Originally Posted By jonvn "There will always be evidence which refutes other peoples' evidence, so why bother trying to prove the other guy wrong?" Because with global warming, there really is an overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion. You don't just toss your hands up in the air and say, well one guy says this, the other says that, so who knows. If we did that, we'd never have any advancement of scientific understanding. Why do you think we are able to use the internet? Do you think that everyone just immediately had the same idea, and no one ever disagreed about anything all along the way? Things don't work like that. Eventually, conclusive understanding is achieved by consensus and we move forward based on that. It's how things work.
Originally Posted By JohnS1 Just don't forget that conclusive understandings can be challenegd over time as well. At one time, it was a conclusive understanding that the world was flat.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>At one time, it was a conclusive understanding that the world was flat.<< There's no consensus it isn't! <a href="http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm" target="_blank">http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e _djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm</a>
Originally Posted By jonvn "Just don't forget that conclusive understandings can be challenegd over time as well." Yes, this is precisely right! That is how you move your knowledge forward. If you find evidence to suggest that the established belief is wrong, you present it, and let it be peer reviewed and understood. And maybe you'll discover something other people missed and give a new understanding to something. This is how it has to work, or we never learn anything.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <I actually do quote things in here all the time. The only things I have seen you quote are crazy papers.> In the week before jon made this post, I had quoted the NY Times, Salon.com, and a report by the State of Louisiana. But why let facts get in the way of his statements? <Let's see some peer reviewed science articles regarding the topic that supports any point of view other than the consensus on global warming.> Why would I need to produce such a thing? I wasn't arguing against the consensus view on global warming; I was pointing out that the consensus view wasn't what it was being portrayed as. But again, don't let facts get in your way of a good argument. <Now, either say something that has substance, or stop bothering.> That's very good advice. Perhaps you should apply it to your posts.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070407/D8OBK1DG0.html" target="_blank">http://apnews.myway.com/articl e/20070407/D8OBK1DG0.html</a> >>A top hurricane forecaster called Al Gore "a gross alarmist" Friday for making an Oscar-winning documentary about global warming. "He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about," Dr. William Gray said in an interview with The Associated Press at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, where he delivered the closing speech. A spokeswoman said Gore was on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Nashville Friday; he did not immediately respond to Gray's comments. Gray, an emeritus professor at the atmospheric science department at Colorado State University, has long railed against the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm. Over the past 24 years, Gray, 77, has become known as America's most reliable hurricane forecaster; recently, his mentee, Philip Klotzbach, has begun doing the bulk of the forecasting work. Gray's statements came the same day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved a report that concludes the world will face dire consequences to food and water supplies, along with increased flooding and other dramatic weather events, unless nations adapt to climate change. Rather than global warming, Gray believes a recent uptick in strong hurricanes is part of a multi-decade trend of alternating busy and slow periods related to ocean circulation patterns. Contrary to mainstream thinking, Gray believes ocean temperatures are going to drop in the next five to 10 years.<<
Originally Posted By mrichmondj << Contrary to mainstream thinking, Gray believes ocean temperatures are going to drop in the next five to 10 years. >> Let us know how this all turn out in 5-10 years, OK? I'm sure the forces who don't want to acknowledge climate change will likely forget to tell us if their forecasts turn out wrong -- and then they'll just continue their forecasting for the next 5-10 years after that.
Originally Posted By JohnS1 Well, I for one, just put a note on my calendar for April 7, 2012 to check the ocean temps and get back to you all!
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17997788/site/newsweek/" target="_blank">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17 997788/site/newsweek/</a> >>Judging from the media in recent months, the debate over global warming is now over. There has been a net warming of the earth over the last century and a half, and our greenhouse gas emissions are contributing at some level. Both of these statements are almost certainly true. What of it? Recently many people have said that the earth is facing a crisis requiring urgent action. This statement has nothing to do with science. There is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we've seen will amount to anything close to catastrophe. What most commentators—and many scientists—seem to miss is that the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes. The earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a degree a year; periods of constant average temperatures are rare. Looking back on the earth's climate history, it's apparent that there's no such thing as an optimal temperature—a climate at which everything is just right. The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week. A warmer climate could prove to be more beneficial than the one we have now. Much of the alarm over climate change is based on ignorance of what is normal for weather and climate. There is no evidence, for instance, that extreme weather events are increasing in any systematic way, according to scientists at the U.S. National Hurricane Center, the World Meteorological Organization and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (which released the second part of this year's report earlier this month). Indeed, meteorological theory holds that, outside the tropics, weather in a warming world should be less variable, which might be a good thing. In many other respects, the ill effects of warming are overblown. Sea levels, for example, have been increasing since the end of the last ice age. When you look at recent centuries in perspective, ignoring short-term fluctuations, the rate of sea-level rise has been relatively uniform (less than a couple of millimeters a year). There's even some evidence that the rate was higher in the first half of the twentieth century than in the second half. Overall, the risk of sea-level rise from global warming is less at almost any given location than that from other causes, such as tectonic motions of the earth's surface. Many of the most alarming studies rely on long-range predictions using inherently untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast the weather a week from now. Interpretations of these studies rarely consider that the impact of carbon on temperature goes down—not up—the more carbon accumulates in the atmosphere. Even if emissions were the sole cause of the recent temperature rise—a dubious proposition—future increases wouldn't be as steep as the climb in emissions. Indeed, one overlooked mystery is why temperatures are not already higher. Various models predict that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere will raise the world's average temperature by as little as 1.5 degrees Celsius or as much as 4.5 degrees. The important thing about doubled CO2 (or any other greenhouse gas) is its "forcing"—its contribution to warming. At present, the greenhouse forcing is already about three-quarters of what one would get from a doubling of CO2. But average temperatures rose only about 0.6 degrees since the beginning of the industrial era, and the change hasn't been uniform—warming has largely occurred during the periods from 1919 to 1940 and from 1976 to 1998, with cooling in between. Researchers have been unable to explain this discrepancy. Modelers claim to have simulated the warming and cooling that occurred before 1976 by choosing among various guesses as to what effect poorly observed volcanoes and unmeasured output from the sun have had. These factors, they claim, don't explain the warming of about 0.4 degrees C between 1976 and 1998. Climate modelers assume the cause must be greenhouse-gas emissions because they have no other explanation. This is a poor substitute for evidence, and simulation hardly constitutes explanation. Ten years ago climate modelers also couldn't account for the warming that occurred from about 1050 to 1300. They tried to expunge the medieval warm period from the observational record—an effort that is now generally discredited. The models have also severely underestimated short-term variability El Niño and the Intraseasonal Oscillation. Such phenomena illustrate the ability of the complex and turbulent climate system to vary significantly with no external cause whatever, and to do so over many years, even centuries. Is there any point in pretending that CO2 increases will be catastrophic? Or could they be modest and on balance beneficial? India has warmed during the second half of the 20th century, and agricultural output has increased greatly. Infectious diseases like malaria are a matter not so much of temperature as poverty and public-health policies (like eliminating DDT). Exposure to cold is generally found to be both more dangerous and less comfortable. Moreover, actions taken thus far to reduce emissions have already had negative consequences without improving our ability to adapt to climate change. An emphasis on ethanol, for instance, has led to angry protests against corn-price increases in Mexico, and forest clearing and habitat destruction in Southeast Asia. Carbon caps are likely to lead to increased prices, as well as corruption associated with permit trading. (Enron was a leading lobbyist for Kyoto because it had hoped to capitalize on emissions trading.) The alleged solutions have more potential for catastrophe than the putative problem. The conclusion of the late climate scientist Roger Revelle—Al Gore's supposed mentor—is worth pondering: the evidence for global warming thus far doesn't warrant any action unless it is justifiable on grounds that have nothing to do with climate.<< Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies.
Originally Posted By jonvn You do realize that NO ONE is reading these, right? Do you have nothing better to do with your time?
Originally Posted By DAR I'm reading them. Like any issue you should get all viewpoints(no matter how kooky) and then come to your own conclusion. And that's a problem I have with the whole global warming issue is that there isn't even room to debate the issue.
Originally Posted By jonvn OK, ONE person is reading them! Maybe he can email them to you. But you are right, there is no room to debate it anymore, because the science is pretty much down on one side of this. It's not a debate. There just aren't any peer reviewed published articles that are not saying basically the same thing. There are people who have their opinions, such as the guy who recently called Gore an alarmist. However, this was countered by yet another fellow who said the first has dug in his heels and refuses to look at the evidence. Gore is not a scientist, but is relaying the information that is the consensus of what scientific opinion currently feels. This consensus has been building for years, and is coming to a rather conclusive point now. So, really, there just isn't any debate left to it. There are many articles that are critical of scientific finding, but these do not appear in peer reviewed journals. They appear in lay journals and are not rigorous in their approach, nor are they accepted in the scientific community who still has as a consensus that global warming exists, and is caused by human activity. I mean, that's it. That's what has been found by scientists all over the world. What is left to debate on the subject is beyond me.
Originally Posted By DAR Plus not even considering alternate viewpoints is inherently dishonest. Trust me people on this board are taken to task for it all the time.
Originally Posted By jonvn The reason alternative viewpoints are not considered is that they've already been considered, and either understood and dismissed, or taken into consideration for the entirety of the scientific finding. Once you have looked at something, and have come up with an idea, either the data will or will not support that idea. If there is insufficient data to come to a certain conclusion, you try to find more data. If you have come to a conclusion, and the data does not show any reason to not conclude the way you have, then you don't revisit. If, on the other hand, you do have data that casts doubt on the earlier conclusion, you examine that data to see if it is of a nature to alter your previous findings. If it is, they you do so. If not, you don't. There just isn't that happening in scientific circles. That is why there is no debate. The data and conclusions are very solid and generally agreed upon. It's not that debate is CLOSED, it's just that there is nothing coming forth by anyone in a published and peer reviewed manner that alters the current thinking on the subject. If there were, I'd be happy to see it, provided it was printed in some nutrag. It needs to come from a peer reviewed science based journal.
Originally Posted By jonvn Well, you are right to be skeptical, but aren't in a position to prove or disprove it. Neither am I. The people who are in a position are simply showing it to be the case. With mountains of evidence. So, as lay people, who can we believe? I think the most reasonable thing to do is to believe those people who are the most knowledgeable about the subject, and who have had their data most thouroughly gone over by those who also are the most knowledgeable. As an example, you go to a doctor and tell him your symptoms. He performs various tests on you. The results of which he understands and you don't. You can look at the sheet of numbers coming back from a blood test, and they mean little to you. He does understand it. So he tells you what they mean in language you can follow ("You have dengue fever."). Sometimes he can be wrong in his diagnosis. That is, he is reading the numbers wrong, and if it serious enough, you should get another opinion. Maybe even a third. But when you go to a majority of physicians in the world, and they are mostly all telling you the same exact thing, then perhaps it is time to start simply accepting what they are saying as the truth, as best we can know it, even if that truth is unpleasant. With global warming, that is what we are facing today. The vast consensus of opinion on the subject all say the same thing. There are basically no peer reviewed and published papers that say otherwise. It's a pretty solid verdict as to what is happening. And so, that is what we have to believe right now. Not that it is not happening. not that there is debate. That's not the issue. The issue should now be what can we do to try and fix the problem, and eventually get back to a planet that is more livable for us. We've already done a great deal of harm. It's going to be a long time before it can be fixed. But it will not be fixed until we start trying to fix it.
