It's not the Globular Worming "Debate"! That would imply that there's some room for dissent!
It's the "Anthropomorphic Global Warming Concensus", wherein humanity is accused, tried and convicted by Nobel Laureate (r)(c)(tm)(etc) and Internet Inventor AlGore, who clearly demontrates that the planet and all its inhabitants are doomed unless they prostrate immediately to his policy demands!
Seriously, given the gravity of the situation, with the further existence of the whole world at stake, don't you think even intimating that dissent might be possible would be anything less than genocidally irresponsible?
[elvisMode]
Thank you, thank you very much.
[/elvisMode]
Given that freedom is defended by the busy guy on his lunch hour, and statism is advanced by cadres of well paid professionals, I wonder if maybe I missed a fun and lucrative career working for the badGuys? ;)
It's sorta like the Star Trek Mirror Universe: Good, knowing its inner evil, can emulate Evil, but Evil, knowing no good, cannot emulate good.
TGGWS has been pretty thoroughly debunked. I wouldn't be suggesting to people that it's good viewing.
It regurgitates bullshit like "volcanoes spew more CO2" and other really factually challenged bullshit.
AGW really is happening. The only question is how fast, and every time the estimates get revised it seems the picture is only getting more dire. I'm as opposed to handing control of our country over to the UN globalist schmucks as anyone, but denying scientific reality makes us gunnies look like boobs.
Oh, and for the record, I have no problem with informed skepticism. But most of the cries about debate being quashed are complete bullshit. It's just not based on reality.
If you could produce data showing us that AGW isn't something to worry about, you'd be the rock star of the world. Really. It'd be the scientific story of the CENTURY, if not history.
The whole idea that we have to wait around for 100% certainty is bullshit--you don't wait for your doctor to tell you that there's 100% chance you're going to have a heart attack this year to quit smoking and lose weight.
The reason you don't see much research counter to the AGW premise is that the work produced by anti-AGW types tends to not survive much scrutiny.
Spend about ten minutes reading RealClimate or other such blogs written by actual climate scientists and you'll see what I mean.
Is the climate getting warmer? That I'll concede to. But it's apparently getting warmer on Mars and Jupiter as well.
Is CO2 responsible in any appreciable way for the Earth's current climate change? I'm unconvinced. Will continued use of fossil fuels result in runaway warming? I'm totally unconvinced. Does a rise in global temperatures herald disaster for humanity? Don't make me laugh. Is there cause for humanity to be performing drastic acts to curb CO2 emissions? Absolutely not.
Re: the Mars thing. Sorry. Not analogous. Climate change on Mars is apparently localized and not a long term trend. There's very little evidence of any significant global trend on Mars.
See here: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/17/222712/69
RE: CO2...Well...What would convince you? There's a veritable mountain of evidence that you're simply wrong. The mechanics of the CO2 climate forcing are very well understood. See here: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/22/224450/84
Like I said, there's plenty of room for informed skepticism. But, and I mean this respectfully, saying you're "unconvinced" despite the mountains of evidence from actual climate scientists that says you're wrong doesn't strike me as informed skepticism. Now, if you can explain what it would take to actually convince you...that'd be something. But I've never had a climate change skeptic really give a substantial answer to that question. Give it a whirl, if you can.
I will admit to ignorance. I have not spent ten years, much less ten months studying the topic of atmospheric science. I will further admit that my reluctance to embrace AGW is a knee-jerk reaction to what I see as a "Chicken Little" syndrome in a "Boy who cried wolf" scenario. In short, in my lifetime I've heard that we need to fear the coming ice age, global overpopulation would result in worldwide famine by 1980, that we're killing X-number of species with industrial and agricultural chemicals and that breaking the ecosystem chain would result in massive die-offs of entire species, that we should fight all fires in national forests in order to keep them "natural," etc., etc., etc.
In each and every case, we've been told that disaster loomed and the only solution was to change our entire way of life in order to minimize the impact. When each predicted disaster failed to appear, unsurprisingly another raised its ugly head.
Global climate science is based on data collection and computer models. While finite-element analysis computer modeling works very well in examining the behavior of physical structures, I know just enough about programming to know that until we can accurately predict hurricane tracks ten days in advance, I'm not going to trust computer predictions ten years in advance.
We don't know enough. We don't understand the mechanisms that gave us the previous ice ages or the previous warm periods, and there's no way to perform real experiments - all we can do is write another model, change the input parameters and let the program run.
Regardless of all of this, WE'RE NOT GOING TO STOP USING FOSSIL FUELS. Humanity is going to keep increasing the rate of use until we find something better, or we run out.
Will this make the Earth hotter? OK, it will make the Earth hotter. Will the sea level rise? Fine. Will weather patterns change around the world? Then they will. Will this affect future generations? Doubtless. Is this cause for panic and terror?
No.
We'll adapt. It's what we do.
What I do believe is that there really are two sides to the debate, and that the AGW side has deliberately overhyped the topic.
Hey Sebastian, you wouldn't happen to be old enough to recall when the scientific consensus was that we were on the verge of a new ice age, would you? It was only about 30 years ago.
Funny how all that data suddenly doesn't hold up with the theory. Or is it the theory that doesn't hold up to the data?
Earth's climate changes. That isn't exactly news. We wouldn't even be here without benefit of that. Putting Man as the primary cause of global catastrophe is just another religious exercise.
Note:
All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost;
references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>
JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2007/11/other-side-of-global-warming-debate.html (9 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
[sarcasm]
No! No! No!
It's not the Globular Worming "Debate"! That would imply that there's some room for dissent!
It's the "Anthropomorphic Global Warming Concensus", wherein humanity is accused, tried and convicted by Nobel Laureate (r)(c)(tm)(etc) and Internet Inventor AlGore, who clearly demontrates that the planet and all its inhabitants are doomed unless they prostrate immediately to his policy demands!
Seriously, given the gravity of the situation, with the further existence of the whole world at stake, don't you think even intimating that dissent might be possible would be anything less than genocidally irresponsible?
[/sarcasm]
You do that well, Geek!
[elvisMode]
Thank you, thank you very much.
[/elvisMode]
Given that freedom is defended by the busy guy on his lunch hour, and statism is advanced by cadres of well paid professionals, I wonder if maybe I missed a fun and lucrative career working for the badGuys? ;)
It's sorta like the Star Trek Mirror Universe: Good, knowing its inner evil, can emulate Evil, but Evil, knowing no good, cannot emulate good.
TGGWS has been pretty thoroughly debunked. I wouldn't be suggesting to people that it's good viewing.
It regurgitates bullshit like "volcanoes spew more CO2" and other really factually challenged bullshit.
AGW really is happening. The only question is how fast, and every time the estimates get revised it seems the picture is only getting more dire. I'm as opposed to handing control of our country over to the UN globalist schmucks as anyone, but denying scientific reality makes us gunnies look like boobs.
Oh, and for the record, I have no problem with informed skepticism. But most of the cries about debate being quashed are complete bullshit. It's just not based on reality.
If you could produce data showing us that AGW isn't something to worry about, you'd be the rock star of the world. Really. It'd be the scientific story of the CENTURY, if not history.
The whole idea that we have to wait around for 100% certainty is bullshit--you don't wait for your doctor to tell you that there's 100% chance you're going to have a heart attack this year to quit smoking and lose weight.
The reason you don't see much research counter to the AGW premise is that the work produced by anti-AGW types tends to not survive much scrutiny.
Spend about ten minutes reading RealClimate or other such blogs written by actual climate scientists and you'll see what I mean.
AGW really is happening.
Sorry, but I'm not convinced.
Is the climate getting warmer? That I'll concede to. But it's apparently getting warmer on Mars and Jupiter as well.
Is CO2 responsible in any appreciable way for the Earth's current climate change? I'm unconvinced. Will continued use of fossil fuels result in runaway warming? I'm totally unconvinced. Does a rise in global temperatures herald disaster for humanity? Don't make me laugh. Is there cause for humanity to be performing drastic acts to curb CO2 emissions? Absolutely not.
Re: the Mars thing. Sorry. Not analogous. Climate change on Mars is apparently localized and not a long term trend. There's very little evidence of any significant global trend on Mars.
See here: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/17/222712/69
RE: CO2...Well...What would convince you? There's a veritable mountain of evidence that you're simply wrong. The mechanics of the CO2 climate forcing are very well understood. See here: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/22/224450/84
Like I said, there's plenty of room for informed skepticism. But, and I mean this respectfully, saying you're "unconvinced" despite the mountains of evidence from actual climate scientists that says you're wrong doesn't strike me as informed skepticism. Now, if you can explain what it would take to actually convince you...that'd be something. But I've never had a climate change skeptic really give a substantial answer to that question. Give it a whirl, if you can.
Sebastian:
I will admit to ignorance. I have not spent ten years, much less ten months studying the topic of atmospheric science. I will further admit that my reluctance to embrace AGW is a knee-jerk reaction to what I see as a "Chicken Little" syndrome in a "Boy who cried wolf" scenario. In short, in my lifetime I've heard that we need to fear the coming ice age, global overpopulation would result in worldwide famine by 1980, that we're killing X-number of species with industrial and agricultural chemicals and that breaking the ecosystem chain would result in massive die-offs of entire species, that we should fight all fires in national forests in order to keep them "natural," etc., etc., etc.
In each and every case, we've been told that disaster loomed and the only solution was to change our entire way of life in order to minimize the impact. When each predicted disaster failed to appear, unsurprisingly another raised its ugly head.
Global climate science is based on data collection and computer models. While finite-element analysis computer modeling works very well in examining the behavior of physical structures, I know just enough about programming to know that until we can accurately predict hurricane tracks ten days in advance, I'm not going to trust computer predictions ten years in advance.
We don't know enough. We don't understand the mechanisms that gave us the previous ice ages or the previous warm periods, and there's no way to perform real experiments - all we can do is write another model, change the input parameters and let the program run.
Regardless of all of this, WE'RE NOT GOING TO STOP USING FOSSIL FUELS. Humanity is going to keep increasing the rate of use until we find something better, or we run out.
Will this make the Earth hotter? OK, it will make the Earth hotter. Will the sea level rise? Fine. Will weather patterns change around the world? Then they will. Will this affect future generations? Doubtless. Is this cause for panic and terror?
No.
We'll adapt. It's what we do.
What I do believe is that there really are two sides to the debate, and that the AGW side has deliberately overhyped the topic.
Hey Sebastian, you wouldn't happen to be old enough to recall when the scientific consensus was that we were on the verge of a new ice age, would you? It was only about 30 years ago.
Funny how all that data suddenly doesn't hold up with the theory. Or is it the theory that doesn't hold up to the data?
Earth's climate changes. That isn't exactly news. We wouldn't even be here without benefit of that. Putting Man as the primary cause of global catastrophe is just another religious exercise.
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>