Global Warming 'Undeniable,' Report Says 1657
BergZ writes "Scientists from around the world are providing even more evidence of global warming. 'A comprehensive review of key climate indicators confirms the world is warming and the past decade was the warmest on record,' the annual State of the Climate report declares. Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, including Canada, the report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said its analysis of 10 indicators that are 'clearly and directly related to surface temperatures, all tell the same story: Global warming is undeniable.'"
But is it caused by humans? (Score:1, Interesting)
It sure is undeniable. (Score:1, Interesting)
It's often speculated that the warming of the end, and the subsequent end of the last ice age, it was a major factor in the rise and spread of the human population.
Of course, it was the humans, ten thousand years ago, that were driving their SUVs that caused the last ice age to end.
Two Different Thoughts (Score:1, Interesting)
There are (at least) two camps in the global warming skeptics camp--those who deny it is happening, and those like me who know it's happening but don't think it's worth changing our entire civilization to try and stop something that is, well, already happening anyway.
no global warming != no MAN MADE global warming (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:5, Interesting)
Aside from that, I'm not really interested in making comments on this anymore because I'm so sick and tired of the armchair idiocy that follows (and somehow gets moderated up). Prediction: Not even 300 scientists from 48 countries and NOAA are going to convince everyone that global warming is real. At this point, I think it's just going to get worse [slashdot.org].
I think, unfortunately, that's the goal of a lot of the posting you refer to --- to frustrate reasonable people and make them get out of the business of commenting. I'd be all in favor of a reasonable, fact-based debate, but the comments on Slashdot rarely make it to that level. (I also tend to think there's a lot of multiple-account posting/moderation nonsense going on, but only the Slashdot editors themselves could prove that.)
Re:Well (Score:5, Interesting)
Warming trends, and cooling.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Fuck it. We are already in a warming trend that will eventually result in a cooling trend heading for the next ice age. Lets just get it over with and warm this puppy up! Then we can enjoy the cool slide down to freezing!
Then what will happen? It'll start all over again.
The only point worth arguing about is whether we warm the planet enough to make a real difference in our species survival. If we can weather the hottest the hot trend can dole out as well as the coldest the cold trend will give us, what does it really matter?
Obviously pollution sucks, but beyond that? I mean seriously, whether or not we succeed in stopping _human_ attributed warming or not doesn't stop the natural trend, it will merely slow it.
Again, I'm not advocating we throw caution to the wind and utterly destroy our planet though mass pollution, but stopping a recurring trend is futile. My point is to question whether or not there is any point to slowing a trend that will eventually peak and fall off to another ice age all on its own. Specifically, mathematically, when is the next ice age due on a non-human involved timeline and when are we apt to see it due to our being?
Re:Global warming != anthropogenic (Score:5, Interesting)
Soooooo (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:"Undeniable" (Score:3, Interesting)
There isn't an intelligent person the planet who denies that global warming is real. The debate is all about causation.
Yes, it is now that the incontrovertible evidence is mounting. Of course, you will still find people eager to attack climate change scientists because they talked amongst themselves about the viability of certain data. Or perhaps news organizations (go ahead, guess which one) that go out of their way to announce "It's snowing" as evidence that Al Gore's book on climate change is pure fiction.
Other than that, yeah, it's only about causation. Oh wait, I think a "scientist" just observed that the temperature in Rush Limbaugh's studio was unusually low for this time of year... Now we have to get this debate out again. The ice on Greenland is growing! The polar bears are plentiful (on shore) and simply avoid the water out of a natural phobia, not because the ice is disappearing (it isn't!) Clearly there is reason to doubt this "global warming" thing of which you speak.
Re:"Undeniable" Skews the Discussion (Score:5, Interesting)
When you look at it from a longer timescale [wikimedia.org] the ice age isn't completely over yet.
Re:Global warming != anthropogenic (Score:4, Interesting)
The religion is now official (Score:1, Interesting)
As we can now see that Global Warming supporters have turned it into a religion ("undeniable" is a typical way to say that you won't accept new facts, eg: "God's existence is undeniable"), perhaps they can qualify for tax free status and I can deny their religion because I'm an atheist?
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll always vote appropriately... but yeah, otherwise I guess they've won, I stopped caring.
Re:"Undeniable" (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty much.
I have found that apathy is the best approach anyway. Personally, I can make virtually no difference. I limit my trash, try to compost what I can, buy what appears to be more environmentally friendly products (although I'm sure half the things that are marketed so are just lying about it or meet some EPA loophole) and cut my driving down as much as possible. (I don't own a hybrid or anything, but I figure the amount of energy used to create and ultimately dispose of a new car makes my old car energy neutral.)
I do these things because I don't want my own environment to be a dump. I don't want the air in my valley to be smog-ridden. It's that simple.
Is global warming man made? Is it natural? Is it both? Don't know. Don't care. If it's man made it will be solved ONLY when its effects damage the bottom lines of the governments and large businesses the pump out most of the pollution. Until then, a couple people like me trying to live cleaner and more environmentally friendly within our means won't do shit and neither will all the screaming and yelling about the eventual devastation it will cause.
While I believe humans certainly do contribute, what's to be done? Get the government involved? You mean the government that's bought and paid for by polluting companies to do something about it? Ha! If that's your solution, global warming sure as shit isn't your biggest problem. Not even close.
So... focus on your broken political systems, then worry about saving the planet. Global warming will effectively take care of itself when it begins to become costly. Heading it off at the pass will involve reasonable nations, governments and people... none of which actually exist.
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:2, Interesting)
For those too lazy to click the link I'll quote the key paragraph:
Now, if those True Believers would give up their cars and big homes and truly change the way they live, I can’t imagine that there wouldn’t be some measurable impact on the Earth in just a few short years. I’m not talking about recycling Evian bottles, but truly simplifying their lives. Even if you were, say, a former Vice President, you would give up extra homes and jets and limos. I see communes with organic farms and lives freed from polluting technology.
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:5, Interesting)
How else would you propose to cut emissions and make ecologically friendly technology attractive for investment, other than by making it expensive to do so?
I'm genuinely interested rather than preparing to flame. That bit comes further down the post.
As for the liberal slurs... one can equally say that the other side is historically selfish and in the pockets of big business, the folks who have most to lose if any progress is made on the matter.
And what the fuck is the liberal agenda? (excuse my french) It's the same in the UK and in the US, people going on about liberals screwing everything up all the time, all the while there are few liberals in power in either country. The Democrats in the US sure as hell aren't liberal, they don't have the ethics for it. And the liberal party in the UK has only just become a minor member in a coalition. Yet people have been whining about 'liberals' for a decade now.
The problems I see with current western democracy is nothing to with liberalism. It's the damned authoritarians in charge. The opposite of 'liberal'.
Re:Good (Score:3, Interesting)
It's funny how everyone concentrates on the bad effects, but fail to mention the positive effects. One might think they are just trying to push the argument their way instead of getting an unbiased look at ALL the issues.
Ok
The seas are not going to rise over night. The growing seasons are not going to shift next year. We can use reasonable measures to decrease CO2 production that won't destroy economies, and at the same time examine and prepare for the changes that could occur no matter what we do. Just stop all the fanatical fear mongering.
BTW -- I live in Phoenix and ride my motorcycle all year. Global warming?? Bring it on!!!! I'd love for it to be about 3-4 degrees warmer in the 'winter' here, and extend my pool season.
Re:Two Different Thoughts (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it dangerous and should can we stop it even if it is?
It's not entirely clear that longer growing seasons, more rapid plant growth and expanded temperate zones are a bad thing.
the problem is not culpability nor blame (Score:3, Interesting)
the discussion about who is at fault for global warming, or even if it exists, is completely besides the point
in fact, make believe, for the sake of argument, that there is no global warming at all
ok: well, mankind's stewardship over this planet is still undeniable. correct? does anyone disagree with the idea that we are responsible for this planet?
therefore, simply for the sake of self-interest, mankind should be monitoring and maintaining the climate according to specifications that suit his purposes. and his purposes are to maintain the status quo. even if rising sea levels were completely natural, no one wants to turn all of our coastal cities into venice. or lose all our crop lands we have invested in to desert, even if, again, that were perfectly natural. therefore, we should do something to counteract whatever is causing difficulties for our status quo
what i am talking about is completely shortcircuiting pointless discussions about who is to blame and pointless discussions about whether or not the climate is changing
if we observe higher heat and smaller crops, we fix that problem. if we don't, we still maintain things as they are, as we are invested in the climate status quo
if we observe rising sea levels, we fix the problem. if we don't observe rising sea levels, we keep watching the sea level. beginning and end of discussion. everything else is pointless hot air, pun intended
in other words, shut the ideologues and politicians up, bring the scientists and engineers in the room:
1. observe
2. if any problems are seen, solve the problems
3. go to 1
every other discussion is methane-rich bullshit. only the problem solvers matter. is there a job to do? then get it done. any else to talk about? NO!
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. Artificially increasing the price of energy will harm the poorest of the poor, and increase poverty and misery throughout the world. Cheap energy means better lives for humanity, period. Telling a family in Africa that they have to watch their children die of malnourishment, exposure to the elements and disease because we're going to make it too expensive for them to afford energy is pretty drastic.
#2 might be a reasonable assertion, but #1 is falsified by the historical record. A warmer planet is a better planet for life, period. We've had warmer periods in the past that were not "irreversible", and humanity has flourished during warm periods.
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:3, Interesting)
The question is: does the industrial revolution just correlate well with it, Or can you prove causation?
Personally my business model would be screwed up if someone could prove causation, So I'm not likely to buy it unless shown undeniable proof. You can start by disproving the space weather theory.
So wait... We can only prove the industrial revolution as a cause to global warming by disproving space weather? I don't really see how this works. If I put a pot of water on a hot stove, it's going to heat up. Likewise, if I drop a searing hot rock into a pot of water, the temperature also goes up. Are you telling me that if I do both at once that somehow only one is now a cause?
Or are you subscribing to creationist logic? You can't disprove god, so he must exist!
I'm pretty sure undeniable proof can be presented without ever touching the credibility or the data of your precious space weather theory. Just like we can present proof for thousands of scientific principles without ever addressing whether or not god did it.
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:2, Interesting)
Funny, seems like just yesterday there were concerned scientists with convincing hockey-stick graphs telling the politicians that unless we spent billions immediately the earth would go up in flames. Maybe you slept through that part?
You will never get to that place, and correctly so. Anyone with any reasonable intelligence is going to question the computer models moving forward, and ask you "how is this any different than global cooling in the 70s?" You're going to say "Oh, we've improved the computer models by such and such and such", but the fact of the matter is, it's all a bunch of hand-waving. Those computer models can't even come close to taking into account everything that affects the earth's temperature.
Irreversible damage, to me, from a systems engineering perspective, means an unstable system or a system that trends according to a power law. No system that I can think of that involves climate or the earth behaves in that manner - rather, they all follow logarithmic or inverse power laws to trend to a steady state. And yet, somehow, you're telling me that all of the sudden we're going to see e^x where something like that hasn't existed for millions of years? Maybe there's a good reason I'm still skeptical.
The only thing that makes you swear and lash out is yourself. If you don't have enough control to not do that because of what other people say, you really ought to re-examine your behavior patterns, because
a) right now you're easily manipulated, and
b) your anger completely undermines your credibility.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This research is FALSE! (Score:1, Interesting)
This is why its so difficult. For all these years the pattern has been to not change, and now scientists are predicting a drastic change based on discoveries and facts not well understood. The sciences trying to explain the last ice age and now being applied prophetically. See, your prediction is based upon pattern and theirs are based upon a piece of the pattern we've never seen before extending over several hundreds of thousands of years, supposedly accelerated by factors that didn't apply before. So don't try telling me global warming prediction is easier.
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:2, Interesting)
If India and China Aren't on Board... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:5, Interesting)
Which Earth was used to conduct these experiments that provided the evidence?
The same Earth that was used to "conduct these experiments" which showed us that dinosaurs used to roam the Earth, that huge asteroids have hit our planet in the past, and that our planet is 4 1/2 billion years old. All fake too, I suppose?
You don't have to personally experience something to have compelling data that it exists. I didn't witness my own conception, but I'm pretty darned sure it actually happened and that I wasn't carried here by a stork or grew out of a head of cabbage. Why? Because all of the available data suggests that's how humans are born.
To go back to this case: there are many causes of climate change (all spelled out in the IPCC AR4, if you care to read it). The studies on each of them are presented, each with their own level of forcings and the confidence interval for each study. There are a wide variety of studies for each type of forcing -- for example, one paper might involve a physics model, while another might involve measurements using a satellite, another might involve a measurement using ground stations, another measurement using balloons with different instruments, and so forth. So you have multiple completely independent lines of evidence for the strength of each forcing. A consensus level of forcing and confidence interval is reached from each forcing. The consensus level shows that GHGs dominate the climate change forcings.
The other leading climate change forcings, such as land use changes, are clearly anthropogenic. But what about GHGs? There are several different approaches that study this. One is "old carbon versus new carbon"; carbon from coal, oil, etc has a different isotopic signature than carbon from decay and the like. Mind you, it's the same signature as with volcanism, but volcanism emissions are readily studied and are utterly dwarfed by manmade emissions. We catalog manmade emissions from different sources (with confidence intervals, of course), and that also shows that the overwhelming amount of carbon contributing to the relentless and steady rise is also anthropogenic and matches the rise very well in terms of magnitude over time. We look at changes in natural carbon sources and sinks and likewise quantify them. Furthermore, we not only look at totals, but where they're coming from; our latest satellites how have the resolution to see new carbon being added to the atmosphere and where it's coming from, and watch the anthropogenic plumes diffuse into the broader atmosphere. When you look at the numbers, there's no doubt where this new carbon is coming from; it's overwhelmingly anthropogenic, with nothing else even close.
Beyond all of this, we use a wide variety of physics models -- both global models and models for specific components. A model can be something as simple as a calculation of radiative heat transfer under different gas mixtures, or as complicated as something that models the sources and sinks over the entire planet and covers all of the various feedback mechanisms. Models are nearly all based on first principles in large part or entirity. Depending on the type of model, they're either validated with lab data or historic climate data.
All in all, the conclusion is the result of literally many thousands of peer-reviewed papers covering a wide variety of disciplines.
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:4, Interesting)
Your facts are stale. Humans have consumed more food than we've produced for the last several years. Our global reserves of food are very low, and getting lower every year.
This will be exacerbated when we run out of cheap fossil fuels we use for fertilizer.
We'll see if Malthus can be held off another generation or two... but things aren't looking very rosy for the global food supply-demand equation right now.
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:1, Interesting)
Never... that's what leads to the skepticism. Lobbyists come with a "sky is falling" message and a ready made solution that profits and empowers themselves. The leap to the conclusion that man is the main cause (or even a non-negligible contributor at all) of this shift and in temperature and has the power to stop it without a total fall of modern civilization or dictatorial control is ludicrous. It discredits and marginalizes the climate change science altogether. In the middle ages, we had no power plants, race cars, LCD TVs, computers, trains, commercial jets, ocean liners, etc... to stop using and yet the temperature went down between ca. 1100AD to ca. 1600AD almost 1 degree C. These are estimates of the past, not record, so it could have been even hotter before it fell. Now we are less than 0.4 degrees hotter than that peak and everyone is up in arms even though the temperature typically oscillates more than that over the millennia. If anything we are due to hit a peak and cool down again soon. And if the arrogant lobbyists get their way, they will reap trillions and claim all the credit for a naturally occurring phenomenon.
It's like saying hey man I noticed our food supply is getting lower and lower every year. Never mind that there were droughts the past few years, locusts, and that productivity is down by mandate of workers unions, it must be because we have more people. So why don't you give me all your food right now and let me manage all your production going forward, and I'll give you a little back here and there to survive as I deem necessary so that 300 years from now there's some food for some other dude who doesn't exist yet. Doesn't sound fair...? Hmmm you're right... better give me the power of law so we can force people to comply because they aren't buying this malarkey. There you go, now keeping your own food is illegal. You have to do what (we determined autonomously) is best for the collective.
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:5, Interesting)
Two questions then:
1) What can we actively do to mitigate risk that isn't "drastic"? Just give me an example, any example. If a few taxes, are "drastic" then every day we take "drastic" actions to keep the roads maintained, fund public schools and do a variety of mundane jobs that don't require drastic action. By Webster: Drastic: acting rapidly or violently; extreme in effect or action. Taxes are extreme? Jailing people who use gasoline is extreme, a tax isn't.
2) What is realistically necessary to provide you with "convincing evidence"? Obviously, changing the CO2 levels on an earth clone isn't possible, so what -could- realistically be sufficient evidence for you? If there exist no intersection between realistically possible evidence and evidence you will except as sufficient, that leads to a problem... don't you think? Everyone should have such a intersection for any non-faith belief they have. And global warming defiantly counts as non-faith.
Don't you see difficulty of conversing in a meaningful fashion with you? It seems impossible to provide you with evidence. Without that evidence you call any action at all "drastic". So why don't you tell me, what do you need as evidence, and what action can we then take that meets your approval? Surly you concede that there is the _possibly_ of some situation which would provide you with enough evidence to feel confidant to act, and even without that evidence, surely there must be _something_ we can do to mitigate risk that isn't "drastic". Let me know what those are.
You said "anything that is being advocated may be meaningless and have no effect at all". Yes, that's true. But that is also true with many precautions we take every day. We buy insurance even though we "may" never use it. We still take the precaution because it makes sense. If we're speculating in possibilities you can also say "anything that is being advocated may be the only thing that saves mankind from extinction". What makes us rational creatures is that we don't think that anything that "may" happen is equally likely. We examine evidence, we consider the possibilities and we come to potential conclusions. We do this even when the evidence isn't 100%. I don't have 100% proof that gravity isn't going to give out any moment, but I make a ration decision based I the evidence I do have, which is strong. Therefor, I decide not to walk around in velcro. I don't have 100% proof that locking my doors deters burglars, in fact it "may" deter present-givers, or encourage burglars. Alas, I lock my doors. So tell me, what evidence do you need to take reasonable action given the potential risk? Let me know where your thresholds of belief are so that we can begin to have a meaningful conversation. What is you criterion of sufficiency, and is it realistically possible? As it currently stands, your statements make you out to be an irrational person, because you will take no action whatsoever without a untenable criterion of sufficiency. A rational discourse simply can't be had with someone like that. I'm sure you are in fact rational, so please, explain what evidence and actions you'll be OK with.
Personally, my threshold of belief is as follows: when a preponderance of scientists around the globe warn that human action has a fair-to-midsized chance of causing a cataclysmic event, I'm alright with playing a little bit more for gas and electricity, even if it has only small-to-fair chance of helping. Let me know where you disagree with my threshold, and what your threshold is.
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:3, Interesting)
Because even if you're a sociopath with no compassion, you have to deal with the fact that people don't just sit down and die when food runs out. They often pick up weapons and go to where there is food. They'll move, all right, but without the benefit of real estate transactions recorded by governments.
And many of them will be highly pissed at the nation most responsible for setting off the climate change that ruined their old homeland. You think the U.S. faces a terrorist threat now? Just wait until some third-world rabble rousers starts telling people that we're responsbile for turning their farms into desert.
Undeniable? So science just proved a positive... (Score:2, Interesting)
Second, there's a massive logical non-sequitur between the assessment and plan. If you wake me up to tell me my house is on fire, then suggest I use a squirt gun against it, then I'll assume you're crazy and go back to bed. If post-industrial CO2 levels are causing climate change, then we need to return them to pre-industrial levels. Every year we increase the CO2 level, and cap-and-trade will still allow this. What we'd need to do is cut our emissions even lower than pre-industrial levels so the CO2 level will actually be reduced. (I also like to be optimistic, but not delusional. The only way we'd do this is if it were already too late, so it's kinda pointless IMO.)
Of course, that's ignoring the positive feedback loops that have been triggered (e.g. albedo), and I find the belief that we can control the climate (i.e. stabilize an ever-changing system at the temperature we want) to be optimistic at best. There's also the fact that massive economic hardship will cause a lot more human suffering and death than a change in climate. Sure, it'll cause a mass extinction, but that's not even close to an apocalypse, and humans have proven their adaptability. OTOH, I have a tough time accepting that the lives of a large number of poor people in the developing world are worth more than our precious biodiversity. Rather than wade through the exaggeration and outright lies by both sides, and then grapple with that decision, I've just become jaded about the whole thing.
Re:This research is FALSE! (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a really stupid premise unsupported by any actual proofs. You've just asserted that we can't change the temperature of the environment. But simple engineering calculations tell us exactly how we can, and how we can cool it. If you believe in modern technology like rockets and televisions, then you must believe that engineers can make correct calculations and predictions. These calculations say, not only can we change the environment, we are. What mathematical proofs do you have that show that we can not possibly change the environment? I doubt you are an engineer, I doubt you have such proofs, you are simply going on the common sense notion that the environment is huge and we are small. Well, you are wrong.
To achieve a goal (Score:2, Interesting)
Governments can only do two things, tax or not-tax, offer a credit. They both are examples of social engineering, but one is a lot more palatable to people than the other, because it really is the carrot-reward, or stick-punish system. that's it.
A hypothetical then to achieve this goal of cleaner renewable energy sources, by reducing demand and use of the dirtier sources.
Say you are joe blow, make fifty grand a year, and after all other deductions and whatnot, the government still walks off with five grand every year. On top of that, you buy stuff, stuff that uses energy to get made, including a lot of nasty coal that stinks up the air and has a negative effect on climate and so on, all in all, we agree it is bad news in mass quantities..
A carbon tax increases what you have to pay, this is the main point of it, increase the costs to discourage use. These companies are in no manner going to eat any new tax, they just will pass it on to the end user. Nature of the beast. OK, that is the stick method. You are still out five grand taxes, plus now a lot of your stuff costs more, so you went negative after this new carbon tax gets put in. And all the coal is still being burnt.
Now, the carrot method. The government offers a five grand tax credit for *you* to use for personal alternative energy stuff, or perhaps for retrofitting a lot more insulation or what not. So now you have a choice, let the government take that five grand, or you get to spend it, and directly improve your economic and comfort bottom line, whilst also doing your personal fair share of improving the environment.
Which would you pick then? I know I'd take the tax credit over the carbon tax and the rising cost of goods. I think most people would, and it would probably result in much faster uptake and use of the alternative cleaner and more long term carbon neutral methods.
Now say the same five grand credit was pro rated, and you could use it for five to ten years. Now you are talking some serious loot, at ten years, that's a *fifty grand* solar system (random example there)for your house you could get that would rock, this directly would eliminate all that amount of coal burning that your previous demand was responsible for, it would add to the demand in general for panels and increase competition and economies of scale (with millions of people taking advantage of that credit), and keep reducing that coal demand for the life of the system, currently 25-30 years and still then at 80% (most new panels today). In other words, a lot. Buhzillions of solar panels would be going up all over, tons of new factories to make them, hundreds of thousands of productive jobs for the factory workers and installers, etc, and the demand for the coal juice would drop exactly as much as the solar production went up, watt hour for watt hour.
To me, I would much prefer the multi year pro rated tax credit, both for individuals and for corporations doing commercial scale (whatever that might be, make it some millions of bucks, 1-5 maybe, the same pro rated for initial deployment), over just slapping a new tax burden on stuff. Both methods are social engineering, this is undebatable, so which suits human nature better and which would be more likely to be adopted at huge scales, and quite willingly and enthusiastically?
We've already seen just partial credits help a lot, these 10-30% credits that exist now, so imagine full 100% multi year pro-rated credits!
I really think it would work a lot better, individuals and companies would just go to the cleaner, more sustainable solutions, given the two choices. With the carbon tax, they are five grand a year, plus rising costs for just about everything, out of pocket..nothing left to invest in cleaner solutions then, they get tapped out, just have to pay more for everything, and all that nasty coal will still get burnt, it just costs more now, but people still need the power, so they will cut someplace else. With the tax, you go broker faster and nothing much happens to the positive for the environment, with the credit, tens of millions go solar (or whatever works for them at their x-y the best).
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:5, Interesting)
This, for me, is THE issue, and the goddamn climate deniers are such a bunch of morons that have pissed off so many people with their stupid arguments that a thinking person cannot be openly skeptical about the popular theories anymore. The elephant in the room as I see it is that the theory of anthropogenic climate change skirts dangerously close to being completely unfalsifiable. We have no means, other than computer simulation, of teasing out whether the human contribution to CO2 emissions is tipping the system into instability, or simply being damped out and absorbed into the whole process. We won't even know in 200 years, you can't do a controlled experiment on this one. To top it off, the predictions made by the climate community are so random that its difficult to see whether you can falsify the main theory as well, the earth warms up: climate change, the earth cools down: climate change, more storms: climate change, drought: climate change. There are two truly falsifiable predictions as far as I can tell, firstly that the mean temperature is increasing (verified), and secondly that the sea levels are rising/will rise (not verified). With the former, how do you tease out the earth's natural cycle from the man-made part? The second, well we are going to have to wait a while yet, but the same question will remain when we know.
I'm not denying climate change, far from it, I am saying that there are aspects of it that smell of bad science, and the demonisation of skepticism is a very dangerous precedent. I'm sick of the whole debate honestly, but one thing I know for certain: climate scientists, a while ago and ever since, bought into the politics of the debate, and as far as I'm concerned they can go fuck themselves if they think this is a battle that should be fought in the 'hearts and minds' of the community, or one which should be fought with and against politicians. Politics and consensus are not aspects of good science, the fact that the majority of scientists believe the theories says absolutely nothing about the science. There was a time when the majority of scientists believed the earth to be flat, there was once a consensus that we won't find particles smaller than an atom. Science has nothing to do with consensus! This is a dangerous idea.
There is one more thing I am wholly certain of: There are far more pressing environmental issues than climate change, ones which we understand far more clearly, and have infinitely more capacity to reverse. That these issues have fallen to the wayside troubles me far more than the idea of living in a significantly more volatile climate.
Re:More Info & Dashboard (Score:1, Interesting)
Why would we care why it's warming up. What we really should try to figure out is what temperature is optimal for us. Just because you can classify something as "natural" or man-made does not mean you know if it is good or bad.
Berhaps we need to double our greenhouse gas emissions to get a sustainable climate on earth, perhaps reducing it to zero will not be enough. At the moment it seems like everyone is fighting about something that does not matter.
We don't need to know if there is a global warming going on or not (Well, a climate change is always going on, only hippies beleive that the climate is stable and that nature afctually cares about us.) We do not need to know if the climate change is man-made or natural (Just because something is natural does not mean that it wouldn't kill us.)
What we need to know is what is good for us and what we need to do to reach that state.
Re:To achieve a goal (Score:3, Interesting)
Simple idea: for every X tonnes of carbon emissions you produce, you plan X trees to offset it. Simple and visible for all to see, and good for the environment. Plus, it forces us to set aside land for the express purpose of planting trees.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)