Your views on climate change

[ZombieRothbard]

I think there is virtually no reason to believe that the climate changing has anything to do with human activity.

[Keronians]

Thing is during the 1970s they said we were heading for another Ice Age.

Read something somewhere that over the last few years global temperatures have actually dropped, hence why people are just calling it Climate Change rather than Global Warming.

Also our carbon emission reductions are rendered pointless each time a volcano decides to erupt, effectively neutering 4 years worth of emission reductions in one go.

Uh, we still ARE heading for another Ice Age.

I don't think you understood. We are heading for one very soon, but that's a scale in comparison to the age of the Earth.

There's still a few thousand years for the Ice Age.

[Revolutopia]

Well, I believe in science so I course believe in both Global Warming and Man's influence on it. If was to really believe that the majority of scientists were unethical enough to be bribed to state one view, I am guessing Exxon Mobile has more money then Greenpeace does to bribe scientists to promote their view.

[Honorable Citizens]

I don't think that there is enough evidence to support climate change having to do with human activity. Also, remember when all of those scientists were caught trying to change the results of their experiments to make it look like global warming is occuring?

[ZombieRothbard]

Well, I believe in science so I course believe in both Global Warming and Man's influence on it. If was to really believe that the majority of scientists were unethical enough to be bribed to state one view, I am guessing Exxon Mobile has more money then Greenpeace does to bribe scientists to promote their view.

To be honest, people don't "believe science" or disbelieve it when it comes to global warming. We aren't all scientists, we are taking their word for it, so you aren't pro-science, you are just "throwing in" with the establishment/majority view.

[Baja California Prime]

Uh huh. The Pleistocene Era ended 12,000 years ago. The world is a bit different now.

On a climatological scale, 12,000 years isn't really that much. Especially when you see that in the Pleistocene, everything happening now happened several times before. And using that as a guideline, we are at the peak of an interglacial.

Actually, they have pretty accurate CO2 level and average global temperature measurements going back over 600,000 years and the high level of CO2 is currently well above the highest readings ever during this time, also CO2 and global temperature rate of increase are both higher than ever recorded. It is true that further warming eventually leads to Ice age conditions again due to the shutdown of the planet's heat conveyor systems but the idea that man's contribution is not a major factor in the rapid CO2 and warming trend is ridiculous, and you have ABSOLUTELY NO science on your side in this.

[Keronians]

I think there is virtually no reason to believe that the climate changing has anything to do with human activity.

Oh?

Do tell.

Because, the way I see it, we are taking out the carbon which has been stored underground (and thus taken OUT of the carbon cycle, with it never being returned to the air) BACK into the air, millions of years later.

That is unhealthy. We also like to use a lot of natural gas. One of these is methane. Both CO2 and methane are greenhouse gases. Therefore, the atmosphere is insulating more and more heat within the Earth. This heats it up.

As the Earth gets warmer, the ice caps melt. Ice, is shiny, and white. This means that it reflects heat off into space. However, as it melts, the amount of heat it allows to leave into space, is much lower.

CFCs, which we used to use, break ozone (O3) into oxygen (O2). This damages the ozone layer, thus eliminating our natural protection against UV radiation. This also heats the Earth up.

Sulphur dioxide is often used in industrial processes. When released into the atmosphere, it may react with oxygen, to produce sulphur trioxide. This is the main cause for acid rain.

But then, there are other factors as well.

The Earth will, over a course of a few thousand years, head towards an ice age. That may provide more cooling.

The effect of the greenhouse gases may be offset by the holes in the ozone layer, which may allow heat to escape.

Warmer Earth means warmer sea. This leads to more rapid cloud formation. Clouds are also white, and so may compensate for the loss of heat.

[ZombieRothbard]

I think there is virtually no reason to believe that the climate changing has anything to do with human activity.

Oh?

Do tell.

Because, the way I see it, we are taking out the carbon which has been stored underground (and thus taken OUT of the carbon cycle, with it never being returned to the air) BACK into the air, millions of years later.

That is unhealthy. We also like to use a lot of natural gas. One of these is methane. Both CO2 and methane are greenhouse gases. Therefore, the atmosphere is insulating more and more heat within the Earth. This heats it up.

As the Earth gets warmer, the ice caps melt. Ice, is shiny, and white. This means that it reflects heat off into space. However, as it melts, the amount of heat it allows to leave into space, is much lower.

CFCs, which we used to use, break ozone (O3) into oxygen (O2). This damages the ozone layer, thus eliminating our natural protection against UV radiation. This also heats the Earth up.

Sulphur dioxide is often used in industrial processes. When released into the atmosphere, it may react with oxygen, to produce sulphur trioxide. This is the main cause for acid rain.

But then, there are other factors as well.

The Earth will, over a course of a few thousand years, head towards an ice age. That may provide more cooling.

The effect of the greenhouse gases may be offset by the holes in the ozone layer, which may allow heat to escape.

Warmer Earth means warmer sea. This leads to more rapid cloud formation. Clouds are also white, and so may compensate for the loss of heat.

I think people forget that humans are a part of nature too, and nature has a funny way of counterbalancing things like this.

[Keronians]

Well, I believe in science so I course believe in both Global Warming and Man's influence on it. If was to really believe that the majority of scientists were unethical enough to be bribed to state one view, I am guessing Exxon Mobile has more money then Greenpeace does to bribe scientists to promote their view.

To be honest, people don't "believe science" or disbelieve it when it comes to global warming. We aren't all scientists, we are taking their word for it, so you aren't pro-science, you are just "throwing in" with the establishment/majority view.

You're young, aren't you? A few years older than me.

You must have been taught this stuff when you were a middle schooler and a high schooler. Did it not, from a chemical and biological point of view, make sense?

[Revolutopia]

Well, I believe in science so I course believe in both Global Warming and Man's influence on it. If was to really believe that the majority of scientists were unethical enough to be bribed to state one view, I am guessing Exxon Mobile has more money then Greenpeace does to bribe scientists to promote their view.

To be honest, people don't "believe science" or disbelieve it when it comes to global warming. We aren't all scientists, we are taking their word for it, so you aren't pro-science, you are just "throwing in" with the establishment/majority view.

Scientific Community has strongly came together in supports the idea that Man has an influence on Global Warming, thus according the scientific data we have now there is effect. To deny it is to go against the scientific data and research so yeah I go with this majority view much like I accept the majority believe in evolution and relativity.

[ZombieRothbard]

To be honest, people don't "believe science" or disbelieve it when it comes to global warming. We aren't all scientists, we are taking their word for it, so you aren't pro-science, you are just "throwing in" with the establishment/majority view.

Scientific Community has strongly came together in supports the idea that Man has an influence on Global Warming, thus according the scientific data we have now there is effect. To deny it is to go against the scientific data and research so yeah I go with this majority view much like I accept the majority believe in evolution and relativity.

I get why the majority view is highly regarded, but I think it is a mistake to say that people who don't believe the majority view are "anti-science". Maybe they are just anti-populist? None of us are scientists, we cannot independently verify these peoples research, so whatever side you believe in the debate, you believe because you personally respect their opinion or their authority on the subject. It has nothing to do with being "pro" or "anti" science.

[Avenio]

Alarmists Got it Wrong, Humans Not Responsible for Climate Change: CERN

You didn't actually read the article in Nature, did you?

Early results seem to indicate that cosmic rays do cause a change. The high-energy protons seemed to enhance the production of nanometre-sized particles from the gaseous atmosphere by more than a factor of ten. But, Kirkby adds, those particles are far too small to serve as seeds for clouds. "At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step," he says.

Besides, it's by no means a settled debate. From the Nature article;

Scientists on both sides of the debate welcome the findings, although they draw differing conclusions. "Of course there are many things to explore, but I think the cosmic-ray/cloud-seeding hypothesis is converging with reality," says Henrik Svensmark, a physicist at the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen, who claims a link between climate change and cosmic rays.

Others disagree. The CLOUD experiment is "not firming up the connection", counters Mike Lockwood, a space and environmental physicist at the University of Reading, UK, who is sceptical. Lockwood says that the small particles may not grow fast enough or large enough to be important in comparison with other cloud-forming processes in the atmosphere.

"I think it's an incredibly worthwhile and overdue experiment," says Piers Forster, a climatologist at the University of Leeds, UK, who studied the link between cosmic rays and climate for the latest scientific assessment by the International Panel on Climate Change. But for now at least, he says that the experiment "probably raises more questions than it answers".

Kirkby hopes that the experiment will eventually answer the cosmic-ray question. In the coming years, he says, his group is planning experiments with larger particles in the chamber, and they hope eventually to generate artificial clouds for study. "There is a series of measurements that we will have to do that will take at least five years," he says. "But at the end of it, we want to settle it one way or the other."

NASA Study: Global Warming Alarmists Wrong

Interestingly, there's a lot more to this story than is indicated by the article. That particular study, published by a climate change skeptic, was so poorly done that the journal it was published in, Remote Sensing, actually resigned over letting it through the editorial board.

From the Guardian;

The editor-in-chief of a climate science journal has resigned in response to an academic controversy triggered by his publication of a paper co-authored by a leading climate sceptic.

Prof Wolfgang Wagner wrote in an editorial published on Friday in Remote Sensing that he felt obliged to resign because it was now apparent to him that a paper entitled On the misdiagnosis of surface temperature feedbacks from variations in Earth's radiant energy balance by Roy Spencer and Danny Braswell, was "fundamentally flawed and therefore wrongly accepted by the journal". Spencer has frequently appeared in the rightwing media in the US criticising "climate alarmism" and is the author of a book called The Great Global Warming Blunder.

Wagner, who is the head of the Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing at the Vienna University of Technology, added he "would also like to personally protest against how the authors and like-minded climate sceptics have much exaggerated the paper's conclusions in public statements".

Wagner specifically referred to headlines such as "New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism" on the Forbes magazine website and "Does NASA data show global warming lost in space?" on Foxnews.com, which both attracted considerable attention online.

The paper in question – which, Wagner says, was downloaded 56,000 times within one month after its publication in July, as a result of the attention it attracted - purported to show how the Earth's atmosphere is more efficient at releasing energy into space than is programmed into the computer models used to forecast climate change.

"Satellites show energy being lost while climate models show energy still being gained," Spencer said at the time of publication. The University of Alabama, where Spencer works as a principal research scientist at the Earth System Science Center, added in a press release in July: "The natural ebb and flow of clouds, solar radiation, heat rising from the oceans and a myriad of other factors added to the different time lags in which they impact the atmosphere might make it impossible to isolate or accurately identify which piece of Earth's changing climate is feedback from man-made greenhouse gases."

But Wagner says he now accepts the subsequent criticism from other climate scientists that the peer-review process used to test the paper's findings was flawed. "As the case presents itself now, the [peer review] editorial team unintentionally selected three reviewers who probably share some climate sceptic notions of the authors … The problem is that comparable studies published by other authors have already been refuted in open discussions and to some extend also in the literature, a fact which was ignored by Spencer and Braswell in their paper and, unfortunately, not picked up by the reviewers. In other words, the problem I see with the paper by Spencer and Braswell is not that it declared a minority view (which was later unfortunately much exaggerated by the public media) but that it essentially ignored the scientific arguments of its opponents. This latter point was missed in the review process, explaining why I perceive this paper to be fundamentally flawed and therefore wrongly accepted by the journal."

Spencer is no stranger to academic controversies. He has long maintained that satellite observations showed that atmospheric temperatures were cooling rather than warming until it was shown that the satellites in question suffered from "orbital drift".

John Abraham, an associate professor at the University of St Thomas's school of engineering in Minnesota who criticised the Spencer paper upon its publication, told the Guardian: "It is remarkable that an editor-in-chief has stepped down from his role at a journal because of the publication of a flawed paper. This significant event reflects on the significance of the flaws in the paper and its review process. It is commendable that Wagner has reacted responsibly to the situation."

He continued: "Spencer and his colleagues have a long history of minimising the effects of human-caused climate change; they also have a long history of making serious technical errors. This latest paper is only one in a decade-long track record of errors that have forced Spencer to revise his work as the errors are brought to light. Spencer is well known in the scientific community for publishing high-profile papers that initially dispute global warming and only later are found to be faulty.

"This latest article reportedly showed that the climate is not as sensitive to increases in greenhouse gases. It also called into question the cause-and-effect relationship between clouds and climate change. Wolfgang's resignation was based on the quality of the review the paper received and the obvious technical errors which the paper contained."

Next week, Prof Andrew Dessler of the department of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, is due to publish a paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters offering a detailed peer-reviewed rebuttal of Spencer's paper.

Spencer responded to the resignation via his blog. He said: "I want to state that I firmly stand behind everything that was written in that paper … It appears the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] gatekeepers have once again put pressure on a journal for daring to publish anything that might hurt the IPCC's politically immovable position that climate change is almost entirely human-caused. I can see no other explanation for an editor resigning in such a situation."

I think people forget that humans are a part of nature too, and nature has a funny way of counterbalancing things like this.

Yep. Carbon sequestration as part of the carbon cycle. Carbon from things like decaying plant matter gets trapped underground, and in many cases, is stored long enough that it becomes chemically modified. We're now digging up that sequestered carbon in large quantities in the form of oil and gas, and are now releasing it back into the atmosphere, sidestepping the natural carbon cycle.

[ZombieRothbard]

To be honest, people don't "believe science" or disbelieve it when it comes to global warming. We aren't all scientists, we are taking their word for it, so you aren't pro-science, you are just "throwing in" with the establishment/majority view.

You're young, aren't you? A few years older than me.

You must have been taught this stuff when you were a middle schooler and a high schooler. Did it not, from a chemical and biological point of view, make sense?

I am 20.

It makes sense, but there are a number of assumptions you must accept in order to buy into the theory, just like any other theory.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Honestly? I try not to think about it too much. Some sort of unprecedented coordinated worldwide government-private sector scientific partnership programme aimed at discovering techniques to mitigate the effects would be advisable. Of course, people are stupid so we'll end up with some half-arsed, too late "plan" followed by much hand-wringing.

What's causing it? Could hardly care less. If predictions are right, our shit is going to get majorly messed up, so those in charge better get on to working out how we cope.

[Revolutopia]

Scientific Community has strongly came together in supports the idea that Man has an influence on Global Warming, thus according the scientific data we have now there is effect. To deny it is to go against the scientific data and research so yeah I go with this majority view much like I accept the majority believe in evolution and relativity.

I get why the majority view is highly regarded, but I think it is a mistake to say that people who don't believe the majority view are "anti-science". Maybe they are just anti-populist? None of us are scientists, we cannot independently verify these peoples research, so whatever side you believe in the debate, you believe because you personally respect their opinion or their authority on the subject. It has nothing to do with being "pro" or "anti" science.

The Majority of scientific data supports one side, which has been peer reviewed by experts and accepted makes something have more scientific weight. I find it more populist to go against the science, under the idea we cannot understand so it best to ignore the finding and go with my gut.

[Baja California Prime]

Well, I believe in science so I course believe in both Global Warming and Man's influence on it. If was to really believe that the majority of scientists were unethical enough to be bribed to state one view, I am guessing Exxon Mobile has more money then Greenpeace does to bribe scientists to promote their view.

To be honest, people don't "believe science" or disbelieve it when it comes to global warming. We aren't all scientists, we are taking their word for it, so you aren't pro-science, you are just "throwing in" with the establishment/majority view.

I like to think that I am smart enough to know that I DONT know nearly enough about the issue to think that I would have a legit opinion that is contrary to the overwhelming consensus of tens of thousands of scientists (the experts) about the issue. I also take the vast majority of women who have had children (the experts) at their word when they say that childbirth really hurts, just like I would hope those who haven't been kicked in the nuts would take me and virtually all the men who have been kicked there (the experts) at our word when we say that it really hurts. I would say that people believe both of these to be true and aren't just "throwing in" with the majority.

[ZombieRothbard]

To be honest, people don't "believe science" or disbelieve it when it comes to global warming. We aren't all scientists, we are taking their word for it, so you aren't pro-science, you are just "throwing in" with the establishment/majority view.

I like to think that I am smart enough to know that I DONT know nearly enough about the issue to think that I would have a legit opinion that is contrary to the overwhelming consensus of tens of thousands of scientists (the experts) about the issue. I also take the vast majority of women who have had children (the experts) at their word when they say that childbirth really hurts, just like I would hope those who haven't been kicked in the nuts would take me and virtually all the men who have been kicked there (the experts) at our word when we say that it really hurts. I would say that people believe both of these to be true and aren't just "throwing in" with the majority.

Well I am an atheist, and last I knew a good majority of people believe in an invisible man, so personally I don't put too much stock in the majority opinion.

[Free Soviets]

I think there is virtually no reason to believe that the climate changing has anything to do with human activity.

i know that you have absolutely no basis on which to make such a judgement. i also know that the people who do have such a basis put it at near certainty that we are the responsible factor.

[ZombieRothbard]

I think there is virtually no reason to believe that the climate changing has anything to do with human activity.

i know that you have absolutely no basis on which to make such a judgement. i also know that the people who do have such a basis put it at near certainty that we are the responsible factor.

Well, given the amount of years that Earth has existed, and the amount of years we have been able to accurately measure the global climate, I would say we don't have a large enough sample size to draw any conclusions.

[Free Soviets]

i know that you have absolutely no basis on which to make such a judgement. i also know that the people who do have such a basis put it at near certainty that we are the responsible factor.

Well, given the amount of years that Earth has existed, and the amount of years we have been able to accurately measure the global climate, I would say we don't have a large enough sample size to draw any conclusions.

and i know that the people who have a basis to actually make such conclusions come to the exact opposite one. especially because we need to be wrong about some fairly basic physics to be wrong about anthropogenic climate change.

here's the thing. it takes a lot of work to learn enough science to be able to have independent views about specialized subjects like this. i have a goddamned 'doctoral specialization' in enviro sci and policy, and i only know enough to be able to explain the current scientific consensus and the lines of evidence for it, and keep up with some of the literature. i couldn't myself analyze the data. and anybody with less specialized knowledge than me certainly couldn't. which means the only rational thing for people like ourselves to do is to accept what the experts say OR invest the years of study necessary to become experts ourselves. anything else is epistemically insane.

[Ridicularia]

Well I am an atheist, and last I knew a good majority of people believe in an invisible man, so personally I don't put too much stock in the majority opinion.

You don't have to believe a majority opinion. The nice thing about science, especially hard science, is that the answer gets debated back and forth until enough evidence comes out to basically solve the problem, instead of getting filtered through some sort of "majority-logic" mechanism. In this case, climate change is mostly settled, barring the unlikely event of some stunning new finding. You have the option of reviewing previous literature, or reviewing papers that review the previous literature, or just taking the word of somebody who has read the literature. In this case, you're doing the latter - trusting not the majority, but the widely-respected opinion of academics and scientists. In fact, if you really wanted the whole story, you could just talk to any grad student at your local college.

[Ridicularia]

i have a goddamned 'doctoral specialization' in enviro sci and policy

If you don't mind me asking, would that be a doctorate + specialization in a particular area?

[Free Soviets]

i have a goddamned 'doctoral specialization' in enviro sci and policy

If you don't mind me asking, would that be a doctorate + specialization in a particular area?

its a side specialization that is related to but not a part of my (now discontinued) environmental philosophy doctorate. like a separate two years of interdisciplinary courses and projects and such. basically, you had to be accepted into some other depts' grad program, and then you could apply to be associated with the enviro sci and policy program.

[Ridicularia]

If you don't mind me asking, would that be a doctorate + specialization in a particular area?

its a side specialization that is related to but not a part of my (now discontinued) environmental philosophy doctorate. like a separate two years of interdisciplinary courses and projects and such. basically, you had to be accepted into some other depts' grad program, and then you could apply to be associated with the enviro sci and policy program.

Ah, cool. I wish I had more time to do interdisciplinary stuff, but that sounds like a ton of extra work. Good luck with whatever you've decided to pursue - it's a tough market.

[Metanih]

The term is "Global Warming," And it is very human caused. Anyone who says otherwise is denying facts, like with creationism. Of course, some people that support it may exaggerate facts...