Luckily, we haven't run out of oil, but we have exhausted our supply of 70s fashion.
Ignore them. They’ll be wrong. We’re confident in saying that because they’ve always been wrong. And always will be.
Need proof? Here are some of the hilarious, spectacularly wrong predictions made on the occasion of Earth Day 1970.
“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist
“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist
“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
• Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist
“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”
• New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University
“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970
“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
Stanford's Paul Ehrlich announces that the sky is falling.
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”
• Martin Litton, Sierra Club director
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
Keep these predictions in mind when you hear the same predictions made today. They’ve been making the same predictions for 39 years. And they’re going to continue making them until…well…forever.
Here we are, 39 years later and the economy sucks, but the ecology’s fine. In fact this planet is doing a lot better than the planet on which those green lunatics live.
You’ll also enjoy (or hate) our article, 25 Global Warming Debunking Videos Al Gore Doesn’t Want You To See.
Update: Earth Day 2010 version.
Source: Reason.com
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Not all of the predictions are wrong.
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Name one.
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Hey Ricky Wicks,
I just reread the predictions that were quoted in the article. Every single one was wrong. Earth day is a scam and I will not celebrate the worthless attempt at Gaia worship. This is nothing more than an attempt to replace worship of the Creator with worship of the created. The enviro-nuts were wrong then and they are wrong now. The danger is that now, they have sympathetic fools at the levers of power.
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Hey Wes,
OK, so to clarify: the number you gave me was the fraction of the human contribution to the total atmosphere (not our fraction of the total CO2). The important number is the fractional rise in CO2 due to human activity (somewhere around a 25% increase in the last 40 years). This is disconcerting because small amounts of CO2 have large effects on heat transfer (it is less the 0.04% of the total atmosphere, yet the earth would be 20 degrees cooler without it).
You are correct that in most of the earth’s history, carbon dioxide lags behind climate change. This is one of the things that Al Gore deceptively glosses over in “An Inconvenient Truth”. But, this is well understood by climate scientists. There are multiple factors that act as “forcings” on the earth’s climate. Solar output is one. The main trigger of the major cycles in the earth climate history is a subtle irregularity in the orbit and wobble of the earth. This is well understood orbital mechanics, and by that clock we’re due for another ice age in another 10,000 years or so. When climate is driven by these external forcings, it can trigger a change in the balance of greenhouse gasses (that lags behind), which can amplify the original effect. In modern days we are changing that balance through a new forcing, the burning of fossil fuels. The real fear, is that our forcing could trigger similar feedback mechanisms that could further amplify our own impact. Human CO2 alone would only raise global temps roughly 1 degree C, which is bad but managable. Possible feedbacks could amplify these effects. Modern science is trying to further understand these feedbacks, and we’re getting there, but it’s a work in progress. The last 10 years alone have seen a lot of excellent progress. And study of these feedbacks in paleoclimate have helped.
I’m not disagreeing with your point that higher CO2 concentrations, *under certain circumstances* can promote plant growth. The extent of these effects is often grossly exaggerated in the rumor mills, but it has a real basis. The problem is that the CO2 has other effects (such as an increase in temperature or rapid changes in microclimates where crops are grown) than can adversely affect plant growth. A climate change as a rapid as 2 or 3 degrees in a century could drastically alter the distribution of arable land. This would severely impact our ability to produce food.
I will check out more of Icecap.us further. Here are some first impressions. For starters, I agree that *some* of the people on that site are legit scientists. I will also say that *some* of the tutorials are fair representations of climate science. Here’s the HUGE problem though. Whatever role some of these credentialed scientists play in the website, a LARGE amount of the content on the site is written by non-scientists and embarrassingly inaccurate. The site seems like a bait and switch to me. They make themselves look credible with honorary contributors and then they pad that content with a lot of complete nonsense. If all of these scientists are such an important part of Icecap.us, why do the top 10 “studies” in their library include a TV weatherman with no degree beyond a bachelors, a retired schoolteacher (no PhD), a staffer from the John Birch Society (no degree beyond bachelors), and an Australian wine maker. In fact, almost none of the publications on their list are written by the esteemed scientists on their contributor list! Where are the big guns? The real clincher for me was the article by Jules Kalbfeld in their climate library, who confuses specific heat with radiative transfer in an incomprehensible calculation on the “effects of CO2″. Even if you want to claim that these skeptical scientists are being excluded from the mainstream peer review process, shouldn’t they at least be proof-reading the material on a website created in their names? Why aren’t they peer reviewing themselves?
You clearly have no respect for PhDs. I mean, what have PhDs ever accomplished, right? Dumb stuff like nuclear energy, spintronics, space travel, computers, the internet, vaccinations, genetic modification, precision measurements of the smallest parts of matter… But, I ‘ll make a deal. I will except a bachelors degree as a qualification for climatology when you accept a pre-med with no MD to perform surgery on yourself.
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Why is the fractional number more important? Because it sounds better!! 25% sounds right impressive so warmers use it to try and bolster their argument.
25% over 40 years ain’t shit, but it sound so impressive with those big numbers.
Face it loser…to use your money argument 25% of penny isn’t much. Nether is anthropogenic CO2.
Try again!
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You’re not even trying to understand what Matt is saying here. Either that or you truly don’t understand statistics.
Talking about the human contribution of CO2 to the total atmosphere is taking the discussion wildly out of context. If you paid any attention at all to Matt’s analogy earlier you would see why.
I’m going to make an analogy using some crappy numbers I found in a quick google search. For the sake of this exercise, let’s say there are 55 million registered Republicans. The current human population is 6.8 billion. This means that less than 1% of all living people are Republicans. Seems like a pretty paltry little group.
Now, of course while that number may be true (within the confines of this exercise), it’s also irrelevant. What matters is the number of registered Republicans within the context of total registered US voters.
Let’s say there are 170 million registered voters. In this scenario, registered Republicans would be roughly 33% of total registered US voters. So we took the situation from an inappropriate context and put it into the appropriate context, and the percentage of Republicans rose from <1% to 33%. They're looking quite a bit more formidable now.
Within the context of anthropogenic global climate change, what matters is the amount of CO2 that is left in the atmosphere after taking into account all of the carbon sinks (like plants).
That's why the 25% number is significant. It represents a massive change.
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Chris – you’re a retard. 25% of not much is not much you can spin all you like it doesn’t change mathematics.
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The amount of money you have isn’t much in the context of all the wealth in your state. Is 25% of your money worth nothing to you?
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The longer this goes on the worse your answers get. Besides CO2 is a moot point anyway and you know that, too, but you keep hollering about it. You go here,look at the chart.
Look at what the temps and CO2 levels do. There is no relationship. CO2 has nada to do with global warming. But I’m sure you won’t beleive that either and come back with more BS.
http://bit.ly/cs6t7H
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Yes, CO2 lags temperature. Global warming, as we both know, can be caused by a number of factors. When the earth starts to warm due to one of these other factors, more CO2 is released into the atmosphere. As it gathers there it accelerates the warming process.
None of this refutes AGW. Instead of being released by natural mechanisms, humans do the dirty work.
I believe I’ve said it before: the energy economy of the earth is a nuances and complicated thing. It’s not a good idea to make sweeping conclusions based on a glance at a chart that, really, neither of us fully understand.
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Matt,
I have great respect for Ph.Ds and being educated. There is a difference though, with having been schooled and having the certificate and having wisdom. I think we can all agree that there is no premium on ignorance, well that’s what Mama used to say, (mine not Forrest’s.)
The number for the fractional content (human contribution) came from “Global warming scare industry suppresses benefits of CO2 By Kirk Myers, Seminole County Environmental News Examiner ” over at http://www.icecap.us/. Scroll down a ways after you read some of the more recent articles.
I realize that this may be considered anectdotal, but I will not be concerned about any temperature rise until farming begins again in earnest in Greenland. So far no can do. Anyway, as with all things in the original post,
the climate fear mongers from 40 years ago got it entirely wrong. If you bother to carefully reread the quotes above (In the original post) they are hysterically off base. I am all for clean air and water, pick up your trash and recycle, I’m just skeptical of the wild claims, especially with the revelations about the conflicts of interest and the lies and manipulation of data that has gone on. There has been so much nonsense on the enviro-extreme position, for example Rachel Carson’s nonsense in “Silent Spring” led to the banning of DDT and an untold number of deaths among young, black and poor africans. That is unforgivable. 40 years on we are raising money for mesquito nets on Idol when the solution to the problem has been there the whole time. http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.html.
Same goes for the demonization of oil, yet its benefits are taken for granted because all of us have grown up with street devoid of horse and cattle manure, the ability to hop a plane and be a world away or fill up the tank in your car or pickup and travel anywhere you want to go. Never mind the myriad of products that are made from plastics in one form or another. What about all the whales that were not harvested for their oil? Trees that were not cut for home or industrial heating? Oil is a huge blessing. I could go on and on. Simply be skeptical of those who make outlandish claims and then advocate a solution that requires you to change the entire civilization to fix the “problem” as they see it. Especially when they stand to make a bundle in the process or restrict your freedom.
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Hey Wes,
Let me again emphasize, that I make a huge distinction between recognizing/understanding a problem and solving it.
As I scientist, I embrace technology and progress. I agree that the burning of fossil fuels brought about amazing improvements to the quality of human life on this planet. But, it’s time to move past that technology. The crazy fringe of the left may make it sound as though we have to scrap our civilization or economic system to solve global climate. We don’t. There is a new generation of amazing technologists and business men who are building the sustainable production models for this 21st century. And I believe it can be done within the free-market system.
What I find ironic, is that often free-market supporters end up aligning themselves with lobbies (like the oil industry and corn industry) who actively push for government interference in the market to prop themselves up. We don’t have to burn fossil fuels anymore. And it is dangerous (and untenable) to do so.
Embracing progress does not mean taking on the attitude that anything we do is the “right” way. Every individual makes lots of mistakes in their lives and they learn from them and move on. Civilization is no different. This is how I see the two partisan fringes: A person is trying to drive somewhere and takes a wrong turn. Many in the environmentalist fringe say, “we shouldn’t have left the house in the first place” and go home. Many on the right take on the attitude, “any turn we have taken is the right way” and keep on going. I prefer the middle way: pull over, take out a map/turn on your GPS, and correct your course with every bit of optimism that you will get where you need to go.
The science isn’t all there yet (although I will strongly argue that it’s making huge strides). But, even if it were clear that we’re heading for a disaster, there is no clear cut solution. You are right to be skeptical of anyone who argues that there is only one solution, and they know what it is.
As for the quotes in this post, I agree that they’re off base. They may be real (although, without sources, I cannot be sure). But, as I said in an earlier comment, the media does a terrible job on reporting science. And the environmental movement is not the same as the community of climate scientists. I think exaggerated claims are stupid and irresponsible and they weaken the case. But, I appeal to the crowd who most strongly mocks these quotes to realize that these quotes are not representative of the science then, now, or any time. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. There is a strong case for AGW in the science literature that is more modest, precise, and subtle than anything you will find fishing through media quotes.
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Regarding CO2:
I am not a climate scientist, but I am a physicist. The heat absorption of CO2 is known science going back to the 19th century. Here is his original paper (http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/1/18/Arrhenius.pdf) by Svante Arrhenius. Increasing concentrations of CO2 will change the heat transfer properties of the earth. Period. This is not up for debate. It is fundamental, quantifiable thermodynamics.
What *is* up for debate: are feedback mechanisms, like cloud and ice cover, or other external forcings. These could potentially cancel or amplify the effects of increasing CO2. Skeptical scientists believe that these feed backs will maintain a balance, even though (by the simple thermodynamics) human contributions are significant enough to amount to about a 1 degree change, if all other things were held constant. However, there is strong theoretical and observational basis for believing that an initial increase in temperature could trigger the release of larger amounts of natural CO2 and methane at a later time (which lags behind the initial kick) and amplifies the temperature change. Over the last 20 years, many of the non-human explanations for climate change have been ruled out. Solar output had been constant, the earth position is stable, and a lot of data has come in on cloud cover.
As for the CO2 numbers, thank you for giving me your source. The article is clearly written by a non-scientist who doesn’t quite understand what he is talking about. I would be glad to go through his article point-by-point if you like. He was kind enough to reference his source for the CO2 contribution (http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html). Again, not exactly the most credible source, to say the least. The article starts out with the common but incorrect myth that water is the largest greenhouse gas. The is a huge exaggeration, because water exists in many different states, including clouds (which can have a cooling effect), and in gas form absorbs radiation over a much narrower band of wavelengths than CO2.
Measuring and characterizing the quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere is good, clear, precision science. No need to obfuscate.
Like I said, feedbacks in the balance, are hard to predict. But, the current change in net CO2 in the atmosphere is easy to measure. The fractional contribution from fossil fuel burning is significant.
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http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/the_climategate_investigation.html
You might find the above article an interesting.
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As Matt is the scientist representing my side of this debate, I hope he chimes in on this. And if he does, I hope he elaborates or corrects me if I’m missing something here.
What’s at issue is that, for some reason, recorded temperature data and tree-ring width data (used as a proxy for temperature) track nicely right up until 1960, when the tree ring width data declines as recorded temperature rises.
This is often cited by skeptics who claim that this shows a fault with how temperature is recorded. But if this were the case then we would expect to find other proxy measurements diverge the same way. However, we find that other proxies still track neatly with recorded temperature. This is convincing evidence that the anomaly lies with the tree ring data, not the instruments. In other words, trees started growing differently after 1960, possibly for man-made reasons but no one really knows (at least as far as I know).
There’s another oft-cited misconception dealing with two different temp. recording instruments showing a divergence. This is because one includes arctic measurements and the other doesn’t. The arctic is warming faster than other parts of the planet, so one would expect them to diverge.
The term “hide the decline” refers to the decline in tree-ring width as it diverges from recorded temp. It refers to a method of basically devaluing data, in this case due to the data’s partial unreliability (as the tree-ring data is shown to be) rather than just tossing it all out (which I think would have inflamed the skeptics even more). It may or may not have been the smartest thing for them to do (I’m neither a scientist nor a statistician), but either way it certainly doesn’t discredit the research.
Which brings me to a much more important point. We keep endlessly picking away at the controversies in these hacked emails, but in doing so we’re missing the bigger picture. We can throw out the CRU research altogether and AGW would still have plenty of evidence to stand on.
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About as much to stand on as a one-legged sailor. It was skewed enough to hide the Medieval and Roman Warming Periods, which is part of why you have a hockey-stick graph. You can read more about hiding things here. http://bit.ly/cjpRJn
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You make assumptions of co2 absorption as though it is linear, which it is not.
As the concentration increases, absorption decreases. It is also a lagging indicator of warming, not a driver. Higher levels of co2 causing increased plant growth is not theoretical, it is fact. It is part of the circle of life, without it, the planet will die, just as we die without o2. why was it much warmer in the past???
As for oil, if you only count easy to harvest crude, well maybe the peak oil prediction might be valid. However, oil from all sources is far beyond what we can use and as technology advances, so does methods of discovery and extraction. The soviets looked at other theories and have followed that path to huge finds. That one is that oil is not from decomposed plant matter, but is a product of heat and pressure beneath the earth’s crust. Seem’s to make more sense, as wells that should have been long dead are continuiing to produce and oil is also found beneath bedrock. As for the starvation- that is predominately man caused. There is more than enough food to be shared – aid from western nations is enormous. The problem is corruption throughout these parts of the world and freedom is the answer.
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Chris: your explaination of “hide the decline” is accurate. The thing I find hilarious is that this method for hiding the decline was published in Nature (which is why they call it “Mike’s Nature trick”). I wonder how many conspirators and liars would publish their data fudging in one of the most circulated journals…or maybe it wasn’t so insidious as science-illiterates claim.
Michael Mann’s original hockey stick was flawed. Again, this is why there is a larger scientific community. There were problems in his statistical methodology that were corrected by other institutions during the peer review process. Michaal Mann’s time series are far from the only ones. Many other groups have worked on this, and there is relative consistency now. At the end of the day, the most important data are the direct temperature measurements (not proxy measurements), all of which show the earth warming in a manner statistically consistent with human activity.
Wes in MT: Please take some effort to learn the basic science. The statement “as the concentration increases, absorption decreases” is factually incorrect. The heat transfer effects of carbon dioxide increase linearly with the quantity of carbon dioxide. There may be feedbacks, which could absorb CO2 or counterbalance its effects. But, the primary effect of more CO2 (by itself) is increased thermal absorption. Period. As for your claim that more CO2 means more plant growth to absorb the CO2, that is contradicted by the data, which show CO2 levels continuing to rise.
Your statement “it is also a lagging indicator of climate change, not a driver” is true only if you rewrite is: “it is *often* a lagging indicator of climate change, *when other factors such as the earth’s position or solar output are the main drivers*”. In our current situation, we are altering CO2 levels at a time when those other factors are relatively constant, and we’re doing it in a way that is rather unique in the earth’s history. With other drivers held constant, human CO2 is becoming a driver itself. And, what’s so offputting is the fact that your examples from past climate epochs show that the warming (which is now CO2-driven) could trigger the “lagging” release of more greenhouse gases from natural sources. The science on that is not yet settled, but the absorptive properties of CO2 are, and have been for more than a century.
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Matt,
I have read a lot of the “basic science”. No need to be condescending.
I did not say that CO2 means more plant growth to absorb the CO2. Merely stated that CO2 is used all the time to increase plant growth and food yield.
We are no where near approaching co2 levels that the earth has experienced in the past. While some of you brainiacs want to focus on the horrors of oil, please keep in mind that the introduction of the internal combustion engine and oil has lead to all manner of technical advances and a cleaner environment, the streets are no longer littered with horse manure,as well as no longer needing to hunt whales for lamp oil. These are but 2 examples. I’m all for being a good steward of natural resources, but this hatred of oil is borderline nuts. The current spill in Gulf is very tragic, but should not be used to try and derail american oil exploration- everyone else is rushing to drill off our coasts. The next big thing in energy is always just 10 years away- it never gets here.
Back to the science, you are right in noting the sun’s influence on the planet.
We have been in a cooling period for some time now and the science is a long way from being settled, with more and more scientists lining up on the skeptic side than ever before, maybe because more and more of the populations of western countries are starting to see through the fraud.
When we can farm again in Greenland, the arguement of catastrophic runaway warming will still be full of holes because, as you stated, they still do not take in account other factors, like solar activity, water vapor in the atmosphere, ocean temperatures, etc. the sun is #1. If it increased in solar activity output say 2%, you could ban all oil consumption and you would not stop the change that would result. What we are seeing is the arrogance of man, thinking that he can control the heavens.
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When you suggest that as CO2 concentrations rise, the absorptive properties of CO2 decrease, it is clear that you do not understand the basic science. I’m not being condescending. I’m just reiterating, that you should learn about climate science first-hand (rather than from conservative blogs) before you accuse the major academies and institutions of science worldwide of being in on “fraud”. Your statement that we have been in a “cooling period” also indicates a lack of literacy. Over periods of several years, climate is known to fluctuate. You can’t make meaningful statements about climate trends over periods of a few years. You have to look at periods of a few decades. This isn’t controversial. It’s basic statistics. It’s how you fit noisy data. And, the direct temperature measurements of ground, oceanic, and satellite stations are consistent with each other and consistent with a warming over the last 20 years.
You’re just plain wrong when you say “they [scientists] still don’t take into account other factors…”. Climate scientists *DO* take these factors into account. If you would read the literature, you would know that. These other factors do not explain the current warming.
This idea that more and more scientists are lining up on the skeptic side is purely delusional. Read the literature. Talk to real scientists. If these scientists are so numerous a prolific, why do you keep referring me to blogs that quote the same handful of token scientists, and then need to supplement their content with heavy doses of scientifically incorrect speculation from non-scientists?
You’re definitely right in saying we’d be screwed if solar output increase 2%. Fortunately, there is no reason to believe that is going to happen. There *is*, however, a plausible reason to believe that we’re equally screwed if carbon dioxide levels continue to increase. And, though we cannot control the heavens, we can surely control our own CO2 output.
Certainly, oil-based technologies brought about many positive changes. But, that doesn’t mean that they haven’t also brought about some negative consequences. And, it also doesn’t mean that we can’t move on. The abacus brought about lots of positive changes, but we don’t use abacuses any more now that we have computers. Thankfully (and contrary to your beliefs) the next big things in energy *are* here. America is making leaps and bounds in wind power. We may see a nuclear renaissance. Solar power is still not quite there, but several major developments could finally bring it to maturity. And, the most significant changes in energy are happening in the realm of energy efficiency and smart grid technologies which return huge economic dividends for money invested. I don’t share your irrational desire to stick to an old 20th century technology that we know is having an impact on the balance of greenhouse gasses, or you cynicism in believing we can’t find other ways of fueling our economy. America gone to the moon and back. I believe that, with the will, America can move on to develop sustainable, 21st century technologies and lead the world with them.
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Ok. I call bullshit. Show your cards. What documents are you reading? What first hand knowledge do you have? What are your credentials? You don’t have to be specific. Make sure you provide links to the literature that plants don’t consume CO2 and that plants don’t proliferate more with more CO2. Show me the climate model that takes into account solar/planetary precessions, solar flares, what water will do if things warm up, and still shows that CO2 is linked with warmer temperatures. You can’t, because the truth is that Meteorology and Oceanography are both in their infancies when comes to what we know. We’re still figuring out the Coriolis affect–we have a long way to go before we can predict anything. When you suggest that there is some kind of ‘balance of greenhouse gases’ it is clear that you do not understand the basic science. I’m not being condescending. The fact that green organizations are paying Universities millions of dollars to ‘research global warming’ should be the start and end of the conversation. If you don’t get it, then you don’t get science.
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One other thing: One of the reasons the “next best thing” has taken so long is because our government (under both dems and republicans) offers billions in tax breaks, subsidies, and bail outs to the oil and auto industries, propping up stagnant technology. Telephony is light years ahead of what Alexander Graham Bell developed. But, many modern cars are less fuel efficient than Model T’s. It’s embarrassing.
If you purport to be pro-free market, then you should be against the huge market interventions the government makes on behalf of the oil and auto industries. Let the market decide the best technologies, not the government…
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I would love to see a move toward nuclear energy for all of our electrical needs. I’m completely against using corn as a fuel source, it is a poor choice. Wind is not the panacea that the tree huggers make it out to be. Plus, I truly hate the blight those towers are on the landscape. When solar
finally breaks through, I’ll be one of the 1st in line. I know folks in the alternative energy business, what you are currently doing is prepaying your energy bill when you invest in the current off grid technologies.
when the government quits telling the oil companies where they can drill, then I’ll support the cuts in subsidies. I’m fine with dictating safety and such. Also, they should quit the giveaways to the wind and solar guys. I don’t think the government needs to subsidize the private sector for the technological advances – I’m not sure Bill Gates was collecting a check when he was working on the prototype software in his garage. there should be enough incentive to find the next big thing simply on what it will do for the inventor and the nation. Don’t you think the oil giants haven’t thought about the future? For the time being, oil is it. And cheap oil represents freedom.
As far as the Model T being more fuel efficient, are you just comparing mpg?
technologically speaking, the model T is a powered wheel barrow compared to 2010 F-150. Yet what comes out of the tail pipe is no where near as clean as any of today’s vehicles, pretty poor comparison.
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Ken,
First, I do again want to make clear that I do not consider myself an expert on climate change, although I am a physicist and I’ve read through the literature and had some technical talks. I just want to be intellectually honest that I am not a climatologist. I can, however, speak authoritatively on the thermal properties of CO2. Those have been known for well over a century and fall within basic physics that I know. More carbon dioxide means more heat absorption, and that’s not up for debate. There may be factors that absorb the CO2 or compensate for its thermal effects, but CO2 itself makes the earth warmer.
OK, so you want to see sources:
For carbon dioxide levels. I highly recommend that you read the IPCC working group I paper. It is written in relatively plain english, but it is tight. For all of the controversy of the other Working Groups (particularly group II), group I focused purely on the scientific understanding of climate change and was very conservative (and criticized by many enviro activists for it). Chapter 2 talks about CO2, its effects and how it’s measured (http://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/ar4-wg1-chapter2.pdf), particularly Section 2.3. Take a look at figure 2.3, which shows the Keeling Curve (CO2 levels VS time). You’ll see a cyclical pattern, corresponding to the seasonal absorption and emission of CO2 by plants. But you’ll notice that the cyclical variation is not around a constant level of CO2. Rather, the net level of CO2 is increasing. Despite absorption by plants the net levels of CO2 are rising with each yearly cycle. That is clear. So where is the carbon dioxide coming from? Rather than speculate as most politicians and media figures like to do, scientists figure out ways to actually measure things. There are 2 main ways of looking at how much of the new CO2 is from humans. One way, is to look at the concentrations of carbon isotopes among the atmospheric CO2. CO2 from fossil fuel burning has a different isotopic composition than natural CO2, since the carbon in the oil was buried deep beneath the penetrating depth of cosmic rays which can change carbon isotopes. You can see in Fig 2.3 (b) that the change in isotopic concentration correlates very strongly with the increase in CO2 levels. This alone is a smoking gun. The other signature comes from decreasing levels of Oxygen, since the burning of fossil fuels uses up oxygen. These are very precise, and simple measurements to make. And, many different teams of scientists (all referenced in the report) contributed to these measurements.
On the modeling:
Here is a great report on the status of climate models, with a description of the various components:
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap3-1/final-report/sap3-1-final-ch2.pdf
Here is the major work on model solar output cited by the models (actually co-authored by a major skeptic of AGM):
http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradley/lean1995.pdf
This stuff is getting into my field. Our understanding of solar output is very sophisticated at this point. And, whatever it’s limitations, there are volumes of satellite data measuring the output accurateluy…
Here is a paper on the earth’s orbital irregularities and their impact on climate:
http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=article&access=standard&Itemid=129&url=/articles/aa/abs/2004/46/aa1335/aa1335.html
and a good plain english explaination:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html
Ice ages were triggered by orbital irregularities called Milankovich cycles. This is 200 year old orbital mechanics with 21st century super computers…Very well understood.
The thermodynamics of CO2 are well understood 19th century science…
Where the models are having a hard time is on the feedbacks: most significantly clouds, but also ice cover, and El Nino/La Nina cycles. I’ve never met a climate scientist who didn’t openly admit this. Science is about constant refinement. We made significant progress in getting to this point, but there is a lot of work ahead. And there are several new centers working on clouds and making great progress.
We don’t need the models to correlated current temperature effects with human activity. The difficulty comes in predicting the future. Your right to suggest that we can’t predict the future with certainty. But, we can observe plausible ranges of scenarios, and many of these are very disturbing. No medical doctor can tell you with any certainty if or when you will have a heart attack. But, using his expertise on human health, and measurements such as blood pressure or cholesterol levels, he can say whether there is a plausible risk and what you should do about it. That is where the science is.
I don’t know how you have such an authoritative grasp on the maturity of oceanography or meteorology, but young as they may be, I assure you that they are orders of magnitude more sophisticated than the understanding you get from naive climate-denial blogs. Learn the science first-hand before you argue against it.
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Wes,
I agree with most of your points. And, yes, I was just referring to MPG of the cars, which I agree is anecdotal. Touche. I’m just trying to say that the paradigm for how cars are made may have been refined over the years, but it never went to the next level like many other technologies. I argue that that’s largely do to laziness on the part of industry among other things.
With regard to government interventions, this is a very fair debate. I’ve never taken issue with disagreements on what to do next given the current state of science. It’s unfair attacks on science and scientists that I don’t like.
I will say this. When it comes to basic R&D, public funding has a HUGE positive benefit. Nuclear power would not be possible without the huge investments during the Manhattan project. Computers were entirely a product of government labs during the 30’s and 40’s, so yes, Bill Gates could not have happened without public investment in R&D. The internet itself came from huge DARPA investments, and the world wide web was developed by a publicly funded scientist in my own field over at CERN. I could go on. In my own reading, the best reasearch come out of private-public partnerships (like fund matching programs). But, I do feel as a scientists, that funding for the most basic research is necessary to create the infrastructure for venture capital to come in and capitalize on it.
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I think its important to remember that vast sums were spent on military R&D- that’s what the manhattan project essentially was, as was research into
jet propulsion technology, and on and on. I would love to see another “Apollo ” style space project. What that did for advances in technology were literally out of this world. As for cars, my grandfather witnessed the transition from animal power on the farm and horse drawn wagons to flying with my father and just being amazed as we watched an Apollo moonshot live on his black and white TV. His last car was an Olds 98
that was the height of luxury for my immigrant grandfather. It’s the priority that you are addressing. I am for comfort and safety over fuel economy.
Now if someone could come up with a durable ceramic turbine engine, I think we would see a revolution in all modes of transportation. Anyway that is a side point. This thread started with poking fun at the environmental hysteria- the reality that none of the end of the world predictions evern came close to happening, unless you count the starvation caused by despots.
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and this is why white people shouldn’t drive
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so, if we are to accept the assertions of the so-called scientists, could you please explain the medieval warm period? Not an suv in sight. what of the much higher CO2 levels in the past? I agree that the big hiccup or fly in the ointment is predicting all the variable feedbacks, like the effect of cloud cover and water vapor. While concern for the environment is good, it is way overblown and has been politicized to the extent that it is laughable.
Case in point, why would anyone on give credence to “Green Cross”, a group headed by that loveable former Soviet Party Secretary M Gorbachev?
One other example, scientific computer modeling failed so miserably to predict where the ash from the Icelandic erruption would go, inspite of the fact that they have reams of data to use to predict the wind and weather patterns. And the cost of this error was measured in real time in real dollars lost. Might have been more successful to have gazed into a crystal ball.
No disrespect for researchers or scientists, but many times more questions are created than answered. So keep searching – I think we could all agree, that the science is never “settled”.
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You are very right, Wes. What kills me is that the extreme green movement is always yelling “save the planet!” How do they expect to “save the planet” when they don’t even understand it? Not that the planet needs saving anyways. It’ll be around a lot longer than people will and many more ice ages will come and go…
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Wes,
To the extent that this thread was poking fun at environmental hysteria, I don’t have a problem with it. As I’ve said before, my problem is that many people who posted on this thread construe media hysteria with a lack of scientific credibility or -worse- with conspiracy on the part of the greater scientific community. And, what kills me is that they do so without actually knowing what the scientific community is saying. I know, I keep repeating that point, but I keep feeling I have to…
Your reference to scientists as “so-called” is a case in point to me. And, I’m not sure I agree with your tone when you say that the science is *never* settled. True, science is never *completely* settled. But, science does converge and ever refine itself, as time moves on. The last century has brought with it an exponential explosion in our scientific understanding of phenomena that, in the past, nobody could have imagined that we’d be able to explain. In the last 20 years alone, since I first read Dixie Lee Ray’s “Envinronmental Overkill” or Rush’s books, the field of climatology has made tremendous progress. Yet, the denialist rhetoric has barely changed. You ask me to explain why CO2 levels were much higher at earlier periods in the earth’s history as if there is no answer in science. If you would look it up from scientific sources, rather than accept the claims of cocky unscientific blogs that there is no answer, you wouldn’t be asking me that question(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology). The medieval warm period is another example. There is no clear cut consensus that the warming was global an not local to the north-atlantic. You can’t say that “the science is uncertain” and then speak with certitude about a warm period that a large number of the world’s paleoclimatologists are not even convinced is there.
Your attacks on computer modelling come from ignorance. Again, you are conflating weather with climate. The models that were predicting the effects of the volcanic ash were meteorological and involved scales much smaller than those involved in global climate. It is incredibly common in science and statistics that one cannot predict particular outcomes, yet one can make very exact statements about average or larger-scale trends.
Again, I will say that *aspects* of the science are still open. But, other aspects of the science of climate are and have been rapidly converging. The burden of proof in science is extremely high. For that reason, there are indeed credible scientists who are skeptical, even of matters which many of the major scientific academies world-wide consider settled. That skepticism is important, and will make the science better. But, the fact that some scientists do not feel that the evidence lives up to these high standards doesn’t mean that the science doesn’t hold up to *any* standards.
Feedbacks and microclimates are the area that everyone agrees need work. I feel pretty confident, at the rate the the science is going, and given the new tools deployed on earth and in space, that we will have a very good handle on these feedbacks within the next decade. But more importantly, much of the critical evidence for anthropogenic climate change do not require models or strong assumptions regarding feedbacks, namely:
1. CO2 levels are rapidly rising, and isotopic analysis shows it is largely human driven
2. thermodynamically, the changes in CO2 *must*, to first order, effect the radiative heat balance of the earth, based on pure physics.
3. temperature is rising in a manner consistent with the rising CO2, while the other major climate forcing mechanisms (solar output, earths orbit and wobble) are going in the cooling direction.
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Matt.
Then it is up to the “scientific community” to say what they mean, rather than allow a few to speak for them. As with any new knowledge, it is not based on a
“consensus” but on what you can prove or refute. What is testable and repeatable, whether it can be falsifyed or not. Politics is about consensus and there has been far too much politics in the so-called science of global warming.
My comment to you about the medieval warm period and why were CO2 levels higher in the past was rhetorical. I think that any rational person would say that it is safe to assume that the warming in that time that drove migration and settlement to places like Greenland, where they have found the remains of settlements and farms was not of a short duration and probably not that localized, given Greenland’s location and the effect of the atlantic currents on its
climate. My point about the computer models being wrong about the Icelandic ash cloud was to show the unreliable nature of computer modelling. Are you trying to tell me that we should trust the computer model predictions for climate 50 -100 years out when the same buffoons can’t even get close on wind patterns for a dust cloud 5 days out????? Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t understand science. No, not science that is purely cover for a political agenda to expand government control and limit individual freedom. I believe that your statement of CO2 driving temperature change is wrong as ice core data has clearly shown that CO2 levels rise behind the rise in temperature, by alot of years. It is a lagging indicator, not a driving force. Nothing personal against you Matt, I appreciate your posts. However, the science is never settled because each new advance or discovery must neccassarily change the information that we have.
In your field, the last hundred years has seen so much change, I’m sure you could agree that there have been 2 or 3 new questions raised for every answer or discovery. Same goes for climate science. Again, the last hundred years is barely enough time to use to predict any trend relating to the state of the earth and to state that somehow man can do more than affect the microclimate of an area, to claim that we are driving world wide climate change is to be incredibly myopic in one’s view, not to mention arrogant. Here’s my main problem with all the socalled solutions, they come down to more government regulation and control which equals less freedom. Why would we even for one second pursue that path? The agenda of the statist/marxists led to untold human suffering and death and environmental degradation. The dirtiest places have bee those under the control of the statists or despots. Here’s an article that you may find interesting – http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/05/report_from_the_heartland_inst.html – my main problem with the envori-nuts is they have been proven wrong time and time again, if not outright frauds, and we are to continue to give them any kind of credence? That’s just insanity.
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All of the scientific points that you’ve brought up have already been adequately addressed in this discussion. If you have a problem with the way that they’ve been addressed, you should tell us what those problems are. But to simply keep restating the same talking points without acknowledging evidence presented to you leads me to believe that the truth of this matter is less important to you than your perceived political implications. Indeed, the underlying point to your arguments actually has little to do with science, and more to do with your belief in a rampant liberal conspiracy at work in the scientific community. Well, that’s a specific claim and the obligation is on you to prove it.
We can all agree that some liberal politicians and interest groups tend to exaggerate the science for political gain–but point me to proof that the *scientific community* is engaged in political conspiracy. And it isn’t good enough to point to some select groups within the scientific community that you think show a liberal bias–to prove conspiracy you need to show a coordinated effort by the scientific community as a whole. AGW is so widely accepted in the scientific community that it would take a massive and organized effort between scientists, universities and peer-reviewed journals to pull off the scandal you believe exists. Prove it.
You fault many liberals for exaggerating the science for political gain and, meanwhile, you and many others on this board deny the science for political gain. The outcomes are different, but the lack of respect for science and the pursuit of truth are the same. You would be much more honest if you openly admitted that you simply don’t care about the scientific truth of this issue because you find its implications politically inexpedient, or that you distrust the scientific method in general.
All of the best science points to AGW. As Matt keeps saying, we can openly disagree about what to do about it without the need to exaggerate OR deny the science. If you want to accept the scientific basis for AGW and decide that you would prefer to take no action in order to preserve your ideals, well, that’s your right, and there are plenty of politicians out there that you could vote for. But there’s no need to blindly throw out the scientific method just to sate your political anxieties.
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You speak about science like it’s an episode of Lost. Science always raises new questions. But, the new questions do not typically raise doubts about the questions we’ve already answered. Science builds on past progress and moves forward. Newton’s equations still accurately predict the trajectory of a ballistic missile, even after 300 years of refinements by the likes of guys like Einstein. We have a saying in my field that “today’s discoveries are tomorrow’s backgrounds.” My dissertation was a precision measurement to the hundredths decimal place of the mass of a particle (W boson) that was only first detected in the 80’s, and will be seen as a trivial nuisance at the new experiment at CERN.
So much of the world you live in is enhanced by computer models that perform amazingly complex calculations. You cannot accept or reject the validity of one computer model based on another in a different area. And, *no* it is not the same “buffoons” involved in the weather modeling as in the climate modeling. Weather patterns represent unpredictable, short-term fluctuations. Climate represents behavior averaged over much longer time scales. I’m *absolutely* saying that the failure of weather models to predict the smoke has little to do with the climate models that are out there. There are plenty of weaknesses in the current state of the climate models, but they are openly acknowledged by the people making them. And, I think it’s incredibly unfair and ignorant of you to call them “buffoons”.
You are still misunderstanding the role of CO2. The thermodynamics of CO2 is a really basic and really unarguable fact, no matter how hard you want to close your eyes and make it go away. In the past, CO2 has not been the trigger of warming. Major climate change was typically triggered by changes in the sun or the earth’s orbit. When other factors initiate a warming period, this can trigger the release more CO2 and methane into the atmosphere which then causes *even more* warming. Because the heating is initiated by another factor, the increased CO2 follows later…It “lags”. But, the CO2 that is newly released, still causes it’s own warming that amplifies the original warming. The burning of fossil fuels in the last century is relatively unique in the earths climate history. In this instance it could be the trigger, rather than a consequence.
There are tens of thousands of scientists out there, who aren’t on the political fringes either way, who care about the science more than the politics. And, a very large number of them feel that human impact on global climate is a scientific reality. Nearly all of the major professional organizations in all of the major disciplines of science have reviewed the research and endorsed this position, at great risk to their credibility. Their statements are guarded and conservative: Namely, human CO2 is very likely to be the cause of the current warming and we don’t know for sure how bad it could get if we continue, although very reasonable estimates based on observed climate sensitivities and feedbacks in the past suggest that it could be bad. These people can’t all be part of a liberal conspiracy…
You keep saying that you have issues with the solutions being offered. Fine. Then offer different solutions. But, don’t use your dislike of the solutions as the basis to argue against the reality or unreality of the problem. That’s circular.
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Did either of you guys bother to read the Heartland Institute link?????
There are many scientists who have a problem with the AGW research and all that has surrounded it. You two seem to be in pursuit of truth, but you mischaracterize me by dismissing me as be closed minded and only concerned with the political aspect. And yes, I do believe that there is a conspiracy of sorts. If the government entities wanting a desired result don’t get it, then the funding will dry up. As for the vaunted “peer review” process, that too has been shown to have been used to silence dissent. Despots the world over have in the past corrupted real scientific research to cover their power grabs in some sort of legitimacy, why is it not plausible now?????
As far as not liking the solutions or the computer modelling, well, remember, garbage in, garbage out. Sometimes, the best solution is to acknowledge that you can’t change it so the best course is to adapt. And another thing, nearly every one of these environmentalists cited or poked fun of in the original article, when pressed, come out with the fact that humans are the problem and that there should be less humans. The real difference here is not one of “science and the unscientific” but of world views and who should be deciding our fate: individuals or the collective, ruled by the educated elite. And yes, I say that mockingly because some of the dumbest, most obtuse, lacking in practical, common sense people that I have met (never mind arrogant) have been those that think that they know better than anyone else about anything because “they” have the right education. Hope that’s not you two.
My “main problem” with the proposed solutions is this: They are not going to solve anything. They will in fact increase human misery. For example, What real benefit did the banning of DDT accomplish, other than the millions of deaths of black africans from malaria??? And that is just one example of the unintended consequence of some of the enviro-lefts actions – or are they intentional??
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Yes. I read the heartland institute link. I never disputed that there are a minority of legitimate scientists who are skeptical about AGW. But, it is utterly scientifically dishonest to cherry pick only those scientists who tell you what you want to hear…Which is what the heartland institute seems keen on doing. And more importantly, it’s one thing to form a scientifically informed position that is skeptical of AGW, and another to suggest that the other position is garbage. Especially when you have no understanding of what the other position is.
It’s true that there are people who think they know better because “they” have the right education. For example, those arrogant brain surgeons thinking that they know better about how to take a scalpel to a brain then the next guy. How elitist for an expert in a highly technical field to think they’re more qualified than a bunch of bloggers.
Your suggestion that the scientific basis for AGW is purely ideological is completely off base. Scientists accept AGW because it is at least a reasonable supposition, given the impact that we’re having on atmospheric CO2, and because it is supported by a reasonable amount of evidence…It is possible that they are wrong. But, the evidence is compelling enough to convince a lot of people (including political conservatives) who have way more technical backgrounds than yourself, and most of the bloggers/radio/tv folk you get you position from.
Where does your confidence that the peer review process is broken come from? Have you ever participated in the peer review process? Do you have any exposure to it, except through second hand information from people who have an ideological interest in telling that kind of story?
When you talk about the corrupting influence of funding, you seem to forget that that influence can go both ways. Many developing countries, including China have maintained a strong vested interest in showing AGW to be wrong. Many of those countries invested a great deal of money to push the science in that direction. And, you forget that the oil industry itself pours tons of funding into the “CO2 is good for you” campaign. That sad part to me is that you and many of the people you listen to, don’t know anything about how science funding works (what agencies fund science, who’s in charge, how the money is doled out, etc). Yet, you’re quick to make these very strong accusations and, even worse, cut the funding in science that ultimately gives our country one of its strongest competitive advantages.
I will be careful to say that neither the peer review process nor science funding is perfect. And there can be some bias and some groupthink. I will also say that individual scientists can have their biases and even be dishonest. But, it’s a matter of degree here. And, as someone who actually participates in the world of science, I find your suggestion of a vast conspiracy to be a really dangerous accusation. It is too easy to say that about science that you find inconvenient. And this notion that “arm-chair” experts from *either* idealogical side are *just* as qualified to make these wild accusations as the experts are qualified to do the science is anti-intellectual, and ultimately anti-science.
Do you really feel that you understand the science well enough to justify your confidence that AGW is based on “garbage in garbage out”? Do you really feel you understand the peer review process or funding process enough to level such broad accusations against several entire disciplines of science?
I like that websites like this one look skeptically at what comes out of the liberal media. But, ironically, you all to often accept what comes out of the conservative media, without question or fact checking. I say be skeptical. But, be skeptical of everyone.
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Thanks for responding and for reading the Heartland article. You are exactly right, I am skeptical of most of what I read. I think that as people we tend to give more credence to what supports our biases, myself included. What I have a hard time with is claims that contradict what I know to be true, that’s why the skepticism about the CO2 level claims. For example, I remember being taught when studying the arctic ecosystem as a student in Canada that the polar bear can swim something like 300 miles in open water. So when they tell us that the polar bear is endangered even though the numbers are up in every region but one, I find the claims of endangerment hard to believe, especially when linked to what might happen. http://www.icecap.us has alot of interesting stuff. I find it hard to trust temperature data when it comes to light the a vast majority of the sites are out of spec. And the russians say that their data was cherry picked to reflect a warming trend, with the more rural stations being ignored because those results didn’t fit the template. I agree with you, we need to be skeptical,
of both sides. And we need to be thinking.
I guess the biggest problem I have is when the solution proposed is higher taxes and more regulation. I do not see how that will help anything. Also, this fear of a “tipping point”, you mentioned in an earlier post that the hardest thing to account for in the modelling are some of the feedbacks such as solar, water vapor (in it’s various forms) and others that do not follow set rules ( I hope I haven’t mischaracterized your position – maybe i mentioned these variables)
What about warmer oceans releasing CO2? or as they cool, they absorb more CO2? We do know that levels were much much higher in the past, with no run away effect, in fact we do know that there have been periods with much cooler temperatures than today or the 1970’s when the fear was a coming ice age, do you remember that time? That is why I’m skeptical of today’s AGW movement.
Nevermind the cast of characters who are pushing it. Given the likes of Al Gore, M. Gorebachev, wouldn’t you be a little skeptical of the veracity of the claims and the fear mongering? I rather like Christopher Monkton’s view on alot of this. BTW, we are not talking about surgeons and specialties, but a very young field of science that has recently been exposed to have done exactly what you would call a conspiracy, neatly revealed in the emails from CRU.
Sometimes when your gut tells you something just isn’t right, something isn’t right and needs to be pursued. Are you aware that the exposure of Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” graph was revealed not by a climate scientist, but by a mathematicion who just couldn’t see it adding up so he looked at the data?
Gee, they lost the raw data. . . . how could that be ? A little bit of transparency would go a long way.
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That’s some crazy weather they’re having in Utah. Set a record for the latest snowfall….
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_15150480?source=most_viewed
I’m glad the tomatoes are safe, though
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Hey Wes,
Being skeptical means being careful about your sources. As I’ve said, many of the sources that you site are very sloppy and provide misleading or incorrect information. Being skeptical also means being suspicious of “what you know to be true”. We all have gut feelings about things. In many contexts this gut is extremely useful and important. But, as a scientist one learns that there are all kinds of fallacies and mistakes that gut thinking can make when applied to complex problems.
We are talking about surgeons here. And, you overstate the youth of the field in general Most of the essential tools and principles involved in climate science are as old as most of *modern* medicine. The statistical techniques, mathematical tools, analysis methodology are over a century old. The thermodynamics is closer to two centuries old, as is the chemistry. What is new are the advanced tools for measuring global climate systems and reconstructing paleo-climate, and some of the non-linear dynamics (which are about 20-30 years old), and the advanced computational power (~15 years old). The fact is, all science is young because with the exponential rate of progress, most of the game changing advances happened in this century.
More relevant to my point about “brain surgeons” is that climate science is a difficult and technical subject, and requires a great deal of learning and science literacy to begin to understand. It is not something that anyone can just make bold proclamations about based on superficial knowledge and thinking. I am not saying it is inaccessible, or that you have to just “trust” some scientific elite. I’m just saying you need to really read about the basics and build an understanding of the fundamentals before you can start making armchair proclamations.
I recommend that rather than listen to ambiguously sponsored and staffed blogs like icecap.org and special interest groups, you should go directly to the experts. I am including even the skeptical scientists who spoke at the Heartland event who are actual PhD experts (like Lindzen, for example). I am not including Lord Monckton, who has no scientific education (only a bachelors in classics), regularly gets the science wrong, and who’s presence at events like the Heartland one as an “expert”, baffles my mind.
Listen to actual scientists and listen to *both* sides. That’s at least a start.
The narratives you are repeating about the Mann’s hockeystick, about the reliability of temperature measurements, and the “climate gate” emails is straight out of the conservative rumor mill and easily falsifiable. The 70’s “ice age” rumor is based on a few popular media articles from the 70’s, while a majority of the scientific literature of the 70’s endorsed global warming.
The irony about the handful of cherry-picked climate-gate emails is that, if you just read a little further, you see a very different picture. Michael Mann’s “Nature trick” was published in Nature. It’s a pretty bad conspiracy if you’re publishing your insidious tricks in one of the most widely circulated scientific periodicals. Another email with the famous “we just don’t know” quote, included a link to an article where the author published his skepticism publicly. And the deleted data you are referring to is not the *raw* data. That data was and is still publicly available. The deleted data was the local copy used in the analysis. What fascinated me about the whole email thing, was the unprecedented level of transparency being demanded. In the early 90’s, when the whole freedom of information thing came to the fore, these guys did a sloppy job. Nowadays, not only are things all the more transparent, but they are also easily accessible.
You will hardly find another discipline as transparent as the hard sciences generally are.
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I came from the day of these predictions. I saw and, halfway believed, Soylent Green. I thought “The Omega Man” (the ’70’s version of “I Am Legend”) was prophetic in my teenage ignorance. I was convinced that we’d be eating sea plankton by the 1990’s.
Then, I grew up. Something that the environmentalist nazis have failed to do.
What really convinced me of the fallacy of the doom and gloom was when the Iraqi army set the oil fields of Kuwait on fire during Desert Storm and we were warned in apocalyptic terms of how the smoke from the fires would pollute the earth much in the same way that a nuclear winter would. It looked like the world would surely end in a new ice age! We were done for.
Then I saw the pictures taken from the space shuttle of these massive smoke plumes that were going to block the suns rays for a thousand years. The plumes were little strips of mist in comparison to the mass of the earth! Common sense showed that there was no way that these little plumes would hurt anything more than the locals in the desert. You know, the camels and lizards that roamed that small strip of desert. One thing even the casual observer would conclude is that this smoke and oil wasn’t going to cause a new ice age. The environmentalist cry babies were wrong! As I looked into it more, they were wrong the better part of 99% of the time.
So, they can live in an under cooled house and walk instead of drive, and use light bulbs with the poisonous metal mercury, and all the other funny things they do to “save” the environment.
Me, I’ll trust the God Who created this wonderful world and also trust Him to be the caretaker of His creation. I’m very convinced that there is nothing that man can do to harm the ecology of the earth that he didn’t create. The earth has its own renewal mechanism built by God that would take only supernatural forces beyond the reach of mankind to alter her.
The environmentalist wackos give themselves too much credit. In the great scheme of things, man who can barely squeak out 80 or 90 years of life thinks that he can harm a planet that has been built for the eons.
“…when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” The Apostle Paul, in a letter to the Romans, A.D. 60.
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I was in college at the time of the first Iraq war. This was during the infancy of the Internet and before NPR went to total crap.
There were no predictions of an environmental catastrophe as a result of the burning of the oil fields in the liberal media.
I also would watch the McNeil Lehrer report just as religiously and you’re just making crap up. The only concern was the oil prices would skyrocket, and they did from about $1.00 to almost $2.00.
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You might try to find an IMAX documentary called “Fires of Kuwait.” It’s the story of how Red Adair and an international tea put out all the fires in a matter of months after we were told they would burn for years and that it would be the worst environmental disaster in history. Here’s a link on IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104275/
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Red Adair, now THAT was a man!
I bet he could have fixed the gusher in the Gulf in 2 days if being dead had not get in the way. We might have had to set it on fire first, but at this point it would be worth it.
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Avdedender,
Last time I checked, Omega Man and Soylent Green are not reputable scientific journals. I again agree that no one should base important policy decisions on media sensationalization. But, I do think we should be taking a sober look at the science. Please do. Movies, cable, and news are not sources of reliable info on climate science. When they get things embarrassingly wrong, that doesn’t mean you can ignore the science. The science is wrong sometimes too, but it’s the best tool we have. It’s certainly better than speculation and shooting-from-the-hip of the kind you are demonstrating.
As far as your claim that you trust in God to be the “caretaker of His creation”, you represent a divergent theology than my own. Last I checked, humans were given free will. In the Bible, “the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15), “The heavens are the Lords, but the earth belongs to the children of man” (Psalms 115:16). We have a God given responsibility to take care of the world we were given. The bible usually imbues us with responsibility, not absolve us from it.
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I was in seventh grade at the time of the first Iraq War. This was in the infancy of the slap bracelet phase. I cannot attest to the quality of NPR from that time period.
There were many predictions of an environment catastrophe as a result of the burning oil fields. They also told us that the rigs would be on fire for years and years and years. My teachers were in complete agreement. They added that by the time I was 25 all the rain forests would be gone, all the fish would be dead in the ocean and that global warming would have killed most of us. I think they might have been wrong on one or two of those points.
I also used to watch Saved by the Bell and Inside Edition just as religiously and you’re just making crap up. Also Bill O’Reilly was as big a douche back then as he is now.
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I am not a scientist (never even played one on t.v.), but I have many problems with the way this science is being handled. I think most people do. The second science became political, it ceased to be science. My biggest problem is the attempt to silence any debate. Any scientist knows that debate and pier review are essencial to the scientific method.
We know from the climate-gate scandal that some fudging of numbers were going on. We also know that they made a conserted effort to quiet any disenting voices. We know that the “scientist” refused to share their raw data for pier review, and that the got rid of data that did not agree with their conclusions. We also know that other scientists used the data they published to get their results, sometimes without looking at raw data. NASA I know has admitted that their temp. data is worthless. Combine this with over 1/3 of the temp stations checked have been shown to be located in such places and ways that the sata from them is unreliable at best, and that temps in some remote locations near the poles were “estimated”. Now we throw in the ice caps that are returning to normal size, and islands that are either staying the same or growing..not sinking from the rising waters. And how about those computer models which may not have taken into account such variables as El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, etc. They are basicly saying that that the temps are rising and since we cannot find another reason..it must be man. Even I know that this is flawed reasoning.
Lets get the politics out of science, lets get some honest open debate going and stop berating those who disagree. Lets get all raw data out in the open and see what happens. Untill then…I for one, am not willing to lose my way of life in order to “share the wealth” and spread a political agenda.
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Kathy,Please, please, please fact check what you are saying.
As a rule of thumb, anything that you can say that starts with “even I know…”, then probably the PhD physicists who have spent decades studying the stuff have thought of it as well. I have certainly found this to be the case. Ironically, in your list of “El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation…”, you named phenomena that were observed and named by the very people who you suggest are neglecting these variables. I’ve said it before on this thread and I’ll say it again. The models *are* taking this stuff into account (http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap3-1/final-report/). You are listening to false claims being made by ignoramuses, who love to suggest that climate scientists are missing obvious things. In short you are being fed lies, and you’re buying it.
Your claim about temperature data is likewise misinformed. Even the strongest skeptics in the field acknowledge that there has been a statistically significant temperature increase. The reliability of weather station data is a stupid argument made by people trying to confound the issue. First of all, the credibility of the weather stations has been dealt with thoroughly over the last 40 years. Many tests were conducted, where countless weather stations were included or excluded from the reconstructions on the basis of their reliability…with little change in the resulting trend (http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/menne-etal2010.pdf). You are also ignoring sea based measurements, ocean temperature, and countless satellite measurements. All of these data tell the same story. NASA has made no claims that their data are junk Please, try to find a source for that. It would be pretty huge if it were true.
Your understanding of the “climate-gate” emails is way off base. Please read any one of the many independent reviews that happened in the wake of “climate-gate” (for example http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf). There was no “fudging” of numbers, as you claim. The infamous “Nature Trick” was called a “Nature Trick” because is was published in Nature, one of the most circulated science periodicals. Not only is the raw data not hidden or ignored, it is all readily available in its entirety on the web. The emailers spoke about not wanting to included a paper in the IPCC, not because they didnn’t like the conclusions, but because they thought the science is bad. And the kicker is, the paper (Soon, Balliunis, et al) *was* included. The conclusion gleaned by most of the reviews was that the scientists were transparent in the peer literature but not open enough with the public. That was true a few years ago, but not now. All of the temp data is accessible now.
This claim about scientists stifling debate is garbage from people who can’t otherwise argue the science with good science. People don’t “debate” science like some sort of political forum. They present data and theory in peer reviewed journals. If you look at the history of peer reviewed literature over the last 30 years, there *has* been an intense debate among scientists. Any claim that there hasn’t been a debate is rubbish. Name any legit PhD climate scientists who is skeptical of AGW (like Lindsen or Chrisity), and I can show you countless of publications that are thoroughly discussed by the community. Particularly in the last 10 years, a lot of contentious points have been settled and there is a lot more agreement now than there was in the 90’s. There are still unanswered questions and doubts, but not on the level you are claiming.
Now to your legitimate concern: Climate science has BIG political and economic implications. The science is not perfect, nor are the scientists. The clouding of science by politics is something we need to be diligent about, all the more so these days. However, this diligence needs to be well informed and science literate, not based on the kinds of heresay and half truths that you seem keen to repeat. The science of climate change is not perfect, but it’s not junk. It’s compelling enough to convince a lot of scientists who care more about the science than the politics, and that’s saying something.
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