Some Interesting Articles On Global Warming

[HandyNZL 1]

I'm with the Mayans on all this....the earth is on a tilt, right? hence the seasons (if it wasn't tilted we'd have the same weather year round)...like a coin or spinning top this axis revolves about a point strangely enough at the south pole (near enough, but we're not talking true north vs magnetic north here), and as it spins the op end of the axis spins in a wider circle. Currently the north pole is getting towards the closest it will ever get to the sun (not including the sun going super nova on us), and will reach it's closest point in another 3 and a bit years in May 2012. The good ol' astronomers can give you the exact date even. After that, the north pole will begin moving away from the sun again, and sometime in 4512, it will be at the furthest point away from the sun, and start moving back towards it.....

The Mayans worked all this out with their clock...a clock intrinsically more technical and accurate than our own - they didn't need a leap year every fourth year - and some very smart people that watch the stars can confirm all this.

So, if global warming really exists, it is because of several factors, and not just man.

1) The earth is relatively closer to the sun than it has been in almost 5000 years

2) We spew carbon emmissions, that theoretically block out the sun, but create a greenhouse, thus warming us up

We can't do anything about #1, and even if we did very little about #2, it will solve itself to a large degree when oil is either depleted or too expensive in about 20-30years.

So instead of getting all up in arms, we should be concentrating on low carbon emission power sources, recycling as much waste as possible to reduce the demand on world resources, and not to listen to all the GW end-is-nigh freaks that say we must buy hybrids, which as we all know are more environmentally unfriendly (not to mention crap) than a conventional diesel car, nor to buy those power saving light bulbs that don't actually last 30-years (they haven't even been around that long so where's the proof for a starter), but they can cause blindness, burns, even death, if one breaks in your hand, plus you should not place them in landfill because of all the poisons inside of them. All for 3c less a day on your power bill. If you want to save money on power, use LED lights instead.

[maure 1]

Well, I agree with you that scientists sometimes get carried away, for various complicated reasons, but you're not seriously suggesting that most scientists don't genuinely believe in global warming, they're just pretending to?! Andr

[Piotr 0]

uuuuuuuuu, my FAVORITE topic!

As a geologist, I look at the Earth history from a perspective of millions of years (anything less than a 100,000 m.y. is temporary and insignificant). I love the ClimateAudit.com, becuase they force the GW proponents on a defensive and expose politically motivated "science" (like NASA adjustments).

Here are a few thoughts (not necessarily connected to each other):

1. Most news proposing a potential "proof" of GW gets the headlines, while the retractions are not published or get a paragraph on page 32 (examples - the hottest decade of the last 100 years was the 1930's, the 'hockey stick" diagram showing increase in CO2 vs global temp is statistically dead wrong, the increase in CO2 in atmosphere usually FOLLOWS GW, not causes it, Katrina was only Category 3 when it hit New Orleans, etc, etc).
   
2. We are still (temperature-wise) on a rebound after the latest ice age. We are nowhere NEAR the temperatures from before the Ice Age.
   
3. Earth is either cooling, or warming - there never is an "equilibrium." Just look at the temperatures of the last million years.
   
4. If we are so powerful that we could cuase warming of the ENTIRE PLANET, should we worry that things like Kyoto protocol could cause a new Ice Age???
   
5. When on August 21, 2008, we can accurately predict weather in Paris for August 15, 2009, I may start looking at the climate models predicting GW. When on this topic, there is roughly the same number of models predicting global cooling, as there is predicting GW, but only the later ones are cited by the IPCC and the press. WHY???
   
6. When you start questioning the basis of the whole GW science, the proponents, instead of trying to defend it, resort to the standard "well, so you thing we should just keep polluting the Earth?" or, my favorite of late " so, you are a Bush supporter?" (???).
   
7. The Earth climate works on cycles ranging from 11-year Sun Spot cycles to a 140,000 orbit cycles ( I also heard of 650,000 cycle, but don't remember what it is off hand). Insisting that GW is caused by the "green house gasses" emissions of the last 50 years is assinine.
   
8. If the "majority of scientists" (aka "consensus") claims my lawn mower causes GW, what is the actual number (%) of these scientists??? I challenge you to find that out. You will not be able to do so. Al Gore used that phrase when citing a study by a historian (?) of 965 climate articles published between 1998 and 2003 (presumeably none disagreed with GW). On the other hand, the latest study (using the same methods) of over 500 articles published 2003 -2007 found that 55% of scientists either disagreed or claimed there is not enough data to support the GW hypothesis.
   
9. Yes, I did know that the GW was invented by Margaret Thatcher to support her push for nuclear power. At that time it was contradictory to a "consensus" among scientists regarding the fact that pollution may/will cause global cooling and ice age.
   
10. Can we finally agree if the GW is responsible by higher or lower number of hurricanes? At the present, the GW proponents seem to claim both.
    
11. Why, again, is GW bad? The last one (Holocene Optimum, or the Middle Ages warming - with average temperatures higher than today) "caused" two crop harvest cycles per year that resulted in so much food, people had time for art and science and that calamity called rennaissance happened. Are we to believe that cold climate that almost killed humanity off (aka Ice Age) is better???
    
12. Don't get me started - I can go on like this for hours...
    
13. No geologist that I know of can seriously propose any data supporting the idea that the recent (10-20 years?) warm trend is nothing more but a blip in geological scale. In fact, the opinions of geologists are pretty much divided along the ideological lines, with the GW enthusists rarely citing any geological record (which cleraly shows GW is a bunch of politically motivated hysteria).
    

So, please show me an example of a scientific study supporting GW, and I'll show you resent study with results refuting it. With the scientists divided 50/50 on the issue, the GW is hardly anything more than an interesting hypothesis, and hardly a "fact" as Al Gore pontificates during his $250,000 a pop lectures...

[maure 1]

So you are a geologist, eh? Fun stuff.

Welcome to the latest non-debate...

BTW, have you seeing my sprinkler lady?

[Piotr 0]

So you are a geologist, eh? Fun stuff.

Welcome to the latest non-debate...

BTW, have you seeing my sprinkler lady?

errrr.... say what?

[maure 1]

[/b]

errrr.... say what?

Here:

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1825469

[HandyNZL 1]

if that's what get's your rocks off, maureen, you're a sad, sad, sad, little girl

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

I want to know what this Global Wanking stuff is all about anyway?

And just how does all that wanking raise the temperatures so much? Friction alone does not account for the 0.5C rise.

There certainly appears to be be more w#nkers around than 30 years ago

[Rainmaster 7]

Here:

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1825469

[Max Mosley 2]

With the scientists divided 50/50 on the issue, the GW is hardly anything more than an interesting hypothesis, and hardly a "fact" as Al Gore pontificates during his $250,000 a pop lectures...

It's nice to learn that you are a geologist. Nevertheless you are as wrong as Maure is to say that scientists are divided 50/50 on this. The vast majority of scientists accept the basic tenets of GW. Of course there is fierce debate on the details, like what temperature rise is most likely, but the gist of the theory is accepted by the vast majority. The list of scientific organisations to have endorsed GW is enormous. Off the top of my head the only vaguely scientific organisation I know to reject the theory is Exxon Mobil.

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

It's nice to learn that you are a geologist. Nevertheless you are as wrong as Maure is to say that scientists are divided 50/50 on this. The vast majority of scientists accept the basic tenets of GW. Of course there is fierce debate on the details, like what temperature rise is most likely, but the gist of the theory is accepted by the vast majority. The list of scientific organisations to have endorsed GW is enormous. Off the top of my head the only vaguely scientific organisation I know to reject the theory is Exxon Mobil.

More does not necessarily mean better. If majority decisions were right then the theory of evolution would never have got off the ground, Gallileo would not have progressed astronomy and Newton's laws would have been buried.

I also take issue with you that the majority accept the gist. There are many scientists, experts in their fields who disagree with it.

Quoting organisations such as Exxon is also meaningless as commercial organisations are largely only driven by profit motives, so just because they back it does not mean it is "right", it might just suit their plans (e.g. HP back GW, largely as it is developing a suite of low energy servers, etc....)

[Max Mosley 2]

More does not necessarily mean better. If majority decisions were right then the theory of evolution would never have got off the ground, Gallileo would not have progressed astronomy and Newton's laws would have been buried.

Tbh I think a majority of scientists accepted those theories relatively quickly. Nevertheless I agree with you that the majority is not always right. Personally I am more skeptical than the average scientist about GW, and I tend to be in a minority of one on many issues around here.

But if the vast majority of scientists do accept the basic tenets of GW, it clearly poses serious problems for anyone trying to argue that GW is some huge conspiracy. I would say it makes such conspiracies untenable.

I also take issue with you that the majority accept the gist. There are many scientists, experts in their fields who disagree with it.

Of course there are. But the vast majority do accept it. Did you read the link? There is never perfect consensus on anything: about 5-10% of scientists in some American states don't believe in evolution, for example.

Quoting organisations such as Exxon is also meaningless as commercial organisations are largely only driven by profit motives, so just because they back it does not mean it is "right", it might just suit their plans (e.g. HP back GW, largely as it is developing a suite of low energy servers, etc....)

That was a joke! Of course such organisations are motivated by profit.....which is no doubt why Exxon Mobil argues against it.

[spitfire 0]

[quote name='Piotr' post='262794' date='Aug 20 2008, 11:11 PM']uuuuuuuuu, my FAVORITE topic!
As a geologist, I look at the Earth history from a perspective of millions of years (anything less than a 100,000 m.y. is temporary and insignificant). I love the ClimateAudit.com, becuase they force the GW proponents on a defensive and expose politically motivated "science" (like NASA adjustments).
Here are a few thoughts (not necessarily connected to each other):
[list=1]
[*]Most news proposing a potential "proof" of GW gets the headlines, while the retractions are not published or get a paragraph on page 32 (examples - the hottest decade of the last 100 years was the 1930's, the 'hockey stick" diagram showing increase in CO2 vs global temp is statistically dead wrong, the increase in CO2 in atmosphere usually FOLLOWS GW, not causes it, Katrina was only Category 3 when it hit New Orleans, etc, etc).
[*]We are still (temperature-wise) on a rebound after the latest ice age. We are nowhere NEAR the temperatures from before the Ice Age.
[*]Earth is either cooling, or warming - there never is an "equilibrium." Just look at the temperatures of the last million years.
[*]If we are so powerful that we could cuase warming of the ENTIRE PLANET, should we worry that things like Kyoto protocol could cause a new Ice Age???
[*]When on August 21, 2008, we can accurately predict weather in Paris for August 15, 2009, I may start looking at the climate models predicting GW. When on this topic, there is roughly the same number of models predicting global cooling, as there is predicting GW, but only the later ones are cited by the IPCC and the press. WHY???
[*]When you start questioning the basis of the whole GW science, the proponents, instead of trying to defend it, resort to the standard "well, so you thing we should just keep polluting the Earth?" or, my favorite of late " so, you are a Bush supporter?" (???).
[*]The Earth climate works on cycles ranging from 11-year Sun Spot cycles to a 140,000 orbit cycles ( I also heard of 650,000 cycle, but don't remember what it is off hand). Insisting that GW is caused by the "green house gasses" emissions of the last 50 years is assinine.
[*]If the "majority of scientists" (aka "consensus") claims my lawn mower causes GW, what is the actual number (%) of these scientists??? I challenge you to find that out. You will not be able to do so. Al Gore used that phrase when citing a study by a historian (?) of 965 climate articles published between 1998 and 2003 (presumeably none disagreed with GW). On the other hand, the latest study (using the same methods) of over 500 articles published 2003 -2007 found that 55% of scientists either disagreed or claimed there is not enough data to support the GW hypothesis.
[*]Yes, I did know that the GW was invented by Margaret Thatcher to support her push for nuclear power. At that time it was contradictory to a "consensus" among scientists regarding the fact that pollution may/will cause global cooling and ice age.
[*]Can we finally agree if the GW is responsible by higher or lower number of hurricanes? At the present, the GW proponents seem to claim both.
[*]Why, again, is GW bad? The last one (Holocene Optimum, or the Middle Ages warming - with average temperatures higher than today) "caused" two crop harvest cycles per year that resulted in so much food, people had time for art and science and that calamity called rennaissance happened. Are we to believe that cold climate that almost killed humanity off (aka Ice Age) is better???
[*]Don't get me started - I can go on like this for hours...
[*]No geologist that I know of can seriously propose any data supporting the idea that the recent (10-20 years?) warm trend is nothing more but a blip in geological scale. In fact, the opinions of geologists are pretty much divided along the ideological lines, with the GW enthusists rarely citing any geological record (which cleraly shows GW is a bunch of politically motivated hysteria).
[/list]So, please show me an example of a scientific study supporting GW, and I'll show you resent study with results refuting it. With the scientists divided 50/50 on the issue, the GW is hardly anything more than an interesting hypothesis, and hardly a "fact" as Al Gore pontificates during his $250,000 a pop lectures...[/quote]


I have worked for a geological survey for the past 26 years, (not as a geologist but as a mere technician, I bow to your greater and "degreed" education) and everything you have said is pretty much echoed by all the old geologists I have worked with. there are few exceptions but [i]most[/i] will say that climate change is completely normal for the planet regardless of human activity. the young geologists have about a 50/50 split in their opinions on the subject.

Regarding co2 levels and ice cores, increases in co2 levels do correlate with temp increases observed in ice cores, however the co2 increase occurs after the temps increase and not the other way around. that is a pretty inconvenient fact for those who are falsely claiming that co2 causes temp increase.

Additionally for the past 5 years I have sat on the board of a university. If an associate professor wishes to advance their career or attain tenure they need to publish in their field of

[Oli 1]

I have worked for a geological survey for the past 26 years, (not as a geologist but as a mere technician, I bow to your greater and "degreed" education) and everything you have said is pretty much echoed by all the old geologists I have worked with. there are few exceptions but most will say that climate change is completely normal for the planet regardless of human activity. the young geologists have about a 50/50 split in their opinions on the subject.

It is normal. However the planet has been warming in the last hundred years faster than at any time in the previous 10000.

Regarding co2 levels and ice cores, increases in co2 levels do correlate with temp increases observed in ice cores, however the co2 increase occurs after the temps increase and not the other way around. that is a pretty inconvenient fact for those who are falsely claiming that co2 causes temp increase.

Not true- this was explained about 5 years ago in a very long and boring Japanese paper which I won't go into. A precis of the science is here:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm

This discovery, along with the debunking of the myth about satellites failing to measure an increase in global warming:

http://www.livescience.com/environment/050...al_warming.html

was what turned the argument over global warming from an even debate to a consensus. And make no mistake- it is a consensus, whatever you may read. You may have your conspiracies that the government has "got to" all the scientists, but there's no denying that every major scientific body of any credibility accepts that man's activities have contributed to an unusually high rise in Global Temperature in the last 100 years.

Unfortunately the issue has been muddied a little with claims like "Extreme Weather Phenomena are caused by Global Warming". Most scientists would reply "we don't know" when asked about that one, but GW skeptics should note that it's a completely different issue on which there is little or no consensus.

There is so much more to say, but the subject is too huge. One thing I know for sure is that relying on climate change/global warming theory or whatever you wish to call it - as a way to go about making public policy decisions is stupid!

So is burying your head in the sand and hoping it all goes away.

Nevertheless, I'm not one of the doom-mongers who believe that this will be the end of the world. I think it's a significant problem, but I think not an insoluble one.

[Oli 1]

uuuuuuuuu, my FAVORITE topic!

As a geologist, I look at the Earth history from a perspective of millions of years (anything less than a 100,000 m.y. is temporary and insignificant). I love the ClimateAudit.com, becuase they force the GW proponents on a defensive and expose politically motivated "science" (like NASA adjustments).

Here are a few thoughts (not necessarily connected to each other):

1. Most news proposing a potential "proof" of GW gets the headlines, while the retractions are not published or get a paragraph on page 32 (examples - the hottest decade of the last 100 years was the 1930's, the 'hockey stick" diagram showing increase in CO2 vs global temp is statistically dead wrong, the increase in CO2 in atmosphere usually FOLLOWS GW, not causes it, Katrina was only Category 3 when it hit New Orleans, etc, etc).
   
2. We are still (temperature-wise) on a rebound after the latest ice age. We are nowhere NEAR the temperatures from before the Ice Age.
   
3. Earth is either cooling, or warming - there never is an "equilibrium." Just look at the temperatures of the last million years.
   
4. If we are so powerful that we could cuase warming of the ENTIRE PLANET, should we worry that things like Kyoto protocol could cause a new Ice Age???
   
5. When on August 21, 2008, we can accurately predict weather in Paris for August 15, 2009, I may start looking at the climate models predicting GW. When on this topic, there is roughly the same number of models predicting global cooling, as there is predicting GW, but only the later ones are cited by the IPCC and the press. WHY???
   
6. When you start questioning the basis of the whole GW science, the proponents, instead of trying to defend it, resort to the standard "well, so you thing we should just keep polluting the Earth?" or, my favorite of late " so, you are a Bush supporter?" (???).
   
7. The Earth climate works on cycles ranging from 11-year Sun Spot cycles to a 140,000 orbit cycles ( I also heard of 650,000 cycle, but don't remember what it is off hand). Insisting that GW is caused by the "green house gasses" emissions of the last 50 years is assinine.
   
8. If the "majority of scientists" (aka "consensus") claims my lawn mower causes GW, what is the actual number (%) of these scientists??? I challenge you to find that out. You will not be able to do so. Al Gore used that phrase when citing a study by a historian (?) of 965 climate articles published between 1998 and 2003 (presumeably none disagreed with GW). On the other hand, the latest study (using the same methods) of over 500 articles published 2003 -2007 found that 55% of scientists either disagreed or claimed there is not enough data to support the GW hypothesis.
   
9. Yes, I did know that the GW was invented by Margaret Thatcher to support her push for nuclear power. At that time it was contradictory to a "consensus" among scientists regarding the fact that pollution may/will cause global cooling and ice age.
   
10. Can we finally agree if the GW is responsible by higher or lower number of hurricanes? At the present, the GW proponents seem to claim both.
    
11. Why, again, is GW bad? The last one (Holocene Optimum, or the Middle Ages warming - with average temperatures higher than today) "caused" two crop harvest cycles per year that resulted in so much food, people had time for art and science and that calamity called rennaissance happened. Are we to believe that cold climate that almost killed humanity off (aka Ice Age) is better???
    
12. Don't get me started - I can go on like this for hours...
    
13. No geologist that I know of can seriously propose any data supporting the idea that the recent (10-20 years?) warm trend is nothing more but a blip in geological scale. In fact, the opinions of geologists are pretty much divided along the ideological lines, with the GW enthusists rarely citing any geological record (which cleraly shows GW is a bunch of politically motivated hysteria).
    

So, please show me an example of a scientific study supporting GW, and I'll show you resent study with results refuting it. With the scientists divided 50/50 on the issue, the GW is hardly anything more than an interesting hypothesis, and hardly a "fact" as Al Gore pontificates during his $250,000 a pop lectures...

Would you like me to go through this point by point? Everything you have just said is either wildly incorrect or irrelevant, but I don't want to type for hours unless you want to hear it. Not being confrontational- just lazy.

[maure 1]

if that's what get's your rocks off, maureen, you're a sad, sad, sad, little girl

Well, well, the kiwi that does not think Maori can write dictionaries (even of their own language) summons the courage to speak to me...

[Quiet One 15]

Would you like me to go through this point by point? Everything you have just said is either wildly incorrect or irrelevant, but I don't want to type for hours unless you want to hear it. Not being confrontational- just lazy.

Your wisdom is refreshing, Oli. You should write more often

[Max Mosley 2]

Nevertheless, I'm not one of the doom-mongers who believe that this will be the end of the world. I think it's a significant problem, but I think not an insoluble one.

Yup. I agree with all your posts here almost completely.

[maure 1]

It's nice to learn that you are a geologist. Nevertheless you are as wrong as Maure is to say that scientists are divided 50/50 on this. The vast majority of scientists accept the basic tenets of GW. Of course there is fierce debate on the details, like what temperature rise is most likely, but the gist of the theory is accepted by the vast majority. The list of scientific organisations to have endorsed GW is enormous. Off the top of my head the only vaguely scientific organisation I know to reject the theory is Exxon Mobil.

I've never said 50/50. I couldn't. The real situation is more like 5/2/6/4/3/1/....

But what I've said is that I know that such a thing as "most" or "vast majority of" scientist is ignoramous non-sense.

There are always trends in academic fields. No question there. But when politics intrude, things go belly up. Why? Survival.

The examples are many. When politics got into linguistics, for example, by the hand of Chomsky, linguistist were forced to pay lip service to the Generatives if they wanted to get a job, or tenure, or a grant, or simply be published. The fact that generative linguistics is fundamentally worthless in, precisesly, linguistics did nothing to prevent its domination of the field for decades. Nowadays, it is quietly being displaced and the violent chomskian's proponents of the past having gotten their careers taken care of. No one remembers they've contributed nothing, NOTHING, and that they had in fact delayed the evolution of the field in unmeasurable ways.

As I said, the examples are many in the sciences and the humanities. The "fat" scare, smoking, feminism. Basically, everywhere were there is no debate and where all the data always tells you the same thing, namely, simple answers for complex questions... the opiate manna of the masses. I suppose that, for the layman, it is impossible to tell what is what. But for those of us that _are_ scientists, well, it is much harder to sell us rat for rabbit.

Ultimately, your only argument is also the only argument the GW political campaign offers, namely, we bully you into agreement by telling you that everyone agrees with us. Hilarious. As the sprinkler lady (that the dim-witted kiwi apparently identifies with), you care nothing about the actual details that Piotr offered and, instead, seek refuge on mobs... that, I know for a fact, are not there to begin with.

[Max Mosley 2]

I've never said 50/50. I couldn't. The real situation is more like 5/2/6/4/3/1/....

But what I've said is that I know that such a thing as "most" or "vast majority of" scientist is ignoramous non-sense.

There are always trends in academic fields. No question there. But when politics intrude, things go belly up. Why? Survival.

The examples are many. When politics got into linguistics, for example, by the hand of Chomsky, linguistist were forced to pay lip service to the Generatives if they wanted to get a job, or tenure, or a grant, or simply be published. The fact that generative linguistics is fundamentally worthless in, precisesly, linguistics did nothing to prevent its domination of the field for decades. Nowadays, it is quietly being displaced and the violent chomskian's proponents of the past having gotten their careers taken care of. No one remembers they've contributed nothing, NOTHING, and that they had in fact delayed the evolution of the field in unmeasurable ways.

As I said, the examples are many in the sciences and the humanities. The "fat" scare, smoking, feminism. Basically, everywhere were there is no debate and where all the data always tells you the same thing, namely, simple answers for complex questions... the opiate manna of the masses. I suppose that, for the layman, it is impossible to tell what is what. But for those of us that _are_ scientists, well, it is much harder to sell us rat for rabbit.

Ultimately, your only argument is also the only argument the GW political campaign offers, namely, we bully you into agreement by telling you that everyone agrees with us. Hilarious. As the sprinkler lady (that the dim-witted kiwi apparently identifies with), you care nothing about the actual details that Piotr offered and, instead, seek refuge on mobs... that, I know for a fact, are not there to begin with.

My talk about the scientific consensus is not to prove GW true. To start with, I simply propose that it makes your talk of conspiracies orchestrated by politicians highly unlikely. I don't deny that there are incentives for scientists to relate their work to GW and that biases are introduced that way. Nevertheless, the vast majority of scientists do genuinely believe in GW. They are not 'prostituting' themselves, as you suggest. In my experience, it is the exact opposite: usually it's the scientists who are urging the politicians to do more to reduce emissions etc.

I'm not trying to bully anyone. If you have good scientific arguments feel free to present them. Like Oli, I think I can refute everything Piotr said, and if you consider that post 'the actual details' of GW then I suspect you are more of a 'layman' in this area than you imply.

Finally, I'm far more interested in your views on feminism. Do elaborate when you have time.

[Piotr 0]

It's nice to learn that you are a geologist. Nevertheless you are as wrong as Maure is to say that scientists are divided 50/50 on this. The vast majority of scientists accept the basic tenets of GW. Of course there is fierce debate on the details, like what temperature rise is most likely, but the gist of the theory is accepted by the vast majority. The list of scientific organisations to have endorsed GW is enormous. Off the top of my head the only vaguely scientific organisation I know to reject the theory is Exxon Mobil.

Great - name the percentage of this "Vast Majority" of the scientists and support the given number with specific data (data given during a speech by Al Gore does not count). Oh, BTW, the organisations that "endorse it" (interesting term - as in "endorsing product" - similar marketing practices too) don't have the memebership vote on such endorsement, so it becomes de facto an expression of opinion of a few scientists who were elected to the Board of Directors or Trustees. MY number comes from the scientific study conducted by scientists. Again, please substantiate your statement.

Also, be careful to cite the IPCC study. Although they claim "4,000 scientists" participated in the study, only about 650 had input into the actual report and NONE had anything to do with the "summary" of it that was prepared for the media (that's what you probably heard or of or even read) by POLITICAL APPOINTEES who had nothing to do with science.

McIntre addressed it in his Climateaudit.com. To this day he is trying to understand a peer review process of the IPCC study and is being stonewalled all the way. On top of that he shows how the overall tone of the original document was changed to, in the end, practically call Global Warming a "proven fact." For instance (I'm paraphrasing) a statement "could be a result of" was changed to "is likely a result" to "is most likely a result" to "is a result" in the final version of the document. And so on.

Michael Asher August 29, 2007 11:07 AMIn 2004, history professor Naomi Oreskes performed a survey of research papers on climate change. Examining peer-reviewed papers published on the ISI Web of Science database from 1993 to 2003, she found a majority supported the "consensus view," defined as humans were having at least some effect on global climate change. Oreskes' work has been repeatedly cited, but as some of its data is now nearly 15 years old, its conclusions are becoming somewhat dated.

Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently updated this research. Using the same database and search terms as Oreskes, he examined all papers published from 2004 to February 2007. The results have been submitted to the journal Energy and Environment, of which DailyTech has obtained a pre-publication copy. The figures are surprising.

Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."

The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of consensus here. Not only does it not require supporting that man is the "primary" cause of warming, but it doesn't require any belief or support for "catastrophic" global warming. In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.

These changing viewpoints represent the advances in climate science over the past decade. While today we are even more certain the earth is warming, we are less certain about the root causes. More importantly, research has shown us that -- whatever the cause may be -- the amount of warming is unlikely to cause any great calamity for mankind or the planet itself.

Schulte's survey contradicts the United Nation IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (2007), which gave a figure of "90% likely" man was having an impact on world temperatures. But does the IPCC represent a consensus view of world scientists? Despite media claims of "thousands of scientists" involved in the report, the actual text is written by a much smaller number of "lead authors." The introductory "Summary for Policymakers" -- the only portion usually quoted in the media -- is written not by scientists at all, but by politicians, and approved, word-by-word, by political representatives from member nations. By IPCC policy, the individual report chapters -- the only text actually written by scientists -- are edited to "ensure compliance" with the summary, which is typically published months before the actual report itself.

By contrast, the ISI Web of Science database covers 8,700 journals and publications, including every leading scientific journal in the world.

Mind, that I use the above for reference to studies only. I don't take his words for granted. Independently, I verify the above in several sources. To date, I am not aware of any serious publication disputing SCIENCE (what little there is) of the above piece. I'm sure you will attack the source, but please, show me where this is wrong (without destroying the myth of "consensus" created by AlGore).

[Piotr 0]

Would you like me to go through this point by point? Everything you have just said is either wildly incorrect or irrelevant, but I don't want to type for hours unless you want to hear it. Not being confrontational- just lazy.

yes, PLEASE do, but substantiate your statements. Just a word of advise- by now EVERY "fact" of the "Inconvenient Truth" has been shown by people with multiple PhDs to be dead wrong (and I CAN show you the studies) or completely made up, so don't use that SciFi schlock as a "proof." If you are "lazy" chose anyone (or two, or three) statements to challenge me on. Please. I've been at it for 4 years now and I'm just dying to show off.

[Piotr 0]

It is normal. However the planet has been warming in the last hundred years faster than at any time in the previous 10000.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html

http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/ohio.pdf

Not true- this was explained about 5 years ago in a very long and boring Japanese paper which I won't go into. A precis of the science is here:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Co2-temperature-plot.svg

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11659

This discovery, along with the debunking of the myth about satellites failing to measure an increase in global warming:

http://www.livescience.com/environment/050...al_warming.html

http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=130

was what turned the argument over global warming from an even debate to a consensus. And make no mistake- it is a consensus, whatever you may read. You may have your conspiracies that the government has "got to" all the scientists, but there's no denying that every major scientific body of any credibility accepts that man's activities have contributed to an unusually high rise in Global Temperature in the last 100 years.

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html

http://landshape.org/enm/how-a-hockey-stick-led-to-the-committee-hearing/

Unfortunately the issue has been muddied a little with claims like "Extreme Weather Phenomena are caused by Global Warming". Most scientists would reply "we don't know" when asked about that one, but GW skeptics should note that it's a completely different issue on which there is little or no consensus.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=B35C36A3-802A-23AD-46EC-6880767E7966

So is burying your head in the sand and hoping it all goes away.

Nevertheless, I'm not one of the doom-mongers who believe that this will be the end of the world. I think it's a significant problem, but I think not an insoluble one.

I responded with links in bold CLEARLY showing that your (outdated) linked studies were superceeded by more current contradictory studies. And below is my view on how "bad is global warming today

http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm

So, did the Vikings caused Global Warming of 850AD to 1050AD????

Could you also clarify why warming of the last 100 years is so unusual and as compared to what (see graph above)???

[Piotr 0]

My talk about the scientific consensus is not to prove GW true. To start with, I simply propose that it makes your talk of conspiracies orchestrated by politicians highly unlikely. I don't deny that there are incentives for scientists to relate their work to GW and that biases are introduced that way. Nevertheless, the vast majority of scientists do genuinely believe in GW. They are not 'prostituting' themselves, as you suggest. In my experience, it is the exact opposite: usually it's the scientists who are urging the politicians to do more to reduce emissions etc.

I'm not trying to bully anyone. If you have good scientific arguments feel free to present them. Like Oli, I think I can refute everything Piotr said, and if you consider that post 'the actual details' of GW then I suspect you are more of a 'layman' in this area than you imply.

Finally, I'm far more interested in your views on feminism. Do elaborate when you have time.

Oh, for the LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE at least TRY to refute ANYTHING I said. Just do it, man!

[Piotr 0]

I've never said 50/50. I couldn't. The real situation is more like 5/2/6/4/3/1/....

But what I've said is that I know that such a thing as "most" or "vast majority of" scientist is ignoramous non-sense.

There are always trends in academic fields. No question there. But when politics intrude, things go belly up. Why? Survival.

The examples are many. When politics got into linguistics, for example, by the hand of Chomsky, linguistist were forced to pay lip service to the Generatives if they wanted to get a job, or tenure, or a grant, or simply be published. The fact that generative linguistics is fundamentally worthless in, precisesly, linguistics did nothing to prevent its domination of the field for decades. Nowadays, it is quietly being displaced and the violent chomskian's proponents of the past having gotten their careers taken care of. No one remembers they've contributed nothing, NOTHING, and that they had in fact delayed the evolution of the field in unmeasurable ways.

As I said, the examples are many in the sciences and the humanities. The "fat" scare, smoking, feminism. Basically, everywhere were there is no debate and where all the data always tells you the same thing, namely, simple answers for complex questions... the opiate manna of the masses. I suppose that, for the layman, it is impossible to tell what is what. But for those of us that _are_ scientists, well, it is much harder to sell us rat for rabbit.

Ultimately, your only argument is also the only argument the GW political campaign offers, namely, we bully you into agreement by telling you that everyone agrees with us. Hilarious. As the sprinkler lady (that the dim-witted kiwi apparently identifies with), you care nothing about the actual details that Piotr offered and, instead, seek refuge on mobs... that, I know for a fact, are not there to begin with.

Warming Over the Last Century

There is little doubt that globally averaged temperatures are unusually warm today (at this writing, 2008). While a majority of climate researchers believe that this warmth is mostly (or completely) due to the activities of mankind, this is as much a statement of faith as it is of science. For in order to come to such a conclusion, we would need to know how much of the temperature increase we've seen since the 1800's is natural. There has not yet been a single peer-reviewed scientific study which has ruled out natural climate variability as the cause of most of our recent warmth -- for instance, a small change in globally averaged cloud cover.

So let's first examine current temperatures in their historical context. Over the last 100 years or so (see Fig.1) globally-averaged surface temperature trends have exhibited three distinct phases.

Fig. 1 Globally averaged temperature variations between 1850 and 2007 show the emergence from the "Little Ice Age" in the early 1900's, slight cooling from the 1940's to the 1970's, and then warming again since the 1970's. (HadCRUT3 temperature dataset from the UK Met Office and Univ. of E. Anglia)

The warming up until 1940 represents the end of the multi-century cool period known as the "Little Ice Age", a time that was particularly harsh for humanity. This warming must have been natural because mankind had not yet emitted substantial amounts of greenhouse gases. Then, the slight cooling between 1940 and the 1970's occurred in spite of rapid increases in manmade greenhouse gas emissions. One theory is that this cooling is also manmade -- from particulate pollution. Finally, fairly steady warming has occurred since the 1970's. This recent warming has no doubt played a central role in current fears of a climate catastrophe.

There is some controversy over whether the upward temperature trend seen in Fig. 1 still contains some spurious warming from the urban heat island effect, which is due to a replacement of natural vegetation with manmade structures (buildings, parking lots, etc.) around thermometer sites. In December of 2007, a paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research showed evidence that about 50% of global warming measured by land-based thermometers since 1980 was simply due to local influences such as the urban heat island effect (press release <A href="http://www.uoguelph.ca/news/2007/12/global_warming.html">here).

<a href="http://" target="_blank"></a>

Temperatures Over the Last 2,000 Years

When was the last time that the Earth was this warm?. You might have heard claims in the news that we are warmer now than anytime in the last 1,000 years. This claim was based upon the "Hockey Stick" temperature curve (Fig. 2) which used temperature 'proxies', mostly tree rings, to reconstruct a multi-century temperature record. That "warmest in 1,000 years" claim lost much of its support, however, when a National Academy of Science review panel concluded in 2006 that the Hockey Stick study used faulty statistical techniques, and that the most that can be said with any confidence is that the Earth is warmer now than anytime in the last 400 years. Note that this is a good thing, since most of those 400 years occurred during the Little Ice Age. Fig. 2. The Mann et al. (1998) proxy (mostly tree ring) reconstruction of global temperature over the last 1,000 years is believed to have erroneously minimized the warmth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP).

So, again, WHERE IS THAT UNUSUAL WARMING OF THE LAST 100 YEARS??????????