Thousands and Thousands of Scientists Can't be Behind a Hoax(AGW), Right?

a reply to: beezzer

Yet according to the climate-doomies, we're screwed unless we do something right now because we have like, three hours left until the polar caps freeze or melt or something!

The loss of Arctic ice is only a small symptom of what global warming represents. We are screwed. But if we start doing something now, we can soften the blow for our kids and theirs. They're the ones who will see the brunt of it.

So lets raise taxes and wee ourselves for no apparent reason!

Taxes, not so much. But "no reason?" Hardly.

originally posted by: HarbingerOfShadows
a reply to: beezzer

Expansion into space would be a better option imho.

It would leave too big a carbon footprint in space.

no-no.

a reply to: beezzer

It would leave too big a carbon footprint in space.

No.
Space has neither temperature nor climate.

a reply to: beezzer

O.o

Who in their right mind would fall for government(s) financially backing scientists that advocate AGW and use data collected via computer modeling as proof?

These same people which I mentioned fail miserably at step 3 and 4 of the scientific method.

a reply to: Lanisius

Who in their right mind would fall for government(s) financially backing scientists that advocate AGW and use data collected via computer modeling as proof?

Who in their right mind would ignore actual science and listen to denial and obfuscation of facts by organizations funded by energy (oil) companies?

a reply to: Phage

What can WE do? If only a portion of the planet follows your edicts, then we're screwed regardless.

a reply to: beezzer

That's pretty much what I said..isn't it?

Nothing really matters, so screw it.

Good attitude. Good plan.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: beezzer

That's pretty much what I said..isn't it?

Nothing really matters, so screw it.

Good attitude. Good plan.

Then why support an effort that would include a one-world-government?

Really.

Because that's the only real solution, isn't it?

I ask because you are the go-to guy for smart stuff.

double post so I'll not waste space, and provide a quote.

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
Plato

a reply to: beezzer
There is a solution, but the fossil fuel industry has gone to great lengths to prevent us from pursuing it. What we need to do is go nuclear as much as possible, and use electricity for our industrial power and transportation needs.

If you look at most of the propaganda that stopped us from using nuclear, and preached the dangers of it as an energy source, much of it came from the fossil fuel lobby.

There is no other power source out there that is even remotely feasible to supply our energy demand. Sun and wind are a pipe dream as of yet, which is also pushed by the fossil fuel guys because they know it won't work and we'll be back to buying from them.

Think I'm kidding around:

I find this funny.
And rather telling.
Suggests, to me at least, both sides are busily trying to bend things in their favor...

14.Nearly all climate change studies show humans as the main cause, and studies which contradict this claim are often funded by petroleum companies, making their conclusions suspect given the obvious conflict of interest. From 2004-2005, ExxonMobil gave $2.2 million [55] in grants for climate change research to organizations that deny human caused climate change. In 2006 US Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) chastised ExxonMobil [56] for providing more than $19 million in funding to over 29 "climate change denial front groups."

Theories of naturally caused climate change are often ignored by "mainstream" scientists and organizations because many research scientists are more interested in maintainining the flow of federal grant money for climate change research than in questioning the basic theory of human causation. From 1998-2009, nearly $25 billion [46] in federal funds was allocated for climate science research. Researchers who question human-induced climate change often do not receive grant money for research projects. [41]

SOURCE

And further reading:

his worrying English translation of a story from Germany’s Spiegel (Europe’s largest news magazine) claims that a scientific journal, Environmental Research Letters rejected an article suggesting smaller-than-anticipated warming effects because reviewers thought that the article was, “less than helpful” and “harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of ‘errors’ and worse from the climate-skeptic media side.” This is despite the article having been written by a respected climate change scholar.

The same journal has form. This blog post reports a 2013 incident in which the journal declined to publish a comment piece by Prof Richard S J Tol. In his proposed piece, Tol said that some were “concerned about the standards of proof in climate research. [Some people] would emphasise the complexities of the climate system and highlight lack of rigour in peer-review, substandard statistical analysis, and unwillingness to share data,” said Tol in questioning whether another ERL piece had accurately portrayed scientific unanimity on certain scientific questions.

Prof Tol may look a bit odd but he is one of the world’s foremost economists specialising in climate change, an author (contributing, lead, principal and convening) of Working Groups I, II and III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the shared winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007. He was not amused.

SOURCE

Global warming is happening, and that's a fact. You can't judge from short-term measurements (e.g. if this summer was hotter or not than last year's), but you can see the indirect effects of it. For instance, the rise of sea level where I live is pretty obvious. Most coastlines have withdrawn since their original positions (say 30 years ago). Just a take a look of the last few year floods all over the world. The greenhouse effect is a very real one and has been happening since an atmosphere (close to what we have today) formed.

The real dispute is whether this is caused by humans, or not. The CO2 emmisions have indeed skyrocketed since the 1800s. But as many in this thread pointed out, CO2 makes up for a small percentage (less than 5%) of the greenhouse effect gases (with the vast majority of it being water vapours). As to why the evaporisation of water from the oceans (the main source of water vapours in the atmosphere) has increased, that's the real question. Let me explain this:

It's the same argument as to who came first, the chicken or the egg. We know that higher temperatures lead to higher water evaporisation. This produces more water vapours, which in turn, reflect a greatest percentage of earth-emissioned-heat back to the surface, that increase the global temperature. What most scientists try to figure out is whether the temperature rise or the evaporisation of oceans came first, and if it's connected to humankind. This has not been proven or rejected, yet.

An interesting byproduct of the heat of oceans, is the CO2 emissions. Higher water temperatures, reduce the sοlubility of CO2 ions (CO-) in the water, thus making the oceans release more CO2-to-be ions. The abrupt increase of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is indeed connected to humans and the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, but it started before that.

All this is is information I gathered from 3 climatology courses, couple years ago in the university. Most of it can be explained with simple physics (wave reflection, properties of nitrogen and carbon gases and water vapours, solubility) and some geology (CO2 and paleoclimatology data from ice cores, rocks and fossils).

Also, first post after being a long time lurker

originally posted by: WeAre0ne


A lot of people think like you do... and no offense, but you don't know what you are talking about.

I do, actually.

Global Waming Fiddling

AGW isn't based on models and cherry picked data. AGW is based on solid and well established laws of physics. The greenhouse effect is a real physical effect that CO2 and many other gases cause.. Another fact is that we are increasing greenhouse gases (mainly CO2) at an alarming rate, which is increasing the greenhouse effect, and at some point in the future will cause the climate to change, and get warmer. AGW is a proven fact based on physical laws, and there is no longer a debate on its existence.

Based on the laws of physics run through computer simulators with fudged or incomplete data. Climate and weather are still areas of science that are still not fully understood. Climate is far more complex than just the amount of certain gasses in the atmosphere. Climate is effected by numerous variables, several of which come from beyond earth.

Models and data are not used to prove something... they are only used to predict something. The models and data you talk about are only needed to predict what will happen in the future, and to help us prepare for that future, and give us a time scale. The models and data are not supposed to be used to prove to you or anyone that AGW is real... because that has already been proven by physics.

Once you understand that, it makes all this bickering (this topic) about cherry picked, and wrong, and or falsified data a huge joke.

Predictions....yes.....just like they make "predictions" with the weather forecast, and we see how accurate those are. And given that the projections so far have proved inaccurate, I'm not really trusting them to predict ten days into the future, let alone ten years.

Is the climate changing? Yes. That's what climate does naturally. It changes. It shifts. And has been doing so long before man walked the earth. We have seen major climate shifts in recent human history, and yet we are all here. (Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, ect).

I'm not saying it's ok to pollute the environment. Quite the opposite. There are real environmental problems that we need to get a grasp on, like water pollution, smog, toxic waste disposal, recycling, wild area conservation, Animal conservation, halting urban sprawl, and finding renewable, safer energy sources. But all of these were environmental issues that had been important long before this AGW bs surfaced, and had solid facts to back these threats up. Not only that, but all of the above environmental issues also have basis in common sense and practicality, as well as science, such as: political, economic, health concerns, reducing waste, preserving the wilderness, and stewardship. They all had hard data to back them up, and far less dissent.

Pushing B.S. as science and expecting people to follow it like religion is a recipe for disaster.

a reply to: Phage

I'm going to assume you accidentally missed the world "global".
Something one observatory cannot provide.

a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

If you haven't noticed, they call it "climate change" now for a reason... because the anthropogenic part has fallen apart. Now it's just "climate change", and since the planet has warmed more in some places, and cooled more in others, they can't really call it "global warming" anymore, because it's not just warming by itself.

This is not correct.

Frank Luntz was behind the change in terminology during the Bush administration. From The Guardian:

The phrase "global warming" should be abandoned in favour of "climate change", Mr Luntz says, and the party should describe its policies as "conservationist" instead of "environmentalist", because "most people" think environmentalists are "extremists" who indulge in "some pretty bizarre behaviour... that turns off many voters".

Words such as "common sense" should be used, with pro-business arguments avoided wherever possible.

The environment, the memo says, "is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general - and President Bush in particular - are most vulnerable".

AGW is based on models that 10 years ago, predicted a future that did not occur. Every prediction fell on its face. The whole basis of a model is its ability to accurately predict something repeatedly.

Physics doesn't prove AGW. If models can't predict, with accuracy, what will happen, that means that the understanding that scientists use those models for is WRONG - IE - DISPROVEN. It doesn't matter how "close" they come. Close only matters with hand grenades and horse shoes. It can either predict it every time with the proper set of variables, or it can't. There is no in between with it.

This is at best misleading. Climate models are always approximations, not falsifiable experiments. Climate is an enormously complex system and highly susceptible to short term variations and given the level of noise, ten years is an absurdly short period of time for assessing the utility of the models.

The shortcomings of models doesn't mean that CO2 levels aren't increasing steadily (who is refuting this?), that human activity isn't responsible for this increase or that the long-term result won't be warming of the planet.

I encourage you and the OP to read what Mr. Pielke has said about global warming himself. Here are some of the take home points from a report he delivered to the US House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform in 2006 (PDF here):

1. Human-caused climate change is real and requires attention by policy makers to
both mitigation and adaptation – but there is no quick fix; the issue will be with us
for decades and longer.
2. Any conceivable emissions reductions policies, even if successful, cannot have a
perceptible impact on the climate for many decades.
3. Consequently, costs (whatever they may be) are borne in the near term and
benefits related to influencing the climate system are achieved in the distant
future.
4. However, many policies that result in a reduction in emissions also provide
benefits in the short term unrelated to climate change.
5. Similarly adaptation policies can provide immediate benefits.

Interesting that he's the very first source cited to kick off this denial thread and yet... dun dun dun... "human-caused climate change is real and requires attention"

If you are a denier or a skeptic, Read this extract from a tobacco company and ask yourself if big oil hasn't also played the same card.

" Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the "body of fact" that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy, Within the business we recognize that a controversy exists. However, with the general public the consensus is that cigarettes are in some way harmful to the health.

If we are successful in establishing a controversy at the public level, then there is an opportunity to put across the real facts about smoking and health. Doubt is also the limit of our "product".

Tobacco documents

Yes, thousands and thousands or scientists can ne behind a hoax, although there probably isn't nearly that many. Scientists work for groups and organizations that get government grants and if the government says we want global warming data saying its getting warmer, they'll try to find it whether they have it or not.
What we have to worry about is somebody telling us there's a problem and we have to do something we may not want to do to even if we don't think there's a problem to begin with. Don't give the government any more control than the minimum you think they need.
Its been cooler these past two years which coincided with a lull in solar activity. Prior to that it was warmer which coincided with a spike in solar activity. The sun is the determining factor to climate. I'm not saying mankind has no effect, just that its a minor. Consider the USA's input compared to the rest of the world's, we're really not going to have much of an impact no matter what we do. But they want us to change so they can make money with increased industrialization elsewhere at our expense.
Just take what the global warmers say with a grain of salt and don't be afraid to call them dolts and challenge their grasp of science. They aren't nearly as smart and as educated as they want to pretend to be.

There has to be some irony in the fact that the most liberal state in the union is suffering the most with a drought unseen in its history. I don't know if its some sort of cosmic justice or what but it sure seems fitting for a state that worships everything anti-American and pushes a rabid left wing agenda including worshiping a still unproven man made Climate Change theory.

You would think they would have taken the initiative along time ago and started building desalination plants all along the coast line. Instead they are passing draconian ground water bills that will do nothing but add a further layer of bureaucracy to an already over burdened and over taxed population.