Thirith on 19/2/2008 at 09:45
I've heard so much lately about how man-made climate change isn't really as much of an issue as Al Gore et al. want to make us believe - how recent global warming is well within parameters when compared to climate changes over the last 400'000 years or so (based mainly on paleoclimatological research). Yet lots of people still clamour that we have to fight man-made climate change because it's the greatest danger to our continued survival etc. etc.
At this point I must say I'm confused. I haven't actually found any clear refutations of the claim that the current changes in temperatures are normal if you look at climate developments over the last couple of hundreds of thousands of years - in fact, it seems to me like the man-made climate change proponents don't really interact much with their critics.
Any takes on this? Any interesting books, articles or links?
Spaztick on 19/2/2008 at 10:04
Even if global warming is a non-issue, pollution still is, so either way reducing greenhouse gas emissions will result from lowering the amount of pollution produced. That or just let more cars get stacked on the road while the pollution stays the same, but now I'm just being cynical. God damn I hate the fat middle aged women driving SUVs, screaming kids in the back, eating McDonald's on the way to Wal-Mart and too busy to see the Probe to the right at the intersection and almost hitting me. Cunts.
d0om on 19/2/2008 at 10:05
The reason they don't interact much with the critics is that the critics aren't part of the mainstream scientific community.
Increased CO2 definitely warms up the Earth, its basic physics. (And shown by fossil records etc.)
What we have at the moment is the highest CO2 level in the atmosphere for hundreds of thousands of years, and its changed to get there in 100 years rather than the very slow changes before.
What this means is SUDDEN climate change, rather than a very slow natural climate change.
When you get sudden climate change bad things are going to happen, like insects hatching before the flowers they feed on open, birds hatching after the insects the chicks eat are all gone etc. This is because they all time their behaviour on cues from the environment, but slightly different ones which are getting out of sync with climate change.
The North Pole is also melting drastically, and might be gone in 20 years. This will have enormous consequences for ocean currents.
Another way to put the critics argument is as follows:
Bad things are happening! But they are only the same magnitude as natural bad things, so lets not try to stop them and just not care.
Its like not caring that your harvest has failed because of arsonists who burnt your crops, as sometimes you had a bad harvest anyway.
Or not caring about murderers as they are of comparable magnitude to the natural death rate.
Its stupid.
Rogue Keeper on 19/2/2008 at 11:06
It is notable that the most vocal critics of alleged man-made addition to climate changes are not from the scientific crowd, but from the political crowd. Hint : when a critic mentions restriction of human freedom, he has a political/economical agenda. Critics coming from independent scientific bodies are usually much much more careful and pragmatic.
When you come across a study on climate changes, or any new "radical new realization" in the area, try to learn who funds the scientific group. In the past few years we had some quite credible looking scientific think-tanks who have been financially backed by the oil industry (cough Exxon cough).
When the best climatologists on this planet come to conclusion on their general world-wide assembly that we are experiencing unusual climatic changes and human factor may play significant role in it, then *RING* *RING*, something is rotten here indeed. Are they all corrupted environmentalist libbie wackos? Please.
Wake up. Climatic change is real. Now we must carefully examine what percentage of it is made by natural processes and what is caused by us - and that's not an easy task.
Just my humble personal opinion : Global warming is a consequence of us probably unwisely enjoying too much freedom for our own good. But don't quote me on that.
Chade on 19/2/2008 at 11:20
Just agreeing with what has already been said.
AFAIK the opposition to climate change within the scientific community has already occurred over the past decades, was mostly shown to be incorrect, and now man-made climate change is pretty much universally accepted within the mainstream scientific community.
Most opposition nowadays isn't coming from the scientific community, unless a) it's paid for by somebody with an agenda, or b) it's some guy on the fringe who is given more then his fair share of media time.
In fact, funnily enough, big business appears to be jumping on the climate change bandwagon faster the politicians these days. They want to know what the rules are going to be, going into the future. Well, that's what The Economist would have me believe, anyway. I imagine this excludes the big oil companies ...
Hey, I'm no expert.
Muzman on 19/2/2008 at 14:14
The counter argument also often incorporates F.U.D. about just how in agreement mainstream science is; like it's conspiratorially suspicious. That is notable, but there was this great article and doco about ordinary scientists doing ordinary things that really drove it home for me. There's always been theories about climate change for about 30 years, but they're from weather guys and big theorists or geologists with core samples. What this story told was more about how focussed and independant the various sciences and scientists are. They're often not paying a great deal of attention to all the other fields theories of this and that, but individually they started finding evidence over the decades. One person in the story, I remember, was this woman studying leopard seals in one little part of some island off antarctica, for like 20 years. She didn't care about much else, but the population was slowly dropping over the years so they tried to figure out why. Following down the food chain they found krill populations were dropping as well. Turns out the water temperature had risen by a couple of degrees during this period.
There were lots of other cases like this, and that was the point; it wasn't some big paleo-idea some special bunch of researchers went looking for, but something that workaday scientists were bumping in to without even trying, all over the world, 'cause it was getting in the way of what they were trying to do. And it was happening alarmingly fast. The sort of fast that hasn't happened since there were volcanos going off all the damn time.
I wish I had a link. It was probably in National Geographic or something.
Starrfall on 19/2/2008 at 15:56
Quote Posted by Spaztick
Even if global warming is a non-issue, pollution still is, so either way reducing greenhouse gas emissions will result from lowering the amount of pollution produced.
Yeah, this is the part I don't get. I don't care if you think human caused global warming is as likely as ants being mechanical alien spies, you can still stop shitting up the air, motherfuckers.
It's like global warming being fake is this red herring industry uses so that no one realizes that whether or not we contribute to global warming, they are still spewing millions of pounds of garbage and poison in aerosol form into the air.
It's possibly only surpassed by the "but china and india pollute too!" argument.
thief13x is going to be all up in here talking about hurricanes any second now
heretic on 19/2/2008 at 17:42
There are reasons to be skeptical about global warming. (
http://www.climatescience.org.nz/) Here's a climate site set up by atmospheric scientists and meteorologists that has a large collection of articles that serve to debunk at least some of the concerns. Honestly, there are so many frauds on both sides of the argument it's hard to determine where science begins and junk ends.
Stitch on 19/2/2008 at 19:51
Quote Posted by heretic
Honestly, there are so many frauds on both sides of the argument it's hard to determine where science begins and junk ends.
No.
heretic on 19/2/2008 at 20:07
Quote Posted by Stitch
No.
"On the one hand, as scientists, we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.... On the other hand, we Proffare not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination.... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."
Stanford Professor Steven Schneider (Co-Director of Environmental Science and Policy Center)
Schell, J. 1989. Our fragile earth, Discover 10:44-50.
