Global Warming Film

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Mar 14 2007, 03:55 PM) [snapback]405589[/snapback]</div>

Already linked to and discussed a lot in this thread: http://priuschat.com/index.php?s=&show...st&p=403826

 

The interesting topics brought up in the movie had already been proven false by numerous studies.

I understand why you posted it though Tim. I posted the video on my racing forum for others to see as well. Regardless of my distaste for the movie.

 

The most interesting thing, I think, about this is the heated discussions on realclimate about it. It appears that the documentary did some fairly ridiculous stuff with the post WWII cooling data. Which, of course, hurts their cause.

The frustrating thing about it is that there's so much information necessary to have the most basic discussion of the issues. The blokes that are debating all and sundry know so much more (or at least pretend that they do) about the issues than I do that it's really hard to have any sense for the validity of the arguments.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Mar 14 2007, 02:57 PM) [snapback]405663[/snapback]</div>

Thanks Tim, I have a wide range of interests and tend to get carried away with my study or participation in them. I get made fun of quite a bit for it.

I would like to see more information on the water vapor concerns you have. Are there any sites that talk about this so I can see in what context they are expressing these concerns? I know that water vapor can be a very tricky thing. The first time I watched "Global Dimming" I was pretty awestruck when they found that exvaporation rates were going down while temperatures were going up.


Here is an article on water vapor. Let me know if this helps any.

Water vapour: feedback or forcing?

 

Nice article, F8L. This particular article is very accessible. The comments are always the most interesting aspect of the posts over at RC, even when I have only a dim understanding of what the hell they're talking about.

 

I am absolutely convinced that Gore was the wrong person to do an inconvenient truth.... now more than ever every non-scientist thinks they are just as knowledgeable as scientists (such as on Realclimate) by having watched a movie and some internet articles. But then again, what gets to the most people is the 'lowest common denominator.' I would imagine most documentaries a scientist would be considered by the masses (who are far more interested in what Brittney is eating) to be as "boring." Then it would be a whole lot easier for someone to make an opposing video that would reach a much wider audience due to being sensationalist.

I read a psychology study a long time ago... I forgot the details but the main idea was about how easy it was for someone to switch their stance on an idea they aren't familiar with given two opposing ideas.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ Mar 15 2007, 09:36 AM) [snapback]406021[/snapback]</div>

I agree with you on Gore. He was better in the short-term becuase he was able to grab the media spotlight but in the long-term that same media spotlight will be very bad for the cause of GW.

 

Well said... now at this point I wish it was anyone but Gore.... or at least someone who wasn't so politically charged or leaning.

 

Hang on. It seems to me that anyone who points out the facts about global warming will be accused of being "politically charged or leaning".

As Stephen Colbert said, facts have a well-known liberal bias. Hence the need for Conservapedia.

 

I linked the movie into my forums also, as it actually solved quite a few problems I was having with the climate change debate. I'm comfortable with the idea that CO2 has increased, probably due to man's influence, based on hard data. And I'm comfortable with the idea that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

But I started becoming wary when I saw articles that claimed "100% consensus" ... which is very rare in science. You get consensus only after a lot of back and forth in science, and I view the GW debate much like the debate about the Big Bang. Einstein was still calling Lemiere' an idiot up until he called him a genius. That was in the 1930's or 40's. Now, you can probably say that most scientists accept the Big Bang, but there are still alternate theories.

One good thing is that the GW debate does allow for prediction and observation. One of the folks in the "Scam" video said that, if his modeling is correct, we should be in for a cooling trend in a few years. If that happens, then we'll know he is right, and the "consensus" guys are wrong.

I also have a greater comfort level now that I know there's some dissent. I guess its been out there a while, as the petition at http://www.oism.org/pproject/ shows, but I hadn't found anything more than political pronouncements on it. And I'm very wary of politicized science, as it has given us truly horrible social policies in the past.

 

To me there are several real issues here and it's really all about risk mitigation. As Tim touched on, there's the energy security risk that we need to mitigate. There's the climate issue. There's also a public health aspect that is usually overlooked in all of this. There are water use issues, soil quality issues, etc...

We don't know what the actual outcome will be but we often have a good idea. Ask it turns out there are many, many mutual solutions to these issues and people need to be asking the tough questions now. The answers are often not nearly as bad as people think. We really don't have to make huge sacrifices to make substantial reductions in energy use, oil imports, carbon emissions, etc... All of these issues are related so there's a lot of synergy. However, people need to realize that, for example, if we keep buying and building inefficient vehicles we pollute more, fouling our own air, are far more vulnerable to geopolitics and natural disasters, and may be completely hosing ourselves in the long term (ie, climate change).

These really aren't political issues and you can see that while they are at the moment and have been for a long time that's becoming less true. It's all about reconciling our short and long term objectives and striking a balance.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Mar 16 2007, 06:03 AM) [snapback]406635[/snapback]</div>

The alternate theories there don't explain the universe better than the Big Bang, so for the moment the Big Bang etc is the consensus.

And GW is much the same. There are alternate theories, but they don't explain observations as well as the consensus view presented by the IPCC.

The only reason the mainstream are feeling the need to start making a noise about there being a "near 100% consensus" is that those promoting alternate hypotheses are being given disproportionate airtime and influence. And further, the debate actually matters, in that if the concensus view is true, it impacts policy. Therefore the scientists are in the uncomfortable position of having to stand up and explain to a lay audience what's going on. And the media has a nasty habit of presenting "he said/she said" debates where each side gets 50% of the time, regardless of how much one side has been discredited.

Now, to a certain sort of libertarian/anti-authoritarian personality, I can see that these sort of claims of consensus are like a red rag to a bull. There's an instinctive reaction that if everyone's saying something, someone should be speaking out against it.

But if scientific certainty is increasing from 50% to 99%, it is not logical to start doubting it purely because scientists are getting more certain.

Certainly in the past, things that were universally held to be true have been disproven. But that doesn't mean that all things held to be true will be disproven. And increased certainty about something doesn't intrinsically make it less reliable!

I saw a good quote the other day. "Many visionaries were initially dismissed as kranks. But it doesn't follow that all kranks are visionaries..."

 

I think I started becoming more skeptical of Man Made G.W. when I started seeing in the media every natural disaster (even earthquakes!) or major storm attributed to GW. Remember all the predictions last year that it would be the worst hurricane season ever because of GW? While I realize most media people have no clue about what they are reporting on, the fact that everything bad is now attributed to GW (and usually has an “expert scientist†backing it up) has made my BS detector start going wild. People are looking to make some big money off this “crisis†and know that increasing the fear level will increase their profit.

Obviously, none of this has anything to do with the actual facts about GW. But it does bother me when people who are knowledgeable about the subject start saying things like “If you don’t accept the theory we don’t want you to work at our university science dept.†Scientist’s can be just as political as anyone else, and for all the talk about debate and review of ideas there seems to be a high level of “conform or else†going on here.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(05_SilverPri @ Mar 27 2007, 08:10 AM) [snapback]412903[/snapback]</div>

I do not see real scientists proclaiming the storm systems are directly caused by AGW. It is mainly media and sensationalism that makes this cooralation. The science sites I browse try to be careful about making such statements.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(05_SilverPri @ Mar 27 2007, 10:10 AM) [snapback]412903[/snapback]</div>

I just finished reading Michael Crichton's "State of Fear". It is fiction with many footnotes and very interesting. Since i finished the book, I am paying much closer attention to weather-related news. I would say that easily 75% of any weather-related news story is at least partially attributed to global warming.

I still can't believe when Gore and Co went up to receive their Oscar they subtely attributed Hurricane Katrina ot Global Warming. That floored me.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Mar 27 2007, 04:04 PM) [snapback]413094[/snapback]</div>

Review of State of Fear by Gavin Schmidt,a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Distort Reform
A review of the distorted science in Michael Crichton's State of Fear
http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2005/02/01/schmidt-fear/