Global Warming - yes, no, maybe?

[GaHillBilly]

So much of what's been published on the topic of global warming has been so politically driven that I've remained firmly agnostic, especially with regard to AGW (anthropogenic global warming). Many of the statements supporting the premise that AGW is a huge threat come from folk who are no more expert on the topic than I am.

 

However, a German by the name of Storch, who seems to be a genuine scientist working on the topic, recently published the results of an extensive anonymous survey of scientists who are actually knowledgeable in the field. The consensus, while generally reporting that a large majority support the AGW premise, reveals that most have serious doubts about many popular predictions concerning the effects of AGW, and that a small but non-trivial minority of scientists in the field doubt validity the AGW premise itself.

 

It's a long and complex survey, and it will help if you have a little knowledge of statistics. But, it's worth looking at. Anyhow, here's the link:

http://coast.gkss.de/staff/storch/pdf/CliSci2008.pdf

 

GaHillBilly

 

 

As a counter example, here's an example of one of the "We all agree, even though many of us know nothing about climate science" reports:

http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/east-anglia-cru-hacked-emails-12-09-09.pdf

 

The report includes statements from the American Academy of Pediatrics on the danger posed by AGW.

 

My own experience with physicians -- several are personal friends -- is that they have permanently attached blinders, and know almost nothing about anything but medicine. This isn't a criticism; such tunnel vision focus is necessary to succeed in surviving the medical training process. But, in general, they seem to have the least 'general knowledge' of any group of educated folk I know. (As always, there's the exception to the rule. But, the one I know is a genius, literally, and barely had to study in med school due to a near photographic memory.

[Eagle92]

To be honest I do not believe in AGW for a variety of reasons.

 

1)If the proponents of AGW truly believed that it was true, they would not try and stifled debate as seen numerous examples of AGW proponents stating that opponents should loose their certification,i.e a meteorologist who disagreed with AGW and had folks asking to revoke his certification; the removal of quesioners from debates, i.e. the recent UN removal of a journalist form Copenhagen; and of course the hacked emails stating that AGW proponents were blackmailing scholarly journals who published articles against AGW.

 

2)History has shown that there have been in fact periods of cooling and warming.

 

3) There is enough evidence to show that global warming is part of a natural trend.

 

 

Now alot of what the environmental movement is for, I am too, but at times it goes to far. I've been told I'm part of the Pinchotian (sp) school of environmentalism.

[evmori]

AGW is nothing more than a weather cycle.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

So there must be some sort of global conspiracy between thousands of scientists, eh?

[Mike F]

I don't usually read or comment in this section, but got my attention.

 

First, Merlyn, 1000s of scientists would chime in together if it meant more grant money coming their way. I work in the technology world and there is an amazingly consistent "group-think" mentality when it comes to money.

 

Second, in recorded human history, we have seen long-term big changes. One of the most striking is the fact the Vikings had very successful settlements in Greenland when it was experiencing a long period of warmth. Ice had retreated and coasts were green and productive for many years. The ice later spread back to the coast and forced them out. This was long before the internal combustion engine started spewing CO2.

 

IF it is man-made (AGW) and IF it is primarily due to us pulling buried carbons out of the earth and re-releasing them into the atmosphere as CO2, then nothing will change unless we stop pulling oil, gas, and coal out and burning them. A little bit of conservation will only reduce the price of a barrel of oil by a few pennies and someone else will buy and burn them cheaper. Yes - we should conserve and should be working on other energy ideas. But today's economy and standard of living depend on the energy supplies we have right now.

 

There are way too many big IFs in the AGW story - especially as it relates only to CO2 and not other possible causes which have potential to be bigger part of the problem.

The Earth has always been changing. We would be a lot better off if we concentrated our scarce dollars on figuring out how to cope with the changes.

[Nike]

Warmistas (Pro-AGW) want us to immediately cripple our carbon based economies with huge reductions in carbon based energy usage caused by enourmous tax loads while no technology with equivalent massive energy output is available, EXCEPT nuclear. Yet, the warmistas are not behind a huge surge toward nuclear while we develop much, much cheaper and near 100% efficient solar technology which would be a boon to much of the third world. (Ditch the windfarms. They are bird killers and visual pollutants.)

 

Makes me wonder what the warmistas really want.

[GaHillBilly]

It's easy to forget that, at the base of the AGW debate, there is a real scientific question. The politics are so loud, so driven by values that have nothing to do with AGW, and so compromised by scientists who've been caught up in the politics, that it's hard to see the scientific question.

 

But there still is one, with 4 possible answers:

 

1. Given the data and tech we currently have, we can't tell whether GW is or is not occurring.

2. GW is happening, but won't affect humans much.

3. GW is happening and will affect humans a lot, but it is not anthropogenic in origin.

4. GW is happening, will affect people, and is anthropogenic in origin.

 

Personally, I'd guess it's either #3 or #4. But regardless, what we ought to do, depends on which answer is correct.

 

+ Nothing, if it's #1.

+ Not much, if it's #2.

+ Move folks, if it's #3

+ Only if it's #4, should we try to reduce the man caused component of GW, which by the way includes methane and gaseous sulfur compounds, not just CO2, and risk devastating the world economy along the way.

 

I just find it really scary that the folks who ought to be independent scientists are actually hugely political advocates of answer #4. Even without the CRU emails, it makes me doubt how trustworthy they are. Before we spend even more TRILLIONS of $'s we don't have, I wish we had rock solid evidence from genuinely independent scientists.

 

 

I'm afraid that we are doing so much damage to our economy, that it won't matter much whether AGW is real or not.

 

 

GaHillBilly

 

 

[skeptic]

Can a "genuinely independent scientist" even get noted? Apparently, even here, the lobbyists are in control on both sides. I personally lean toward GaH's #3. But, as is obvious in all of these debates; what we think means little.

 

Oh well.

 

Merry Christmas (my belied), or whatever suits you at this hopefully respectful holiday period.

[Beavah]

Yah, this is one of those areas where what we individually believe is irrelevant.

 

There is an actual answer.

 

What we need to do is go and find da answer, not spend a lot of time on "belief sharing" or trying to convince others to believe da same way we do.

 

I reckon the people who are in da best position to find the answer are the scientists working in the field, and the best way to understand what they're sayin' is to actually read their research. Scientists don't talk like politicians, eh? When they try to do da political thing of convincing stupid people to vote their way they're bad at it. In their actual research, they admit to assumptions and weaknesses, they challenge each other.

 

So I'm all in favor of funding 'em, and then trusting them. Just like medicine, eh? Da human body is complicated, the research on your disease may not be right, but it's the best yeh have to go on and you're a fool if yeh decide to "believe" something else. Same with this. Da climate is a complicated thing, an individual scientist may be wrong, but there is a real answer out there and yeh have to trust the best people to go find it.

 

What we do with da knowledge they give us is up to us, eh? We can get the information and choose not to act. Heck, we seem to be passin' all the other problems and debts on to our kids these days, why not one more thing? But even da possibility of a couple degree rise in global temperatures should scare the living tar out of us, eh? That kind of thing would be absolutely devastating to the U.S. (though perhaps good for Canada ). About a thousand times worse than anything al-Queda could do to us. It's a national security issue.

 

I'm an old school conservative, eh? I believe in conserving our values, our nation, and our liberties and passin' 'em on to the next generation. I don't know a thing about climate, though I sure do know it's a lot warmer now than it was when I was a young lad. I do know that I want to conserve the beauty of our nation for the generations to come. And I know that in conducting a military campaign the politicians better trust the generals, and on a matter of science, da politicians better trust da scientists.

 

Beavah

 

[Beavah]

Only if it's #4, should we try to reduce the man caused component of GW, which by the way includes methane and gaseous sulfur compounds, not just CO2, and risk devastating the world economy along the way.

 

Yah, I'm not convinced of that claim either. I reckon on matters of economics, even the economists don't know jack, and the economists aren't claimin' economic devastation.

 

I reckon that a focused national effort Manhattan-Project style to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels would be an economic boom for the United States. It would reduce our dependence on foreign oil and devastate our enemies in the middle east and belligerent states like Russian and Venezuela. It would set us up as the energy and technology supplier to the world for another two generations. But right now we're ceding that lead to China and Japan, where real investment in alternatives is goin' on, while we hold on to old coal plants.

 

We aren't always da sharpest tools in the shed, eh? Who else would give away their technology lead while choosin' to fund their enemies?

 

Beavah

 

[Eagle92]

B,

The challenge I see is that there has been no serious debate or discussion on this topic in which which both sides have come together to rationally discuss this matter.

 

Rather one side has monopolize the literature which should promote discussion (Climategate), attempted to discredit those who oppose their viewpoints (the Weatherchannel folks), refuse to acknowledge discrepencies and dissent from publications (see the UN report and those scienteists listed as being a part of the group yet dissented) recruited non-scientists to propagandizing (Inconvienent Truth, et al).

 

Yes it's become politicized, but one one group has done it. And to me that weakens the argument.

 

Now in reference to Americans not beiNg the shapest tool in the woodshed at times. Agreed. History has shown that folks do get complacent and beleive what they want to beleive. The best example for me is the Triple Entente powers that refused to see Hitler as a threat and allowed him to repeatedly violate Versaille(then again I am in the process of reading Churchill's THE SECOND WORLD WAR).(This message has been edited by eagle92)

(This message has been edited by eagle92)

[GaHillBilly]

"Scientists don't talk like politicians, eh?"

 

Wish it were so.

 

The university system has changed enough, so that there are almost no niches left for the apolitical 'just let me do my science' guys.

 

I've had to look at this very closely over the last 12 months, because my older son is about to graduate summa in biology, and is being pushed hard to go get a PhD at UGA. The problem, which his teachers don't know about, that he's not a true believer in naturalistic evolution. He's not combative, like I am, so they haven't clued into what's going on when he occasionally drops his logic-bomb questions into some of the thorny information theory discussions about DNA.

 

He actually leans toward mutational evolution as a primary mechanism for species development. But, as he and I and anyone who has looked at it knows, there are NO naturalistic explanations for abiogenesis. However, to say so is NOT acceptable. He was very, very startled in class a couple of weeks ago, when one of his professors acknowledged the problems in this area.

 

But it appears that there's no way, currently, for him to get a PhD without swearing -- almost in blood -- his eternal allegiance to scientific naturalism. Something very like a political loyalty oath IS required, or your thesis defense WILL be unsuccessful. The lay low tactics he's used so far will not work in grad school. We're still looking to see if we can find a university program where that's not true. But what we're hearing is not encouraging.

 

It's not just biology.

 

In advanced physics, you WILL study string theory, in spite of it being a theory without evidence and without testable predictions. We've lost a whole generation of physicists to this vain (so far) effort to come up with an explanation of the Big Bang that doesn't sound so frighteningly like ex nihilo creation.

 

And, in the same way, in climate science, you WILL swear your allegiance to AGW. The CRU scientists in the emails are HIGHLY political. If you doubt it, I can post a link to the full files, and if that link's gone bad, I can provide you a copy directly, Beavuh. Whether the emails throw the data in doubt can be debated. But, what cannot be honestly doubted is that they show the scientists involved to be totally political.

 

Your hope of finding apolitical scientists in this arena is, I'm afraid, a vain one.

 

GaHillBilly

[le Voyageur]

 

 

Per the question - yes. Global warming is real, but I've no problem with allowing it to continue unabated. Human's are now a virus on this planet, and a massive die off of these invasive parasites would see huge global benefits for other species, and eco systems.

[scoutldr]

I agree with LeVoyageur...time for a thinning of the herd, like we do for deer (it's for their own good, you know). It's just a natural cycle of populations. Besides, on December 21, 2012, it will all be moot anyway.

[GaHillBilly]

"Human's are now a virus on this planet, and a massive die off of these invasive parasites would see huge global benefits for other species, and eco systems."

 

So, does the solution start at home, for you? Or, do you subscribe to the currently popular ideology, "eco-hypocrisy"?

 

GaHillBilly