NewsWeek debunks its own Global Warming Story

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Washington1788 @ Aug 21 2007, 08:51 AM) [snapback]499700[/snapback]</div>

There's just a whole lot of irony in the bolded (by me) sentence above. Yes, there is a scientific consensus.

And your Iraq war analogy doesn't match up. The data on Global Warming is publicly available (that scientific consensus, again) and has been arrived at over 30 years of study among fierce debate. The data on Iraq was not public; was in fact secret, and being secret, subject to political manipulation. Unlike in science, dissenting voices were quashed. The largest reservoir of experts on Iraq, the State Department, was ignored. Taking action on global warming would be a case of listening to expertise. Invading Iraq was certainly a case of ignoring it.

But please...let's not turn this thread into an off-topic Iraq war discussion.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MegansPrius @ Aug 21 2007, 09:22 AM) [snapback]499719[/snapback]</div>

There is a scientific consensus, just as there was a consensus among most of the world's intellegence agencies about Saddam having WMD's.

The Iraq analogy absolutely does match up. You're telling me that global warming hasn't become a political issue subject to political manipulation? I would respectfully disagree and suggest that it has. Deciding to go to war is usually a political decision based on some event or decision on a set of circumstances. Most of the evidence at the time pointed toward Iraq having WMD's, and of course there was DISSENT within State and other agencies. Just as you're claiming that dissent was "quashed," I would suggest similar dissent is quashed in the scientific community on the global warming issue.

But I agree, I don't want to turn this into an Iraq war discussion, I was merely trying to use it as an illustration of how it seems some people want dissent listened to at certain times, but in other areas they want it snuffed out, like in the global warming discussion.

 

"... just as there was a consensus among most of the world's intellegence agencies about Saddam having WMD's."

This is not April 4th. You are years late with that joke

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Washington1788 @ Aug 21 2007, 09:51 AM) [snapback]499700[/snapback]</div>

You are confusing the scientific community, which is looking to predict the behavior of a complex system based on observation, with political actors, who are promoting their own agenda. What should scientists do - stop reporting their results because they appear dire and washed up ex-VP's may exaggerate them to make a movie?

In my mind, a "Global Warming Denier" would be someone who claims the prediction methodology developed to predict future behavior is incorrect while offering no substantive challenge to the mass of observations supporting it. They do not have any factual reason to deny the scientific consensus, no alternative theory to explain the actual real observations, and do not care. They are not after any answers, simply to deny the entire question. They are much like creationists, but without the intellectually honest core of, "ultimately it is about faith."

A person's career in the scientific community is over if they refuse to accept observed facts by putting forth an unsupported opinion that is unsubstantiated, indeed contradicted, by observed facts. Science is about facts, observed reality. If someone wants to bask in opinions listen to talk radio or go to a PETA rally, they are of no use in advancing modern scientific knowledge.

A scientist who refuses to accept a scientific consensus AND supports their reasoning with actual observed facts, what is commonly referred to as "the scientific method," tends to get a Nobel prize (see Einstein, or more recently the discovery of Helicobacter pylori). Challenging scientific consensus with reproducible observations and publicly described methodology is very richly rewarded. It is good science and recognized as such. Denying a theory that explains the vast majority of observed facts and successfully predicts future system behavior for no factual reason is not science and it is a lie to present such snake oil as science. Just as it is a lie to misrepresent the science for political purpose. For example, if someone were to claim we need to enact Kyoto now or sea level will rise 7m in the next decade, that is just as much a lie.

As a side note, I apologize if I have used the term global warming denier anywhere. It is wrong on a few counts. First, the issue is not global warming, but climate change. If it were merely a uniform temperature increase of a couple degrees C it would not be as potentially destructive. And second, there are no more people denying that the average global temperature is rising. All those people have admitted they were wrong since there is absolutely no way to deny it any more; many of have now moved onto denying the more complex predictions.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Aug 21 2007, 09:39 AM) [snapback]499786[/snapback]</div>

Wel said as usual.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jweale @ Aug 21 2007, 11:23 AM) [snapback]499779[/snapback]</div>

The bolded sentence is exactly what makes people suspicious. Scientists should not stop reporting results or doing the research needed to understand climate change, it's causes, potential solutions, etc. However, when politicians start using the issue to promote changes to our society and way of life that are not supported by the facts (i.e. the sea rising 7 meters) you start to wonder what the motivation is and why do they want to force this on us. Sure, Europe accepted the Kyoto treaty and agreed to try to meet it's goals. Nice words, but they aren't even going to come close to doing it, and now they are trying to scale it back. This issue needs to be less political.

 

Holy s**t, why does everyone have an opinion about science and global warming?? How many of you are research scientists??? How many of you are even familiar with how science research is funded, performed, and published?? So many of you here just spout out crap you selectively heard from media pundits, without any real understanding of anything you talk about. We don't all pretend to be experts on medicine, law, bridge engineering, microbiology, or corporate governance; but when it comes to global climate science, we all give our two cents as though we are part of the scientific community. The scientific community has a public information panel called the IPCC. The IPCC reports gives the status of the science of global warming. It is a condensed representation of peer-reviewed science, that has been published in scientific journals, by a large panel of scientists so that schmucks like you and the government know what scientists have been finding. The IPCC reports themselves are not a matter of debate or skepticism, for the report itself is a representation of the level of debate or skepticism. Read the latest IPCC report, and know that it represents the scientific community as a body.

This isn't directed at anyone in particular, in fact, several here have an understanding of science and the IPCC. But so many others just keep rehashing old crap over and over again....

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(05_SilverPri @ Aug 21 2007, 12:14 PM) [snapback]499799[/snapback]</div>

I fully endorse that response as better than anything I could post as a response!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarkMN @ Aug 21 2007, 02:00 PM) [snapback]499857[/snapback]</div>

By that thinking, apparently if you're not an expert in something you're not allowed/supposed to have an opinion on it?

Part of why EVERYONE seems to have an opinion on this subject because it has the potential to affect everyone on the planet -- whether you believe climate change is under way or not. The science of this subject will/is translating directly into public policy which is and will continue to affect fundamental aspects of people's lives -- including societies as a whole.

I'm not sure if you've seen some of the things that have been proposed in the EU Parliment or in some cities around the EU, but we're talking massive tax increases, banning of some cars, limiting how many miles a person can fly in a year and taxing them on every mile over that limit, carbon trading schemes, and the list goes on. The scary thing is, proposals like those probably aren't too far off in the future here in the U.S.

So clearly, people are going to want to know the reasons behind these significant changes which have direct impacts on our (and the world's) economies, people's basic lifestyles, and who controls our government.

Justifed or not, many people are skeptical of whether climate change is a real threat or not because I believe so many people tie this issue to the weather. So many times you hear, well the weather people can't get the next week right how can people have any confidence that these climate models are anymore accurate? Anytime there is a heat wave or some kind of extreme weather, in many cases, you'll see someone trying to tie it to global warming or climate change -- i.e. Katrina, the number of hurricanes in a season, heat waves, etc.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Aug 21 2007, 02:28 PM) [snapback]499873[/snapback]</div>

When people feel that they're intelligent and equipped to review GW data and arrive at a contrary opinion to that of the majority of scientists studying this event it presents a problem as most certainly these folks won't heed the message and amend their behavior. This will probably ultimately affect a large proportion of the residents of our planet. In that way, digestion of the data on GW differs than one's opinion of abortion and many other matters.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Aug 21 2007, 02:50 PM) [snapback]499888[/snapback]</div>

This thread has been an interesting read and made me think and do a little research. Some name-calling going on, but more posts are actually engaged in exchanging information. We've got a spectrum of feelings on global warming, but even the "deniers" agree on some basic principles that we need to control pollution and consumption.

I've long been on the side that AGW is real, although I keep hoping that the deniers will dig up something valid and we only need to worry about peak oil/geopolitics of our oil dependency, trade imbalance and subprime mortgage fallout (there's a real reassuring example of letting the free market work things out for itself). Unfortunately, I haven't found anything convincing yet, solar forcing was promising but its prospects are looking down. Each side can have some pretty convincing arguments, so it takes some diligence getting the big picture. The pictures of the weather stations is a good example, if the weather stations are all clearly like that, but they aren't, and it doesn't explain why any of us who grew up in the 60's and 70's remember colder winters and more snow than we have now. Ice-out dates in remote parts of Canada are sooner, according to fishermen friends, anecdotal evidence goes on.

Evan's right, we can do our own analysis and see how it fits our knowledge of the real world, even if we aren't climatologists. But we can't try to make it fit our pre-conceived notions. We have to be ready to change our minds if the data clearly shows our ideas are wrong. We know a lot more now than we did a decade ago, but we are still finding areas we didn't even know before that we don't understand. It could be some rather seemingly-insignificant effect will change our whole understanding. But for me, it's hard to get away from the fact that CO2 and methane are known-global warming gases, and human activity has raised both of them significantly, and we have warmer temperatures today.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Aug 21 2007, 04:23 PM) [snapback]499940[/snapback]</div>

Those are valid questions, to be sure. Your assertion that CO2 is 30% of warming, is that 30% of additional warming above historical average? That could be true, but add methane, CFCs and some other compounds that humans tend to generate, then there's the effect of contrails (positive or negative, I'm not sure if it's real clear), added pavement & concrete instead of greenery, let's say 40% (very conservatively, IMO) of the additional warming is human-generated. Might not seem that important, but if that leads to positive feedback loops of releasing methane/hydrates in permafrost or reduced plant growth (due to heat or drought, again might be partly balanced by more growth elsewhere, although CO2 doesn't seem to be increasing growth as much as we thought), then our 40% is leveraged into a much bigger contribution.

With big questions like this that could very possibly negatively affect the lives of our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren..., it seems obvious that we should be taking precautions against it. At least the low-hanging fruit like improved fuel efficiency, better light bulbs, less paper/lumber waste, things that generally save us money in the long-run anyway. R&D on emerging technologies that could strengthen our economy, like cellulosic ethanol, solar energy, etc. Then when that's done and more science is in, we can if needed get down to harder issues that could actually affect our lifestyle, like limitations on house sizes, commuting choices, land use.

But like you mention, we don't have the foresight or political backbone to do almost any of this. Even European countries that supposedly follow Kyoto. They talk about the need for reducing CO2 emissions at the same time they sign a deal for increased air travel. Russia signed onto Kyoto because they could look like the green savior for it in the absence of the U.S. but they had gone thru a recession, so they were meeting the numbers anyway. In the end we're going be forced down the path of better efficiency only because of high oil prices. It doesn't really matter much how we pontificate in the meantime, except in how we handle our personal lives and how we'll explain our actions to our grandchildren.

 

TimBikes, my opinion is that of the IPCC. What understanding I have of global warming is gained from reading monographs and the realclimate.org website monographs directed at explaining GW for laypeople.

And from that lowly perspective, even I realize that your 'questions' are either trivial, answered years ago, or foolish. Which is why I and others keep referring you to scientific sites for laypeople, in hopes that you will wise up a little. But now that you have made clear that your babbling is just for our entertainment, I'll just let you continue being a clown.

Evan, if you form an independent opinion of GW data and think it is worth something more than the hot air added to the environment when voicing it, then you are something less than foolish. We have NO arguably justifiable reason to pollute the space with our opinions on this topic, any more than I would in calling up NASA and volunteering to pilot the next challenger based on my opinion that I have pretty good reflexes, and little more is needed for that task.

Note, that the above is fundamentally different that someone saying "I realize that GW is 95% certain based on best science to date, but I'll hold out for the remaining uncertainty eventually turning out to be true, because of my religious agenda, or political agenda ... etc" Unreasonable ? yes. But at least not the equivalent of a baboon giving a powerpoint presentation, getting excited every time a certain color appears on the screen.