Global temperatures have not increased in a decade, which was not predicted by global warming models:
For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
We know that the warming couldn’t have been due to solar activity, but some climate skeptic scientists are wondering whether it has to do with the oceans:
According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated.
The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO).
For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too.
But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down.
These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years.
So could global temperatures follow? The global cooling from 1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold Pacific cycles.
Professor Easterbrook says: “The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling.”
But, of course, global warming advocates do not suggest that every year will be warmer than the one before. It’s a general trend, not a straight line:
The UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre, responsible for future climate predictions, says it incorporates solar variation and ocean cycles into its climate models, and that they are nothing new.
In fact, the centre says they are just two of the whole host of known factors that influence global temperatures – all of which are accounted for by its models.
In addition, say Met Office scientists, temperatures have never increased in a straight line, and there will always be periods of slower warming, or even temporary cooling.
What is crucial, they say, is the long-term trend in global temperatures. And that, according to the Met office data, is clearly up.
To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.
What do you think about global warming? Is there any doubt in your mind that (1) it is happening and (2) it is being caused mostly by man?
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86 Comments
I’ve always had my doubts, though it’s clear the preponderance of experts say it’s happening and, at least to some degree, it’s caused by man. I pretty much go by that.
What bothers me is that “global warming” has become very much an article of faith within a skeptical community that sometimes doesn’t seem very skeptical at all. We’ve hitched out wagon to this horse and if it turns out to be dead, the Creationists will jump all over it and yell with glee, “You see! Science blows it again!”
Ugh. Why is it that fringe lunatics, be it within religion or science, drives the media picture with crap like this? There is as much evidence for global warming as there is for evolution, and I think the analogy is quite apt. If you want to deny global warming, you are nothing but an idiot. A seriously huge idiot. As to whodunnit, which really seems to be the crux of the global warming “debate”, there’s again staggering evidence pointing to us (simply put, the natural cycle of Co2 uptake and production in nature [the carbon cycle] can get unbalanced with very little change, and several past volcanic eruptions have proved this over and over. Does human addition amount to enough to change the weather? Bloody likely; we’re about a big a change as a couple of huge volcanoes, just spread out over longer time), but because the lunatics wants us to prove massive change when all we see is little change, then on behalf on all those people in the world who have to pay to clean up their act, they push the big global warming “debate” rubbish. There is no debate, folks; only data, evidence and numbers, and there’s no denying them.
You know, I get so sick of this nonsense, of this so-called debate; I come from a place which had plenty of glaciers that mostly have melted, little by little, over the years. All these things coincide with the advent of the industrial revolution and follow a trail-behind of about 20 years (which means if we cut cold-turkey right now, there’s still about 20 years of change following it, another reason why it’s going to be hard to prove anything to those who just don’t want to see), and this is by chance alone? It just so happens that all the warming happens at the same time we put all this extra gunk everywhere? You have to be pretty damn stupid to think that dumping shit in your metaphorical drinking well is a good thing.
I fear for not for my planet; it will get along just great without us. But I do fear for me and my kids and all our future generations, because when this crap hits (climate change) it will affect us all, and at random, and it will cost so much more than just money. Looking the other way is, in short, stupid. Did I mention stupid? Stupid.
Hear, hear, Alex.
I read an article only a few years ago that did predict this current trend of no, or negative warming. It was designed as an article to premempt people declareing global warming bogus baised on the data of only a handful of years.
Unfortunately, though it has a catchy headline, the BBC article neglects a few critical points:
1) There are multiple sets of measurements (the Hadley Center in the UK, the NASA GISS dataset, some others that I’m not recalling at the moment). Realclimate has a post discussing the hole in arctic data for the Hadley Center’s dataset (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/mind-the-gap/). The Hadley Center’s data set happens to mark the lower bound of measurements. (a key aspect of doing science: multiple independent groups investigate the same phenomena. These groups point out each others’ flaws, and coopt each others’ good ideas.)
2)a) More crucially, on timescales of a year or two, the gradual signal of global warming (which is looking at changes on the order of 0.1 to 0.2 C per decade) is swamped by year-to-year variation (which can be 0.5 C or greater).
2)b) But even then, doing proper trendlines (basic idea: draw a line down the center of the data set), the warming trend is apparent, even over the last decade, using the Hadley data set discussed in the article! Start and end points aren’t particularly informative… it’s the overall pattern of the data that matters. This linked picture shows 8 year trends fit to every possible 8 year block since 1978: http://www.realclimate.org/images/hadcru-8yr.jpg
So, article summary: The BBC article opens with a patently wrong statement that catches attention. Great for selling papers, but not so good for educating the public. The rest of the article is a curious mix of science reporting, and spurious “opposing viewpoint” assertions to appear balanced. For example, until Piers Corbyn has shared his idea for how charged particles could have a greater than previously measured influence on climate, there’s nothing to report! It’s just a guy saying, “You’re wrong,” without backing it up with an argument.
(for a more complete discussion of trend-spotting: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/uncertainty-noise-and-the-art-of-model-data-comparison/
and for a more complete discussion of the “warming paused” meme: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/a-warming-pause/
I realize I just did a lot of linking to realclimate. I’m not associated with them, but I am a fan. It’s good to see that all of this physics and statistics I use in astronomy can be applied to something that tangibly matters)
As for my thoughts on global warming:
1) It is happening. The data are overwhelming, from direct temperature records dating to the 1850s and inferred temperatures going back even further, to the gradual poleward creep of plant species and shift in flowering dates (flowers are great climate monitors), to the trends of glacier loss and ocean warming… shall I keep going?
2) Anthropogenic? Well, causality is harder to establish than correlation. But:
2a) Have we identified plausible mechanisms? Check! (CO2, H2O, and CH4 were identified long ago by chemists as being very effective at blocking infrared light, which is the peak emission wavelength at the earth’s temperature of ~300K. Temperature will rise until energy out = energy in).
2b) The next step after identifying potential mechanisms is to model their effects, and see if your models can reasonably duplicate past observations. Done! (granted, one can argue over what counts as reasonably duplicate. But this is showing steady improvement. Too bad we can’t actually run the experiment multiple times in a lab… instead, we’re living in the test tube.)
I just started my nature and enviromental studies on the university and there is no doubt in my mind that there is global warming and that we’re causing it.
People just don’t want to change and they certainly don’t want to give up their “i don’t give a shit about the future generations, i want my stuff and i want it NOW” attitude.
I have no doubt that global climate change is occurring and that it is driven by anthropic sources.
What I do have a significant doubt about is that a behavioral change or set of changes will significantly affect the cumulative result of a century of hard-core industrialization.
Environmentalism is cool and all with its feel-good message and its back-to-Earth mentality, but given the damage already done, and the timescales at hand, am I crazy in suggesting a direct technical solution is the only hope?
Nope. You’re quite right. We’ll never get agreement from developing nations (let alone the USA) to sort their shit out. Carbon Capture is the way ahead – at least until the oil runs dry.
I just started my
nature and enviromentalreligious studies on the university and there is no doubt in my mind that there isglobal warminga God and thatwe’re causing itJesus Christ is my personal lord and savior.People just don’t want to change and they certainly don’t want to give up their “i don’t give a shit about
the future generationsmy eternal soul, i want mystuffcarnal pleasures and i wantitthem NOW” attitude.Yeah, except that climate change models are supported by, you know, FACTS, not faith. If you really, seriously conflate “my opinion has been swayed by compelling evidence” with “I take this on blind faith to be true” then there really may be no hope for you.
You know, it’s funny. You’re right that *now*, climate change predictions are based largely on a reasonable interpretation of facts. Thing is, until pretty damn recently that was not so. We have basically witnessed before our eyes what was essentially an article of faith held by environmentalists morph into facts (aided by increased quantities of data and more sophisticated climate modeling algorithms and more powerful computers to run them on) before our eyes.
Just talk to anyone who goes to the Antarctic on a regular basis. They see the results first hand.
As Alex said; there is no debate.
I’m happy to see where the science is going on this one, and the IPCC conclusions thus far are pretty convincing. The whole debate has been muddied by non-scientists using gut instinct and their own opinions to shout their case from the rooftops. The evidence is the only road worth taking however.
gee… oceans are only 70% of the planet surface and people are wondering if they have any effect on the climate…
Alex, Andy
The problem is that those meltings could have been caused by natural cycles -like the ocean cycle- and not by CO2 human’s emission.
I’m pretty sure that climate models ruled by IPCC members and other experts show that CO2 in our atmosphere is an important factor, among other natural factors, of our global temperatures. But it’s not so easy to prove without the data, and it’s not so easy to prove to anumerical people, specially when they are going to see that in the next ten years it’s going to be a global cooling.
So yes, we are expecting from all those people to have faith in scientists
There’s also the fact that small changes in the Earth’s orbit would normally mean we’re about to go into another Ice Age are going to be negated by global warming.
Why does God allow his followers to be so stupid? Maybe because he doesn’t exist, that’s why… but I digress.
Global Warming is an obvious fact. I think the debate really hinges on whether “humans” are the only cause. There is no doubt we humans are PART of the cause, but we are not the sole purveyors of it. Doesn’t anyone else find it arrogant & vain for us to think otherwise?
The problem is that the media has turned it into a political plaything & the general public is force-fed the party line–without any consistent measure of facts & figures. We are bombarded with opinions, usually from non-scientific sources (like celebrities), and the average individual is not likely to research it themselves. Thus we are left with a “politicized” version of the facts which leaves us even more confused & misinformed.
I’m quite certain that when the Earth has had enough it will take care of itself & eliminate us. Perhaps it will even start over with a new form of life & I find an odd comfort in that.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/policymakers/policy/slowdown.html
The two charts here are of note. While it is true that 1998 was the warmest year on record in the interval sampled, the rest of the top 10 are in the 2000s (with the exception of 1997). Then take a look at the graph from 1850-present and you’ll see a consistent warming trend with occasional dips in temperatures, particularly after 1910.
I do give the BBC writer credit for actually citing a skeptical reference from a real scientist instead going to the fall back position of citing a “think tank” like the Heartland Institute.
Okay, to all you human-caused global warming doubters, think about this:
Global climate change doesn’t really matter.There is no reason NOT to do the things we need to do to ‘combat global warming’.
Fact: through negligence or design, we humans adversely affect our environment (smog in Beijing and Mexico City, The Cuyahoga River, dead zones in the Atlantic, etc) in ways that directly or indirectly affect us.
So, reducing air pollutants and creating ‘greener’ technologies will only benefit us by cleaning our air and water, these are two things we cannot live without. You could argue increased cost to consumers, but, if you remember the translation of cost to consumers was the auto industry’s excuse for not adopting seatbelts.
Fact: Oil and coal are finite resources. It is not a matter of IF we will run out, but WHEN.
So, if you like electricity and heat, and everything that makes our civilization a civilization, alternative energy is the only option. You can argue cost, but it’s academic: if we don’t do this, you can kiss what we have goodbye.
Fact: mineral resources are finite; some sources suggest that, with certain metals such as copper, there is more in circulation than left in the ground.
So, recycling makes sense. We may HAVE to do it later to survive, why not start it going now to keep the status quo. Speaking of the status quo:
Fact: The Earth doesn’t need saving, we do
So, this is the only home we have and we’re fragile creatures; we need clean air and water and can survive a narrow range of temperature. We’re also comfortable with our position (at least I, as a white American, am, I suppose). The Earth as it is now, is the best place for us. Poisoning the air, depleting the soil and destroying habitat will affect us in the end. If the Great Cataclysm that destroyed the dinosaurs is any indicator, species die, but the Earth goes on, albeit without us.
You can add small things like family farms are better for agriculture than factory farms ( not just for our food supply, but for our economy) or like buying local not only saves fuel, but benefits our economy, or like reducing waste and demanding manufacturers stop planned obsolescence will save the average consumer money.
Any way you look at it, the sacrifices are VERY small and the benefits are IMMENSE.
That’s a lot of writing. Sorry. If it’s any consolation, I tried very hard to edit.
Right on, but the problem is business is very much entrenched and there is a lobby, particularly here in the US, that spends shit piles of money fighting regulation of even regular pollutants. As long as big business pays for the campaigns of elected officials and goes around screaming about “costs going up, it will ruin the economy” common sense has little chance to win out.
In my job as a geologist for an environmental firm, I see shit that would make you cringe on a regular basis at active and former industrial sites. Then I go to parties or enter into casual conversations that frequently end up with people who have never seen the kind of damage that can be done telling me that the government has too much control and needlessly hounds business over environmental regs. My personal favorite I hear often is “a business doesn’t want to harm the environment, therefore they don’t”. Bullshit, I see it all the time.
Until we get over the idea in this country that the market is the solution to all our problems and government creates all problems, we’re screwed.
@Neil: You are a socialist! :-p
@Arkonbey: I agree with all your points, but I’m not so sure about “buying local”.
I think that it could by cheaper (energetically speaking) to produce coffee or bananas in tropical countries and then shipping them, than producing those same items in Norway -no pun intended. The question then would be if we should remove foreign items from our diets.
mmm…”awaiting moderation”?
It’s because you said the s-word (socializm)! It has c.i.a.l.i.s. in it.
I didn’t realize the s-word was considered offensive! I would hope for a day when there would be a balance between the market and regulation, because I see the value of both concepts.
Ha! For some, socializm is a bad word. For Daniel, he’s just trying to prevent erectile dysfunction spam.
Heh. When your comment was listed in the comment box on the front page, the last word was missing.
Which I thought was funny.
Maybe its the government making it a right to have an erection
I think your latter point, about removing exotic items from our diets, may be the way things have to go, at least in the short term, in order to buy locally. To produce bananas in Norway, for instance, you’d need a greenhouse, which is a massive energy sink, which you correctly state as even worse than the carbon cost in transportation needed to ship them from South America. However, if we find an energy efficient way to construct and run greenhouses, we’d be able to maintain the same variety of diet we’re used to, or almost.
I agree, Arkonbey. I find it amazing that some many of the deniers of climate change are so against doing anything about it… because like you said, even if we have no effect on climate change, we’ll definitely be doing a lot to create a cleaner, healthier environment. They seem blind to that fact, instead choosing to rant against the evidence, presumably to avoid the “cost” associated with making the necessary changes.
Ugh.
The ice caps are melting. As any chemist will tell you, during a phase change, the material changes phase before its temperature continues to rise.
The temperature may or may not be rising — I find the “no rise for a decade” somewhat suspect, myself — but the ice caps are melting faster than any model predicted.
Global temperatures have not increased in a decade
This statement is simply false. A spike 10 years ago does not mean that the past 10 years have been a plateau.
This ^
There’s been global warming over the last 12 years, and the last 10 years, but not if you pick to measure from the warmest year on record 11 years ago.
Is there any doubt in your mind that (1) it is happening and (2) it is being caused mostly by man?
Of course there’s doubt. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t allow for the possibility of being wrong? There’s never that much certainty in the world – there’s always some probability that a model might turn out to be wrong.
Not being a climate scientist, I’m certainly no expert on the subject. But from what I’ve seen right now it seems that the probability of global climate change not occurring at all is so low that it’s essentially zero – there’s plenty of evidence that the climate is, in fact, changing and that people who deny climate change outright are pretty much in the same boat as Holocaust Deniers and Flat Earthers who shut their eyes and ears and scream “NA NA NA I CAN’T HEAR YOU” at the historians and scientists.
Now whether man is actually causing the change or if it’s cyclical or preventable or not, I don’t know. Normally I would have some trust that the usually push of scientific inquiry would eventually narrow down the probabilities to provide a model that explains what’s going on well enough that the answer would, like the shape of the earth, become pretty much a safe bet. Unfortunately, the question of climate change is embedded in a huge political/economic question where folks who have a lot of money and resources wrapped up in keeping things the way they are have more influence over the scientific process than in your average scientific question. People think that evolution is under fire by powerful interests, but most of the big money interests that care about evolution, like pharmaceutical companies, have a vested interest in knowing what’s actually going on, not having the results skew one way or the other. The climate change question isn’t like that.
What’s more, there’s an added pressure here that other scientific questions just don’t have to deal with – most fields of science don’t have models that are predicting countdowns to possibly preventable Global Extinction Events after all. If a model of how subatomic particles operate turns out to be wrong, well, someone will come up with a better model. If a model of global climate change assures us that man can’t possibly be affecting the climate and it turns out to be wrong, we might not be able to fix the mistake later. Conversely if we radically change our behavior to fit a model that tells us we are doing it and can fix it, the economic upheaval will in all likelihood cause problems. If that model later turns out to be wrong, you can’t fix those problems in retrospect.
In the long run, I am confident that the scientific method would figure out what’s going on and whether it can or needs to be corrected. But this is one of those questions that may not have a long run, and the answer may smack us in the face one way or the other before we have it worked out.
I agree with you completely. However there are other reasons to reduce emissions since beside CO2 we also put all kind of other polutants into the atmosphere. There is also no doubt that fossil fuels are a finite resource so the prudent course of action will be to make an effort to control emissions and develop alternative energy sources regardless of the possible role of human activity in climate change.
Just look at who’s driving climate change denial – the companies that don’t want to change what they’re doing. And if anyone has doubts that human activity isn’t hurting our planet, go suck on a tailpape* – after all, if it’s not doing anything to the earth, it should be safe for you too, right? right?
*rhetorical point, duh.
Do you have evidence that companies are driving the skepticism? That everyone who doubts is influenced by corporate lobbyists or funds?
I don’t understand the tendency to see conspiracy behind doubt — why can’t people honestly have a different interpretation of the data, and a different theory to explain things?
I believe there is a relative amount of evidence that companies are “driving the scepticism” but haven’t got any decent links at the moment! Of course there is also a claim to be made that the climate change lobby is also driven, in at least someway, by less than unbiased individuals. For example I treat information from Greenpeace with a level of scepticism.
The more interesting point is just because someone is biased is doesn’t mean that they are wrong. From all the evidence that I’ve seen climate change due to human activity is happening and there’s evidence to back this up.
Like Jabster, I don’t have any evidence of corporate shenanigans, but I do find it interesting that it *seems* that almost ALL the outspoken opponents of climate change science are either Republican or overtly religious. I’m not sure what the implication is of that observation, but it certainly fits into the (somewhat deserved) stereotype of Republicans being the anti-science party. ;-)
I’ve read the evidence I just didn’t have it to hand …
ExxonMobil continuing to fund climate sceptic groups, records show
Records show ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of pounds to lobby groups that have published ‘misleading and inaccurate information’ about climate change
Note: this does not establish that every global warming “sceptic” is funded by the energy industry, and it does not establish conclusively that said funding is influencing the views of those funded, but it’s a good start.
My link didn’t work. Try again:
ExxonMobil continuing to fund climate sceptic groups, records show
Wednesday 1 July 2009 16.51 BST
It’s not a conspiracy, Dan, it’s just a case of observing the flow of money, and who has a vested interest where. I live in Alberta, home to the most polluting oil extraction project on the planet at the moment, and the division here is very clear. The companies involved are downplaying the environmental impact of their activities, while every independent body, from the Sierra Club to the Pembena Institute is crying foul, and citing the hard statistics about freshwater consumption, toxic wastes, and carbon emissions. These companies are obviously not going to contribute to the P.R. nightmare that’s calling them out on their poor practices, so they contribute the opposite message to the debate. Businesses want to stay in business. That’s not conspiracy, it’s unregulated capitalism.
I’m often curious (but haven’t asked around enough) why the deniers think the global warming claims are a left-wing conspiracy. It seems obvious that the right-wing has political (or capitalistic) reasons for denying the science, but what would the left have to gain from presenting and promoting the science? I can’t think of anything other than wanting a cleaner, healthy, planet to live on.
Any other ideas?
Sometimes people just want something to be true, whether it’s a good thing or not. Also, I suppose “green” companies and organizations would benefit from such thinking, so maybe they’re helping fund the research… or something like that.
The amount of money in green research is trivial compared to that in established industries such as oil extraction, mining, etc. My guess is that it would be orders of magnitude smaller, considering the size of US Steel, BP, etc. Is there a multi-billion dollar green company in the world yet?
Increasing CO2 concentration increases heat retention. Fact. Proved by a million lab experiments over and over. Humans pump thirty billion tons of CO2 into the air (conservatively) every year. Fact. Calculated as the best-case from fossil fuel consumption.
One follows the other. Bollocks to the skeptics.
Personally I’m not so sure where to stand on the global warming/climate change issue. I’m skeptical of it, only because I have no idea where at this point to look for the real science of the issue with some sort of explanation that isn’t some crazy person on one side of the argument or the other. which sucks but I guess thats what happens when the media gets a hold of science.
So given that everyone here is so quick to say that the debate is over and the science is clear, could you please point me in the right direction to research this? because from where I sit currently it seems like conjecture based on conjecture, and I would like to get clear about what is actually going on here. Thanks.
Have a look at the Royal Academy deep core drilling priject, It’s on the web somewhere. It’s pretty inarguable.
*Royal Society, sorry. The Royal Academy is for performing arts.
I find it interesting how most of us who are very skeptical towards religion, see no room for skepticism in regards to this.
While I tend to agree with global warming advocates, I also don’t want to be dogmatc about it something that is still a early science and is mostly determined by an interpretation of statistical data. To me it’s something that is probably true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they found out that man has less of a cause than we thought.
It doesn’t really matter to me in terms of practicality, though — either way, I think we need to reduce or environmental impact.
I think there’s an easy distinction between religion and global warming in that global warming has some evidence to back it up. ;-)
But seriously, I agree that there always needs to be skepticism. I think, in this case, there seems to be a preponderance of evidence to support the idea that global warming is occurring, that it’s occurring faster than a natural cycle would indicate, and that we’re having an effect on it. There is evidence to the contrary, too, of course, which needs to be examined, but I’ve yet to see any refutations that held up all that well with the scientists in the relevant fields.
It sometimes strikes me as similar to the creation/evolution arguments (though not as cut and dry) in that I see the same “evidence” against climate change being shown over and over and over… even though it’s been either soundly refuted or shown to be irrelevant long ago. It drives me nuts. :-)
The difference is that with evolution, we have a ridiculous amount of evidence and it’s been examined and hashed over for over a century. Virtually anyone who doubts it is because their foundation is a holy book instead of the scientific method.
With global warming, we have statistics. As they say, “Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.”
The problem is correlation is not always causation. No one is arguing that CO2 has be going up or that there has been a general warming trend (just not in the last decade). It’s like the FSM joke about pirates and global warming — as the # of pirates have been reduced in the world, global warming has increased. Coincidence? ;)
I’m just trying to be careful. Legitimate scientists disagree about the main cause and the long term effects. It’s something we could be wrong about, and I’m happy to admit that. It doesn’t change my environmentalism.
I’m with ya. It’s not nearly as clear cut as evolution and it’s still an environmental issue.
Sometimes I think it would be better to push the environmental issue (from a pollution standpoint) than the global warming issue. Saying “I’d rather keep polluting our environment” sounds a lot worse than “I don’t want to bankrupt our country with cap and trade laws.” Heh.
It’s like the FSM joke about pirates and global warming — as the # of pirates have been reduced in the world, global warming has increased. Coincidence? ;)
Bad news for Pastafarianism. The rise of Somali pirates has not disposed of the global warming problem.
*takes a page from the fundamentalist playbook*
Yeah, but they’re not REAL pirates! ;-P
Ah, but the rise in pirates has happened this decade, and notice the temperatures stopped rising! I think we’re onto something big… I demand equal time for my view to be taught in the classroom!
Our prophet Bobby Henderson and other people touched by His noodly appendages stated some time ago that modern killer pirates are not the real pirates loved by the FSM. When we say “pirates” we are referring to the romantic idea of people who fought for their freedom and rescued princesses from evil dictators ( I should point here to the fact that, probably, the number of princes rescued in history may be very similar to the number of princesses)
RAmen!
The biggest source of disagreement I remember seeing recently was a dispute about the speed at which global warming is happening.
The argument (IIRC) is that most current projections took a five or ten-year upswing, which is relatively normal, and extrapolated that into the much slower warming that has been occurring for a long time now. Basically, it resulted in inaccuracies now, because some models were predicting incredibly rapid temperature change, which would have outweighed typical periodic changes. We are not seeing that result, so it seems that that argument has at least some merit.
I wish I could find the articles I read…
Climate change can be caused by people; we have historic proof of that from archeological and geological evidence around the height of the Roman empire. Rome had smog! I am skeptical of those who demand some sort of immediate action to deal with the issue, since I think that is both unrealistic and not based on solid enough evidence that global climate change will be a catastrophic event. I am not particularly skeptical of the claim that global temperatures are rising in and of itself; that seems likely and perhaps inevitable.
We don’t have time to be “careful” about climate change.
It’s not just temperature that’s the problem. There are other significant anthropogenic effects that our release of carbon into the atmosphere has on the ecology of our planet. Oceanic dead-zones, coral bleaching, and ocean acidification have the potential to radically alter ocean ecosystems. Even neglecting every other effect that ocean ecosystems have on the health of our planet, this could result in the collapse of virtually every commercial fishery within decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_bleaching
These are all the result of anthropogenic changes to the environment, whether in terms of carbon released to the atmosphere, or just good, old-fashioned pollution.
I think what we have here is a conflict in terms. Throughout this thread, I’ve seen you refer to these anthropogenic changes as “global warming.” There’s a reason that these environmental effects are currently called “climate change” by the scientists studying the phenomenon; this revised terminology acknowledges that global temperature is not the best metric of human alterations to global climate and ecosystems.
The long and the short of it is, our continued quality of life on this planet necessitates a change to our environmental practices, whether global temperatures are trending upward or not. This is the conclusion supported by decades of scientific study, and the amount of factual material supporting it is just as impressive as that supporting evolution.
I find it interesting how most of us who are very skeptical towards religion, see no room for skepticism in regards to this.
At some point, too much “scepticism” becomes denialism.
Here’s an article from Science magazine, December 2004 on The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
Science 3 December 2004:
Vol. 306. no. 5702, p. 1686
DOI: 10.1126/science.1103618
(Sorry if it’s behind a pay wall, my university has good access which may not be available to all.)
That was almost 5 years ago. Since then, the scientific consensus has grown.
The Bush administration didn’t want to do anything about it, so they assigned a committee to study the problem (a frequent Washington ploy to enable the doing of nothing.) Well, the committee, the IPCC, took several years, but then came back with a report confirming the scientific consensus.
I also see denialists citing unreliable sources, attempting to fabricate their own “facts,” etc. As someone who has followed Creationism for several years, I am familiar with the tactics being employed, and I can see through them.
I’m sure you’ve seen those “lists of real actual scientists who support Creationism.” Now the global warming denialists have their equivalent:
Ranking Member’s Senate Minority Report on Global Warming Not Credible, says CFI
For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
Translation: there was a spike in the short term data in 1998, which has not been exceeded since, but the long term trend is unmistakable. See a graph of temperatuer data for the last 150 years to get an idea of the clear long-term upward trend. Relying on one year’s data is irresponsible, it amounts to dismissing a probabilistic trend in favour of an anecdote.
I do accept anthropocentric global warming. I have substantial doubts about the degree of warming that will take place. The more catastrophic outlooks assume strong positive feedback effects that will magnify the impact of CO2. Our understanding of how the world will respond to an increase in temperature is very limited.
A rise in temperature of 2 degrees C (assuming neutral feedback) by the end of the century would suck, but would be manageable. Assuming strong positive feedbacks, as so many global warming proponents do with limited data, leads to a rise of 4-5 degrees C by the end of the century.
Our response to global warming as a civilization should be very different depending on which of these scenarios is correct, and we should avoid the extreme position of 4-5 degrees C until we have more solid data to back it up.
Just to heat things up a bit.
NOAA: Summer of 2009 was the 34th coolest summer on record; thousands of low record temperatures set.
Weather is not climate. Next.
@fftysmthng:
By your logic, I could argue that it was really cold and rainy yesterday morning. Therefore, Global Warming is not taking place.
I simply pointed to a possible inconsistency, I made no claims otherwise.
Someone once made an argument about how to treat global warming. The argument was that global warming was either happening or not, and that one could either take action or not. There were four possible outcomes:
1. Global warming does not happen and people nothing. Best possible outcome, but risky.
2. Global warming does not happen but people have taken precautions. People are out $$$.
3. Global warming happens and people do nothing. The planet is possibly screwed. Worst outcome.
4. Global warming happens and people do everything possible to combat it. It costs, but people have hopefully done enough to save the planet.
I agree with the above statement that statistics are pliable. I do not deny global warming but I don’t preach doomsday about it either. The position I take is that we should do all we can to take care of the only home we currently have and try to use more efficient methods of power and lifestyle. If there is only a shred of evidence that the planet is going to be devastated by human action, I think we should do everything within our power to make sure that such an outcome does not happen.
Oh noes! Pascal’s Wager strikes again!
The difference is, taking care of our planet has demonstrable positive benefits regardless of whether global warming is true or not.
Kissing up to Jesus if he isn’t real gets you Jack squat, and Jack just left the building.
Not exactly a 1 to 1 correspondence there, Nope.
Rising global temperatures have positive effects, too:
No sudden ice ages!
Actually, each prior ice age was preceded by a sudden spike in temperature.
I know, I know. It was a tongue-in-cheek meta-reference to this being a blog that talks mostly about religious matters.
I loved the reference…I was wondering how quickly the comparison would be made.
And JonJon, climate change models in which the ocean current in the Atlantic shifts show that Europe would enter a small ice age.
But I expect you to be rigorous!
Rigorous!!!
My brain has placed you in the box marked “Rigorous” and once you go in the box, that’s just your box from then on. Just like Phranky is in the “Evil Clown” box.
Just like everyone else, I don’t know. The experts analyse, evaluate, and conclude. But they don’t know.
By that metric, we don’t “know” that gravity will continue to function tomorrow as it has for the past 13 billion years. We may not have absolute knowledge, but we do have “the most reasonable conclusion based on available evidence.” The conclusion reached about climate change is made with only marginally less provisional certainty than our conclusions about evolution or general relativity.
Gravity and global warming on a catastrophic scale are not the same thing, and they have not been equally well established.
If you think we have as much proof for global warming as we have for gravity probably being here tomorrow, you are not thinking clearly.
I don’t know, it seems more like you’re not reading clearly.
A) I’m addressing climate change, not “global warming”. Global warming is an outdated terminology that inaccurately reflects the scope and nature of anthropogenic effects on the world’s ecosystems.
B) Note my phrasing: “The conclusion reached about climate change is made with only marginally less provisional certainty than our conclusions about evolution or general relativity.” I DID say that we don’t have exactly the same level of certainty about climate change that we do about gravity. The conclusions drawn from both theoretical frameworks are, however, both far beyond any reasonable doubt.
Come one it’s not “global warming”, it’s Climate change! Cause and effect, we shit allover the planet, its going to shit all over us. Figuratively obviously.
1. There is absolutely no aboubt about it.
2. Yes it is human caused. unless you clame that 7,000,000,000 would have no effect on the Earth.
3. We are too late to deal with it.
Well, we are too late to deal with it by sorting our plastics from out aluminum cans and driving Priuses. There are other ways.
Recently in the news: Arctic sea ice will disappear within a decade.
Global warming alive and well – just ask an Eskimo.
Maybe 2% of my opinion about the theory of evolution is doubt, and maybe 3% of my opinion of climate change theory is doubt; maybe 5% doubt for the idea that it is anthropogenic.
As far as industrial conspiracy theories go, here’s some evidence:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?_r=1
http://documents.nytimes.com/global-climate-coalition-aiam-climate-change-primer#p=1
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/21/astroturf_activism_leaked_memo_reveals_oil
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute/Competitive_Enterprise_Institute_And_Global_Warming
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute
We could blow up the moon.
A new book, Superfreakonomics, takes up the question of dealing with global warming. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have a firm grasp of their subject matter.
FAIL: Superfreakonomics
Why Everything in Superfreakonomics About Global Warming Is Wrong