Comments on: Climate Change? Or Just a Stretch of Bad Weather?

By: kranky kritter

kranky kritter — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:12:56 +0000

I hope that whoever posted as kritter isn’t hoping folks will confuse him with me. Most people now know that corrected data show pretty conclusively that there has been some warming. What we still don’t know fills a lot of space. We still don’t know whether it’s certain to continue let alone how much or how long. We still don’t know how much if anything human behavior has to do with it. And we still don’t know whether or not the changes such warming may bring will be primarily negative.

By: bill-tb

bill-tb — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:46:59 +0000

The sun will win the argument … Computer models reflect more the data that is input than the science that they attempt to model, no engineer would bet a dime on totally predictive models, without coraborative test data. So why not model the past and predict today?

Two websites of interest
http://spaceweather.com/
http://solarcycle24.com/

The suns magnetic field died down in Oct 2005 and the sun has been quite since.

By: Rich Horton

Rich Horton — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:15:28 +0000

I’m not sure I buy the contention that the world is divided up into "people who CAN know" (i.e. scientists of various persuasions,) and "people who CAN’T know" (i.e. the rest of us poor slobs). Any system of governance that reputes to be democratic has to value the "poor slobs" no matter what the "stakes" supposedly are.
The options are, A) be less democratic, and defer to an scientific oligarchy, or B) remain democratic.
The troubles I have with option A is that 1) I kinda like the whole democracy thing, and, 2) I remain unconvinced that scientific fact rather than political ideology is the determining factor here, OR that we can be assured it will remain so in the future.

And, on a more practical level, there is much here that does not require a science PhD to have a valid opinion on. For example, the prediliction the AGW crowd has to portray climate as an ongoing "Tragedy of the Commons" scenario only require a rudimentary knowledge of game theory and logic to make an evaluation, which any college educated person has the tools for….even if you took no classes harder than "Underwater Basket Weaving 101".

Similarly, AGW models make predictions one can investigate and measure even if you are not up on fluid dynamics yourself. (Although, you will also have to deal with the sophistry of those who wont own up to the failure of their so-called models to predict anything….which will often result in post-modern BS that no one should have to waste their time with. It’s the climate science version of "it depends on what your definition of is is.")

Certainly, the drive to label those who do not conform "deniers" with all that that implies, should be resisted at all costs.

By: Nick Percival

Nick Percival — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:56:13 +0000

I agree that Rick Moran is not qualified to make pronouncements on this topic and that there has been a lot of hype not only from Al Gore, et al, but also, particularly recently, from the opposition. However, many with common sense and a basic understanding of science were perfectly justified in pointing out that the sun was the principle source warming and also pointing out gross GW exaggerations and internal contradictions.

By: Michael van der Galien

Michael van der Galien — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:41:00 +0000

Kritter: of course the question isn’t whether we are experiencing global warming (duh!), it’s whether we contribute to it. If so, how? And if so, how much? And then: can we do something about it? If so, how? Will that be effective? How much will it cost us? And so on.

By: kritter

kritter — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 06:03:34 +0000

The worst course seems to be total inaction while both sides endlessly debate the issue, which is the course we are currently on. The oil industry hired scientists to come up with evidence that disputed global warming, so that there would be "controversy" and drastic action would be forstalled (not to say that there aren’t some who genuinely don’t believe in it- just as there are educated historians who doubt the Holocaust ever occured) We are fiddling while Rome burns.

In Maryland, it was 60-70 degrees for several days in February- which is highly unusual for our area. (usually its the coldest month of the year with several severe snowstorms.) If the consensus of more than 90% of the world’s scientists is that we are experiencing global warming than I believe them.

By: Dan Pangburn

Dan Pangburn — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:13:20 +0000

There is no historical data that supports the premise that human activity has any significant effect on climate. The observation of glaciers melting may look dramatic on TV but does not show that human activity is the cause. There is, however, substantial evidence that atmospheric carbon dioxide level does not significantly influence climate. You can check out the global warming issue yourself. Credible websites are included in my post at http://hypsithermal.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/to-those-who-will-fight/

By: redfish

redfish — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 17:57:12 +0000

Rick,

I agree that there are a lot of hackish arguments by people who talk about the science for political purposes; I don’t think its hard for someone, if they want to, to understand the issue as much as scientists do. Scientists are not super-beings, and many of us who chose not to pursue a degree in science nonetheless have studied it and could have done so if we wanted to. Second, I think climate change is as much about politics as it is about science. The clue comes from the fact that people who are activists for climate change always use worst-case scenario computer models. While most scientists agree that humans are affecting the climate, they, by far, recognize that the computer models are not completely objective. Some people who are scientists choose to promote these models, nonetheless, because, many scientists are also political creatures, like the rest of us.

By: wj

wj — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 17:43:12 +0000

And the most interesting of the viewpoints I have seen raised is the one which points out that, on past cyclic patterns, we were due to enter a several hundred year "Little Ice Age" again in the mid-1800s. But man-made greenhouse gases from industrialization, especially the heavy use of coal, headed off that substantial global cooling.

What it all seems to come down to is this: climates change over time, both from natural and from man-made causes. At any given moment, both causes are in play, to different degrees. What is important is how we attempt to adapt to those changes — increase or decrease of greenhouse gas emissions, shift agricultural patterns, population migrations, etc. What isn’t an option is to stop all climate change completely, so we won’t have to change how and where we live.

By: Dr Coles

Dr Coles — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:37:14 +0000

Over 400 World Wide Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007. See http://tinyurl.com/2dv6nz