Now That It Is Spring... "Arctic Is Melting! "

originally posted by: TheCretinHop
a reply to: swanne
I don't know about all your preconceived leanings, but what I do know...Is Northen California is hot already. Our mountains have no snow on them like they used to. All our streams are drying up.

used to be able to swim everywhere. Trails I used to hike have no more water on them because of reduced glaciers on Mt. Lassen and Shasta. It's the sad reality. Also Gov. Brown made mandatory state-wide water restriction laws. Setting is changing. The people who want you to not believe that are just trying to keep you happy and free from the reality so they can keep profiting off your consumption of their polluting products.😓
I'm am outdoors person so I see a lot of our natural resources first hand...they ARE diminishing. The govt has acknowledged that.

I've been following the news on your situation and you and your entire area have my sympathy. Hope something changes for the better soon...

Back when I bought what became "our" house, it was already over 80 years old (1972). The only indoor plumbing was the kitchen sink and the toilet in the little closet that we called the bathroom.

I remember what it was like to bath using a 5 gallon bucket, it's not the optimal situation for feeling clean and refreshed.

Seeing that the wealthy are paying their way out of sacrificing along with everyone else stinks. Makes me mad and I don't live there.

a reply to: 3danimator2014

What is this VAST majority? Can you put a number to it (not a %) , even a close estimate?

As of last count I know of 31,487 American Scientist that are against the idea of global warming. I have never been able to find even a estimated number that are for it. All I have even seen is the word "lots" and I have seen the old 97% thing which has been discredited many times. (Which ends up being only 79 people.)


Also the data they research is highly questionable also. The historical data they use is only about 100-150 years old. (not to mention that almost all the original data was destroyed a few years ago.) But even if this data was 100% correct it is only 100-150 years worth.

The earth is 4 Billion years old. Humans are about 250,000 years old.

Lets be generous and say they have 1000 years of data. This is only .4% of human time and .000025% of the worlds time. Kind of hard to take any conclusions based on that small of a sample.

Are humans effecting the earth? Yes
Is it the catastrophic doom being predicted? I don't think so.
It's not ignorance, but a true look at the facts and not just looking at the "feel good" facts and public opinion.



www.wsj.com...
www.petitionproject.org...
cei.org...

a reply to: dismanrc

That is misleading. Only a handful of actual climate scientists signed the OISM petition and anyone with a science degree can sign it.

www.skepticalscience.com...

There are several claims that large numbers of scientists do not agree with the theory of climate change, the best known of which is a petition organised by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (the OISM petition). This petition now appears to be signed by over 32,000 people with a BSc or higher qualification. The signatories agree with these statements:

The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate.

No evidence has ever been offered to support the first statement, and the second statement is in flat contradiction with the scientists who study climate change. There are also valid issues regarding the methodology:

The organisers have never revealed how many people they canvassed (so the response rate is unknown) nor have they revealed the sampling methodology, an ironic omission considering how much fuss is made about scientists being candid and making public their methods and data.
The petition is, in terms of climate change science, rather out of date.

In the professional field of climate science, the consensus is unequivocal: human activities are causing climate change and additional anthropogenic CO2 may cause great disruption to the climate.

32,000 Sounds Like A Lot

In fact, OISM signatories represent a tiny fraction (~0.3%) of all US science graduates (petition cards were only sent to individuals within the U.S)

According to figures from the US Department of Education Digest of Education Statistics: 2008, 10.6 million science graduates have gained qualifications consistent with the OISM polling criteria since the 1970-71 school year. 32,000 out of 10 million is not a very compelling figure, but a tiny minority - approximately 0.3 per cent.

There are many issues casting doubt on the validity of this petition. On investigation, attempts to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change often appear to have ideological roots, vested business interests or political sponsors. The claims made for the OISM petition do not withstand objective scrutiny, and the assertions made in the petition are not supported by evidence, data or scientific research.

Several studies conducted independently (Oreskes 2004, Oreskes 2007, Doran and Zimmerman (2009), Anderegg et al. (2010), Cook et. al., 2013) have shown that 97% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing the climate to change, and that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are causing global changes to the climate. These views form the scientific consensus on climate change.

Basic rebuttal written by GPWayne

More on the 97% being an accurate number:
www.skepticalscience.com...

Science achieves a consensus when scientists stop arguing. When a question is first asked – like ‘what would happen if we put a load more CO2 in the atmosphere?’ – there may be many hypotheses about cause and effect. Over a period of time, each idea is tested and retested – the processes of the scientific method – because all scientists know that reputation and kudos go to those who find the right answer (and everyone else becomes an irrelevant footnote in the history of science). Nearly all hypotheses will fall by the wayside during this testing period, because only one is going to answer the question properly, without leaving all kinds of odd dangling bits that don’t quite add up. Bad theories are usually rather untidy.

But the testing period must come to an end. Gradually, the focus of investigation narrows down to those avenues that continue to make sense, that still add up, and quite often a good theory will reveal additional answers, or make powerful predictions, that add substance to the theory.

So a consensus in science is different from a political one. There is no vote. Scientists just give up arguing because the sheer weight of consistent evidence is too compelling, the tide too strong to swim against any longer. Scientists change their minds on the basis of the evidence, and a consensus emerges over time. Not only do scientists stop arguing, they also start relying on each other's work. All science depends on that which precedes it, and when one scientist builds on the work of another, he acknowledges the work of others through citations. The work that forms the foundation of climate change science is cited with great frequency by many other scientists, demonstrating that the theory is widely accepted - and relied upon.

In the scientific field of climate studies – which is informed by many different disciplines – the consensus is demonstrated by the number of scientists who have stopped arguing about what is causing climate change – and that’s nearly all of them. A survey of 928 peer-reviewed abstracts on the subject 'global climate change' published between 1993 and 2003 shows that not a single paper rejected the consensus position that global warming is man caused (Oreskes 2004).

A follow-up study by the Skeptical Science team of over 12,000 peer-reviewed abstracts on the subjects of 'global warming' and 'global climate change' published between 1991 and 2011 found that of the papers taking a position on the cause of global warming, over 97% agreed that humans are causing it (Cook 2013). The scientific authors of the papers were also contacted and asked to rate their own papers, and again over 97% whose papers took a position on the cause said humans are causing global warming

Your claim that the petition project debunks the 97% claim is an invalid one.

originally posted by: jrod
a reply to: dismanrc

That is misleading. Only a handful of actual climate scientists signed the OISM petition and anyone with a science degree can sign it.

www.skepticalscience.com...

There are several claims that large numbers of scientists do not agree with the theory of climate change, the best known of which is a petition organised by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (the OISM petition). This petition now appears to be signed by over 32,000 people with a BSc or higher qualification. The signatories agree with these statements:

The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate.

No evidence has ever been offered to support the first statement, and the second statement is in flat contradiction with the scientists who study climate change. There are also valid issues regarding the methodology:

The organisers have never revealed how many people they canvassed (so the response rate is unknown) nor have they revealed the sampling methodology, an ironic omission considering how much fuss is made about scientists being candid and making public their methods and data.
The petition is, in terms of climate change science, rather out of date.

In the professional field of climate science, the consensus is unequivocal: human activities are causing climate change and additional anthropogenic CO2 may cause great disruption to the climate.

32,000 Sounds Like A Lot

In fact, OISM signatories represent a tiny fraction (~0.3%) of all US science graduates (petition cards were only sent to individuals within the U.S)

According to figures from the US Department of Education Digest of Education Statistics: 2008, 10.6 million science graduates have gained qualifications consistent with the OISM polling criteria since the 1970-71 school year. 32,000 out of 10 million is not a very compelling figure, but a tiny minority - approximately 0.3 per cent.

There are many issues casting doubt on the validity of this petition. On investigation, attempts to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change often appear to have ideological roots, vested business interests or political sponsors. The claims made for the OISM petition do not withstand objective scrutiny, and the assertions made in the petition are not supported by evidence, data or scientific research.

Several studies conducted independently (Oreskes 2004, Oreskes 2007, Doran and Zimmerman (2009), Anderegg et al. (2010), Cook et. al., 2013) have shown that 97% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing the climate to change, and that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are causing global changes to the climate. These views form the scientific consensus on climate change.

Basic rebuttal written by GPWayne

More on the 97% being an accurate number:
www.skepticalscience.com...

Science achieves a consensus when scientists stop arguing. When a question is first asked – like ‘what would happen if we put a load more CO2 in the atmosphere?’ – there may be many hypotheses about cause and effect. Over a period of time, each idea is tested and retested – the processes of the scientific method – because all scientists know that reputation and kudos go to those who find the right answer (and everyone else becomes an irrelevant footnote in the history of science). Nearly all hypotheses will fall by the wayside during this testing period, because only one is going to answer the question properly, without leaving all kinds of odd dangling bits that don’t quite add up. Bad theories are usually rather untidy.

But the testing period must come to an end. Gradually, the focus of investigation narrows down to those avenues that continue to make sense, that still add up, and quite often a good theory will reveal additional answers, or make powerful predictions, that add substance to the theory.

So a consensus in science is different from a political one. There is no vote. Scientists just give up arguing because the sheer weight of consistent evidence is too compelling, the tide too strong to swim against any longer. Scientists change their minds on the basis of the evidence, and a consensus emerges over time. Not only do scientists stop arguing, they also start relying on each other's work. All science depends on that which precedes it, and when one scientist builds on the work of another, he acknowledges the work of others through citations. The work that forms the foundation of climate change science is cited with great frequency by many other scientists, demonstrating that the theory is widely accepted - and relied upon.

In the scientific field of climate studies – which is informed by many different disciplines – the consensus is demonstrated by the number of scientists who have stopped arguing about what is causing climate change – and that’s nearly all of them. A survey of 928 peer-reviewed abstracts on the subject 'global climate change' published between 1993 and 2003 shows that not a single paper rejected the consensus position that global warming is man caused (Oreskes 2004).

A follow-up study by the Skeptical Science team of over 12,000 peer-reviewed abstracts on the subjects of 'global warming' and 'global climate change' published between 1991 and 2011 found that of the papers taking a position on the cause of global warming, over 97% agreed that humans are causing it (Cook 2013). The scientific authors of the papers were also contacted and asked to rate their own papers, and again over 97% whose papers took a position on the cause said humans are causing global warming

Your claim that the petition project debunks the 97% claim is an invalid one.

Never claimed the petition project debunked th 97%. The 97% was based on a survey and has been debunk by many sorces.

www.wsj.com...
www.theclimategatebook.com...
www.ncpa.org...
www.thenewamerican.com...
icecap.us...

As far as 32,000 not being a lot, I'm fine with that. Where is the list of names that agree? I've never seen one. And how many climatologist are there in the world anyway? And why do you have to be one anyway in order to voice an view? Any scientist (or engineer for that matter) has the training to evaluate data. True it may not be their passion, but they have the skill to do it.

You are completely missing the facts. To qualify for to sign the petition, all one needs is a Bachelor of Science(BS). There are about 10million people in the US that have such a degree, yet only 32,000 signed the petition. It also important to note that having a simple BS degree does not make one an expert in the field of climate and atmospheric chemistry.

Would you call everyone who has passed driver's ed an expert on cars?

In the scientific field of climate studies – which is informed by many different disciplines – the consensus is demonstrated by the number of scientists who have stopped arguing about what is causing climate change – and that’s nearly all of them. A survey of 928 peer-reviewed abstracts on the subject 'global climate change' published between 1993 and 2003 shows that not a single paper rejected the consensus position that global warming is man caused (Oreskes 2004).

A follow-up study by the Skeptical Science team of over 12,000 peer-reviewed abstracts on the subjects of 'global warming' and 'global climate change' published between 1991 and 2011 found that of the papers taking a position on the cause of global warming, over 97% agreed that humans are causing it (Cook 2013). The scientific authors of the papers were also contacted and asked to rate their own papers, and again over 97% whose papers took a position on the cause said humans are causing global warming

This is where the 97% figure comes from. It is an accurate estimation on what the experts agree on.

The 97% has NOT been debunked. Furthermore the links you provided are opinion pieces and are hardly scientific.

Hell, the New American site even has an article called "How Christian Businessmen Can Combat the Homo-fascists", so I really do not think that is a valid source of information. The climategate site quotes the Heartland Institute, a known disinformation right wing think tank. But go ahead and run with someones opinion and claim that is a factual.