Forums | MacLife

I'm done for the day, but I'll be back tomorrow.

An overwhelming majority of scientists, most especially climatologists, agree on this.

Can you provide a survey to back up that statement?  I can provide surveys to show the opposite.

http://www.globalwarming.org/csesurvey.htm
http://www.nationalcenter.org/TP38.html
http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/cli … ature1.htm

So you can point out signed documents?  The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine petition has the signatures of 17,000--not 12--scientists who deny man-made global warming is a problem.

http://www.oism.org/pproject/

As for bias, certain fossil fuel industries certainly can and do gain from promoting the idea of man-made global warming.  For example, coal releases more emissions than other fossil fuels--its competitors gain by crushing the competition when overall emissions must be reduced.

Second, the idea has gained critical mass within government--if a scientist wants government funding, what better way to get it than to show that his research is uncovering or solving an imminent apocalypse?  There are interests on both sides of this issue.

Regardless of whether man-made global warming is a problem (and regardless of the related and equally critical question--is it worth stopping?), we're now in a state where most of the media repeats claims that promote global warming theory as fact, often on the flimsiest basis (see, for example, the NYT's story about a year ago on the supposedly unprecedented melting of the North Pole--and subsequent retraction) and to dissent from the hypothesis is to invite ridicule.  The fact that this topic is being brought up is worrisome.  If there's a consensus, why are people of any repute debating?  Why are people here unconvinced?  Why the need to ask "consensus"?  No offense intended to Jaligard, but asking this over and over again and insisting that consensus exists when there's clearly debate going on only stifles dissent that people should be free to make, without ridicule.

I probably agree with Weeful.  I'll also add a crucial third point: There's been little analysis, that I've seen, that stopping global warming would be worthwhile.  The phenomenon may actually be beneficial, especially considering that the planet seems to be warming most in winters and nights.  And stopping global warming, if it could be done, could be calamitous in that fossil fuels are so critical to the world economy--futuristic speculation about alternative energies notwithstanding.  What little analysis I've seen has estimated that stopping global warming would be far, far more harmful to humans than adapting to it--and at least some scientists who think man-made global warming is happening have agreed.

Yes, there is a consensus. An overwhelming majority of scientists, most especially climatologists, agree on this. Even among the general population the consensus exists.

Climatologists? Yeah, right. Now there's a field of science that has a long history of , oh, thirty years.

We see documents signed by literally thousands of scientists, declaring greenhosue gases as a cause for global warming.

Simple case of economics: lots of so-called scientists latching onto the latest fad science so as to garner easy research funds.  The problem is that research into so-called "Global Warming" turns the Empirical Method on its head -- where the conclusion is the starting point and the farce being paraded as Science goes looking for evidence to support the results -- exactly bass-ackward.  Such nonsense has the tones of religious zeal -- in fact, it reminds me of the non-science put forward as "Scientific Creationism", a fundamentalist flawed refutation of the Theory of Evolution.

Bottom-line: So every Tom, Dick and Harry goes chasing this politically correct gravy train, and we're supposed to take that as evidence for its validity?

The closest thing to a scientist they had was a psychologist. And what do you know, the funding form these groups invariably comes from the oil industry.

Does anyone ever find it suspicious that the environmentalist whackos refuse to consider far more sound fields of Science like Geology and Paleontology?  Could it be that Geologists, in particular and by concensus, are at direct odds with these pseudo-Scientists that are so much in vogue today?

Geological science shows that the periodic warming and cooling trends are very much a natural process that has been taking place for millions of years, before there was even Mankind. 20,000 or so years ago we started the end of the last phase of the Wurm glaciation period and began what is called an "interstadial" -- a long period between a series of Ice Ages with a peak hot period that is typically much warmer than anything seen in all of Man's history.  These interstadials have occured many times throughout Earths long (pre)history, some long, some short.  Each extreme in these Ice Ages and Hot Ages has lead to great mass extictions in flora and fauna each time (and Man was not even around to take the blame either, sorry.)

The greenhouse gases (GHG) being touted as the cause of Global Warming were all very much present in those earlier interstadial periods, but at far greater levels.  And despite all the hyperbole from the environmentalists, the output of such gases by all of human existence pales in comparison to what Nature produces in one of these Hot Ages.  The point is, noone is sure whether these gases are a cause or just a symptom.

That we are now experiencing the effects of a growing interstadial, few of the (real) scientists deny.  The key question is whether this is one of the short ones, afterwhich we can expect another period of glaciation -- or a long one, where things are going to get far, far hotter than what we have ever seen.

So how could Mankind, much less the "evil" United States and first world countries, have been any part in causing our current interstadial warming, when these are a natural process that predates our very existence?  And since the combined GHG output of the U.S. for an entire year is less than that of one average volcanic erruption, how can anyone rationally argue that Mankind's "contribution" to the current warming trend is anything more than neglible?

But then the pseudo-scientists are too busy trying to attract research funds from gullible polliticians to listen to Geologists and Paleontologists and other level-headed scientists.  No, the environmentalist "scientists" and climatologists cannot afford to let a real and long-standing body of scientific evidence get in their way of feeding into this religious fervor.

[edited cause I realized it isn't ya'll I am pissy at]

I'd suggest you guys read the primary literature before making too many further statements. Instead of the NYT article on the Science article, read the Science article. Both Science and Nature are very accessible. As for the geologic community, read "Geology". The articles pretty much side with the climatologists. As for negatives, they are widely published. So you guys are either not understanding or reading sources that skip over them.

D'Eyncourt is correct:  Consensus is irrelevant in legitimate scientific inquiry. Absolutely, utterly irrelevant. It's of course historically a part of scientific movements and beliefs. But the scientific method is deaf to any voice other than properly-controlled evidence. That's why these signed declarations (common in other scientific fields, too) are such a hoot---since when did a signed declaration confirm or disconfirm evidence?

John

Global warming is some big bullsh*t made up by the communists in the 80's which was adopted by the leftists later to try and stop development and thus preventing the rich from getting richer.

Are you for real?

Seriously, I want to know.

To attribute the theory which describes the greenhouse effect to communists is to give the communists a lot of credit they don't deserve. To the best of my knowledge, the idea of global warming and the greenhouse effect came out of the U.S. scientific community, particularly in light of information they had gathered from Mars and Venus.

Read "science". Read "Nature". Read "Geology". There is a hell of a lot of evidence as for rates being fast. I can't post these here, but your local public library will have at least Science and Nature.

As for green house gasses being a major factor in global warmings, that is  very much generally excepted, least it is in geology. carbon/climate correlation are pretty well recorded. Now, if you want to argue abt man made sources, go for it. The primary literature often posits that anthropogenic gasses are a cause. However, I don't read enough now geo stuff to come up with all of it from the top of my head.

Also, that survey posted had a date on the head letter of 1998. Some pretty compelling papers have been published since then.

A final note. If you care to critize the method employed by these scientists, remember that they are published in peer reviewed journals. Sloppy expiremental method is one of the first things to get nailed. Those few that still disagree abt warming get to refree papers. They aren't likely to let bad methods slide. If you want to critize the science used to gather evidence, and the evidence itself, you'd better have a damn good argument.

The primary literature often posits that anthropogenic gasses are a cause.

Shall I be more blunt and say that most scientists think that we are responsible?

This is normally true... it is also in many ways this usually happens when in many cases democrats can't complain about anything, and revert back to their old ways, and bring up things we already know...

Many web sites are going to state greenhouse gasses are the cause of Global Warming...

Other people are going to say, that the earth naturally warms.

1. The Earth warms naturally, though a cycle, it also changes it's axis in so many millennia. 

2. Greenhouse gasses are a cause of advanced warming... if you noticed I said advanced... for what we are seeing now would be happening anyway, just at a slower rate...

3. We are due for an "earth killer" asteroid or comet, to hit us, for we are quite over due...

The issue here is not, does green house gasses cause global warming, the issue here should be is there anything for us to do to slow it down.

OPEC, and many major companies, or conglomerates, have patens to technology that would do just that, make care more fuel efficient, electrical cars, and god knows what else...

Where we should be, and where we are, are two different things...ranting and raving, holding picket sings etc are only going to show that you are angry, or worried... instead of spending a day out in the cold yelling that oil is bad, OPEC is bad... etc... how about finding a way to reduce, or to stop the production of green house gasses, cheap and effectively.

Cyberpawz

jaligard, just in case you didn't realize, the earth goes through climatic changes. The earth getting warmer is NOTHING that hasn't happened at various points throughout history. It gets warmer, then it gets cooler, then it gets warmer, then it gets cooler, et cetera. At some point we'll experience another ice age. I wonder if people will then be running around crying that we are causing "global cooling?"

Not in the fashion it currently is. The last century was climatically drastically unlike any century we know of. During the last century we started burning fossil fuels to power everything from nose clippers to weapons of mass destruction and at the same time our population grew immensely. We now consume more than our environment can produce. Our habits have become incapable of being sustained. We set fire to a sea, literally a sea of fuel each and every moment of the day. It's no wonder we now have climatic changes that are completely different than any before. They are unnatural and completetly man made. What we do has an effect. I am here and part of this thing we all call life and at the most, there is just six degrees of seperation between me and you, usually even less.

Now I realize some of you find comfort living in denial and believing the ice age happened in the exact same fashion or a similar way or timeline to what we are experiencing now and that we are not responable in any way shape or form, but I ask that you understand that I find that to be totally irresponsible and naive of you. That is all I ask. I'll accept your belief, heck I'll even suggest it's valid, I just ask that you do the same of mine.

"Seeing is believing".

I'd like to add one thing. Climatic changes are not the end all. We have much nastier things such as acid rain, filthy filthy air, tainted and toxic ground, and so on... We are polluting our environment. The amount of plastic debris (trash) floating in our oceans is comparable in size to the continent of Africa and growing. Unfathomable. Now what is interesting about that garbage is that it only took us one human life time to create it. It formed during the last century. http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/news/assignm … stics.html

Now I'm just guessing here but the scientists didn't just make up that CFC's create holes in the ozone layer. They didn't just pick some random gas and say this is the one. 

It is not that hard to expose a chemical to sample ozone in a lab and see what it does to it. There is a reason they are scientits, and that is because they work in labs and test this stuff.
It's not like they felt pressured to blame warming on something so they picked greenhouse gasses. Unlike everyone on this thread, they used expirments to come up with this theory.

The earth might have a natural cycle but the fact that we were already supposed to be in an ice age does say something about how much warmer the earth is that it is supposed to be.

just my 2 schillings