Global warming

[BTGBullseye]

 

Discuss the global warming hoax here.

 

I have proof, but I need a little time to gather it, so discuss away while I'm gathering...

 

[MepsiPax187]

It's just another way of controlling the people through fear. Completely made up and even if it were true it would take 1000's of years for the earth to show any effect of it.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I think we just like to think that everything that happens in nature is our fault because that way we think we can do something about it. But disasters happen anyway, regardless of what we do.

[Rover]

You know what I find both amusing and disheartening about discussions about Climate change?

A lay person won't claim to be an expert on neurology because they read a few things on the internet, people will generally trust experts in this field. Same goes for most medical fields, engineering, physics, geology, law etc etc. People realize that experts have spent their lives specializing in a certain field and are more knowledgeable than themselves in these fields.

I'm not saying they're the final authority, there are no authorities in science, only experts.

 

But when it comes to climatology suddenly the experts are all idiots, fools, hacks, pawns in a global conspiracy.

And everyone who read something on the internet thinks they know better.

"Those silly climatologists, don't they realize it's the sun? Mars is warming too you know! Those martians and their SUV's"

I've heard this one a million times, often it's said very smugly. Without realizing TSI is one of the first things scientists looked at.

Just like this one.

"in the seventies scientists said there would be an ice age!" even though a review of peer reviewed climatology papers from that decade indicate only a very small number of papers hinted at global cooling, and the vast majority of papers suggested either no change or warming.

It is also often said that scientists are only coming to the conclusion that climate change is man made because they get grant money that way. Like grant money is some blank check which can be spent on hookers, blow and fast cars. I've been wondering why there were so many climatologists these days on MTV cribs. People don't realize scientists can make A LOT more money as industry lobbyists. And then there's a little fact that every scientist and every university would love the publicity and prestige of completely overturning the consensus in any given field. Not to mention it would save governments and industry a lot of money and trouble.

 

I will agree that greenpeace and Al Gore have exaggerated the dangers, in doing so they have done a great disservice to the science.

But they're not experts so people shouldn't give them a lot of credence anyway.

 

If all you have to go on is some kind of global conspiracy, your position really isn't as strong as you think.

 

I generally recommend Potholer54's series on the scientific debate surrounding climate change.

http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54#grid/user/A4F0994AFB057BB8

[Alyxx Thorne]

I think so far we all agree that we shouldn't take these so called "scientists" too seriously.

[Rover]

I think so far we all agree that we shouldn't take these so called "scientists" too seriously.

 

Why not?

I would like to hear an alternative way of gathering knowledge which is more reliable than science. Those so called "scientists" gave you the computer you're using, your cellphone, vaccines which kept you from dying as an infant. Put a man on the moon, filled your supermarket's shelves with food. The reason your life expectancy is higher than 45. Oh those silly scientists, always changing their minds based on new information, so silly.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I think you misunderstood. I meant the scientists behind the global warming stuff, not scientists in general.

[Rover]

I think you misunderstood. I meant the scientists behind the global warming stuff, not scientists in general.

 

Why? What makes a climatologist different from a chemist? or a biologist? Or a neurologist? Or a physicist?

[Alyxx Thorne]

Well, I assume they have some scientific data to point to, and maybe they are right, who knows, but I for one do not panic much about it. I live in Northern Norway. Storms and hurricanes are a regular occurence here.

[Rover]

Well, I assume they have some scientific data to point to, and maybe they are right, who knows, but I for one do not panic much about it. I live in Northern Norway. Storms and hurricanes are a regular occurence here.

 

The thing is, lay people like ourselves aren't scientists. When was the last time you read a peer reviewed climatology paper? I'm guessing you never have. You probably haven't studied this field much at all, yet you presumed these scientists shouldn't be taken too seriously. How can you make any judgement regarding to correctness of current climate change theory, without the knowledge necessary to make such a judgement? How can you presume you know everything there is to know about it?

 

This is the point I was trying to make.

Whenever science conflicts with people's ideology, suddenly lay people think they know better than the experts. But this never happens with other less controversial fields. People read a few things on the internet and think they're suddenly better informed than the entire scientific community. I wonder if BTG can present his case without using a conspiracy.

Or without copy/pasting a wall of text from some other website.

Edited May 24, 2011 by Guest (see edit history)

[Doom Shepherd]

I just blame them for acting like climatology is an exact science, and that all the questions about global warming were "settled." If they were, we wouldn't still be launching climate-measuring satellites to fill in the GAPING holes in our understanding of how the climate actually works.

 

Among the problems with global warming forecasting is that we've now been doing it long enough to see that the data now doesn't match the models we started with. Clearly, there's more study to be done.

 

The other thing that turns me off is some folks' massive hypocrisy. They want to force other people to change without making any real changes themselves.

 

Al Gore is a good example of this... HUGELY energy-inefficient mansion the guy lives in... Bush's Crawford ranch house was FAR more eco-friendly. So what does Gore do? Nothing... except that he buys some "carbon credits" to "offset" his energy use.

 

Buys them from a company he partly owns, and chairs. Little more than transferring money from one pocket to another.

[Rover]

Offtopic: Btw I'd like to invite BTGbullseye ,or anyone else, to visit the league of reason forums http://www.leagueofreason.co.uk/ where you can debate evolution, climate change, atheism, religion etc to your hearts desire at a place which has a higher concentration of individuals with relevant knowledge to these topics and love to argue about them.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Offtopic: Btw I'd like to invite BTGbullseye ,or anyone else, to visit the league of reason forums http://www.leagueofreason.co.uk/ where you can debate evolution, climate change, atheism, religion etc to your hearts desire at a place which has a higher concentration of individuals with relevant knowledge to these topics and love to argue about them.

Maybe you could invite some people from that forum over here? After all, we might be opening a debate subforum soon. And I think you are right, being outspoken about something you don't have a clue about is a bad idea. But the fact is I don't really know what is fact and what is exaggarated. It's kinda hard to divide those two because sometimes facts can be exaggarated and made to seem bigger than they are, and I tend to ignore people like that because I don't want to go around worrying about the Earth boiling up in the future.

[danielsangeo]

hoax

 

You use that word.

I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Ross Scott]

Since this is pretty huge issue, (or not depending on how substantiated it is), I can move this to the "Civilization Problems" section if people like. As for global warming, I saw An Inconvenient Truth, but I really haven't properly researched this one way or another, so I can't claim to know what I'm talking about. If someone who's more knowledgeable on this wants to disprove or confirm some of what I think I know, here are some things I've heard or have reasoned:

 

-Most evidence I've seen shows a significant increase in global temperate over the past 100+ years or so compared to the rest of climate records we've been able to deduce through geologic evidence.

 

-It's naive to assume we're having NO impact on the atmosphere. Just from burning fossil fuels we're releasing millions of years of stored carbon back into the air. Plants can filter out a certain amount of that, but my guess is the increase currently exceeds the ability to counteract the increased CO2 levels.

 

-The PERMAFROST is melting. To me, that's a pretty big sign things are getting warmer overall.

 

-I had a geology teacher in college who said that without human impact, in the traditional pattern (as in LONGASS climate change) we would likely be entering another ice age right now, but due to emissions things are more temperate than they would be otherwise.

[Axeldeath]

Well over here we have a huge hole in the sky sitting above us, freezing winters and extreme summer heat. I'd say global warming is affecting me.

[danielsangeo]

freezing winters...global warming

 

Many will see these two phrases and their brain will be unable to connect the two. "How can the globe be warming if it's cold in the winter?"

[Rover]

freezing winters...global warming

 

Many will see these two phrases and their brain will be unable to connect the two. "How can the globe be warming if it's cold in the winter?"

 

It's a common known fact that if it's snowing where you live, it means climate change is bogus.

[danielsangeo]

I haven't heard the "proof" that "global warming is a hoax" yet, but I feel that it's going to be well-debunked things such as the out-of-context CRU e-mails...

[Rover]

I haven't heard the "proof" that "global warming is a hoax" yet, but I feel that it's going to be well-debunked things such as the out-of-context CRU e-mails...

 

Definitely the CRU e-mails, "Hide the decline" sounds so nice and conspiratorial.

I suggest we play global warming "skeptic" bingo http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2005/04/gwsbingo.php