Global Warming. Really?!?

Bludger · Post by **Bludger** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:01 am

Check out this article. I don't have the time to go and look at the actual journal article from CERN (since I am far from retired) but I think it may be of interest to you all:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/james ... nge-shock/

ktn · Post by **ktn** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 7:45 pm

@Riggerjack: I am curious, are you a Tea Partyite by any chance:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailycha ... ate-change

dragoncar · Post by **dragoncar** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 7:59 pm

ktn, I understand they prefer the term "Tea Bagger

jennypenny · Post by **jennypenny** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 8:00 pm

I thought it was "two bagger"

Dragline · Post by **Dragline** » Thu Sep 15, 2011 8:26 pm

Just popped up on Twitter feed -- Goes with @ktn: http://www.pollwatchdaily.com/2011/09/1 ... -movement/
More of an anti-science movement than anything else.

ktn · Post by **ktn** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 9:29 pm

@riggerjack: It looks like you lost one: http://news.yahoo.com/skeptic-finds-now ... 16605.html
Just pulling your warming legs is all.

AnotherAustinite · Post by **AnotherAustinite** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 4:56 am

I'm disappointed to see ad hominems and appeals to authority arguments on these forums. The poster raised some points and I see several posts that basically insult him for his alleged political affiliation rather than the substance of his statements, and then essentially say "everyone knows global warming is the truth, scienticians say so."
More skeptics' perspective:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... eague.html
The gist of it is that the well-publicized warming trend stopped several years ago, and this researcher was caught fudging the data to support the generally accepted theory. This is the second such incident, the other one being the famous climategate.

george · Post by **george** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:49 am

I personally have not studied climate change, I just know that every scientist I have known over the years who started off sceptical and examined the data etc has become a supporter of behaviour change.
I wonder why would we spend our time questioning climate change, why not the fact that there are starving people in this world despite an abundance of food,
Perhaps it's because if we believe in climate change then we need to change the way we live our lives and actually do something, while we're not being asked to change our behaviour to help the starving.
Perhaps if we were being asked to become vegetarians sceptics would question the existence of the hungry, after all the images on the tv could be fake.

george · Post by **george** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:50 am

just to add, I know the reason why people go hungry is often due to access, I'm just using it as an example... ie if....

Post by **jacob** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 7:47 am

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/ ... erts-foot/
[scroll down to the discussion of data points]
As far as I see it, the scientific discussion between laymen in terms of climate science is about as relevant as the scientific discussion between laymen regarding evolution, that is, totally irrelevant except for a small minority who get way more attention than they should.
I think the idea of a scientific conspiracy for grant money is laughable to say the least. If you have the brain power to do this work and you're in it for the money, it wouldn't really make sense to spend 15 years as graduate student/postdoc/nontenured professor working at half the industry compensation for a shot at ... a grant-based salary which is still below the salary paid for making widgets in industry.
It's far more likely, given that the public skepticism seems prevalent in countries that are either coal exporters or oil importers (namely, the US, the UK, and Australia) that certain companies sponsor certain individuals who are given an ear by an unqualified media who prioritize controversy over critical analysis and that the conspiracy is the other way around.
For a layman, the choice is pretty easy. 99%+ of all scientists agree on this issue. I'll go with what they say. It's not an appeal to authority to quote published science. This is, in principle, an appeal to science.
Climate science is relevant insofar it discusses where hardiness zones are going to lie in 2025 or 2050. How many storms or droughts, potential plant diseases, etc. one can expect for a given area. I got my savings on the line in terms of where I buy a home to live and how much effort I put into the land there. So my money is on the science.

Post by **jacob** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 8:02 am

Some further comments ...
The problem with skepticism is that
1) There really is a strong correlation between political affiliation and skepticism.
2) Skeptical points have been refuted countless of times (enough for people to make lists of common skeptics' claims complete with rebuttals).
You can probably see why rebutting such claims "manually" gets tiring after a while. The issue is that the skeptic position isn't so much based on ab initio reason but is more of an attempt at post hoc ergo propter hoc. In other words, the conclusion is given and the skeptic is just out looking for "facts" that can support this conclusion. Unfortunately, it's pretty easy to find a journalist or some think tank with such a "fact".
The main problem is that this whole issue is a political debate masquerading as a scientific debate essentially because politicians lack the balls to make hard choices.

jennypenny · Post by **jennypenny** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 5:31 pm

I am surrounded by friends and family who have been very skeptical. I think for many of them, the problem has not been the message but the messenger. When Al Gore made himself the public face of global warming (no matter how well-intentioned he was) he politicized the debate. Right or wrong, he was seen as someone with an ax to grind after the 2000 election, so going after an industry that was dominated by Bush's cronies fueled the distrust. And politics aside, having someone with extraordinary personal means fly from place to place, and black-tie event to black-tie event, telling ordinary folks that they should cut back on energy use and spend more of their money on recycled and earth-friendly products comes across as disingenuous.
Now that Gore has faded to the background a lot of the people I know are much more willing to hear the scientific arguments. It's too bad the issue was derailed for almost a decade.

Chad · Post by **Chad** » Tue Nov 01, 2011 12:55 pm

One of the most well known and prestigous of the climate change skeptics has now personally confirmed that climate change is real. This guy was actually funded by the Koch borthers (evil incarnate), so it's not like he had an incentive to change his view.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 27348.html
Facts trump belief. Wish this happened more often.