real science has no part in global warming

[ballz2wallz]

This is an interesting article which summarizes why I have problems with the whole man-made global warming issue.

An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change

When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.

The small print explains “very likely” as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it. Older readers may recall a press conference at Harwell in 1958 when Sir John Cockcroft, Britain’s top nuclear physicist, said he was 90% certain that his lads had achieved controlled nuclear fusion. It turned out that he was wrong. More positively, a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works.

Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers. And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported.

Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter’s billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages. The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adélie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean.

So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you’re at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it’s confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.

Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.

The Chinese population doubled then, while in Europe the Vikings and cathedral-builders prospered. Fascinating relics of earlier episodes come from the Swiss Alps, with the rediscovery in 2003 of a long-forgotten pass used intermittently whenever the world was warm.

What does the Intergovernmental Panel do with such emphatic evidence for an alternation of warm and cold periods, linked to solar activity and going on long before human industry was a possible factor? Less than nothing. The 2007 Summary for Policymakers boasts of cutting in half a very small contribution by the sun to climate change conceded in a 2001 report.

Disdain for the sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate. The sun’s brightness may change too little to account for the big swings in the climate. But more than 10 years have passed since Henrik Svensmark in Copenhagen first pointed out a much more powerful mechanism.

He saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun’s magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier.

The only trouble with Svensmark’s idea — apart from its being politically incorrect — was that meteorologists denied that cosmic rays could be involved in cloud formation. After long delays in scraping together the funds for an experiment, Svensmark and his small team at the Danish National Space Center hit the jackpot in the summer of 2005.

In a box of air in the basement, they were able to show that electrons set free by cosmic rays coming through the ceiling stitched together droplets of sulphuric acid and water. These are the building blocks for cloud condensation. But journal after journal declined to publish their report; the discovery finally appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society late last year.

Thanks to having written The Manic Sun, a book about Svensmark’s initial discovery published in 1997, I have been privileged to be on the inside track for reporting his struggles and successes since then. The outcome is a second book, The Chilling Stars, co-authored by the two of us and published next week by Icon books. We are not exaggerating, we believe, when we subtitle it “A new theory of climate change”.

Where does all that leave the impact of greenhouse gases? Their effects are likely to be a good deal less than advertised, but nobody can really say until the implications of the new theory of climate change are more fully worked out.

The reappraisal starts with Antarctica, where those contradictory temperature trends are directly predicted by Svensmark’s scenario, because the snow there is whiter than the cloud-tops. Meanwhile humility in face of Nature’s marvels seems more appropriate than arrogant assertions that we can forecast and even control a climate ruled by the sun and the stars.

Essentially, as I've been saying all along, the global warming freaks focus only on that which supports their agenda or theories, having too much disregard for the bigger picture.

[Scrum]

I can't seem to find where Mr. Calder recieved his degree in climatology from.

That's strange. You would think he would be an expert on the subject if you were to use him as a source.

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Essentially, as I've been saying all along, the global warming freaks focus only on that which supports their agenda or theories, having too much disregard for the bigger picture.

You think you arent doing the exact same thing?

A majority of scientists believe in this, but you hold up an article by an author who doesn't hold a degree in climatology as evidence that scientists are wrong.

pot, kettle, black?

[7960]

Originally Posted by Scrumtralecent

I can't seem to find where Mr. Calder recieved his degree in climatology from.

That's strange. You would think he would be an expert on the subject if you were to use him as a source.

I've posted more than one climatologist who agrees with that article but then you found another reason to discount them. So this time it's "he's not a climatologist" and last time it's "he's just one climatologist" and next time it's going to be "well they're not mainstream climatologists" ............ you know what you want to believe and you've found the scientists who say what you want to hear. That's exactly 180 degrees out from how science is supposed to work.

And btw, I can't seem to find any reference for Al Gore's degree in climatology. Can you link me to that?

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by 7960

I've posted more than one climatologist who agrees with that article but then you found another reason to discount them. So this time it's "he's not a climatologist" and last time it's "he's just one climatologist" and next time it's going to be "well they're not mainstream climatologists" ............ you know what you want to believe and you've found the scientists who say what you want to hear. That's exactly 180 degrees out from how science is supposed to work.

Like the guys you keep quoting from conservative think-tanks paid for by oil companies.

Sorry. There is no credibility there.

Lets see more than just a few scientists, who aren't on oil companies payroll, address the fallacy of global climate change.

I don't want global warming to be real. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Originally Posted by 7960

And btw, I can't seem to find any reference for Al Gore's degree in climatology. Can you link me to that?

I can't seem to find any reference to me quoting Gore or even talking about his movie. I have never seen it.

[Donkey®]

I am really trying to figure out why some people are so determined to say "OMG it isn't manmade!!!" I mean, what does it matter either way? There are some basic facts. We ARE polluting our environment in MAJOR ways. It DOES have an effect on US. What is so horrible about doing something to stop it?

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

I am really trying to figure out why some people are so determined to say "OMG it isn't manmade!!!" I mean, what does it matter either way? There are some basic facts. We ARE polluting our environment in MAJOR ways. It DOES have an effect on US. What is so horrible about doing something to stop it?

Because the people who are all about personal responsibility are very against Corporate responsibility.

Science is something that shouldn't get in the way of capitalism.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

I am really trying to figure out why some people are so determined to say "OMG it isn't manmade!!!" I mean, what does it matter either way? There are some basic facts. We ARE polluting our environment in MAJOR ways. It DOES have an effect on US. What is so horrible about doing something to stop it?

They hate people like Al Gore, and usually democrats in general, with a passion I'll never be able to describe

To admit to man-made global warming would be to say Al Gore and his fellow politicians were revolutionary thinkers ahead of their time back in the 1990s, and continued in to a movement that changed politics, raised american awareness and saved the world from disaster

They really would rather see Florida wiped off the map, plains turn to desert, 100 million refugees and a host of other disaster than ever admit to that kind of reality

It's the same logic why many people don't want to get out of Iraq, how could they possibly make the most liberal congressmen in Washington look like the smart ones and the ones who really knew what was best for America?

Don't look for reason in hatred

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

I am really trying to figure out why some people are so determined to say "OMG it isn't manmade!!!" I mean, what does it matter either way? There are some basic facts. We ARE polluting our environment in MAJOR ways. It DOES have an effect on US. What is so horrible about doing something to stop it?

Because politically speaking, people are doing anything they can to blame us, or even the US, for causing this. That can cause problems. I agree, we should do everything possible to be clean and respect the earth, as we are stewards of the earth, but this global warming catastrophe isn't just an attempt to be environmentally friendly. It's become a war-zone.

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by 7960

And btw, I can't seem to find any reference for Al Gore's degree in climatology. Can you link me to that?

Dammit, I was waiting to use that one!

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

They hate people like Al Gore, and usually democrats in general, with a passion I'll never be able to describe

Oh you can describe it easily. It's the same passion of hatred you have for conservatives

[thatguyoverthere]

I don't get it either. Scientists overwhelmingly agree that mankind is contributing to global warming. It's not just climatologists, there are other environmental indicators that all reenforce the same point.

It also seems to be common sense. If there's an apartment that for 100 years holds two tenants comfortably, and in one year SIX people start living there, why would you attempt to deny that the place got dirtier because there were more people there? Maybe the apartment naturally gets dirtier and cleaner on its own, but common sense tells me that it got dirtier because there were more people there producing more garbage.

A planet with over 6 billion people, with vehicles, factories, landfills ect. pumping pollutants into the air and water by the tons every day for decades... How on Earth can you possibly try and take the position that it has little or no effect on the environment?

An overwhelming majority of scientists agree that man is a significant contributor to global warming. Sure, they'll disagree about the degree and the details, but the basic conclusion from the facts are clear. Arguing that somehow these scientists are just oblivious and ignorant like those that once thought the Earth was flat doesn't cut it anymore. Personally, I'm tending toward trusting scientists at traditionally respected universities and other scientific institutions both public and private over talking heads and internet opinions. Sorry.

I feel a bit foolish even pretending that this is a subject that is still up for debate. I like to think of myself as keeping an open mind and I'm up for learning new facts, but I'm beginning to doubt the wisdom of continuing to discuss the concept that "real science has no part in global warming" as if it had the equal weight and validity of "man contributes to global warming."

It just doesn't.

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Because politically speaking, people are doing anything they can to blame us, or even the US, for causing this. That can cause problems. I agree, we should do everything possible to be clean and respect the earth, as we are stewards of the earth, but this global warming catastrophe isn't just an attempt to be environmentally friendly. It's become a war-zone.

Who is "us?" Humans? Yes...humans ARE to blame for polluting our own environments. Blame the US? Yes, we ARE historically the biggest polluter out there. Again, what does any of that matter? The basic instinct of most animals is not to shit where you eat. Not to shit where you sleep. Humans seem to have a problem comprehending this.

[nbiggershaft]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

This is an interesting article which summarizes why I have problems with the whole man-made global warming issue.

Essentially, as I've been saying all along, the global warming freaks focus only on that which supports their agenda or theories, having too much disregard for the bigger picture.

If I, someone with little knowledge in the area can already pick out something blatently wrong with the article then there is a problem. Antarctica is not cooling, The ice levels in many areas are thickening, but the preliminary reasoning for this is that increased moisture (one product of global warming) in the air has increased snowfalls over Antarctica. Overall the consensus is that their is no significant temperature change so far in Antarctica, except for the Antarctic Peninsula, which has had temperature rises that I beleive are greater than anywhere in the world.

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by nbiggershaft

If I, someone with little knowledge in the area can already pick out something blatently wrong with the article then there is a problem. Antarctica is not cooling, The ice levels in many areas are thickening, but the preliminary reasoning for this is that increased moisture (one product of global warming) in the air has increased snowfalls over Antarctica. Overall the consensus is that their is no significant temperature change so far in Antarctica, except for the Antarctic Peninsula, which has had temperature rises that I beleive are greater than anywhere in the world.

If you're going to dispute the sciencific claims in his article, you'll have to provide the scientific proof of such.

[thatguyoverthere]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Because politically speaking, people are doing anything they can to blame us, or even the US, for causing this. That can cause problems. I agree, we should do everything possible to be clean and respect the earth, as we are stewards of the earth, but this global warming catastrophe isn't just an attempt to be environmentally friendly. It's become a war-zone.

Who turned it political? What if the environmentalists weren't actually trying to destroy capitalism, but were actually concerned about the environment in with we live? Why do you rush to ascribe politcal motivations to the environmentalists?

Perhaps the big corporations that faced tougher environmental regulations decided to paint the environmentalists as the villians in order to protect their (big corporations) profits?

Who has more profits to protect: the environmentalists or big business?

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

Who is "us?" Humans? Yes...humans ARE to blame for polluting our own environments. Blame the US? Yes, we ARE historically the biggest polluter out there. Again, what does any of that matter? The basic instinct of most animals is not to shit where you eat. Not to shit where you sleep. Humans seem to have a problem comprehending this.

But we're not talking about pollution in general, we're talking about global warming

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by thatguyoverthere

Who turned it political?

Al Gore is one that comes to mind.

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

But we're not talking about pollution in general, we're talking about global warming

And global warming is being affected by????? Pollution. So stop avoiding...answer the questions.