Bush Says Yes To Global Warming

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
She was just a lousy German anyway. What did she know?

Austrian.

Just one of those days, eh ?

[KrazyHorse]

Austrian, German. All the same.

[DanS]

"But to just say 'no' to the combined scientific consensus is not being sceptic, just ignorant..."

Who's saying no? Rather, a cautious approach in my view is warranted.

[CyberGnu]

Yes, and the cautious approach says that there is 95% chance that humans have caused an unprecedented global rise in temperatures during the last century.

The cautious approach would also force us to do something about it, rather than just sit back and think happy thoughts.

[Richelieu]

I remember spending entire days outside in my youth, without sunscreen, and only getting mild sunburns, and only in the first days of summer. After that you had a tan and you didn't care.

I come from the northern part of Quebec and seeing the smog above Ottawa, Montreal etc... is something that repulses me.

I don't really care about the scientific consensus. I see the pollution. I see children who can't go out without their hats and sunscreen lotions. We're throwing this planet away. Consuming it.

[Ned]

There is a report on CNN today on how the Japanese are struggling to implement their obligations under Kyoto. They are relying primarily on new, but expensive, technologies - at a time when they are struggling economically.

How are the Europeans doing in meeting the Kyoto protocols?

[Wraith]

--"No Wraith, in your world the data that shows the global temperature rising 0.6"

No, in my world such a trend hasn't really been shown with any certainty. There's that whole selective endpoints problem. There's also the minor issue that the earth has been both drastically warmer and drastically cooler than it is now long before humans were ever about, much less industrialized.
I also haven't yet forgotten the fairly recent cries of "the world is freezing". It's pretty obvious to me that blaming any change in a dynamic (more, chaotic) system on human action is a bit presumptious barring much greater amounts of evidence.

--"Tha the future computer projections are uncertain is quite natural."

Exactly. The problem is that about the only even half-way serious arguments for global warming are based on those highly flawed computer models. They're simply missing too many factors to be even within an order-of-magnitude of observed changes. Note, I'm not talking about modelling past behaviour, but the predictions made by those same models being used as a basis for global warming, and how far off they already are.

--"the scientific consensus is that the global impact will range from bad to catastropic."

This again is bull****. Not even the supposed effects of global warming are known with any certainty. There are a large numbers of areas that could easily benefit from global warming, especially since most of the claimed warming has shown itself as milder winters rather than hotter summers.

--"If you think that it is insulting to be called on the fact that your'd rather trust O'Reilly"

I'm perfectly willing to keep the debate about the science, not make ad homeniem attacks. I also have no idea why you hate O'Reilly, but it's all rather irrelevant since I've never actually watched his show.

--"I guess you call the multitude of data presented in peer reviwed journals personal insults...."

You didn't read my link, did you? Oh well. Sorry, but as in a lot of highly politicized areas, it's amazing how many of those supposedly peer-review studies cite other studies that have either been withdrawn or have been acknowledged as fabrications by their own authors.

--"I don't know what you refer to when you talk about the 'unprofessional treatment of Bjorn Lomburg'."

Well, I was mostly referring to Scientific American, but I was sure I'd seen some stuff about Nature and/or Science as well.

An honest review isn't a problem, but in Scientific American's case it was four personal attacks against the author, which is an altogether different matter.

--"both well known right-wing sponsors)..."

You do realize this works both ways? And also that Enron was one of the biggest US supporters of Kyoto?

--"I see the pollution."

As I've mentioned already, carbon dioxide is not pollution. If you want to rail about carbon monoxide or mercury fumes or something, that's something else, but I was under the impression that this thread was mostly about Kyoto.

Wraith
"The trouble with Jim was he looked at the world and could not look away. And when you never look away all your life, by the time you are thirteen you have done twenty years taking in the laundry of the world."
-- ("Something Wicked this Way Comes")

[CyberGnu]

No, in my world such a trend hasn't really been shown with any certainty. There's that whole selective endpoints problem. There's also the minor issue that the earth has been both drastically warmer and drastically cooler than it is now long before humans were ever about, much less industrialized.

Again, we're back to your world vs. reality. Just show me where scientists disagree with global warming. So far you have shown political/media figures disagreeing with ONE report, apart from Bjorn Lomborg who didn't actually publish science, just his [flawed]interpretation of it...

BTW, scientific american, isn't that a popular science magazine? Are you confusing that with a peer-reviewed journal?

Exactly. The problem is that about the only even half-way serious arguments for global warming are based on those highly flawed computer models. They're simply missing too many factors to be even within an order-of-magnitude of observed changes. Note, I'm not talking about modelling past behaviour, but the predictions made by those same models being used as a basis for global warming, and how far off they already are.

I don't know what this is supposed to mean.

AFAIK, the conclusion that global warming is real and has increased the temperature by 0.6 degrees is NOT based on any modelling, only observations.

furthermore, IIUIC, one of the most important factors seems to be that while the wolrd has undergone warm and cold periods, it has never seen such a rapid change as we are seeing right now.

[CyberGnu]

Could you find even ONE article that suggest that global warming is beneficial?

AFAIK, the predictions range from bad (increased frequencies of tornadoes, El Nino's, climatic changes due to swithcing stream patterns, melting ice causing rising sea levels) to catastropic (synergetic effects causing up to 3m higher water levels, intense drought in areas currently fertile, rainfall in current arid areas, causing widespread erosion and starvation, algae blooming followed by poisoned oceans).

[CyberGnu]

Any sources for fabrication of articles, and where they are cited?

Furthermore, just because a peer-reviwed articles sites an article that turns out to be wrong doesn't mean the subsequent article is wrong... Observations are observations, regardless.

[DaShi]

C Beast!

[Duddha]

blah

[Ned]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Could you find even ONE article that suggest that global warming is beneficial?

AFAIK, the predictions range from bad (increased frequencies of tornadoes, El Nino's, climatic changes due to swithcing stream patterns, melting ice causing rising sea levels) to catastropic (synergetic effects causing up to 3m higher water levels, intense drought in areas currently fertile, rainfall in current arid areas, causing widespread erosion and starvation, algae blooming followed by poisoned oceans).

CyberGnu, The official US Govt. report I read at the end of the Clinton admin. stated that many Northern countries would benefit. The US in particular would see a 100% increase in agriculture and a 1 percent increase in GNP. Similar benefits were seen everywhere across the world's North.

When the report came out, Gore focused his public remarks on the several paragraphs of the very large report that discussed negative impacts.

What this indicates to me is that at least Gore was and "advocate," by being very selective about what to discuss from official reports.

Regarding your earlier post, thanks for pointing out that the authors of the report I cited had a bias.

Note, that I am not here dismissing Global Warming. I am simply stating that the US Govt. report suggests a lot of positives if Global Warming is real.

[Tolls]

DanS:
"It was a one byte problem, costing us $200 billion, for God's sake! "

Sorry to labour the point, but considering a financial typo can wipe over a billion of the markets, imagine every financial institute suffering typos at the same time...$100 billion+ was not all that far fetched.

Ned:
"Similar benefits were seen everywhere across the world's North"

Did this cover the effect of a shift in the Gulf Stream which would dramatcially alter the climate of Western Europe? That, by the way, would be far from a benefit.

[Wraith]

--"apart from Bjorn Lomborg who didn't actually publish science, just his [flawed]interpretation of it..."

Well, it was flawed. He accepted the IPCC numbers at face value. Other than that, his statistics are less flawed than any other I've seen on the subject.

As far dissenting scientists go, just do an online search. It's amazing how many references you can find. Heck, even the BBC acknowledges their existence.

Oh, and one of the people who signed that anti-Kyoto petition was Frederick Seitz, first President of the National Academy of Sciences and a winner of the National Science Medal. Now, he's a physicist rather than a climatologist, but he should have some idea of how to run decent experiments and spotting distorted statistics, right? However, it was his misfortue to publicily disagree with global warming while employed by the government during the Clinton administration... ugh.

Then there are people like Dr. Fred Singer, professor of environmental sciences and former director of the National Weather Satellite Service.
Or Eric Rignot, of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, along with scientists at
the British Antarctic Survey, who admit they don't yet know what exactly is going on.

Richard Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, had this to say:

There is no consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate trends and what causes them. Our primary conclusion was that despite some knowledge and agreement, the science is by no means settled. We are in no position to attribute confidently past climate change to carbon dioxide or forecast what the climate will be in the future.

If you're relying on the mainstream media for your information, there's your problem. Their coverage of dissent on this issue almost totally nonexistent, even in magazines like Nature and Science.

--"BTW, scientific american, isn't that a popular science magazine?"

Yes, but like I said, I was I had seen some stuff about Nature and Science on the same topic.

--"I don't know what this is supposed to mean."

Look, the models have been around for quite a while, right? So check their predictions against what's happened since they've been created.

--"AFAIK, the conclusion that global warming is real and has increased the temperature by 0.6 degrees is NOT based on any modelling, only observations."

No, it is based primarily on modelling. Observations show conflicting data. The surface records show a heating trend, but are known to be subject to all sorts of errors. The Urban Heat Island Effect, bad placement of temperature stations, urban growth around the temp stations, increasing accuracy of instruments as well as number of measurements (most of which are being taken in low income areas where they have been shown to be more prone to error). The satellite and baloon measurements do not agree with this warming trend, and the two have not yet really been reconciled in favor of global warming.

Interestingly enough, there is some evidence that changes in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere do not preceed warming trends, but rather follow them. Which means that it's the warming (more favorable conditions to life) that's causing the CO2 increase, and our "control" efforts are futile.

--"it has never seen such a rapid change as we are seeing right now"

And how can you tell? There are certainly periods of rapid climate shift. We did go from a warm period to a minor ice age within human recorded history.

--"Could you find even ONE article that suggest that global warming is beneficial?"

If I looked. It's really not that hard to find contrary sources. Unfortunately my links were lost recently, and I have to go to work in a few. I'll look some tonight.

--"Any sources for fabrication of articles, and where they are cited?"

The IPCC is one, actually. The peer-reviewed report included phrases like:

None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases."

"No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic [man-made] causes."

"Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced."

Yet this sort of thing somehow managed to disapper from the publicised version. Even some of the authors of the report (note: the actual scientists, not the politicians who form up the panel) have come forward to complain publicly about how their work has been represented.

And again, I'll try to look for more sources tonight but I'm running out of time this morning.

Wraith
"In all of mankind's history, there has never been more damage done than by people who 'thought they were doing the right thing'..."
-- Charles M. Schulz