More on Global Warming

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http://www.ipcc.ch/present/graphics/2001wg1/large/04.03.jpg

the seas are going to drown us!!
ummm, no. even there own worst case scenario, by 2100 sea levels may rise 0.8 meters. wow, 32 inches....... dont lay face down you may drown. much less than represented in gores movie.

 

I read it, but you apparently did not. Mr. Christy believes Global Warming is largely man-made and a real phenomenon. He disagrees on it's severity, and how we should respond to it. That's a far cry from saying that Global Warming isn't man made or that it's all a hoax.

Now, I admit I'm a Liberal, but agreeing with the IPCC on the Global Warming issue is hardly "the party line". Last I checked, Senator James M. Inhofe (who once claimed global warming was a "hoax" and has since re-thought his position), John McCain, Rudy Giulliani, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Sam Brownback were all republicans. Even Fred Thompson, who mocked the global warming threat in April, has reversed his position, stating "climate change is real” and suggesting that we take a measured approach (whatever that means) until more is known about it. In fact, good luck finding a Republican nowadays who doesn't acknowledge Global Warming. Sure, many Republicans disagree on how far we should go to address the problem, but they at least acknowledge it and guys like McCain, Huckabee, and Brownback are now being nearly as stringent as any democrat in their efforts to address climate change.

This warranted being addressed separately, on account of it's unbelievable ignorance. Do you know, Martaug, how many coastal cities are at sea level now? Do you know how many people currently live in coastal areas that, after a mere one meter rise of the sea level, will no longer be inhabitable? Go look it up. I'll wait.

 

marty,
perhaps you don't want to be Dutch. Now pause, gentle reader, that's a point to think about - why Dutch?

The Dutch see the entire matter different. More, they're acutely aware of it. Depending on how shallow the coast is, 0.8 metres can easily cut away a hundred of kilometers from a current coastline. It stops being a laughing matter when you live in a city on ground below sea level, faced with the prospect that your home sinks in the swamp your then worthless property has become. If you have a cellar, imagine those 80cm of salt water in there, screwing up the structure and fouling up whatever you stored in there. Think of a creeping post-Katrina New Orleans, just the water damage sans the devastation by the storm. Experience suggests houses stand longer with dry walls and foundations.

 

apparently you didn't
"I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see" JOHN R. CHRISTY
drew, which part of that shows he believes it is largely man made?? you either can't read english or you are purposely misquoting people! as it is apparent you can read english, whats that leave?

now, if you check my posts nowhere do i state that the globe is not in a period of warming tempatures at the moment. i just have a probelm with the people who try to blame it all on human activity.
ragusa, everytime i've went to the beach, granted this is the southeastern seaboard of the us, even at hightide there was at least a 5' height difference from the beach up to just the sea wall. hmmm, 32" higher = still got 28" of sea wall left and the ground sloped up from there. yes some areas are built below sealevel, personally never thought that was real smart, thats what levees are for(when properly constructed & maintained)

 

Let's examine this in parts, shall we? First he "sees neither the developing catastrophe". This rather clearly shows that this meteorologist does not see global warming as catastrophic. Fine. Let's move on to the next part where he adds "nor the smoking gun that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see". So, it's obvious that this meteorologist doesn't believe that there is a "smoking gun" that proves global warming is mostly man made. Again, fine, but it's a semantic point. Let's put all together, why don't we, and maybe add some context? For example, when he stated

In other words, Mr. Christy takes offense to the fact that the IPCC uses such...certain...language. I have read much of Mr. Christy's work. From that work, and from this article as well, it is clear that Mr. Christy's issue is with the certainty of the language climatologists use to back up their claims. He makes no effort to actually disprove global warming....and for good reason. He believes in it. He believes that man is a significant part of global warming. He just isn't as sure as the rest of the community about just how much of a part we play in it and how severe it will actually be. He doesn't disagree with the IPCC consensus. He primarily takes issue with the IPCC's verbiage. If you'd like, I'd gladly provide you links to more of his works, but a simple google search will do just fine for you, as well. Almost all of it is available online.

 

his own qoute puts the lie to the words YOU are putting in his mouth

 

Okay. Given that there is empirical evidence to support the 'consensus' notion, why is it that you believe there is not a consensus?

 

Elaboration needed.

 

Because your empirical evidence is being called bogus

To quote

You must remember that man made global warming is a 21st century religion and dissent will not be tolerated. It fits into to many people's political agendas. There is plenty of dissent out there, people just don't want to hear it.

 

thank you snook, you just summed it up perfectly

 

Proof, please. You see, Snook, laymen don't belong in the global warming debate. Siding with the consensus is what laymen should do, unless we want to learn enough information about the subject to make our own judgments about the matter....at which point we would no longer be laymen.

You also left out this part of the article:

There are two sides to every story. They did not perceive the items as being of "acceptable scientific quality". Could this just be bias? Sure, but it could also be that the studies were bunk. More examination will be needed to come down on one side or the other.

 

The implication of this general lack of expertise is that the statements like that the scientific consensus on Global warming is 'bogus', are basically stuff from a subjectively credible source.

What is clear to me is that scientific research is no he-said-she-said dispute, and that peer reviewed articles demands a scientific standard, that if that if not met leads to refusal. It is not about content sympathetic to the editors. That's a good reason for me to give the consensus view the benefit of a doubt.

It appears the poor quality of the sceptic's research is more than balanced by their excellence in public relations. I find it implausible that from all the folks in the world only US conservatives and industry friendlies are seeing through the evil global conspiracy of climatologists to drag the US down through entangling envrionmental legislation, but I guess I said that before.

 

I wasn't referring to Snook's article in particular. It was about the geographical prevalence of Snooks view, and by extension, Marty's. I might have been unfair to Snook a bit.

It is a pattern that has been rather consistent in the US as far as discrediting of unwanted scientific views has been concerned. The PR campaign to discredit the science about risks of smoking comes to my mind, or by the soft-drink industry attacking scientific research about risks of obesity from sugar rich diets (now fancy that). That have been resounding successes. This is about lobby work, and not about any interest in so-called 'sound science' on part of the sceptics. Frankly, I think they give a damn. You know, not *all* the data is yet in, it's too early to make a call, we need to research more ... blablabla ... iirc the lobbyists even have a nice phrase for the process, 'paralysis by analysis', to stall unwanted regulation for years, at least delaying investments into adjustments (or expenses for US style lawsuits) and thus securing profits. Lobbyists can do that for you. I would say that the scepticism about global warming in the US has everything to do with interest group attack politics.

The scientific consensus isn't a debate. It's the result after the end of a debate. The self-acclaimed sceptics are ignoring that and limit themselves to searching contrarian arguments that are easily parotted, much like a lawyer would try in court. And that's the entire story. This explains my view that the US are too good at PR for their own good.

 

Ah. So there's no consensus, because there's a vast conspiracy encompassing all the scientific journals which prevents anti-anthropogenic climate change papers from being published. Gotcha.

Laymen taking a scientific consensus at face value isn't religious. Unless you think it's religious to, say, accept atomic theory?

 

I wonder if you ever get tired of being wrong about people on a personal level. Of course, whenever you find yourself trapped in an argument you rant off some personal attack, as if THAT'S supposed to impress us. I've never been a card carrying Democrat, and have voted Republican in the past, even for Ronald Reagan. The only party I have ever worked for is the Green Party, more particularly, Ralph Nader. These days I'm an independent, which frees me up to vote for candidates based upon the issues. But perhaps you missed my post on Ron Paul, and he is hardly a Democrat. To be honest, the Democrats are just not liberal enough for me.

But there's no hard feelings on this end. And you can "borrow my words" anytime.

 

You keep talking about laymen, without realizing that many laymen can think for themselves. I've posted some of this before, but it bears repeating with some slight modifications.

1. A layman understands human nature and human nature tends to not believe in consensuses (sic). As examples there are people who think O.J. is innocent and who think Bush is a great president. So when a layman hears that "All the scientists agree, and only the crackpots disagree" a layman gets skeptical.

2. A layman listens to see who the message is coming from. When the message is being parroted exclusively by one side (in this case the liberal media, Greenpeace, and liberal politicians), it makes you wonder if the message is really true, or if it just suits an agenda. When all the people involved in getting the message out tend to be of the same suit it makes you wonder. This is as true about manmade global warming as it would be about "Big Tobacco" telling us that cigarette smoking is harmless.

3. A layman observes the world around him and learns from history. This is the one that in my opinion punches the largest holes into the theories of manmade global warming. It wasn't so many years ago that these same scientists were telling us we were heading for an ice age. These same scientists are the people who can't predict the weather 24 hours in advance. Now we are supposed to believe that they can make computer models that can show what will happen in 30 years when they can't do it 24 hours in advance. Anyone who has ever worked with computers can tell you that a computer is GIGO (Garbage in, Garbage out). Give me their models and I'm sure I can modify the assumptions (which must be HUGE) and get us back to an ice age.

Now, I'm sorry if this goes against what you want to believe, but yes I do believe that there is a smear campaign against people who are non-believers. Since the disciples have proclaimed anyone who doesn't believe is delusional, the heretics sources for money would disappear. Therefore dissent is squashed as the one thing scientists and academics can't risk is a loss of funding (let's face it they aren't really that marketable).

As to atomic theory, that is something that a layman can understand and even see as we have footage of nuclear bombs going off and many of us have driven past nuclear power plants. While it may be a big hoax, my instincts tell me otherwise.

 

As I thought. Still, thanks for clarifying.

 

While I acknowledge your general point of laymen being able to make up their own minds, I'd like to remark that the above seemingly contradictory observation makes more sense in the light that weather does not equal climate. The global warming scenario is a prediction concerning climate, not weather.

 

Ah, but these climatologists have been notoriously inaccurate in the past. They were the ones that said we were going towards an ice age, they were the one that said CFCs all over the world were thinning the o-zone layer over ANTARCTICA (by the way, that's actually solar radiation, and it's been that way for billions of years), and now they expect us to take them at their word on this? I'm sorry, but climatologists have lost all credibility with me. They'll have to prove it to me, and they've repeatedly refused to do that. I don't expect one to personally fly down here and disect his model right in front of me, but I would like an answer as to why the latest eruption of Yellowstone (about 80K years ago) didn't melt the planet for a few centuries.