that) (they call it changing the actual readings to better reflect what they should be if mankind and weather didn't keep messing up their experiments).Which is what you do in very large experiments. Have you ever run a weather station? The temp in one can jump 5 degrees in a year... from someone cutting down a tree that provided shade. Or the paint getting old. Or down from getting a new coat of paint. Welcome to the physical sciences.
That is what you pay someone when you demand a masters or higher (in any field but teaching anyway). There is no conspiracy here. If you can't understand that how on earth do you expect anyone to believe that you can handle the statistics behind removing outliers from a data pool? They remove BOTH absurdly high and absurdly low readings (including a lot of zero readings when the machine goes on the fritz)A quick web search revealed climate analysts make between 74k (Texas) to 105k (Washington DC) per year. I would like to know where your from that a bake sale raises enough to pay multiple 6 figure salaries.
As someone with a PhD in an earth science area, 71,000 might seem like a lot, but then again those people probably have a Phd and/or MS, alongside their undergrad degree. And they are almost certainly entering a crowded job market where its very difficult to get a nonindustry research job, and some of them will be making quite a bit less starting off.
After a year of searching, I finally nailed a postdoc that start next month, and that only makes 41,000 a year or so, which adjusted for higher tax bracket, student loan repayments, and high cost of living in the job location, means that I will basically be only marginally better off than I was as a grad student.
In contrast, a labmate left academia and went to work full time for, I think BP oil (it was one of the big companies), using past intern experience and his geology ms. His starting salary was higher than what I would make as a tenure track faculty member at most good schools, enough that he has been able to take several safari's in Africa and actually complain about not knowing what to do with all the money he makes.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
|
I myself am a Climate change Skeptic, not because i fundamentally disagree with the science because I do not trust it at all, scientists on the left and right both rely on grants and most grants are given by governmental organizations who have a left wing bias or by Energy producers who have a right ward bias.
The scientists that I feel are non-polluted by grant money are the Russians. They Study climate change because of how it relates to their bastion sea geostrategic submarine deployment theory, which depends on sea ice thickness levels in the Arctic ocean.
NOAA blew a big hole in the global warming science movement when it recently released a 15 year global temperature study that found that there had been no rise in global temperature in the last 15 years but a slight drop of .5 of a degree in average world temperature. Real science
Observation and reporting opposed to modeling.
Irrational people cannot, by definition, be persuaded by reason. Stop trying to reason with them.
Nod, smile, and move on.
Trust me: You'll be happier in the end.
I myself am a Climate change Skeptic, not because i fundamentally disagree with the science because I do not trust it at all, scientists on the left and right both rely on grants and most grants are given by governmental organizations who have a left wing bias or by Energy producers who have a right ward bias.
Richard Muller received funding from the Koch brothers.
Video where he explains the process of how he came to his conclusion.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I myself am a Climate change Skeptic, not because i fundamentally disagree with the science because I do not trust it at all, scientists on the left and right both rely on grants and most grants are given by governmental organizations who have a left wing bias or by Energy producers who have a right ward bias.
The fossil fuel industry is one of the world's largest and most powerful. It will have to become vastly smaller or disappear if AGW is accepted as true. That provides hundreds of billions of dollars of annual profits as a reason for the fossil fuel industry to try to influence the debate, and a vast amount of political and economic power to do so.
You see the situation as the same on the left. But there is no existing industry there, no reason for anyone to promote a particular point of view. Why would goverments, which you say are all left wing, they just are not, seek to produce science that supports AGW? There is absolutely no reason for them to do so.
I myself am a Climate change Skeptic, not because i fundamentally disagree with the science because I do not trust it at all, scientists on the left and right both rely on grants and most grants are given by governmental organizations who have a left wing bias or by Energy producers who have a right ward bias.
Have a Left wing bias----> Fake global warming---> Something happens-----> profit.
Can you explain how on earth that makes any sense, other than your insistence that the left is wrong on everything?
The scientists that I feel are non-polluted by grant money are the Russians. They Study climate change because of how it relates to their bastion sea geostrategic submarine deployment theory, which depends on sea ice thickness levels in the Arctic ocean.
You mean the same russia thats fighting with the US and canada over arctic oil rights in anticipation of the cap not being there?
NOAA blew a big hole in the global warming science movement when it recently released a 15 year global temperature study that found that there had been no rise in global temperature in the last 15 years but a slight drop of .5 of a degree in average world temperature. Real science
Observation and reporting opposed to modeling.
Absolutely not. The report said the exact opposite. Right wing media reported what you're saying.
A new study published online today in the journal Science finds that the rate of global warming during the last 15 years has been as fast as or faster than that seen during the latter half of the 20th Century. The study refutes the notion that there has been a slowdown or "hiatus" in the rate of global warming in recent years.
The study is the work of a team of scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information* (NCEI) using the latest global surface temperature data. Linky
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
You are right of course Big Norse Wolf. I am not sure there is much point arguing, the self-styled skeptics believe anything that supports their views and nothing that does not. Which is the exact opposite of skepticism.
One thing I do disagree with you have said is the issue was politicised as soon as their was a question of legislation. Technically, you are 100% right, but that is not all. Having it as a right vs left issue means you get a whole pool of people who will always side with the right.
Even this does not really make any sense. Global warming will hurt you in an identical fashion if you are a Bolshevik, anarchist, Nazi, muslim fundamentalist or greenie.
There is also a very real and cynical propaganda effort to muddy the water.
Naomi Oreskes gives a fairly interesting talk on the efforts to talk up doubt here.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As someone in the middle how on earth do you expect us to know good science from bad science? There are REAL scientists on both sides, are you suggesting we shouldn't trust the real scientists? I sure hope not. So the only course we have is to look at both sides data equally. Anything less is pure "faith" that either the left or the right aren't feeding you BS.
Since people will ask I define real scientist as someone with a scientific degree who has worked researching climate... NOT one of these horde of people with a degree in POLICY which just makes them a politician even if they pretend to be a scientist.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As someone in the middle
Some people say arsenic is a deadly poison.
Some people say that arsenic is a required part of a balanced breakfast.
I will be wise and thoughtful by taking the position that the truth is somewhere in the middle.
how on earth do you expect us to know good science from bad science?
You seem to be relying on your alleged ability to do that when you throw out entire years of science as junk because of... reasons.
There are REAL scientists on both sides are you suggesting we shouldn't trust the real scientists?
Yes they are. But when they're lining up somewhere between 9 to 1 and 10 to 1 AND it only manages to eek out the 1 position thanks to a concerted effort by the oil industry then both sides are clearly not the same.
What moves it from a reasonable scientific debate to something where I want to Gibs slap people is the utter lack of a sane, sensible, motive for deliberately cooking the books to go in a certain direction. What on earth could possibly be the motive? Look at the answers I;ve gotten for that question in this thread. They don't get any better when you ask them elsewhere and they are Poes law level bad.
I sure hope not. So the only course we have is to look at both sides data equally. Anything less is pure "faith" that either the left or the right aren't feeding you BS.
Both sides have the same data. You have to look at their interpretations. You have do to that as something more signifigant than "omg they applied a statistical model and moved a data point.. WITCHCRAFT!"
Since people will ask I define real scientist as someone with a scientific degree who has worked researching climate... NOT one of these horde of people with a degree in POLICY which just makes them a politician even if they pretend to be a scientist.
Someone liiiike?
Again, a completely false statement. There are many peer reviewed, current papers that show the fallacy of the AGW crowd and there is a plurality of climatologists, if not an outright majority, that question the impact of man on the global temperatures. Also, how do you account for the complete failure of the actual climate to even come close to the computer models used by the AGW supporters?
Cursory searches on Google do not support your statements. Do you have an info to back them up? If not, I'm going to stick with the evidence I have seen, which indicates you're wrong.
And before you fire back "well where's your proof?". I've already posted many links in this thread. Feel free to quote and refute any of them.
Well, I just looked back at all your posts on this thread and didn't see a single link regarding this part. I did see this in another thread:
"A majority of climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming.97% agree that the surface of the Earth is warming
84% agree that this warming is caused by humans
50% agree that the temperature will rise another 2 degrees within 50 to 100 years."
Yet you offer no proof nor source of where you got those numbers.But let's just address the famous 97% fallacy:
97% fallacy
The other thing I forgot to respond to. You'll know in the text that you quoted from me, I didn't say 97% agree in AGW. In fact, if you reread it carefully, you'll see I actually put a different words by the 97% number. By the words "caused by humans" I put a different number.
So I agree with you, I don't think 97% of scientists agree on AGW. The fact that you think I did, means you didn't actually read the words I wrote and rather assumed I was quoting someone else or following some sort of party line. Except I didn't.
Here's a paper dealing with surveys of climate scientists, it's a bit old though from 2008.
There's good data throughout, but the juicy stuff starts around page 46 IMO. Though the first couple of questions are very informative, because in this survey the majority of respondents have not worked with the IPCC. Yet when you get to page 60, you'll see very high opinions on the quality of work coming out of the IPCC.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In general, I think the topic focuses too much on the extreme outliers. Scientists with doomsday predictions for 2018, or those who claim the entire thing is a hoax. The problem is that by allowing those two sides to define the "debate" we have to keep arguing about whether the science is real or not.
Non-scientific journalists don't get excited by what seems like small numbers though. Telling people the global temperature might rise by 1.5 degrees in 50 to 100 years doesn't sound like it's something to even consider being concerned about. It sounds so far off and so small that there's no way it gets people's attention.
I agree with the sentiment that the doomsday evangelists are probably wrong. Because I think all doomsday evangelists are wrong. It's a pretty common theme in Western society to predict the end of the world. Sure, one of them is going to be right eventually, but it's going to be an accident and they'll probably get the cause wrong anyways.
That doesn't mean this isn't a dangerous issue though.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
As someone in the middle how on earth do you expect us to know good science from bad science?
If your looking for balance in this debate, it's not to be found in the conclusion but rather in the response to the conclusion. At this point, the existence of man-made climate change isn't really worth debating; scientists are pretty much unified that it is a real thing. The real question at this point is what to do about it; what are our reactions to it and how extreme are those reactions? For example, what needs to be cut back and how much? What are the economic ramifications from those cut backs? How much can alternative sources of power really do and what will it cost? What do we do about countries that point out that we in the west have already benefited from our industrial revolutions and it is now their turn at bat? Do we explore geoengineering efforts? What do we do about the meat industry and the methane that livestock produces? These are the debates that need to be had at this point; and these debates will require even-mindedness and a great deal of horsetrading.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As someone in the middle how on earth do you expect us to know good science from bad science? There are REAL scientists on both sides, are you suggesting we shouldn't trust the real scientists?
Absolutely, I'm suggesting that. Any individual real scientist is human and likely to make mistakes, and also likely, although perhaps less so, to be lying in his teeth. But this isn't a problem confined to scientists. When you are serving on a jury, and ten people saw A and one person saw B, how do you resolve that?
The answer that real scientists use in their professional life is to read everything. They specifically don't read just the articles that someone has cherry-picked for them in furtherance of a potential agenda. They also insist on reading the primary articles and looking at the data for themselves.
If you don't have the time or expertise to do that, don't worry. Being a professional scientist is a full-time job and you probably already have one of those. But there are certainly shortcuts.
The simplest and most reliable shortcut is to pay attention to the meta-analyses, since those are papers by professional scientists that summarize a large number of papers. A professionally done meta-analysis will list objective criteria for the papers that they selected to review as well as the formal structure for weighing the reported results, and the answers are as scientifically valid as any other statistical analysis -- and most of the time, much more reliable than any of the individual papers they cite, precisely because they have so much data to combine.
For example, this article "searched the ISI Web of Science for papers published from 1991–2011 using topic searches for 'global warming' or 'global climate change,'" so there's little potential for cherry-picking there. They found that "66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming."
If you can't look at the meta-analyses, you can look at the survey papers. These can be less reliable than the meta-analyses, because the author of a survey paper is not require to address every gaudy piece of nonsense published by a crackpot (for example, the seven papers out of every 1000 that reject AGW in the previous study), so it can be misleading about the actual degree of controversy. On the other hand, a survey paper that grossly misstates the consensus opinion will normally not be published precisely because that's the sort of error that is very easy for a peer-reviewer to spot. It's also a fatal error that would result in a paper's rejection.
If you don't I sure hope not. So the only course we have is to look at both sides data equally.
That's been done. That is, in fact, the IPCC's job. It exists primarily "to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts," and as such, is primarily in the business of publishing meta-analyses and review articles.
To a rational reader, the IPCC is one of the most authoritative groups out there. So if you are really pressed for time, the best way to know what's going on in climate change is, quite simply, to hot-link to the IPCC.
Something to note is that "look[ing] at both sides data [sic] equally" does not imply giving both sides the same credibility, or even giving all data points equal weight. Again, think of a court case. An obviously biased or apparently corrupt witness may, in fact, end up harming the side for which he testifies, precisely because people may judge him to be untrustworthy and dismiss his testimony as a pack of lies. A single maverick scientist with an obvious axe to grind is, in my opinion, nowhere near as credible as an ostensibly dispassionate group of scientists such as the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society.
Yet when you get to page 60, you'll see very high opinions on the quality of work coming out of the IPCC.
I'm not surprised. Meta-analyses and survey articles tend to be held in very high regard for precisely the reasons I outlined in an earlier post.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
As someone in the middle
So, you say "middle", here. What does that mean? What should it mean? If your two "ends" are a) the correct position, and b) a wildly incorrect position, it doesn't make a lot of sense to be "in the middle".
how on earth do you expect us to know good science from bad science?
Good science is, generally speaking, published in well-respected, peer-reviewed journals and supported by an academic community of researchers. Good science, typically, builds upon an established body of work.
There are REAL scientists on both sides,
Yes, but since somewhere on the order of 99% of the experts hold to the same general position, doesn't that give you a rough idea of what the truth might be?
A handful of people disagreeing doesn't make something controversial or even "up for debate".
are you suggesting we shouldn't trust the real scientists?
We're suggesting that you should trust the scientific consensus, which is very well-established.
So the only course we have is to look at both sides data equally.
No, it isn't. First, you're a layperson. The fact of the matter is that you are fundamentally unqualified to look at "both sides' data equally" and determine which is correct. And that's fine! I'm in the same boat! And I have significant background in academic research! This is something for the experts to debate and to hammer out. And you should trust the consensus they arrive at, just as you do with literally every other facet of your life.
You need to avoid getting hung up on the idea that both "sides" of an issue deserve equal consideration. Most of the time, they don't. Especially when the issue has already been discussed for years and years. This isn't limited to climate change. We shouldn't give equal consideration to young earth creationist biologists as we do to evolutionary biologists. We shouldn't give equal consideration to anti-vaccination physicians as we do to pro-vaccination physicians and researchers. We shouldn't give equal consideration to those who practice and advocate homeopathic medicine as we do to those who practice actual medicine. The list goes on. You are not required, as a thinking person, to give a person or group of people consideration just because they persistently demand that you do.
You are not required, as a thinking person, to give a person or group of people consideration just because they persistently demand that you do.
Funny how that works, no?
We shouldn't give equal consideration to those who practice and advocate homeopathic medicine
I love pointing out how amazingly bad dynamisation is, particularly at high dilution levels.
It's a personal fault though. I just love the math behind it.
Thank you Orfamay Quest for your advice. I will indeed look at IPCC.
Oh and thanks for explaining this misleading 97% really is. Really it is just 97% of the people who want to place blame or excuse blame... and so it really shouldn't be surprising that most of them are the ones who wish to place blame, it's just human nature. Odds are if you are a scientist and don't see any problems then you will be researching something else. The fact that only 32% (the real number) of climate studies claim human cause is the real issue isn't it... far far from the majority the left wants to claim. 67% don't place blame, isn't that the more interesting number? If the world is at stake you would expect far more than 32% of climate researchers to be sounding an alarm.
What we need to do 'NEED to do' is find the replacement for fossil fuels. The world economy is built on fossil fuel. Honestly I haven't met ANYONE (except for a couple left wing anarchists) who WANT the world to die. The guys on the right want you to have nice things and a good lifestyle... the guys on the left want you to be nice to things and have a happy lifestyle. The positions aren't that far apart. And whether we trash the economy to save the environment or trash the environment to save the economy the end result is a s%!!ty lifestyle which nobody wants. So we NEED do do both... we need to save both the economy and the environment.
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ok, fine, I'll bite.
How many papers in geography studies say that the Earth is round? Barely any. Clearly geographical studies is split over whether he Earth is flat because if it was important they'd be researching it, right? Or, possibly, most climatoligsts see the evidence is already so overwhelming that they've moved on and don't see the need to publish more on settled science (and 97+% of all relevant papers agreeing is about as settled as science gets on something being actively looked at). The science of "Is AGW real?" is pretty much done. Those researching it are trying to find out exactly what the mechanism is, not whether it exists.
Your understanding of Orfamay's point is so far off base I'm really not sure how you reached it without just grasping at straws to support a pre-existing view. I mean, we're talking creationism levels of not-understanding here.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The fact that only 32% (the real number) of climate studies claim human cause is the real issue isn't it... far far from the majority the left wants to claim.
Not in my opinion.
67% don't place blame, isn't that the more interesting number?
Again, not in my opinion. It's not the scientists don't place "blame." It's that the scientists don't discuss causation in that paper.
I may be an avid supporter of Ruritanian independence, but when I visit McDonalds, I order a Big Mac and fries, not a Big Mac, fries, and an independent Ruritania. While it may in fact be the most important cause in my life, it's not that important to the chick taking my order at Mickey D's. When I phone the radio station to ask for them to play more Clapton, I don't ask for "can you play Layla, and give Ruritania independence from Ruthenia?" And when I write a paper on analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidean metrization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifolds, I don't include "Section III. The Case for Ruritanian Independence."
If the world is at stake you would expect far more than 32% of climate researchers to be sounding an alarm.
No, actually, for several reasons.
First, the scientific journals are lousy places to be "sounding an alarm." Science journals are generally for the reporting of new results, or at least, new interpretations of old results. You won't see many articles in the Journal of Microbiology pushing the claim that "bacteria are very, very small," because that's not really a publishable result. While there might be some work in the discovery of a particularly large bacterium -- "I have just found a new species, Exemplococcus titanicus, that is the size of a soup plate" -- for the most part the readers of J. Microbiol. already know something about bacteria, and the readers of the climate literature already know about AGW.
Now, an article that finds convincing evidence AGAINST global warming (anthropogenic or otherwise) would be very publishable, and so it's notable that only seven papers in a thousand are even suggesting such a thing.. Possibly because such evidence is extremely rare, in the same sense of "rare" that one usually applies to Bigfoot sightings and unicorn horns.
Second, many climate scientists don't work on global warming, per se, so they won't have new results to report in the literature. Here are some recent papers from Int. J. Climatology;
* Evaluating changes in season length, onset, and end dates across the United States (1948–2012)
* Spatiotemporal structures of rainfall over the Amazon basin derived from TRMM data
* Climate characteristics and their relationship with soybean and maize yields in Argentina, Brazil and the United States
* Decreasing US aridity in a warming climate
* Assessment of TRMM-based TMPA-3B42 and GSMaP precipitation products over India for the peak southwest monsoon season
If I'm interested in studying the amount of rainfall in the Amazon basin, global warming may or may not be directly relevant to what I'm looking at, and I'm not going to mention in in the abstract unless it is.
Even something where global warming is relevant may not take a position on cause. Here's a quote from the first paper cited above...."Since 1948, late starts of autumn and winter have been observed while earlier onsets of spring and summer have taken place." Does that imply a warming climate? (I think so.) Does that imply global warming? (I think so, but it could just be regional warming.) Does that imply anthropogenic global warming? (I don't think so.) Does it imply naturally caused global warming? (Again, I don't think so. That sentence says nothing about cause.) So this paper is simply treating global warming as a fact, one to which the cause is not relevant, but it's still representative of the state of the science, one in which a warming climate is not something worth discussing because it's so obviously true.
Having said that, I'd comfortably give you twenty-to-one odds that the author of that paper, if surveyed, would agree with the statement that humans are a significant cause of global warming.
Third, the scientific journals are lousy places to be "sounding an alarm," because the policy-makers don't read them. If there's an issue of public policy significance that I need to discuss, I'm much better off trying to put it in a mainstream publication like an op-ed for the New York Times.
As Paul Watson pointed out, no one publishes papers in astrophysics suggesting that the Earth is round. If some idiot flat-Earther politician wanted to push through a policy based on the Flat Earth theory, the response wouldn't appear in the journal.... but it would certainly appear in the political statements made by the appropriate scientific communities.
.... such as the IPCC, which is specifically charged to advise policy makers on the state of the science.
I don't think it's "blame" that matters. It's that if it's human activity that's causing the problem, there's one set of approaches to take to deal with it, if it isn't human activity, then there's an entirely different set of solutions.Thank you Orfamay Quest for your advice. I will indeed look at IPCC.
Oh and thanks for explaining this misleading 97% really is. Really it is just 97% of the people who want to place blame or excuse blame... and so it really shouldn't be surprising that most of them are the ones who wish to place blame, it's just human nature. Odds are if you are a scientist and don't see any problems then you will be researching something else. The fact that only 32% (the real number) of climate studies claim human cause is the real issue isn't it... far far from the majority the left wants to claim. 67% don't place blame, isn't that the more interesting number? If the world is at stake you would expect far more than 32% of climate researchers to be sounding an alarm.
As I said in an earlier post, it's not even that. It's 97 percent of the conversations (climate) scientists have about that subject. When scientists talk about climate change, they talk about causes about a third of the time (and don't talk about causes 2/3 of the time). When they talk about the causes of climate change, 97% of the time they mention humans as a major factor.
How many historical papers discuss the reality of George Washington? Very few? Does that mean that the historians who don't talk about "George Washington: Myth or Reality?" don't have an opinion on that subject? Does it mean that those historians wouldn't laugh at you if you suggested that he was just a 19th century forgery? Similarly, I don't think there are very many Old Testament scholars who would suggest that Moses actually wrote the Pentateuch, but there also aren't very many who will bother to point out that he didn't. The publications, however, have titles like : "The Function of Place Naming in 2 Samuel 5–6: A Study in Collective Memory" or "For Whom the Plowshares and Pruning Hooks Toil: A Tradition-Historical Reading of Joel 4.10"
The fact that only 32% (the real number) of climate studies claim human cause is the real issue isn't it... far far from the majority the left wants to claim.
32% of climate studies claim a human cause does NOT mean that the other 68% are letting humans off the hook. There are dozens of other things the studies could be about from determining what the change was (from ice cores, tree rings, silt deposits, pollen counts...), to determining the effects of the change (at x degrees we lose New orleans, at Y degrees we lose new york) What you need to find for this argument is what percentage of studies say that humans are NOT responsible for climate change. THAT would make an argument.
The fact that only 32% (the real number) of climate studies claim human cause is the real issue isn't it... far far from the majority the left wants to claim.
32% of climate studies claim a human cause does NOT mean that the other 68% are letting humans off the hook. There are dozens of other things the studies could be about from determining what the change was (from ice cores, tree rings, silt deposits, pollen counts...), to determining the effects of the change (at x degrees we lose New orleans, at Y degrees we lose new york) What you need to find for this argument is what percentage of studies say that humans are NOT responsible for climate change. THAT would make an argument.
Already done, in the original citation.
"0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming."
Or, in other words, of the papers that made a claim about a cause, 97% claimed that humanity was the cause.
What we need to do 'NEED to do' is find the replacement for fossil fuels. The world economy is built on fossil fuel. Honestly I haven't met ANYONE (except for a couple left wing anarchists) who WANT the world to die. The guys on the right want you to have nice things and a good lifestyle... the guys on the left want you to be nice to things and have a happy lifestyle. The positions aren't that far apart. And whether we trash the economy to save the environment or trash the environment to save the economy the end result is a s#%!ty lifestyle which nobody wants. So we NEED do do both... we need to save both the economy and the environment.
In case you missed it THIS is my middle position.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ridiculous amounts of false information in this discussion.
The reality is that nothing about mainstream climate science is AT ALL controversial;
1: Different substances have different wavelengths of radiation which they absorb, reflect, or are transparent to. We all observe this in our daily lives... objects are different colors because they reflect those wavelengths of visible light. Back in high school we learned about spectroscopy... that thing where different elements made different colored lines. Watching cop shows on TV you'll hear about 'mass spectrometer' or 'gas chromatograph' results which tell them what the mystery substance found at the murder scene was. Et cetera. This science was developed in the 1850s and in all the time since then it has shown consistent results... each molecule always shows exactly the same absorption spectrum. So, in order for 'skeptics' to dispute that Carbon Dioxide absorbs infrared radiation they would need to explain how the entire science of spectroscopy has been wrong for 160 years... yet everything based on it (infrared remotes, heat seeking missiles, microwave ovens, et cetera) works perfectly. They have not even tried. There is no alternate theory. None.
2: Given that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation, more CO2 means more heat. Again, we all know this. Black cars (or asphalt roads) absorb more visible light and get hotter on sunny days than white cars (or cement sidewalks). The object gets hotter, it emits more heat. Common knowledge for thousands of years. No alternate theory.
3: Snow and ice melt when they get warm... and snow and ice are lighter than land or ocean. Again, common knowledge... but consider the implications. As increased CO2 causes warming there will be less snow and ice... which means more sunlight hitting darker land and ocean rather than being reflected off of white snow and ice. That means more sunlight absorbed... and thus even MORE heat than just from the CO2 increase alone. This is called a 'positive feedback'... the heat from CO2 increase is amplified by more heat from increased sunlight absorption.
4: Water vapor is a 'greenhouse gas' like CO2... it absorbs infrared radiation. We have all encountered this... on humid nights the temperature goes down very slowly and it can remain warm all night. In contrast, in deserts, where there is very low humidity, the temperature plummets rapidly once the Sun goes down. Also, the amount of water vapor the atmosphere can hold increases as the temperature does... that's why it's called RELATIVE humidity, the amount of water vapor relative to the temperature (i.e. 70% relative humidity means that the atmosphere has 70% as much water vapor as it possibly could for the current temperature). As the temperature drops the relative humidity climbs until it hits 100% and excess water vapor just settles out of the atmosphere as liquid... the 'dew point'. So, since more CO2 means more heat, more heat means the atmosphere can hold more water vapor, and more water vapor means even MORE heat... we have another positive feedback.
None of that is disputed by anyone but crackpots and the completely ignorant. It can't be... because it is all simple observation that has been uncontested for hundreds of years. Instead, the very few climate scientists who argue that we don't have a problem hang their hopes on 'unknowns'... maybe there is some magical unknown NEGATIVE feedback out there which will offset the incontestable warming outlined above. The only way to rule out any possible unknown would be to know everything...which we don't, so these 'skeptics' pretend that the situation is 'uncertain'. There is no evidence of any such magical unknown reducing the impact of global warming, but so long as we don't know everything there will be a few claiming that one could come along and change things any day now. That's the state of the 'debate' about the science... a handful of ideologues holding out hope for a miracle, and everyone else trying to pin down exactly how bad it is actually going to get.
As to the whole, 'fixing the problem would destroy the economy spiel'... exactly like fixing acid rain was going to... or banning CFCs... or preventing lethal levels of smog in major cities... or adding catalytic converters to cars... et cetera. Every single time some little adjustment needs to be made to protect the environment the usual suspects scream that it will destroy the economy... yet it never does. Because here in reality the cost of fixing the problem is less than the cost of allowing it to continue unchecked.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In case you missed it THIS is my middle position.
We know what your position is. We're arguing that your position is poorly grounded, because it is based entirely on the belief that the best position is the one that lies between the position supported by all the experts, and the position supported by all the crackpots.
That isn't a good framework for living your life, in general.
Ridiculous amounts of false information in this discussion.
The reality is that nothing about mainstream climate science is AT ALL controversial;
Almost everything you say is quite true.
Certainly anthropogenic climate change is uncontroversial for the reasons you give and likely others, and it has begun and is proceeding.
What is controversial is the course it will take. Nobody knows in detail precisely what course it will take- how much warming and in what pattern.
|
|
Joynt Jezebel, yes and no. In the sense that we can't predict the exact weather conditions a month from now we also can't predict what they will be in 20 years. However, just as we CAN predict that Winter will be colder than Summer, have less sunlight, result in plants dying, et cetera... so too can we predict the general impacts of climate change.
Basically, we know enough to be certain (barring magical unknown negative feedbacks miraculously appearing any day now but not for the past 150+ years) that continuation on our current path will get very bad by 2100. The fact that we've been seeing impacts predicted by Arrhenius in 1896 for decades now should make it clear that this isn't some sort of pseudo-random guesswork. The "pattern" of warming especially is very clear... faster warming at night, in Winter, nearer the poles, at higher altitudes, et cetera. Basically, it will warm everywhere, but faster at most of the times and places which are currently relatively cold. Greenhouse gases decrease the rate at which heat escapes the atmosphere (by absorbing and re-emitting it)... thus having a greater impact where temperatures get cold than where they are already always warm. The primary positive feedbacks are also amplified in cold times/places. The only real exception to that is central Antarctica... albedo (i.e. ice melting away to expose rock to sunlight) and water vapor feedbacks won't kick in there for a long time because the ice cap is just so large and thick.