Humans must be to blame for climate change, say scientists - No possible natural phenomenon

[kpete]

Source: Independent UK

Humans must be to blame for climate change, say scientists

No possible natural phenomenon could have caused the huge rise in temperatures experienced in last half-century

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Friday, 5 March 2010



Climate scientists have delivered a powerful riposte to their sceptical critics with a study that strengthens the case for saying global warming is largely the result of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.

The researchers found that no other possible natural phenomenon, such as volcanic eruptions
or variations in the activity of the Sun, could explain the significant warming of the planet over the past half century as recorded on every continent including Antarctica.

It is only when the warming effect of emitting millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from human activity is considered that it is possible to explain why global average temperatures have risen so significantly since the middle of the 20th century.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/humans-umustu-be-to-blame-for-climate-change-say-scientists-1916506.html

[sellitman]

1. Unless these so called Scientists were funded by Exxon-Mobile their findings are pure speculation.

Or something to that effect. :eyes:

[donquijoterocket]

3. exxon-mobil

Their funding source, and the place where the study is published. You know you can't trust any of those peer-reviewed scientific journals, they're part of the conspiracy to keep funneling that huge grant money to those evil liberal scientists who might believe that all the effluents from our tailpipes and smokestacks does not immediately go up the fundament of the nearest wingnut and therefore have no effect in the environment. You know none of this will change the mind of a single denier. Oxyrush limpballs and Glennda the beckerhead will assure them this is all part and parcel of the great climategate conspiracy, or one of Mr. Gore's malevolent designs and they can ignore this as studiously as they've ignored the mountains of evidence compiled up to now.

[Duval]

103. LOL!! Do you realize

you have marvelous writing skills?? Seriously! sorry about subject change.:)

[timtom]

267. Was it the run-on sentence that won you?

[Swagman]

137. these libruls are a bunch of wimps . Gas guzzling SUVs rule !

:sarcasm:

[SkyDaddy7]

189. Check this article out!

Seriously, America is headed for new Dark Age if the majority of Christians get their way! More than 60% of Americans deny life evolved and even more think Climate Change is a lie...The religious right want to increase these numbers by tearing down the wall of seperation of church & state by teaching Bronze Age Creation Myth in Public School science class.

This is scary!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/science/earth/04climate.html?scp=3&sq=evolution&st=cse

[timtom]

268. Christians -- AGAIN?????

Your agenda is showing.
So, no one else is complicit? Are Christians hiding under your bed, ready to shove religion down your throat?

[johnaries]

91. I think you are leaving out a few important facts. Such as the fact

that the "scientists" funded by Exxon-Mobil have histories. For example, some of the same "scientists" Exxon-Mobil hired are the same ones that told us that smoking cigarettes are good for you. At least, when they were funded by R.J. Reynolds.

:eyes:

[booley]

259. Yes

I believe that was part of the implied sarcasm.

[wial]

147. stuck in exxon-mobile

with extinction blues again

[marasinghe]

276. +100% - for the ref. to the true jewish man-god. excellent, dude. \m/ (n/t)

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[kpete]

50. You are always

welcome Uncle Joe!

mother earth is weary of the "whatever" attitude of humans
we need to start picking up after ourselves,
grow up and start cleaning our rooms?
don't you think?

[SammyWinstonJack]

87. We've trashed our rooms and it's to late for any clean up by us , sadly.

But Mother Earth will survive, just not with us.

[pipoman]

112. I love that magazine..

and am glad to hear it will survive.

[Uncle Joe]

213. Absolutely, it's way past time.

and the Earth is the only room we have.

[panzerfaust]

202. Anyone actually interested in the science on this question could do worse than

checking out http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php|skeptical science>


We Have No Planet-B

[kestrel91316]

262. We don't need no stinkin' Planet B when we've got HEAVEN.

[fascisthunter]

4. another nail in the denialists' coffins

[Silent3]

21. Coffin nails don't stop zombies

Living in serious denial and/or in a conspiratorial mindset seems to make one nearly invulnerable to the power of reason.

[fascisthunter]

27. Night of the Living Braindead

[GoCubsGo]

35. Yep. Check out the comments from a different article on this subject

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100304/sc_nm/us_dinosaurs_asteroid

Right off the bat... Randomly browse through the rest of them, and you will likely see even more of the Living Brain-dead.

[defendandprotect]

5. And we're still twiddling our thumbs since 1957!!! and buying gasoline-driven autos!!!

Down with capitalism -- it's suicidal -

[Birthmark]

6. People are suicidal

Capitalism is merely the excuse we're using to commit suicide...this time.

[DissedByBush]

7. I could write something

But I'd just be called a "denier", which is just the modern-day version of "blasphemer" and "heretic" for the religious around here.

[Hissyspit]

12. You can make a argument.

Just like everyone. But most likely your argument has already been debunked, is of dubious logic, is of right-wing/industry origin, or is a basic misuunderstanding or is of an ill-informed basis. If it is not any of the above, then by all means your argument is appropriate to the discussion, Otherwise, people here will, of course, shoot it down, but if you aren't willing to ask an honest question or stand by your point as a legitimate point, then you don't have much sympathy from me, and your implication that you are being oppressed, or something to that effect, carries no weight.

The overwhelming evidence and scientific concensus that climate change related to human-instigated global temperature increase is occurring is being drowned out in a deluge of deliberate disinformation and/or ignorance, and most posters here are apparently well aware of that.

[DissedByBush]

41. I've tried

No matter what, it is classified as heresy.

What I liked was the cover people made for the damning letters and files that were released.

That really showed me this is more of a belief system rather than science.

Science is not afraid to look at itself critically.

[Chemisse]

63. Funny how you let your views be known

While pretending you can't discuss your views, and try to sound like a martyr at the same time.

For those of us who appreciate logic and evidence, that game won't really wash.

[Hissyspit]

71. The letters and files were not damning.

That would be why the "cover."

[DissedByBush]

94. See what I mean?

Damning evidence is discounted or explained away, beliefs redoubled.

[Hissyspit]

101. Bullshit.

[DissedByBush]

115. Very profound, I commend you n/t

[Hissyspit]

119. Wasn't trying to be profound.

"Bullshit:" http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7929.html

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175211/tomgram%3A_bill_mckibben%2C_climate_change%27s_o.j._simpson_moment/#more

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/12/climate-change-science-no_n_389783.html

http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/a

http://climateprogress.org

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/24/AR2009092402602.html

[DissedByBush]

122. You know, I could post counter-evidence

But I know it will be dismissed as part of the great RW conspiracy, paid for by the oil companies.

[tavalon]

170. Poor, poor pitiful you.

You're going to be as dead as the rest of us, so you might as well put your cards on the table.

[time_has_come]

244. Could you really?

Why don't I believe you?

[wial]

158. calling evidence damning

doesn't make it so. Anyone who has studied up on that "climategate" stuff knows none of it is damning. "hiding the decline" for instance was about trying to remove a distraction from the tree ring data using valid, justifiable means. Being unwilling to share data with people who had demonstrated inability to process information, and waste precious time, energy and funding doing so, is not damning, it's just human and pretty sensible. Being disgusted with the motives and tenor of some of their critics, well, they'd have to be robots to feel otherwise.

So no, not damning, sorry. Come up with a good argument, though, we'll listen. That means no cherry picking. At this point anthropogenic climate change is established science like gravity and evolution, so you'll need extraordinary evidence and a theory that hasn't already been discounted. It's not hard to think of hypotheticals that might convince: e.g. find a carbon sink that is so vast it can never be filled (not the ocean, it's getting filled) and show how the stratosphere is somehow absorbing and balancing the changes (there has been a little of that, not enough). Or maybe with increased warming the tectonic plates loosen, causing enough new volcanoes to reverse the effect. That would still fit under climate change, but not global warming. It has always been recognized in the long history of this theory that certain events could cause the climate to swing back the other way, maybe even trigger an ice age -- e.g. if the black spruce forests get driven off the arctic landmasses by warming, there could be an albedo rebound, according to some forest science focused climate models.

If you want to deny human influence over climate entirely, you'll need some heavy duty math showing the difference in scale between the atmosphere and human activity is so vast we could never affect it significantly -- this in a universe where tiny planets cause huge stars to wobble, and earthquakes change the speed of rotation of planets. Good luck with that.

Don't waste time pointing at the shortcomings of individual scientists though -- that's a silly and frankly morally appalling ad hominem attack. Come up with something good! Find a statistical argument showing the peer review process as it is currently constituted actually fails to determine scientific fact and instead leads to mass consensual hallucinations. Then you'd have something, and we'd respect you!

[DissedByBush]

273. Anyone who thinks none of it is damning

Is a true believer who is willing to let anything pass.

On the whole it shows that the scientists are not trustworthy. They want to suppress anything that disagrees, they don't want to share data (a cornerstone of science to test reproducibility, until now apparently), they conspired to keep their communications from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

"Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise... Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same?"

That right there should get the author fired.

So a question as to whether they were damning. Why conspire against the law to delete them if there's nothing bad in them?

No, a clear pattern of malfeasance and misbehavior among multiple scientists isn't ad hominem -- it's evidence.

But for me, as a programmer and database admin, the kicker was the readme file.

No data that screwed up can be trusted to produce any reasonable results.

In fact, the programmer was happy when he achieved results within one degree of what he wanted.

And these huge hockey stick charts show variations within what -- a degree!

There's no hallucination. There is only agenda-driven science and the people who uncritically swallow it and demonize anyone who disagrees.

Look, you put up Al Gore as a saint, Nobel Peace Prize and all.

Yet you'll dismiss a real atmospheric scientist like Richard Lindzen because he doesn't agree. He has prizes too, ones for his scientific work. He also has serious degrees in climate science, but Al Gore is more believable because he took one class in it as an undergrad.

[Quantess]

280. Your argument is of no more value than "some say..."

frequently heard on Fox.

[tavalon]

169. No, wait,

I wanna hear it. I'm in need of some humor tonight. Especially when dealing with the death of the hairless monkeys.

[DCBob]

188. The emails were not damning.. just poor scientific process and bad judgment..

It changes nothing about the reality of global warming. Phil Jones is not the only keeper of the data. NASA and NOAA also have their own data and it all clearly shows warming trends. Plus the fact that there are obvious effects such as Arctic cap shrinkage, glaciers disappearing, ice shelves collapsing, permafrost melting, seasons changing, flora and fauna effects, and on and on. Only an idiot or someone benefiting from the fossil fuel industry would deny it.

[DissedByBush]

216. The "reality" of global warming

Would rely in things like good scientific process and good judgment. Everything else is anecdotal.

There are levels to this:

Is the Earth warming?

Is it going to keep warming or is it part of a natural cycle?

If it is warming, do we have anything to do with it? (We've fucked up so much else I'm totally ready to believe that)

If it is us, is it even possible to do anything about it?

If we can do something, is it possible to address the actual issue rather than throw around money to build the careers of politicians, demagogues and businessmen?

Last, but not least, how many people are we willing to definitely kill in the short term to address predictions of the future of possible deaths? That's the issue that got Al Gore to make his famous quote ("It’s not a matter of theory or conjecture") to Bjorn Lomborg.

[DCBob]

220. I was speaking of Jones and his emails, not the entire body of scientific data on Global Warming...

which the vast majority is not being questioned... except by the clueless deniers who think all scientific data is now somehow tainted. It is hopeless arguing with people like you who will always have an excuse to deny the obvious.

[DissedByBush]

222. I'm thinking tip of the iceberg on this one

That was the first release of damning information, and it didn't happen voluntarily.

Actually the emails showed they conspired to break the law in order to keep from releasing it.

It had to be stolen by a whistleblower (the coverage immediately focused on the "criminal" instead of what he revealed).

I am by nature not a very trusting person and a skeptic.

No matter what slander global warming believers will heap upon me, whatever ulterior motives they will lie about, that is the reason for my current disbelief.

It's kind of like when fundie Christians say the Devil is controlling me when they find out I'm an atheist. They can't think outside of their worldview that says there must be a God and there must be a Devil, and they control everything.

Similarly, global warming believers can't think outside of a politicized worldview of global warming science, where the "deniers" must be influenced by the evil polluting powers or political opposition.

[DCBob]

227. Your iceberg is melting...

[DissedByBush]

233. Good, the more of what's inside exposed n/t

[DissedByBush]

275. Did you see the latest about the other datasets?

Turns out the datasets are related.

There is cross-contamination.

NASA even says the CRU has better data.

So much for the argument of "Don't worry about the CRU data, other data also supports global warming."

The other data apparently has the same problems.

[time_has_come]

243. Oh, so a few emails showed you that global warming is a belief system, huh?

Can you point to which ones, specifically, convinced you of that?

Cause if you can't, then take a look in the mirror...maybe it's you who is operating under a belief system.

There's no need to make a "cover" for those emails. I've read them, and can plainly see what they are. There is no conspiracy to change date revealed there. What is revealed is a couple of scientists at a single research institute got sick and tired of being harassed by agenda-driven skeptics and mistakenly decided to start stone-walling them.

It was a mistake on their part, but the skeptics on their ass aren't exactly looking at the "science" critically, they were and are always just looking to find some scrap they can inject into their PR campaign to delay action and keep the public confused.

[DissedByBush]

279. Much more than that

I think it was Al Gore and his acolytes who cemented that for me long ago.

"but the skeptics on their ass aren't exactly looking at the "science" critically"

That's actually the problem. They don't want anybody looking at the science critically.

"Skeptics on your ass" is exactly what keeps science honest.

Open publication, peer review, sharing data and methods, those result in a trusted theory.

Attempts to hide data and restrict publication immediately call the science into question.

[pintobean]

263. Come on dude

Don't you know that Mother Earth put the CRU data on the internet just to test our faith? :)

[DissedByBush]

274. Global Warming Creationism? n/t

[Hutzpa]

113. Why do I feel your wrath

kidding... kidding.... seriously, your point is exactly what I tried to make the other day when I was attacked by them calling me all kind of names under the sun.

[beardown]

13. Uh, you did write something.

If you don't like being called a denier when you post anti-global warming points than your beef is with the swarm of posters who join most discussions about global warming with the same repeatedly refuted pile of dog poo. They are the ones that make it hard for you to pose a legitimate question and debate the merits of specific research findings.

However, you've already gotten off to a bad start by using the terms 'blasphemer' and 'heretic' to slam the people whose position is supported by the overwhelming body of global climate research, much like a member of the KKK would use the term racist to describe the people opposed to his political belief.

[LanternWaste]

15. proclomations of...

Self-aggrandizing proclamations of one's impending martyrdom are little better....

[greiner3]

17. I graduated university in 2008;

With a major in Evolution and Ecology. Besides being tough as hell getting a job in these fields in the middle of a recession, I learned much about global warming that the average person would not come across. Bottom line; believe it.

[DissedByBush]

23. I don't believe anything

And being asked from a supposedly scientific viewpoint to believe something shows the problems we have these days.

Leave the belief for the religions.

Come back to me when global warming is just about the science.

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DissedByBush]

51. Another tactic of those who brand skeptics as heretics

"I believe you are a fool and a whore for taking the side of those who pay you."

You always throw that around. It's as if nobody could disagree with you unless they're being paid to do so.

It's the other side of RWingers who say you have to have a socialist agenda in order to believe in global warming.

Funny thing is, I live as much as I can with my means to reduce my impact on the planet in the first place. I can guarantee you I produce a tiny fraction of the CO2 and other pollutants that Al Gore does.

I am an environmentalist. But because I don't believe, because I'm a heretic skeptic, I must be in the employ of the enemy.

That reminds me of a funny thing. People seem to equate global warming with environmentalism. It has overshadowed all others. It seems you can't be an environmentalist unless you're a believer. People don't understand how you can be an environmentalist without being a believer.

And yes, you people do treat this as a religion with belief instead of science with tentative acceptance as the best current explanation.

You even have your own system of indulgences.

You've seen all the recent evidence hurting the global warming cult. Did you know that when the predictions of cults don't come true the members usually redouble their beliefs? It's a known psychological phenomenon. Thus the new methane scare to rally the troops.

[Hissyspit]

75. "recent evidence hurting the global warming cult"

There hasn't been any. You would be aware of that, unless you haven't looked critically at what happened. Or you get your info from Fox News.

The methane scare is not new. New evidence indicates it may be happening faster.

"When predictions of cults don't come true, the members usually redouble their beliefs. It's a known psychological phenomenon." So? Confusion about causality and correlation is too: http://stats.org/in_depth/faq/causation_correlation.htm

I guess the vast majority of scientists in the world are just a big cult.

All of those are talking points of right-wing origin. Hogwash.

I don't belong to a cult, and I don't feel religious about this. I would love for it not to be true. It would be fine with me.

[DissedByBush]

92. "Confusion about causality and correlation"

Like CO2 and global warming?

Personally, I don't really care if it's true or not.

Makes not much difference to me.

Except maybe this will drive solar panels and electric cars cheap enough for me to get.

Come to think of it, global warming could be good to me. At least the reaction might.

But what's good to me and real science don't have to be the same.

[Hissyspit]

102. Went over your head did it?

[austin78704]

184. You make no sense

In your posts I have found lots of complaining about victimization, but no actual explanation of your position. When people press you for it, you decline on the grounds of your supposed victimization.

Looks to me like you want to accuse the scientists of being unprofessional, accuse the posters of being irrational, and receive a bunch of pity for your "hard work."

[JonLP24]

110. You didn't refute his points

He explained what is happening and how it is happening but you're focused one thing the poster said.

[time_has_come]

245. Do you have anything of substance beyond insults?

Stop playing the victim. It's boring.
Stop branding people who accept the scientific evidence for global warming as religious cultists.
You're doing exactly what you accuse others of with a victimized attitude.
We're dealing with science here. There is science, real science, that gives evidence that humans are causing the planet to warm. There is absolutely undeniable science that the planet has warmed. This is not a "belief system" for me, and I wouldn't brand you as a "heratic" if you want to post something you found on the internet that you think counters the science.
I would think you are an idiot...but don't try to turn it around and insult everyone who accepts the science AND recognizes the existence of an agenda-driven PR machine.

Besides your victimhood, what can you say? Where can we find common ground? Do you at least recognize the science that shows the earth has been warming this century?
Do you recognize that there has been money funneled to groups to fund a campaign bssed on dishonest PR rather than science to influence public opinion and delay action to reduce GhGs? Answer me just those two things. But please, no more victimhood...becuase most of the victimizing comes from your side. I've been called a zealot and a cultist for years by opinion peddlers in newspaper, radio, and online for years.

It's not an easy thing to look objectively at what scientists are saying and accept that yes, we are warming our planet. It's a scary thing. One of the Nobel winners theorized that with global warming people go through the stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. It's not an easy thing to just accept that the world is warming...and that without a drastic change in our behavior as a society (which seems to not be happening) it will keep warming with drastic consequences. So, people spend time being angry about it, and their anger needs to be directed someplace. People who have come to accept and are trying to induce action are a natural target.

[Psephos]

128. "You debate as a child or one who is mentally retarded."

"You debate as a child or one who is mentally retarded."

I'm not taking a position on the main argument in the thread here.

However, it's astonishing that you profess to be degreed in science and yet resort to the crassest political accusations and insults against those who express skepticism.

How could you be awarded a science degree without having learned simple respect for skeptical inquiry? It's the literal foundation of actual science.

You and your know-it-all tone and appeal to authority remind me of Tolosani, tasked by Pope Paul III to remark on Copernicus' newly-published book On the Revolutions.

The book by Nicholas Copernicus of Torun was printed not long ago and published in recent days. In it he tries to revive the teaching of certain Pythagoreans concerning the Earth’s motion, a teaching which had died out in times long past. Nobody accepts it now except Copernicus. (Note: The Pythagoreans had proposed a non-mathematical Earth-motion theory before Aristarchus.)

Copernicus is an expert in mathematics and astronomy, but he is very deficient in physics. … Hence, since Copernicus does not understand physics … it is not surprising if he is mistaken in this opinion and accepts the false as true, through ignorance of those sciences … it is stupid to contradict a belief accepted by everyone over a very long time for extremely strong reasons, unless the naysayer uses more powerful and incontrovertible proofs, and completely rebuts the opposed reasoning. Copernicus does not do this at all. For he does not undermine the proofs, establishing necessary conclusions, advanced by Aristotle the philosopher and Ptolemy the astronomer.

Aristotle absolutely destroyed the arguments of the Pythagoreans. Yet this is not adduced by Copernicus in his ignorance of it.

Almost all the hypotheses of this author Copernicus contain something false, and very many absurdities follow from them. … For by a foolish effort tries to revive the contrived Pythagorean belief, long since deservedly buried, since it explicitly contradicts human reason.

- Excerpt of Tolosani's papal opinion from Copernicus and the Scientific Revolution, by Edward Rosen.


edit: add source

[tabatha]

43. Do you want to see some pure science - try this:

http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/greenhouse-effect-revisited/

http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/global-warming-mapsgraphs-2/

[veganlush]

55. it sounds like you are saying that for you to be convinced,

..those who believe in the science have to reign-in the others who, while believing in the science, express it in ways that sound like religious belief instead. In every argument, you're going to have people who are right for the right reasons, but you're also going to have those that happen to agree with the overall findings, but whose belief is based on a desire to serve their agenda.

In short, it's not the fault of those who respect scientific consensus that some people, who have come to the same conclusions, have done so because it fits their preconceived notions, and who may express it more as "belief" and less as the scientific evidence that it is.

[DissedByBush]

120. I am on the fence on the issue

I've said this before.

What caused my initial skepticism, aside from that generally being who I am, was the politics and money involved. Same way I'm not going to believe the tobacco company studies saying smoking's not that bad.

There are trillions to be made, politician power to consolidate, off of global warming.

That makes it dangerous.

Even if I 100% agreed with the interpretation of events and data I would still not agree with the "hurry up" chicken-little agenda that is following it.

To go with that is all the evidence of power plays going with the agenda of certain powerful scientists. Yes, the emails and especially the readme file (I'm a programmer so that makes a lot of sense to me), were damning.

So was the story of the creation of the hockey stick and the newly-interpreted formerly-known-as Medeival warming period (it must match with global warming theory, so it must be discounted or muted).

There are many, many other instances that call the science into question.

The believers will not see them.

They will ignore them.

They will claim the bearers of the news are funded by the oil companies (we've seen bits like that here already).

Anything to keep the belief from being shaken, when anybody with a scientific approach will take all such problems seriously.

[boppers]

131. A programmer, you say?

Finding something explanatory, or inflammatory, in source code is damning evidence of a conspiracy?

How much code have you actually read? "Unprofessional" text in code is part of a long tradition:
http://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/

[DissedByBush]

133. It's not the swear words I'm worried about

I also administer some pretty big and complex databases (terabytes across several servers). That's my main bread and butter these days.

With the insight into how screwed up the data and its analysis was it's terrifying to think anybody's making any decisions based on it.

If my production databases were in a state anywhere near the state of those databases I'd have been fired long ago.

"You can’t imagine what this has cost me — to actually allow the operator to assign false WMO codes!! But what else is there in such situations? Especially when dealing with a 'Master' database of dubious provenance ... So with a somewhat cynical shrug, I added the nuclear option — to match every WMO possible, and turn the rest into new stations ... In other words what CRU usually do. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to become bad"

Yeah, that'll get you fired in a place that cares about the validity of its data.

[Hissyspit]

138. Yes, take it out of context:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/climategate-the-7-biggest_n_371223.html

ClimateGate: The 6 Most Dubious Claims About The Supposed "Global Warming Hoax"

http://antipollutionrevolutioncampaign.blogspot.com/2009/12/ap-climategates-hacked-emails-on.html

Credible scientists, who have PhD's in the relevant scientific fields, have responded to such political claims with equal vigor. "The science is proper and this is about a small fraction of research on the issue," offered, Holden, a climatic physicist. In fact, the emails that are supposed to suggest a scientific conspiracy do not even mention data from NOAA and NASA independent research projects, which conclude manmade activity has caused climate change.

"The emails do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus <...> that tells us the earth is warming, that warming is largely a result of human activity," added government scientist Jane Lubchenco who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

[DissedByBush]

139. Ah, the old "out of context" claim

The problem is that it is in context. Have you read the readme file?

I like the bit from HuffPo, "Since emails are normally intended to be private, people writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing themselves than they would in a public statement."

I agree. They are likely to be much more honest when they don't think their communications will be read by others.

[boppers]

141. That's massive data collection....

http://www.google.com/search?q="to+actually+allow+the+operator+to+assign+false+WMO+codes"

Some db's have bad data entry (as all databases seem to have, especially when humans are involved), so their WMO codes aren't always consistent. The author of the above quote had two general options: throw out inconvenient data (which is *bad* science), or include inconvenient data (which is also *bad* science).

Depending on the goal, either option may be taken. To this date, for example, I have both "6ank of america" and "Bank of America" entries on my credit report, which seems like an OCR bug. So, that kind of loose matching apparently won't get you fired working for some of the biggest credit reporting companies in the country, maybe you work in more of an "exact match" kind of field (medical billing data comes to mind, along with highly regulated sections of the financial industry).

Now, while the solution to this could have been quite simple: compare both versions, find out if they're fairly similar, or different, document both, and move on from there.... Done. If you want to get fancy about it, you could use some soundex/metaphone libraries to look for likely WMO codes (b=v=d), maybe with OCR (b=6, 9=g) code to make up for those errors, and a pile of different typo translation mappers (depends on the keyboard used, and the typist), as well as off by 1 bit mapping checks (10110111=10100111), to deduce likely WMO codes to correlate with missing/dropped/irregular reports from known WMO sites.

However, doing that kind of thing would be doing the actual science.

The denial wing has no interest in science, they'd rather make a huge issue out of the side distractions. Why could this be?

Well, it's quite simple: because they can't argue the science. Making an issue out of code comments, emails, (etc.) can be done, and a great many "useful idiots" can echo chamber about it, though.

Even when the science is ground down to, oh, 3 sets of data, the deniers would still scream about either using raw data, throwing out data, or cleaning up data, are all three... because they can.

If they looked at your industry, and your datasets (since you apparently run a tight ship) they would point out that your data is obviously falsified, because it's *too* clean, and therefore fake.

[DissedByBush]

150. Doing what you accuse

Notice you key in on only one aspect of a horribly corrupt set of databases and the techniques surrounding how to deal with it.

Seriously, read the readme. Anyone without agenda would understand how bad it is.

"Am I the first person to attempt to get the CRU databases in working order?!!"

IOW, they're not in working order.

"As far as I can see, this renders the station counts totally meaningless."

"I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as
Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO
and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I
know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that's the case? Aarrggghhh!"

"These are very promising. The vast majority in both cases are within 0.5 degrees of the published data. However, there are still plenty of values more than a degree out."

Tweaking the program until it produces the results he wants?

Aside from that, notice we're talking about trying to get accuracy down to a degree.

Then look at those scary graphs again and realize all the ups and downs are within a degree.

[boppers]

157. Go ahead, publish something else!

You can get the data, and do the science, what's stopping you? The community is accepting of many models (hence the many lines in the above graph), so give it a swing?

[Hissyspit]

136. They were not damning. You are not as unbiased as you seem to think you are.

You attribute a general slander to anyone who has come to agree with the general consensus. They are a "cult." (Yeah, I know what you mean. I was in that cult that said there were no WMD in Iraq.) I have posted the debunking of that and the debunking of the medieval warming period in this thread. I have posted the peer-review from people who take science seriously. You do not address the issues in the debunkings. You do not address the issues raised by other posters. You come back to nothing but the attack, as religious cultists, apparently, on the personalities of those who agree with the general consensus of most of the world's scientists.

Please post proof that those "believers" who agree with the consensus have not taken the "problems" seriously.

[DissedByBush]

143. You are proof

Good blow off of the emails.

Yes, the medieval warming period I grew up knowing about had to be subdued.

Notice nobody thought to subdue it until the hockey stick.

It is the hockey stick that has been debunked, yet it fit the agenda so it was given prominence in the IPCC report.

[Hissyspit]

152. No, I'm not.

The medieval warming period you grew up knowing about???

You mean the way I grew up knowing that Columbus was the first European to visit America?

It had to be SUBDUED? Or more knowledge and improvements to the data interpretation brought it into question?

Your games are tired and I'm done with you.

[defendandprotect]

240. And now add up how much $$$ is involved in controlling our natural resources . . .yikes!!!

Unbelievable ---

What do you mean "claim" the propaganda isn't by ExxonMobil, etal --

Only fairly recently the Royal Academy of Scientists called out ExxonMobil for their

decades of lies and disinformation, misinformation, and high priced propaganda to confuse

the public re Global Warming!!

If all else fails, go outside and see what the whether is --

Ask relatives, older members of the family!!!

[time_has_come]

246. You are as bad as that other poster

who are you to brush those of us who are seeing all of this peer-reviewed science as nothing more than religious "believers", as if our position that global warming is happening and is caused by humans is nothing more than a blind faith in a deity?

It is incredibly dishonest you, especially after you claim to operate on an honest level and shrewdly observe politics and money pulling the global warming levers.

That asside, please explain what you mean by "newly-interpreted formerly-known Medeival warming period (it must match with global warming theory, so it must be discounted or muted)."

Your statement implies that something about that warming period disproves the science of global warming today...and that there's a conspiracy around it. Can you tell me what you're talking about with that?

As well, your post gives the impression that you don't believe oil companies and other interests have been funding a PR machine working to confuse the public and delay action on global warming. As corporations, their "giving" is revealed in their financial reports and the types of organizations they've been giving to - think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and Friends of Science and Frontier Centre for Public Policy - are heavily involved in global warming. They don't do any science though, they just churn out PR. Do you not think this is happening? When you say "anything to keep the belief from being shaken" - as if to say I and others are in a cult-like state - you give the impression that you are not aware of such funding. Are you aware of it? And if so, how do you discount it? Do you think these organizations working their PR agenda against global warming science are legitimate? And if not, how did you miss it?

[Abq_Sarah]

20. Who would have thought

A healthy dose of skepticism would be grounds for a modern day inquisition?

[Hissyspit]

38. What inquisition?

There can be an unhealthy dose of skepticism, too.

[DissedByBush]

52. To the believers

All skepticism is unhealthy.

The prophet Al Gore has proclaimed that the debate is over.

No skepticism is allowed anymore.

None.

That is the antithesis of science.

But it is a cornerstone of belief systems such as religions.

[LanternWaste]

60. So is martyrdom...

"But it is a cornerstone of belief systems such as religions"

So is martyrdom... whether real, or simply in one's mind.

[Hissyspit]

70. Oh, give me a break...

[DissedByBush]

93. Al Gore did declare such

Do you contest that?

Or do you admit?

Do you think "the debate is over" is a valid statement to make in relation to any science?

[Hugabear]

116. Global warming is happening. What is there to "believe"?

This isn't like believing in string theory. This is about recognizing what is happening all around us.

[DissedByBush]

123. Warming?

Wow, that explains the cold weather that is happening all around us, and our current cooling trend.

Wait, no it doesn't.

[JonLP24]

125. You're confusing a storm with what is going on overall across the globe

2010 could be warmest year on record

Next year could be the warmest year on record, the Met Office said today as officials at UN talks in Copenhagen continued negotiations in a bid to secure a new deal to tackle climate change.

The forecast from climate scientists said a combination of man-made global warming and a weather pattern - known as El Nino - heating the Pacific Ocean
would make it very likely that 2010 would be warmer than 2009.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/2010-could-be-warmest-year-on-record-1837856.html

http://thegovmonitor.com/world_news/britain/el-nino-could-make-2010-the-warmest-year-yet-18552.html

[DissedByBush]

129. But when it's really warm

We're told that's evidence for global warming, not just a localized event.

We were told the deadly 2003 heat wave in France was because of global warming.

But we're told that waves of cold are just localized events, not to be associated with the overall climate.

You can't have it both ways.

[Hugabear]

146. Psst...global warming can cause colder winters in certain areas

I'm not going to sit here and explain it to you, but fact is that rising temperatures around the globe can actually create colder winters in some places.

[tavalon]

174. Wait until this guy finds out what science says about what will

likely happen if the gulf stream stops. It will blow his socks off. Well, it would if he read scientific stuff.

[DissedByBush]

217. See, the theory that explains everything

Is there anything that can falsify this? Is there anything remotely weather-related you don't predict?

[tavalon]

173. It's the overall trend

If you're buying what the Weather Channel is selling, I have a bridge to sell you. Be more discerning and less dependent on "they". Spend a few weeks or months reading the Science, not the pop science delivered by the TV.

[DissedByBush]

214. If it's the overall trend

Then finally answer the question:

Why is it that cold weather is dismissed as just weather, but hot weather is sold as supporting evidence for global warming?

[tavalon]

235. Answer the question or answer it the way you want me to?

The trend is global warming. If the scientists are correct, then weather will be getting more extreme, in all directions. Climate is trending warmer. Weather is getting more extreme, in all directions.

Not the answer you wanted but you won't hear it anyway. It's hilarious that you talk about those of us who hear what the scientists are saying as being cultists. I think you know quite well of that which you speak. You behave as a cultist.

I have a child. I would love it if you were right. It leaves me in sadness and despair to know that you are wrong. But still, I am able to see where the evidence points. I wonder how you are able to ignore it. I would love to have that mind numbing skill of denial.

[Hissyspit]

135. Oh. My. God.

You don't know what you are talking about.

[DissedByBush]

140. Does weather have something to do with climate

Or doesn't it?

Got an answer?

[Hugabear]

145. You're talking about REGIONAL weather versus GLOBAL climate

Surely you can't be that dense.

[DissedByBush]

151. That's what they keep telling me

Until it gets warm, then the regional weather is a result of global warming.

[tavalon]

176. Yep. Weather is a manifestation of climate

That was easy. Next question.

[DissedByBush]

204. So cold weather is a manifestation of...

Warmer climate?

Truth is, it means whatever the believers want it to mean even when it's contradictory.

[Hugabear]

205. Climate change could actually result in an Ice Age for much of Europe

Europe should actually be much colder than it is right now. The Gulf Stream is the one thing that is keeping most of Europe relatively warm...and global warming could bring that to a halt. Of course, that's part of that "contradictory" science stuff that you don't seem to put much stock in.

[DissedByBush]

209. I'm not just talking about Europe

Back to France 2003, deadly heatwave, caused by global warming.

And the cold waves all over the US and Europe are caused by ....?

Oh, we're told don't confuse weather with climate.

Until it gets hot again, then weather will be climate again. Listen to the news this summer if it's a hot summer.

That's my prediction. And the likelihood of it being true approaches 1.

The Gulf Stream is a far-off prediction. I'm talking about inconsistency now.

[tavalon]

234. Yes, it can be

But you would know that if you weren't being so disingenuous. Where are the links? If you have a defensible position, you should have good, peer reviewed information to offer up.

[tavalon]

175. That was your first clue? (I kid)

Yep, this one may be one of ours but he isn't good at teh science. I wish he were right, though. It would make the mass extinction that is in process well, go away. I used to say it didn't matter because Gaia would shake us off like the lice we are, but unfortunately, many species get pulled under with us. I wish that weren't so. We are suicidal but were committing genocide in the process.

I wonder if belief boy knows about the mass extinction? I doubt it.

[Hugabear]

144. Could you be any more simplistic, or come up with some more right-wing nonsense?

If you were to plot the places where unusually cold weather is occurring, it would be a relatively small area. Someone posted a map of it here on DU awhile back, I don't have the link sorry. But it's not "happening all around us". That is a right-wing lie. Many areas around the world are experiencing record heat. Although I'm sure that you'll probably just dismiss that, since your right-wing sources are telling you it's not true.

[tavalon]

171. Whoops

Teh stupid strikes. No one who confuses weather with climate change has any valid POV. You are the weakest link.

[DissedByBush]

219. Global warming advocates do it all the time

At least when it's hot.

They take your point of view when it's cold.

[NickB79]

255. The cold weather that made Feb. 2010 the warmest Feb. on record?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x228692

:rofl:

[time_has_come]

247. Define skepticism?

Is it just some guy going "ah geez, back in the 70s they said the earth was cooling. So NOW we're supposed to believe them? WELL I DON'T!!"
Is that good skepticism?
Or this
"well, the earth warmed in the past without humans, so I mean, come on!"
or
"there's global warming on Mars, you know. Do they have Hummers there? har har!"

What is the skepticism that you say has been called "unhealthy" by all these intollerant and nasty "believers" to the terrible detriment of science?

[damonm]

33. Let me make a call...

It's ready for you now.

[time_has_come]

242. Go ahead, write something. Don't just insult people who accept the science as "religious", like so

many of the dishonest deniers do. Write something.

I'm interested to know what you think you know.

[denverbill]

8. OK, sure if "facts" and "science" are all you care about.

And only if you are willing to ignore the thousands of anecdotal studies and invented evidence.

[Deep13]

10. Why is there snow in my yard then?!

Huh?! :dunce:

[DissedByBush]

54. Climate does not equal weather

Unless it's been really hot lately, in which case the weather is direct evidence of global warming.

[JonLP24]

118. I thought Bill Nye explained it well

One storm in one area doesn't dispute what is going on overall. Like how 2000-2009 was the warmest decade ever and 2009 was the warmest year. While El Nino hit the DC area they were bringing in snow from other places so they could have enough snow for Winter Olympic events.

[DissedByBush]

126. The theory that explains and predicts everything

Is the theory that explains and predicts nothing.

If the theory explains getting warmer and getting colder.

If it predicts more storms and fewer storms.

If it predicts more hurricanes and fewer hurricanes.

If it predicts ice sheet growth and ice sheet shrinkage.

If it predicts more and less snow.

If it predicts stronger winds and slower winds.

If it explains everything, then it explains nothing.

Because then it can't be refuted by anything.

Then it is not a scientific theory.

Yes, all of these are "predicted" by global warming.

[JonLP24]

127. Again overall global temperatures are rising and

have risen significantly since the industrial revolution.

[DissedByBush]

132. So which predictions do we believe?

If it is warming, what's the outcome?

Which of those mutually exclusive predictions do we believe?

Or do we just think the planet changes whether we're on it or not?

Why was 2000-2004 cooler than 1900?

Why is only one of the last 10 years among the 10 hottest ever recorded in the US?

Things are supposed to be getting warmer, right?

[Hissyspit]

134. See. You're pulling out the debunked talking points.

Why was 2000-2004 cooler than 1900?

It wasn't. 1900 was an unusually hot year in the U.S., not the world. This is based on NASA data, which applies to the U.S.

Top 11 Warmest Years On Record Have All Been In Last 13 Years

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/met-office-reveals-last-decade-was-the-hottest-ever-recorded-1836778.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071213101419.htm

"The 10 years up to the end of 2009 have been the hottest in the 160-year instrumental record of global temperatures, and significantly warmer than the 1990s, the 1980s or any other decade since global surface temperature measurements began in 1860."

[DissedByBush]

153. Still, which contradictory predictions to believe?

I'm willing to posit that things are getting warmer.

If so, which contradictory predictions to believe?

[Enthusiast]

172. Since your side and our side

can't agree how about we adopt clean energy solutions as a precaution.

It will bolster research and development, innovation and creativity. And most of all, maybe it will weaken the destructive political influence of the petroleum industrial complex.

[DissedByBush]

203. I'm all for all of that

We should be doing it even absent any global warming scare.

Pick your reasons, environment (newsflash: there is environmentalism outside of global warming), national security, national pride, whatever.

I've been wishing this since I was a kid growing up in the heavy smog days of Los Angeles.

[tavalon]

182. Time for links, dude

I played your game of quiz, now you play the game of link. Solid scientific studies only.

[tavalon]

181. Okay, I got this one! I love quizzes.

Mass extinction

Planet changes no matter what. It changes more when too many people are on it doing heavy carbon footprinting, followed by feedback loops. It's the feedback loops that make it really bad. We are fucked but if we start dealing soon, we can mediate the damage and maybe, and only maybe, some of the hairless apes will get to stay.

2000 - 2004 were warmer than 1900.

Also incorrect. Dude where do you get your "facts"?

I'm afraid they are. And we are going to die out but first we are going to suffer a lot. Of course, we won't be extinct right away since we are mostly at the top of the food chain, but we are going to hurt a lot. Ask a Haitian or a Chilean.


Okay, that was fun and silly, but it's time to show your hand. Put scientific links down now, that, or admit you're talking out of your ass.

[DissedByBush]

208. Mass extinction of what?

Several species are predicted to boom.

And bust. You know, contradictory predictions as I said.

"Ask a Haitian or a Chilean. "

Earthquakes are now caused by global warming? I'd heard about that, thought it was a joke.

Here's a good example:

Earth will spin faster: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11555

Earth will spin slower: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1816860.stm

Less wind: http://www.countercurrents.org/cc-mudeva271005.htm

More wind: http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=58549&CultureCode=en

Fewer hurricanes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7404846.stm

More hurricanes: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/09/28/Global-warming-may-cause-more-hurricanes/UPI-60861254155277/

Dyson warned you about your models, and you demonized him for it.

[marasinghe]

277. peripheral to the topic, dude; have you heard this one:

"nature abhors a vacuum - specially one of those pretentious dyson's".

not my own; saw it on a Yahoo! answer, i seem to vaguely remember.

[mix]

226. The Industrial Revolution and population growth...

The huge spike in population around 1800 is a powerful contributing factor to climate change.

Imperialism and globalization have brought industrial and capitalist modes of production to the far reaches of the globe. People are living longer and occupying more land, thus using more resources and contributing to worldwide desertification.

ALL the world's major economies since Great Britain industrialized in the 1700s--capitalist, communist, and mixed--have been powered by fossil fuels...this continues in force today.

Deniers not only do not know science, they do not know history either.

[tavalon]

179. I do hope you use more science and more logic

with your programming. But, then, I can't figure out what you're talking about in either situation, so it doesn't bode well.

[DissedByBush]

218. If you can't figure it out

Then you are a true believer.

Global warming theory predicts everything.

Thus everything that happens is within the theory.

I gave a small subset of the mutually contradictory predictions. You're covered no matter what happens.

Thus it cannot be falsified.

Thus it is not a scientific theory.

[defendandprotect]

241. Few of us need "scientific theory" to understand what is happening . . .

People wearing shorts in December in the NE --

Record snowfalls --

Record setting years, every year --

Record setting decades --

Melting glaciers --

Warming oceans --

Increasingly chaotic weather -- with increasing severity --

Polar bears chasing ice cubes --

The web of life has been harmed by patriarchy, organized patriarchal religion and its

greedy system of capitalism . . . which is basic exploitation of nature.

Not to mention exploitation of other humans according to various myths of "inferiority."

[tavalon]

177. Simplistic, dude

You act like part of a cult.

[time_has_come]

248. The irony of your sarcastic statement is it's the so-called skeptics

who make that argument all the time. Snow...or cold, we see and hear endless snarking about how Al Gore and global warming is so dumb.

Hot weather? Not nearly so much of it. yet you claim it is happening only one way.

Where is your honesty? Are you doing battle hear, so honesty isn't a requirement.

[panzerfaust]

198. Because it is winter and you live in the northern hemisphere? (wild guess)

[DissedByBush]

211. It almost never snows here

When it does it's a little bit gone by the next day.

This year it snowed several times, inches each, and stuck around for days.

[Deep13]

250. See! SEE!!!!

It's getting colder, not warmer!

[Deep13]

224. Oh sure, blame it on "winter" whatever THAT means.

:evilgrin:

[Deep13]

9. Well at least we can do something about it...

...assuming we can get our heads out of our asses. If it were purely natural, then we would be screwed regardless.

If we can put aside our petty concerns and work together, we can solve the problem. Which means that we are royally screwed.

[slackmaster]

14. We'll never do anything about it

All we can do is adapt to it.

...assuming we can get our heads out of our asses.

There's the problem, right there.

[depakid]

26. We stopped depletion of the ozone layer through the Montreal protocols...

[slackmaster]

57. Yes, but that was a much smaller problem in terms of impact on the economy

There are all kinds of good reasons to get off of fossil fuels, but as long as they're easy to obtain it's not going to happen.

Winter comes to the Northern Hemisphere every year, and every winter the AGW deniers have a field day.

[bertman]

47. If all that methane gets released in a short period of time, the best place for our heads

might just be up our asses.

Oh wait, there's methane there too.

We be screwn!!

[tavalon]

183. Actually, we are already past the point of no return

The is to mediate the damage and try to adapt. We already missed the opportunity to save ourselves.

[DissedByBush]

221. We should have gotten our heads out of our asses before the GW scare

At least as of the 70s (you know, when global cooling was the scare) we should have been on high alert that we need alternatives to fossil fuels.

By that time it had dramatic economic consequences. I remember the gas lines, the odd/even plate days.

Also dramatic national security implications being beholden to OPEC and being dependent on fossil fuels to defend ourselves.

Also dramatic health consequences, especially for kids like me living in Los Angeles.

And here we are, non-polluting cars barely getting off the ground, mass transportation sucking in most places in the country, solar a rarity. Oh how I miss the mass transportation systems of Europe.

Half our fucking power is still coal and most of our cars are gas, over 50 years after we had to shut down schools in California for a month because of smog!

California has almost eliminated stage 1 smog alerts through strict regulation. That's a little localized progress.

But we need a lot more, and in all states, in all countries, not just California, not just the US.

I have to say one thing.

Even if global warming is a farce, I have been quite pleased with many of the outcomes of the scare.

[time_has_come]

249. Gobal cooling was the scare in the 70s?

Really? lol. It amazes me how you've swallowed, like a willing cultist, anything the skeptic/denier PR machine has fed you. Hook, line, and sinker.

Now you believe that there was a "scare" in the 70s of global cooling, and that it is somehow equivalent to the current "scare" of global warming.

I get a sense that today it is beyond your ability to look at your beliefs any closer. Perhaps someday you will realize how ridiculous a foundation you were operating upon.

[DissedByBush]

253. Weren't you reading?

[time_has_come]

256. Such a lazy, disingenuous response.

Got anything else?

You ignored what I wrote, essentially. You're being intellectually dishonest. Embarrassing yourself, really.

[DissedByBush]

257. And true!

That was the scare, don't deny it.

Well, a scare.

A bit before that was when Ehrlich was doing his "Population Bomb" chicken little routine, making lots of since-proven-false predictions of doom and gloom. Lots of scientists agreed with him.

There have been many scares.

Scares are a very good way of controlling the masses.

Keeps them looking at places other than how much the government and corporations are screwing them.

[time_has_come]

265. Define "scare." Speak intelligently to what exactly you know about it

don't just be lazy, and perhaps dishonest (if you're in fact not ignorant) and imply that the talk about global cooling in the 70s was anything like the evidence of global warming and human causation of today.

"don't deny it"? What have I denied? You've said nothing specific, of any substance. It's just been posturing and pretension. What, exactly, was the extent of this 70s global cooling scare of the 70s, beyond a Newsweek article? Have you even read that infamous article? Did you read post 258 to you? Have an answer to it?

How can you pretend to be some kind of honest broker and seeker of truth - a savvy dissector of the available information applying your objective eye to less obvious motives and politics around the issue - while at the same time you place value in this pathetic denier/skeptic narrative of a 70s global warming "scare" which is an obvious and empty ploy to discredit global warming science?

You have to live with yourself. Does playing silly contrarian games with important issues that affect lives give you some kind of amusement that allows you to ignore the dissonance such behavior would produce in most people?

[DissedByBush]

269. I'm talking about the scares

If you had read my little pro-environmental rant, you see I'm talking about the scare, about how it should have gotten us motivated.

But noooo, you have to concentrate on the little part that shows I'm a global warming heretic.

And no, I don't like agenda driven science.

[time_has_come]

271. You're no "heretic," just dishonest.

You make the implication that the 70s global cooling thing was akin to the global warming science of today.

And then you avoid it, avoid explaining what you're talking about.

And now you cry, because you think you should be able to spread that crap around, wrapped in your smug victimhood, and not get called on it. Anyone calling you on it is a religious zealot who must be labeling you a heretic and not allowing you to spew your valid opinions, hmm?

If you're going to repeat and play to the bullshit that the anenda-driven PR machine churns out then don't cry when you're painted with the same brush they are. You resort to misinformation and intellectually dishonest games.

begone

[DissedByBush]

272. I think both are politically manufactured scares

Both designed to put power into the hands of politicians and money in the hands of corporations.

Only one has a bit better science behind it.

Not convincing yet, but better.

The current environment of global warming is like Intelligent Design, science done with a non-scientific agenda and a pre-conceived result. I don't believe they are any longer asking what the evidence says, merely trying to find more evidence that supports their conclusion or distort current evidence into it (that damn readme file again).

Why? That's where the government grant money is since this is a political issue.

Also sounds like the cigarette company science surrounding cigarettes, but that was on a far smaller scale with far less money and power at stake.

Not trustworthy.

And you can say whatever you want about Lomborg, as it's irrelevant.

He believes in global warming. He just disagrees with priorities.

For that he is a pariah. A blasphemer.

But he did one good thing.

He got Gore to admit that global warming isn't about science.

[NickB79]

258. You mean this global cooling scare?

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2008/10/global-cooling-was-a-myth.html

"Sceptics like to say that climate scientists who support the consensus of man-made global warming are like the boy who cried wolf.

They say that in the 1970s, climate scientists claimed that we were headed for a mini ice-age. They then point out that this never happened, and so question the strength of current predictions that the globe will be between 2 and 5 °C warmer by 2100.

Fair enough. But was there ever a consensus over global cooling in the 1970s?

A few climate scientists have now scanned through the research literature of the time. For 1965 to 1979, they found seven articles that predicted cooling, 44 that predicted warming and 20 that were neutral. The results are being published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society."

:rofl:

You can't possibly be this dim, can you? Unless, of course, you get your information on current scientific breakthroughs from sources like Time Magazine, I guess.

[Ozymanithrax]

11. Come on, God is cooking the earth like a marshmallow on a stick...

in preparation for the return of Jesus so the saved can go to heaven and 4 billion people can be tortured to death to show gods love and mercy.

SCientist...Humph!

[ProgressOnTheMove]

16. Even if some experts say the quakes weren't down to climate change it's definitely mother nature ...

saing "WAKEY WAKEY, we have a problem here."

[PavePusher]

130. What? You mean quakes are a new phenomena?

"Wake up call"? Seriously?

For what, pray tell?

[DissedByBush]

264. Global warming causes everything

Haven't you heard?

That way if anything happens, global warming is vindicated.

[BrklynLiberal]

18. WELL! ... that's ONE theory.....!!!

ROTFLMAO!!!


just kidding, of course..
a "tribute" to the deniers, the doubters, the flat earthers, the fundies, and all the others who cannot deal with the actual world, truth, science and reality.
:hide:

[Jakes Progress]

19. Well, then. Who's to blame for ignorant politicians?

[geckosfeet]

22. How about hot air from the conservatives?

[tinrobot]

24. The question is - can we stop?

Is it possible to drop emissions down to zero?

Or possibly even less than zero to make up for the stuff we've already emitted?

I don't have much faith in our ability to break this addiction.

[DissedByBush]

29. That's another issue

Should you accept the theory of man-made global warming (er, climate change, whatever), you are still a heretic if you don't agree that it is the number one challenge to mankind and that all of our efforts should go to stopping it, even though it hasn't been established that we even can.

Saying other things are more important is blasphemy.

Example: Bjorn Lomborg accepts global warming but thinks the spending priorities are wrong. This earned him the public ire of Al Gore.

You know, Gore, who says it's "not a matter of theory" and that it's "kind of silly" to debate the science.

When you have Gore's opinion you're no longer talking about science.

It's more related to religion.

[wuushew]

37. Lomborg is terrible

many others in addition to Gore find fault with his ideas and honesty.

[DissedByBush]

39. Lomborg is a heretic

He is a perfect example of how a believer will be treated like a heretic even if he questions what to do, not even questioning Global Warming itself.

And many others find fault with Gore's ideas and honesty.

I have ever since Gore pushed to give the government a backdoor to our encryption while VP.

[tinrobot]

56. Lomborg has been totally debunked.

Lomborg writes books with fake footnotes.

Bush (who apparently dissed you) steals elections.

Gore is head and shoulders above both.

[DissedByBush]

90. Wrong Bush

And Lomborg has valid points that are dismissed out of hand because they don't agree with the political ends of global warming.

[tinrobot]

107. They are dismissed because...

...all of the footnotes in his book were either inaccurate or falsified.

[Hissyspit]

48. "climate change, er, global warming, whatever"

And there's THAT talking point. "These people can't decide what to call it, so it's not true." Um, no.

And the "it's a religion to these people" smear.

Same ol' disinformation crap. That's what I figured.

[DatManFromNawlins]

260. Terms get changed when their position is successfully challenged

It's PR 101.

[tinrobot]

53. Bjorn Lomborg is a liar.

You might want to read the book "the Lomborg Deception." Almost all of the citations Lomborg uses in his books are either misrepresented or outright lies.

Here's a quote from the Newsweek article about the book:

But when Friel began checking Lomborg's sources, "I found problems," he says. "As an experiment, I looked up one of his footnotes, found that it didn't support what he said, and then did another, and kept going, finding the same pattern." He therefore took on the Augean stables undertaking of checking every one of the hundreds of citations in Cool It. Friel's conclusion, as per his book's title, is that Lomborg is "a performance artist disguised as an academic."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/233942

[Chemisse]

68. If the world is headed for a cataclysmic warming, no matter how gradual it may seem

It is still the number one threat to humanity.

The world will survive. It always has. Species will go extinct, others will thrive.

But life as we know it could be altered forever, and perhaps extinguished altogether. It's hard to find any political issue that is even slightly important next to that.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. It's greed that's keeping us from doing anything

Many Americans think they have a divine right to a two-acre lot, a trophy house in a subdivision where you couldn't walk or bike anywhere if you wanted, and a car for every person over the age of 16. They scream bloody murder about choice and freedom if you tell them that the sum of their individual choices (Are they choices? Or are people just doing what commercial forces tell them is the American dream?) is killing the planet. Three entire generations have grown up entirely in the car-dependent suburbs, and so they think it's normal.

All newly industrializing countries have gone through a period where they didn't care about pollution. That's nothing new. But China and India are so huge that anything they do is going to have a massive global effect.

But given their history of exploitation by the West, they're going to look askance at any Western nations telling them to cut their carbon output. THEIR non-scientists tell the public that it's just Westerners trying to prevent them from getting ahead.

Meanwhile, the greedheads in the Western nations, the ones who should be setting the example for the rest of the world, are saying, "Why should we cut back on carbon when China and India aren't?"

You don't have to tell me about global warming. I've been back in Minnesota since 2003, and we haven't had even ONE winter like the ones I experienced growing up or even as recently as the early 1980s. Right now, we've had over a week of daytime highs above freezing, and such temperatures are predicted for at least ten days out. This isn't a Minnesota March. This is more like a lower Midwest March. I'm told by people who are into gardening that we are now in a different planting zone than we were in the past.

Oh yes, folks, it's happening, and all the idiots gloating every time it snows (We should be having real, full-fledged blizzards, you knuckleheads, not four to six inches of fluffy stuff) can't change the facts.

Just call me Cassandra.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

28. The one who dies richest wins. nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

30. Yeah, where does that leave the rest of us?

We all know the answer to that.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

32. I was arguing about climate change with a creationist not long ago...

...and he asked why I should care about it, since I believed in evolution. He said, based on Darwin's theory, climate change will simply lead to better, more adaptable and resilient species on earth. How do you argue with that? Oy.

[tabatha]

45. If there are enough species left to evolve.

[Chemisse]

69. That is a good point.

But - and call me selfish - I would like humans to be one of those species.

[Enthusiast]

178. No one with a knowledge of

the science is suggesting global warming will be the end of life on earth anyway. Of course life will adapt as it always has.

But in terms of human suffering a significant rise in sea level is off the scale. We might look back on efforts to quell human suffering in Haiti and Chile as quaint artifacts of a bygone age.

[MisterP]

210. something similar happened with population control

African and Asian nationalists came out against population control--indeed, the whole idea of overpopulation--as an elitist Rockefeller plot to keep nations weak by having 500 million instead of 600 million people. Protests against deforestation were met by Brazil or Indonesia shouting that the US and Europe had cut down THEIR forests in the past, so why couldn't they, too? And, besides, natives lived in the forests, so either 1) humans were part of nature, and whatever impact they had was okay, or 2) there was no more nature, since the wilderness had been affected (or even tilled, as the Amazon was) by humans. Nehruvist development, they said, would redistribute "resources," so restricting the amount of the poor couldn't be an issue. Beginning in the neolib 80s, it was capitalism that would do the magic redistribution.

Other excuses include sheer anthropocentrism (we should only consider the environment in regards to how it can feed us) or valorization of "natives," which are lumped together as "light treaders" or otherwise-legitimate parts of every ecosystem from tundra to Ruwenzori rainforest. And besides, success equals rightness in evolutionary terms, so humans' spread is just as legitimate as that of grass, mammals, or equids. Humans can never be the problem, even if it means dredging up contradictory rationales (humans are part of nature, so whatever they do is OK; human culture and technology trascend nature, so whatever we do to nature is OK since we own it, even if in some idealized "Native American/Aboriginal" fashion (this, BTW, was the Cato Institute's review of Avatar, showing that libertarians are good at missing the point)).

A lot of natalism, BTW, was codified by Julian Simon, whose capitalist techno-utopianism also gave us "geoengineering" and warming denial: ingenuity can overcome any problem, and the more people there are, the more ideas are generated.

[Joey Liberal]

31. Mother Earth has a Fever

And its caused by an infection called man.

[humbled_opinion]

34. I am with Dissedbybush and I will write something

Now you can call me a denier but I don't deny anything. I believe that all things are possible especially at the subatomic level but of course, I am also an avid quantum physics study.

Temperature change on this planet is inevitable there is nothing that man can do either to increase the variable or to decrease the variable because there is an unknown set of variables that can contribute to climate change i.e., the heat energy released into the atmosphere from nuclear fission produced by man has increased the planets temperature that is a fact it is also a fact that volcanic eruption which releases heat energy has increased the planets temperature. One of these variables is controllable the other is not.

The political representation of this issue is disturbing on so many levels.

There a million reasons for man to seek an alternative energy source to carbon/petroleum products not the least of which is that these options for energy are finite, but to insist that it is mans usage of these products that is endangering the planet and causing global warming and then using that data as fact to force man to change his behavior of usage is simply ludicrous. It bends the truth curve if you know what I mean and that is exactly what is going on now. How then if from some unrealized or uncontrollable variable we suddenly face a drop in global temperature will you continue to state as fact that it is the carbon emission that is causing the earth to warm?

My main point is that politically you are going to have a tough sell to get freedom loving people to give up their comforts that happen to be byproducts of carbon usage unless you can unequivocally show the danger that these products cause and that data is an extrapolation of what scientists say may or may not happen or whether or not with 100 percent clarity reducing our usage of carbon products will stop the inevitable.

If you want real solutions Plant more trees, stop deforestation around the globe and put some population controls in place but don't create this carbon offset tax that is stupid corporations and business will just pass the cost on to the consumer in higher prices and please don't tax me more I already pay enough.

[tabatha]

40. Unfortunately, the population is probably beyond tipping point.

What has to be done done is a huge push to renewable energy.

We do not have volcanoes going off on a regular basis, and besides, the particulate matter they throw up into the atmosphere actually cools the planet.

So, you just lost the argument right off the bat.

[tinrobot]

59. We must put a price on the damage caused by burning carbon.

If you want real solutions Plant more trees, stop deforestation around the globe and put some population controls in place but don't create this carbon offset tax that is stupid corporations and business will just pass the cost on to the consumer in higher prices and please don't tax me more I already pay enough.

Sounds like a plea from an oil company executive. Please do everything else, but for crying out loud, don't tax carbon.

If we tax carbon, then yes, the price will go up. That's the point of a tax.

We want to discourage people from using fossil fuels, so a tax can accomplish that quite well. The tax also charges people for the damage they do to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. Hopefully, the tax money will also be put to positive use to create renewable energy sources. This will also lure people away from fossil fuels by making the alternatives more attractive.

[Name removed]

65. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tinrobot]

76. We all breathe the same atmosphere.

Your right to "freedom" ends the moment you start polluting that atmosphere.

Simple as that.

This is not about slavery. It is about taking responsibility for your actions.

[winyanstaz]

156. Its all about blaming people for the weather so you can collect money...

Your not fooling anyone.

There have been many periods of global warming.....including the medieval period..that was WARMER than todays temperatures.

Try explaining that one away.

Let me guess...
It was because they were burning wood? But wait..there were so many less people then...well maybe it was because they had too many cows farting in the fields?

Maybe the King should have been collecting sheep fart taxes.

The bottom line is...
We need to get away from oil.
We need to get away from taxes.
and we need to get away from polititians...which I believe are the REAL reason there is so much hot air.

[Bjorn Against]

86. If people were to suddenly start floating would you admit that the law of gravity is bunk?

You ask "If from some unrealized or uncontrollable variable we suddenly face a drop in global temperature will you continue to state as fact that it is the carbon emission that is causing the earth to warm?"

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest such a thing is going to happen, so if we are going to consider the response to your question despite its lack of scientific merit then I would ask you to consider your response to my question that is every bit as absurd as yours. So tell me, if all the people on this planet were to suddenly start floating would you admit there is no such thing as gravity?

[humbled_opinion]

95. No..

Gravity does exist if everyone started floating we could assume something happened to the gravitational forces. The earth has both cooled and warmed in its history we know this as fact so yes we should study forces that cause such changes in the climate no doubt.

People that worship this cult of global warming fanaticism are the ones that have narrow minds. My position is that there are an extreme amount of variables that account for the climate and there is just no way that man can attempt to fix them or stop them it is the science of inevitability.

I will not be subjected to the whims of Government that would enslave me to force me to pay for something which I reject and which gives me no affordable alternative choices. We must use energy to live in society forcing me to pay higher costs solves nothing it just makes those that have less use less those that have more will continue to use more.

Those of you who would be blindly led and yet call yourself freedom loving individuals are the ones that have perverted the issue.

If Christians told me that because I denied the existence of God that God may soon destroy the earth with global warming should I succumb to their vision? I say the same to any here that would try and convince me to join believe something that is just not true. You champion separation of Church and state and we should not allow religion to dictate our politics. I say the same for the global warming fanatics keep your religious zealotry on the subject among yourselves and do not try to enslave me to your beliefs.

For those on this board that would attempt to twist my words I do not deny and have stated that we should have sustainable energy sources but to try and tie an environmental aspect to it and make it political is maddening.

[Bjorn Against]

97. The only one who said anything about religion and cults is you.

Science and religion are not the same thing, and until you can learn to discuss this issue honestly without referring to the large majority of the world's scientists as "a cult" there is no reason anyone should take a word you say seriously.

[humbled_opinion]

98. I am discussing the issue honestly

I am applying reason and common sense and am taking a stand that the government should not force the people with the least who are enslaved to carbon for transpiration and living needs to pay to fix the problem. The correct approach is to offer an alternative source of energy and stop trying to scare people about planet catastrophe. I stated many times that there are lots of reasons to go to renewable sources of energy. I also pay attention to the news and have stated that when science does not allow skeptics to have an input you get the results of leaked emails and questions by the community of what is fact and what is not and of course when the climate does not respond to your assertions i.e. record cold temps massive blizzards and snow storms in the south then you run this great risk of becoming not credible and that is exactly what is going on today.

My reasoning for using the cult reference is because there are those that do believe that the earth is warming and they are becoming zealots because they would call me a denier and try to cast me out and try to ruin my credibility and shut me down that is not how things get accomplished.

[Bjorn Against]

106. So it is wrong for people to call you a denier but it is OK for you to call them cultists?

[humbled_opinion]

201. I dont really care what people call me

I will only start caring when I am being forced to pay out of my limited income for offsets of some dubious science that I do not entirely agree with. Call me freedom loving, call me denier, call me anything but there will be protest before I bend over and allow the government to dictate to me that I must pay for what they term the sins of using oil to which I am enslaved.

I petition the government that carbon taxation is not the way forward to solve this dillema, create incentive to allow the poorer among us to get off of oil.

[fascisthunter]

252. meh

I knew it wasn't about the science but about personal wealth... bleh.

[Lagomorph]

36. The theory is that since the human population has quadrupled...

...since I was born, it may have impacted the climate in some way. OK, that's worth a look.

[heli]

44. It's just God reminding us of his warm and fuzzy touch

[FailureToCommunicate]

46. Some of us sound like school kids on a bus arguing WHY the driver missed

OUR stop. Is it human activity and bogus science OR just Nature and pseudo science. Our bus is headed off the cliff, whatever caused it, and the sooner we figure out to change direction the better.

[NecklyTyler]

49. K&R

[golfguru]

58. Why we had an ice age 12 milleniums ago?

and what caused the ice to be all melted forming the Great Lakes?

12 milleniums ago humans could barely start a fire with flint stones.

[tinrobot]

62. What part of "No possible natural phenomenon" do you not understand?

The last warming trend was natural. This one is not.

Read the article linked in the OP.

[golfguru]

67. I don't think there is any easy way

to prove and conclude the last one was natural and this one is not.
I am sorry, I am skeptical when conclusions are drawn about
temperature cycles lasting thousands of years. Note that there
is zero scientific data going back more than 200 years whereas
the cycles can last thousands of years.

But you are free to conclude anything your heart so desires.

[Chemisse]

74. That is the trouble when people who do not understand science

Try to second guess its results.

No, we had no weather stations reporting temperatures for us 200 years ago. But we have ice cores going back many hundreds of thousands of years. The little bubbles in them are tiny pockets of the atmosphere way back in time, and the pattern of ice densities - plus any fossils packed in the layers - can show us what the climate was like over those same millenia.

The problem is that the 'deniers' are not literate in science and don't even have a clue how scientists know these things. Consequently they assume it is a 'belief', on par with a religion or a political stance.

[tinrobot]

78. You're right, it's not easy.

That's why it's taken tens of thousands of scientists several decades to do the science and collect the data from which this conclusion was reached.

But please, do your own science. Prove them wrong. It won't be easy.

[neverforget]

194. And they never have an answer to that only their opinion or that of others.

If they don't believe scientists on the science of Climate Change, what other science do they question? :shrug:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

215. milleniums?

You're obviously well read.

[rasputin1952]

61. The rule of exponentials...

Regardless of what happens naturally, everything that humans do adds, exponentially to the end result. 1 million tons of CO2 released "naturally", 1/2 ton of CO2 released by human activity = 1.5 tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. Not all that difficult; now take that to the power warranted and one can see the seriousness of the situation.

[yawnmaster]

64. where is the exponent in your equation? eom

[Bill McBlueState]

237. hey,

don't go around expecting people who use the word 'exponential' to know what it means. I stopped doing that ten years ago, and I'm much happier since.

[golfguru]

73. What about water vapor which also traps

heat and is far more prevalent (by orders of magnitude) than CO2?
So we can not conclude that man made CO2 is causing exponential
effect on temperature cycles when a far larger component is present
naturally.

I am sure you have observed on cloudy nights temperatures stay
considerably warmer than on cloudless nights.

The scientific side of my brain is telling me that man made CO2 is
incremental effect, not exponential effect on climate change.

[tinrobot]

79. The water vapor is a result of CO2

The oceans evaporate because of the added heat from CO2. The added vapor warms the planet even more, so it amplifies the effect. It also creates heavier storms, such as the one we witnessed last month.

[DatManFromNawlins]

261. Ah, so...

... the storms last month: global warming.

The fact that it's frigid outside: coincidence.

Katrina: global warming.

No major storms making landfall last year: coincidence.

For every gram of carbon which is belched into the atmosphere, we're pumping TONS of water vapor from our factories.

The reason they aren't attacking water vapor production?

Because it's not a boogeyman, it's essential to industry, and they'd be laughed out of the room.

[rasputin1952]

80. That was an extremely simple example.

There are a myriad of other situations that exist, CO2 is only one aspect of the situation. So many things are pumped into the atmosphere, (and other areas such as the oceans, rivers, land), that one simple item does not a crisis make. Sulfur dioxide, methane, halides, halogens all kinds of things are in the atmosphere that affect how this thin shield works, CO2 is only the most obvious.

When one takes CO2 and deforestation into the equation, the effects of the the CO2 in the atmosphere are multiplied, it is one thing to cut trees, it is something entirely different to clear cut and literally denude huge swathes of carbon needing trees and plants.

Here's the thing, Global Climate Change is not all that difficult to comprehend once we understand that what we do, not necessarily out of necessity to survive, but rather to be "comfortable", we endanger our very survival. That's where the "climate deniers" lose the whole concept...they don't want to be held responsible for anything that can be considered dangerous to the environment. These are the same people who pee in the stream, not thinking about those who live downstream; but they never think of those who live upstream from them either.

[Chemisse]

81. Yes water vapor is important in global warming

And it has increased in the atmosphere as a reaction to warming caused by the increase in CO2. As the earth warms, water vapor that evaporates from the oceans amplifies the effect of the far more scarce CO2 molecules.

This is especially disturbing because it points out one way in which global warming takes on a life of its own, continuing to expand due to the effects of the warming itself! Like when ice caps melt, there is less ice to reflect the sunlight. Instead, the dark waters absorb more light, adding to the heat contained in the oceans, and causing the ice caps to melt even faster.

[Bjorn Against]

82. Has the "scientific side of your brain" been peer reviewed?

If not then what exactly makes it scientific? Does Pat Robertson also have a scientific side of his brain?

[golfguru]

142. Well...I spent 12 years doing work in a lab

where intense scientific research is done.
This lab is the place where the first sustained nuclear
chain reaction in world took place...Argonne National Laboratory.

[Bjorn Against]

190. You may have worked in a lab, but that does not mean that you understand climate change

Nor does it mean that you have a "scientific side" of your brain.

[golfguru]

192. The scientific papers and publications at ANL are replete with

studies on climate change. When you work in a outfit with 1000 Ph d types,
it is impossible not to be aware of scientific research going on.

[Bjorn Against]

193. Can you point me to a peer reviewed article they published...

That backs up your full statement in post 73? As a few people have already pointed out an increase in CO2 levels can lead to an increase in water vapor as well.

[elocs]

66. No facts will ever change the minds of climate change deniers.

That is the mindset of deniers. They will read the opening sentence as "Fast food restaurants say quarter pound hamburgers are good for you". There really is no point in trying to change the minds of climate change deniers because it won't happen.

The problem is that the climate change deniers are engaging in a global crapshoot and gambling with the future of the planet for their children and grandchildren. Steps taken to combat climate change are pretty much good in and of themselves because they make for a better planet. If it clearly turns out that the deniers were wrong and little was done to practically halt climate change, what will they tell their children and grandchildren? "Oops, guess we were wrong".

[Chemisse]

72. I keep thinking about that 'oops' moment

When it will be way past too late. Scant comfort that will be.

[Bjorn Against]

I have a feeling that when that moment comes the deniers will deny they were ever deniers.

[Chemisse]

84. You're probably right - and even to themselves! nt

[humbled_opinion]

96. Yeah the oops moment

based on the current warming trends you do the math how many years do we have?

Sorry but the issue is not being properly stated if carbon emission is polluting the atmosphere then the science and the government should do everything in their power to limit the carbon emission but that is not what is happening and that cannot be proven.

The Global warming issue is based on a hypothesis that carbon emission will cause a green house effect on the planet but hey lets not get all worried about that because we can
build more nuclear reactors yeah thats the ticket when man crates fission that does emit heat that is not a natural phenomenon on the earth where no heat would have been before but that is OK to some here....

People lack common sense I guess if I use any stronger terms Mods will delete my post.

[jpak]

77. Science rules - deniers suck...and how

the end

[pscot]

83. The pig's on the porch

I've lost my bees
The Cow is in water
Up to her knees
The chickens are roosting in
The sycamore trees
Three foot high and rising.

[RoccoR5955]

85. K & R... I know that it's true because...

I actually did some of the research 30+ years ago. We were telling them that then, we are STILL telling it to them, and they STILL deny it. I hope that by the time that I am dead, that it will be an issue that is beyond denial!

Ice cores don't lie. They tell the WHOLE story. There should be no more debate.

[marasinghe]

100. they will deny it even as the water covers their stupid asses ....

take a look @ the 'scientific denials' posted on this very thread.

some personal, anecdotal & admittedly non-scientific evidence, on the reality of GW side of the argument:

i was born & grew up in a south asian country, where the most important product, for the approx. 3k years of its recorded history, was rice. over those 3k years, the two seasons of monsoonal rainstorms which heralded the start of the planting cycle and the two dry seasons which signaled the start of the harvesting cycle, were so consistent - that they were written into our history books, our cultural activities, our folklore, our literature, the names of our calendar months, and, even our fixed solar new year's day (as opposed to our lunar calendar months). the farmers would plow, plant, nurture & harvest crops - almost mechanically, of course allowing for minor variations of plus or minus under a month, for the start of each agricultural phase.

by the time i reached my teens, in the late 60's, this more or less fixed annual cycle had changed within the space of 15 years, to the point where - my country, which had exported rice to the indian sub-continent & southeast asia for at least a couple of thousand years continuously and was known throughout south asia as the "granary of the indian ocean", had become a net importer of rice; with farmers so baffled by the changing weather patterns that, all their accumulated farming lore and traditional science was rendered useless; and agriculture became a gamble, instead of the industry it had been for 2k years.

things are getting worse now, with - among many other issues - coconut, a product of an indigenous plant & as much interwoven into the fabric of our society & our food as rice, running short to the point of requiring importation.

while the population grew around 20% during the course of the 20th century, and we had external factors - such as a british occupation of a hundred years & a denuding of primeval forest for the cultivation of non-native cash crops such as tea & coffee - influencing the change of weather patterns, none of these were of sufficient magnitude to account for the changes; specially in the monsoon windstorms which govern the rainy & dry seasons & originate in mid-ocean, not on the asian land-mass.

thus, from the farming community's & from a personal viewpoint, all the way back in the 60's we realized that something was going wrong with our planet.

in my mind at any rate, the cause is undoubtedly the abysmal stupidity of the vast majority of the human race - nature being smart enough to program our own obsolescence within us, for just such a time when we've grown too damn arrogant for our own good and a curse on the face of the earth & its denizens.

[humbled_opinion]

105. So what do you say to those

Theologians that claim that your experience was all and act of the almighty and that man has very little influence over the planet as a whole?

Think about your answer because that is the way I feel about your position on the subject.

[marasinghe]

111. my opinion of theological claims is the same as my opinion of the rationality of a mob of humans.

and about the same as i feel about your opinion of the scientific consensus on global warming.

and my opinion of a pseudo-mythic anthropomorphic omnipotent creator deity in some valhalla in space.

of course, like i mentioned before, i don't have any scientific evidence for this; it's just my opinion.

but, to make it crystal clear: it is the same as my opinion of the 80% of polled american coward-asses who supported the war crime of invading iraq.

[RoccoR5955]

229. I would ask theologians, what I ALWAYS ask them...

Do you also believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Unicorns? Because if you believe in a talking snake, a guy with a home in the clouds, and a guy who walked on water, you must believe in other forms of mythology.
No really, because you believe in a brand of mythology that is "accepted" by the masses, does not make it hard cold fact, it only makes it an accepted myth.
When you can come up with cold, hard proof, as I can, in the samples of carbon dioxide, and layering of ice that is deposited each and every year, for the past SEVERAL MILLION years, if you can come up with that kind of SOLID proof, then, maybe we can start accepting your brand of mythology. Until then, it's just mythology, NOT fact. You might as well say that the tooth fairy is causing climate change, because you are still in denial.

[Grassy Knoll]

88. Wow , great thread kpete, K&R. n/t

[winyanstaz]

89. oh baloney.....I don't buy that for a micro-second.

There was a warming period with HIGHER temperatures during the medieval period.....so how do they account for that?
The over all temperature has also been DROPPING since the 80s...again...how does that prove global warming?
Do these people think we don't see the stuff going on in europe? Just because our own media won't cover it doesn't mean Americans are not paying attention to the news.
We see where they admit now UNDER OATH that they lied their asses off about the data..and failed to reveal data...and hid the data as well.
Why in the world should we suddenly believe them now?
They only want to collect carbon taxes..its all about the frickin money.

[humbled_opinion]

99. Exactly right thank you a voice of reason

Sometimes I feel like I am in the movie invasion of the body snatchers and have not fallen victim to the pod yet....

LOL

[Hissyspit]

104. No, it's not. It's right-wing talking points and ignorance and misrepresentation.

http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/u/24/vrKfz8NjEzU

The National Academy of Science, 2006:

"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,00 years."

[winyanstaz]

149. I can tell you have not been doing your homework......

Haven't you been keeping up with the huge scandal in Europe over the global warming hoax?
anyways...
Here are my sources.

Standford University:

http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/history_health.html

and:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Earths-Temperature-Brief-History-of-Recent-Change

and:
at Montreal's Concordia University:

http://newsisaconversation.blogspot.com/2007/01/heat-of-history.html

and:
500 scientists refute global warming dangers and an article at the Hudson Institute.
"The newest analysis was released by Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dennis Avery, who said of the 500 scientists who have refuted at least one element of the global warming scare, more than 300 have found evidence that a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to the current circumstances since the last Ice Age and that such warmings are linked to variations in the sun's irradiance."


There is plenty more and all respectable universities and scientists.

There is a unique advantage to having a computer...you can look things up.

There is a wonderful invention we can use...it's called google.


Put it together with a little something called common sense and it can open many doors for you.





http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57605

[Hugabear]

154. World Net Daily? Seriously? That's your source for your 500 "scientists"?

God-fucking-almighty, why don't you just quote FOX News or Glenn Beck while you're at it?

Whatever credibility you might have had left just went slithering out the door when you posted a World Nut Daily link as a source.

[winyanstaz]

160. Save the propaganda....I could care less what you think...

"While a leading U.S. climate researcher claims there's a decade at most left to address "global warming" before environmental disaster takes place, the federal government issued a report showing the year 1936 had a hotter summer than 2006."

OOPS...so the federal government also has no credibility on this...my my my..you are just determind to keep beating that dead horse....

Ironically, a report issued yesterday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that while the summer of 2006 was the second-warmest on record, the hottest year for the contiguous 48 states since statistics began in 1895 was 1936 – seven decades ago.

Makes you think doesnt it? Opps..scratch that question because of course..for you..it doesnt.

[Hissyspit]

167. The hottest year for the UNITED STATES, not the world.

Holy shit on a shingle, yes it makes me think, but not what you seem to think I should be thinking.

[Hugabear]

206. You seem to be the one pushing right-wing propaganda

When you so brazenly put forth bullshit from World Net Daily, you've lost all credibility. That you continue to spew this bullshit, in the face of everything that myself and other posters have brought forward, says wonders about you.

[RoccoR5955]

231. One year does not constitute a trend.

What REAL science is looking at are TRENDS, and because there is one abnormality in a trend, does not make the trend false.

So stop denying it, just because some of us cannot handle the facts, do not make the facts untrue.

[fascisthunter]

251. buh bye

[Hissyspit]

155. Huh?

There is google by me all through this thread. I am well aware of what's going on in the European press.

You sound ridiculous.

You linked to WORLD NUT DAILY???

:rofl:

[Name removed]

161. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hissyspit]

164. What in the hell are you going on about?

I didn't do any of those things. I did the exact opposite of most of those things. Which you would know if you had done any research. You know, used a computer - searched DU.

People have called World Net Daily "World Nut Daily" here for years. Because it's World Nut Daily, a goofball right-wing conspiracy site.

I didn't read the article because I saw it previously when it first came out, you know, using my computer and my google search. 500 scientists quoted by World Net Daily out of, what, tens of thousands of scientists?

Hudson Institute funded the study. It's a RIGHT-WING THINK TANK. It's garbage. World Net Daily is a right-wing conspiracy rag. It's garbage. I know that because I did my homework.

I argued against Bush. I said there were no WMD in Iraq before the war. I saw the economic crash coming a million miles away. 9/11 was preventable. And global warming deniers are wrong.

Done with you.

[neverforget]

195. Science is hard work. Understanding it is even harder but dismissing it is easy.

[RoccoR5955]

230. No, YOU, my friend, have not done your homework.

The pages that you cite, are merely shills for the oil companies.

For one, here's a critique of the FIRST page that you cited, http://home.att.net/~rpuchalsky/sci_env/moore/moore_warming.html

As far as World Net Daily, that's nothing more than a cyber rag, a tabloid, I would take ANYTHING they said with a HUGE grain of salt.

Just because it's on the Internet, does not make it so. If you take your presumption, than you can get $1000 worth of M&Ms, you shouldn't call 911, you shouldn't open an e-mail that is entitled "Join the Crew," Bill Gates is giving away a Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe (along with $5000 and a trip to Disneyworld), and Proctor and Gamble is Satinist, because it says it here: http://www.tysknews.com/LiteStuff/must_be_true.htm and here: http://www.yelp.com/topic/chicago-i-saw-it-on-the-internet-so-it-must-be-true and here: http://www.umsl.edu/~banisr/hoaxes.htm

So just give it a rest already, and read some REAL factual stuff once in a while.

[Bill McBlueState]

238. anything you post about X scientists,

where X is some large-sounding number, is not likely to be taken seriously. Science does not work that way; it's not a popularity contest.

[tinrobot]

108. The overall temperature has risen since the 80's.

Both 1980's, and the 1880's...

Here's a pretty picture:

[Hissyspit]

109. "The Medieval Warming Period Crock"

http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/u/24/vrKfz8NjEzU

http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/u/24/vrKfz8NjEzU

The National Academy of Science, 2006:

"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,00 years."

...and the overall temperature has been rising since the 80s. Quit watching Fox News.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/12/climate-change-science-no_n_389783.html

[winyanstaz]

159. I never watch fox news....

I have researched the matter...instead of taking some greenmans opinion..try looking around a bit.

[Hissyspit]

166. He does excellent, concise, thorough, well-informed debunking of nonsense

that anyone can understand.

You, on the other hand, link to right-wing nutcase sites. Congrats. I guess you win the arguments. :eyes:

Bye. Done with you.

[Bjorn Against]

187. Maybe you don't watch Fox News, but this is what you do consider a credible source...

World Net Daily almost makes Fox News look like a great source of journalism by comparison. Here are just a few of the absolutely absurd stories that the site you are promoting has chosen to run with.

World Net Daily has run literally HUNDREDS of articles questioning Obama's birth certificate and suggesting that he was actually born in Kenya. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=98546

They run articles questioning "Is there Truth in Science?" and cites a creationist website as "the most comprehensive science curriculum I've ever seen" http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=120404

They ran an article claiming that an Obama czar was pushing a "homo-genda" for schools that would indoctrinate our kids to become gay: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=124704

They ran an article expressing moral outrage because two dinosaurs in the children's movie "Ice Age 3" may be lesbians promoting the "homosexual agenda": http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=103152

So maybe you don't watch Fox News, but you do consider a site that tells us that calls creationism "truth in science" a source for valid scientific information. Let's just hope you don't start posting threads warning us about the threat of cartoon dinosaurs turning our children gay, because the site you find to be a credible source of information does run those sorts of articles.

[JonLP24]

114. Someone else can probably give a better answer

but there was large volcano eruption and from the 'stuff' it led to a cooling period and nature fought it with natural global warming. History channel where I saw it can explain it better than I can. However global temperatures have risen significantly since the industrial revolution including 1980-present.

Graph from NASA at the link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nasa-giss_1880-2009_global_temperature.svg

[Hugabear]

117. Newsflash - this winter is the warmest winter on record

Just because it hasn't been quite so warm across much of the US, doesn't mean that temperatures haven't been rising in other parts of the world. In fact, many areas have been seeing record heat this winter. Including our very own Northwest.

[angelicwoman]

121. What's your source that the medieval warming was higher?

And how would you answer to the explanation the scientist gave, in that article cited in the OP, that the lower atmosphere has warmed but the upper atmosphere has not warmed recently? How could the sun be responsible for the lower atmosphere warming alone?

He dismissed suggestions that variations in solar activity – the intensity of the Sun – could explain warming patterns over the past few decades. If the Sun was responsible then both the upper and lower atmosphere would be getting warmer, instead of just the lower atmosphere as predicted by computer models of greenhouse gas warming.

[Hissyspit]

124. Debunking of the "Sun is the Cause Crock:"

http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/u/27/_Sf_UIQYc20

[winyanstaz]

162. you get all your information from one site I see.....

hahaahaa

[Hissyspit]

165. You posted a link to World Net Daily quoting James Inhofe?

And you're laughing at me?

Jesus Christ.

:eyes:

[Name removed]

168. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

163. You believe in chemtrails, worry about moon bombings, and ponder crop circles.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4182768&mesg_id=4183163

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6728139&mesg_id=6732768

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=245x101747#101907

Just to put your understanding of science into context.

[neverforget]

239. The moon bombing threads were awesome. Lots of unintentional humor

[time_has_come]

266. you're a little angry, eh?

Next is bargaining, then depression, then acceptance.

Actually, you're kind of bargaining already. Overall temperature been dropping since the 80s? No, actually. Not true.

How do they account for the medieval warming period? Do you presume they ignore it, because (as you imply) it disproves global warming today and it's human cause?

In fact, your MWP was not global. Here's a short piece for you to read, with an IPCC graph that encompasses the MWP as well as other links.

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/climate411/26/how-we-know-humans-cause-global-warming-part-4-of-5-medieval-warming-period.html

So now you know. Will it move you along the path though, that's the question.

[Hugabear]

148. I cannot believe there are global warming deniers here on DU

You don't expect to see right-wing bullshit being freely posted here on DU, yet there is plenty of that going on here in this thread.

[DCBob]

185. Makes you wonder doesn't it?

I thought saving the planet was a core Democratic/liberal policy.

[humbled_opinion]

196. Excellent way of being dismissive of other view points

Call people the political opposition. You have to do better then that.

[Hugabear]

207. This isn't a matter of "political viewpoints" - this is about SCIENCE.

Should we allow debate over the merits of creationism?

[humbled_opinion]

225. Absolutely

to do otherwise would allow Christians to continue to brainwash people in their beliefs and allow for no opposing viewpoint...

Science and Religion share a poltical sameness... You fail to look at things in a multi-dimensional fashion as I do.

[DCBob]

236. +1

The deniers are determined to make this a political debate because they know they cannot beat the science.

[Lost4words]

180. I think the UFOs are doing it to wipe humans out and take the planet

I think they (the visitors) have a very low opinion of our species. :crazy:

[No Elephants]

186. Anyone who is still debating this either is a cynical liar or a brainwashed fool,

[panzerfaust]

199. False Dichotomy

One can be both.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

191. Mommy, where does overpopulation come from??

That's the question no one wants to truly confront.

Yet the refusal to face overpopulation is killing us and everything around us -- the beauty of other living creatures, plant and animal, the deep joy of open spaces-- even the ugliness of man-made sprawl is in response to the needs (and greeds) of too many people.

And, though it may tempt the firebombs of keyboard commandos, I'm going to say that angry reactions going on the attack anytime someone says what needs to be said, are more a defensive expression of aversion to truth. Usually, when people react violently to truth, it's because they know deep down that it is the truth, and that they are on the wrong track.

"Second Theorem: The utterly dismal theorem. This theorem states that any technical improvement can only relieve misery for a while, for so long as misery is the only check on population, the < technical > improvement will enable population to grow, and will soon enable more people to live in misery than before. The final result of < technical > improvements, therefore, is to increase the equilibrium population which is to increase the total sum of human misery..."
Kenneth Boulding 1971, Collected Papers, Vol. II

"Slower global population growth will relieve pressure on the environment and other problems and grant time to find solutions. There are many actions that must be taken to alleviate poverty, improve food supply, end malnutrition, and provide adequate housing. The first is to achieve balanced population growth..."
Nafis Sadik, M.D.Under Secretary
General United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

[warm regards]

197. But what can we do about the natural phenomenons?

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php

"Volcanoes release more than 130 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. This colorless, odorless gas usually does not pose a direct hazard to life because it typically becomes diluted to low concentrations very quickly whether it is released continuously from the ground or during episodic eruptions. But in certain circumstances, CO2 may become concentrated at levels lethal to people and animals. Carbon dioxide gas is heavier than air and the gas can flow into in low-lying areas; breathing air with more than 30% CO2 can quickly induce unconsciousness and cause death. In volcanic or other areas where CO2 emissions occur, it is important to avoid small depressions and low areas that might be CO2 traps. The boundary between air and lethal gas can be extremely sharp; even a single step upslope may be adequate to escape death."

[humbled_opinion]

200. Variables.. those darn variables

you can't do anything about them that is my point so instead of the government taxing the crap out of those that can least afford it because we are slaves to oil it should be our governments job to pour money into alternatives and study for more alternatives and make those things available to the population but some here think the only choice is to force people to BUY IN...sorry but I can barely afford to keep food on my table got now money for BUYING IN...

[neverforget]

212. Humans emit far more CO2 than volcanoes.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm\

Volcanoes emit around 0.3 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. This is about 1% of human CO2 emissions which is around 29 billion tonnes per year.

Volcanoes emit CO2 both on land and underwater. Underwater volcanoes emit between 66 to 97 million tonnes of CO2 per year. However, this is balanced by the carbon sink provided by newly formed ocean floor lava. Consequently, underwater volcanoes have little effect on atmospheric CO2 levels. The greater contribution comes from subaerial volcanoes (subaerial means "under the air", refering to land volcanoes). Subaerial volcanoes are estimated to emit 242 million tonnes of CO2 per year (Morner 2002).

In contrast, humans are currently emiting around 29 billion tonnes of CO2 per year (EIA). Human CO2 emissions are over 100 times greater than volcanic CO2 emissions. This is apparent when comparing atmospheric CO2 levels to volcanic activity since 1960. Even strong volcanic eruptions such as Pinatubo have little discernable impact on CO2 levels. In fact, the rate of change of CO2 levels actually drops slightly after a volcanic eruption, possibly due to the cooling effect of aerosols.

And the links to the science that back that up are in the link too but here they are for easy reference:
http://www.cabnr.unr.edu/gustin/ERS765/geologic%20carbonarticleJMB.pdf
http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/txt/ptb1119.html
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

[warm regards]

228. Actually, I thought it would be more than 1%. We humans are active little devils aren't we?

Anyway, I don't worry very much about climate change because I believe that age old adage of "necessity is the mother of invention."

Once things become bad enough, we will simply invent our way out it. In fact, there is a theory that CO2 can be eliminated by seeding the oceans with iron in order to promote the growth of marine plants that would simply consume the CO2.

I don't know whether that will work or not, but one thing I am sure of, we will figure it out.

[tabasco]

281. That's the way stupid people behave.

Wait for a crisis to solve the problem.

"I'm sure we'll figure it out." LOL.

I'm sure Planet Earth will figure it out.

[tabasco]

282. I suppose you thought wrong.

You should do something about that.

[RoccoR5955]

232. But volcanoes do not release as much carbon dioxide

as all the cars on the planet do. Each person who drives a car in the US alone, contributes 20 tons a year. Now I know that there are more than 100 million cars in the US, now extrapolate this to the rest of the world, and get a number that is MUCH higher than the emissions of volcanoes! Simple math.

[mvd]

223. Yes. It only makes sense

We give off too much CO2, we hurt the envirionment. The cold, very snowy winter in parts of the US is no evidence against global warming. In fact, parts of the world may be snowier, at least for a while.

[fascisthunter]

254. mvd... you are right about certain parts of the world getting snowier

My cousin who is here from the southern region of Germany says they have seen more snow this year than they have the last 30 years.

[jman0]

270. DissedByBush moans about the scientific consensus on GW

And claims it's like a religion.
But, what science do the deniers produce to counter?

Zero.

[marasinghe]

278. love this thread. thanks, kpete; excellent. \~/ (n/t)