Originally Posted By jonvn Here, I did your work for you on the global cooling story. <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94" target="_blank">http://www.realclimate.org/ind ex.php?p=94</a>
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <We never had warnings of Global Cooling? Really?> I remember them, but they weren't anything like the situation with warming today. It was a fairly brief thing, in which a much smaller group of climatologists said we might be -MIGHT be - cooling. This was dutifully reported, so it's quite easy to find references, but it's quite different than today when thousands of scientists and every significant group of climate scientists say we are definitely warming. They also say that although there have indeed been natural periods of warming and cooling through the millennia, what is happening today is different in both kind and degree (sorry for the pun). This leads them to say that it is not due to natural causes. (Or not solely anyway - we could be in a natural period of warming that we are accelerating). At any rate, warming of the sort we see today has not been seen in any of the ice core samples and other methods they use to determine long-term patterns.
Originally Posted By DAR jonvn this is from post 33 what do you think about this? <<Scientists who questioned mankind's impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community. They say the debate on global warming has been "hijacked" by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.>> Surely you can't be okay with those that disagree receiving death threats, can you?
Originally Posted By jonvn I know I posted that for you before, not that it sunk in that time, though. "So I tend to take a portion of what I read "online" with a slight grain of salt. " Do you not understand the concept of being able to sort information based on its source? Just because it is online does not mean it is the national enquirer. What sort of information do you think you would want to have, and from whom? You want more research? Well research is being done constantly, and you know, it continues to back up what is already known, giving us more information all the time. But hey, why bother trying to understand this, when you have some jerk in the Senate trying to lie to you because he's being bought off by fossil fuel companies. He knows much better than every single scientific organization in the world has to say. But hey, let's by all means do more research, because they're all obviously wrong.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan While we debate where mankind's actions affect global climate change, in the meantime we ought to be doing all we can to use more efficient appliances and modes of transportation. This is the point that always seems to get left out of the back and forth over global warming -- that regardless, we STILL ought to be conserving, developing new, "greener" technologies for the long run. Global warming aside, our continued reliance on foreign oil presents the biggest single risk to national security. This is of little concern to Exxon-Mobil types, but for the rest of us, little stuff like changing to a swirly lightbulb, getting rid of the extra fridge in the garage, buying more fuel efficient cars are easy enough to do and can eventually shift us away from being held hostage by countries filled with religious nutballs. If it somehow turns out that global warming is purely a natural process and man has zero affect on it, we'll still be making better use of a finite resource and reducing dependence on hostile countries. That's what really matters most.
Originally Posted By DAR <<Here, I did your work for you on the global cooling story.>> Gee thanks, I am however at work right now, so I can't exactly engage in a wide ranging internet search.
Originally Posted By DAR <<But hey, why bother trying to understand this, when you have some jerk in the Senate trying to lie to you because he's being bought off by fossil fuel companies. He knows much better than every single scientific organization in the world has to say.>> I could give two craps what some jerk in the Senate has to say. <<But hey, let's by all means do more research, because they're all obviously wrong.>> Yeah that's one of the tennents of science to engage in constant research.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <"Oh this is a GOP deal huh ?" The off shoring is not, but the denial of science seems to be.< Ok - just wanted to make sure -- less of a foothold to argue that one
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <I mean, obviously pollution is a bad, unhealthy thing and it would behoove us all to steward our environment as best we possibly can WHETHER OR NOT climate change is real < the common sense approach to all of this...as I have stated here before I was also around when the 2nd coming of another ice age was considered inevitable and dominated magazines - including scientific ones - so I am not 100% sold that any one factor is causing any particular shift in climate that may not be normal in the timeline of earth. HOWEVER, and that is a big however, I would rather be safe than sorry and eliminating noxious pollutants from our world is always a good thing - and most of the requests for change are pretty sane and seem rational - so why not follow them ? If it turns out global warming is really being caused by us and we can slow down or revert - great, if the temps suddenly cool again or whatever, we have a lot less pollutants in our air / water etc...how can that be a bad thing ?
Originally Posted By jonvn "Surely you can't be okay with those that disagree receiving death threats, can you?" Of course not. That is something a psycho does. But I can understand the shunning, because this is such an important issue for our future, and the evidence is basically incontrovertible at this point. "I can't exactly engage in a wide ranging internet search." I showed you this before.
Originally Posted By DAR I just glanced at it and sorry I stopped reading after the first paragraph. If the writer of that article didn't resort to name calling then I would have continued.
Originally Posted By jonvn ah well, there you go. why bother reading something that answers your questions.
Originally Posted By jonvn oh, and there is no name calling in the first paragraph of that article about "Global cooling." NONE. here it is: Every now and again, the myth that "we shouldn't believe global warming predictions now, because in the 1970's they were predicting an ice age and/or cooling" surfaces. Recently, George Will mentioned it in his column (see Will-full ignorance) and the egregious Crichton manages to say "in the 1970's all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming" (see Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion ). You can find it in various other places too [here, mildly here, etc]. But its not an argument used by respectable and knowledgeable skeptics, because it crumbles under analysis. That doesn't stop it repeatedly cropping up in newsgroups though.
Originally Posted By DAR No if the author of the piece didn't resort to cheap name calling I would have read it. I don't care who it is, I'm not going to stand for people resorting to that type of crap nor will I engage in it.
Originally Posted By DAR <<see Will-full ignorance)and Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion>> Right there.
Originally Posted By woody <<see Will-full ignorance)and Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion>> It is name calling. The debate should involve scientists, not about a bunch of pundits.
Originally Posted By DAR <<The debate should involve scientists, not about a bunch of pundits.>> The problem is that those scientists that say "hey what a second, maybe we should research this a little further." are shunned and threatned with their lives.
Originally Posted By woody I read through Jonvn's links. It is pretty good stuff, but it's a bit of moving the goal posts here. Global Cooling or the Ice Age was predicted from some scientists. Whether there is a consensus is almost irrelevant because it was touted very strongly by the press. It was widely reported. Thankfully, the issue went away unlike the Global Warming alarmists. There are some maverick scientists. I hope they continue their research rather than give into the consensus. There is debate outside of the settled consensus. I guess we have to wait for this to shake out.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << I guess we have to wait for this to shake out. >> Yup, no sense in doing anything drastic right now -- oil is right up at $100 a barrel and all the Big Oil companies are making money hand over fist. We wouldn't want to rush into any sort of energy policy that might change that on the account of a little global warming, would we?
