Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Global Warming (or not)

Hey guys, I ran across a fascinating video on YouTube, and I thought I'd share the link:

The Great Global Warming Swindle

It's over an hour long but doesn't feel that way when you're watching it; it's a very well-done documentary, which I believe was aired in Great Britain. They've got meteorologists and environmental scientists -- not to mention the co-founder of Green Peace, who quit in disgust.

I thought it was fascinating. Did you know that more than half of the warming in this century occurred *before* 1940? And from the 40's to the 70's, global temperatures were falling... enough to prompt a flurry of scary headlines (from, of course, a consensus of scientists) about Global Cooling and the coming Ice Age (I'm *just* barely old enough that I remember that). In the 80's temps started trending upward again, which is where the Global Warming hysteria started.

Anyway, overall it made sense to me. You'll have to judge for yourselves. Anyone who's sat through "An Inconvenient Truth" probably ought to see this, too, just to bolster their understanding of the issues.

PJ

In a related comment Frankj's IMAO Question of the Day asks what Global Warming would taste like.

It's pretty funny.

EX: It would be fizzy from all the carbon dioxide.

Posted by: spacemonkey on March 15, 2007 10:47 AM

And, if you take the time to watch that, you may also wish to take the time to read This article/FAQ , which should take about 5 minutes.

Well I went and spent five minutes and then, being the skeptic I am, went and found another internet site that has more links than wikipedia that totally debunk everything again

http://www.skepticism.net/faq/environment/global_warming/

However, knowing that this will just lead to a continual linkage pile up, let me just say, nothing will ever change anybody's minds, and the absolute truth is, FrankJ's site is freaking funny so that's why I posted his link in the first place.

mmmmm....global warming goodness....

Yeah, it was shown on C4 and has pretty much been discredited since. Both sides are still arguing over who has the most valid science and the believers have pretty much done as good a job of debunking much of the 'facts' in this documentary as the non-believers have with Gore's AIT.

TJ is right - I think if you're predisposed to believe in GW then you'll think Gore has the Truth. If you're predisposed to not believe in GW, you'll believe the 'experts' in this documentary.

For myself, I don't find much of value in any documentary that only advances one point of view and which is partisan in one direction or the other. I don't believe anyone can form a truly valid opinion either way unless they listen to both sides of the argument, (as Pam notes) take both with an extreme pinch of salt, do their own research into the various 'facts' presented and then make up their minds on where their own opinion falls.

LabRat

You're right, Rat; there have been claims and counter-claims (documentaries and debunkings) thick on the ground, and it's really hard for us regular joes to sort it all out. One hopes the truth will get out sooner or later.

Speaking of which, there was an article in the New York Times (a notoriously liberal/leftist paper, for those who don't know) last week highlighting some scientific criticisms of Al Gore's famous movie. Apparently, even some global warming believers think Al's piled it on a bit too thick.

(I got to the article just fine, so I don't *think* it's restricted access; if it is, you can always check with "bugmenot.com" to get a fake login )

The thing that amuses me the most is the "Al Gore Effect" :

The list of examples just keeps getting longer . I'm not trying to claim that this proves anything, but some of us find it really hilarious

PJ

You say that like it's a bad thing .

Just trying to forestall anyone who'd think they were biased

PJ

My grandmother watches Fox News every morning while reading the New York Times. Maybe she thinks that gives her a balanced perspective or something.

Check this out. Global Warming Awareness Walk in a winter snow storm


BWAHAHAHAHA!!! God loves to make fools of people that think they know what's going on (read that in Proverbs) He's gonna make whatever weather He wants and there nuttin' us piddly little humans can do about it.

Since I like to read scientific articles and scientific magazines fairly regularly, I have to say that the overwhelming majority view of scientists seems to be that global warming is real, and that it is caused at least partly by humanity.

There are other causes for climate change, too. The most important of these is variations in the energy output of the Sun. It is easy to think that the Sun shines steadily and unchangingly at all times, but it doesn't. For example, it is well known that the 17th and 18th centuries were unusually cold in Europe, and probably in most of the Northern hemisphere. The period is known as The Little Ice Age. Astronomical observations of the Sun from that time show that the Sun had very few sunspots at that time. It has been established that the more sunspots the Sun has, the more active it it, and the more energy it puts out. In other words, the Sun was in fact a little colder in the 17th and 18th century than it is now, which affected the climate of the Earth.

However, the last, oh, twenty years or so has seen the Earth grow steadily warmer. Is that because the Sun is getting hotter? It might be, and if so, that is clearly going to affect the climate of the Earth. Does that mean we can happily release all sorts of known greenhouse gases into the Earth's atmosphere with impunity? Can we say that if the Sun is doing most of the additional warming of the Earth, then we don't have to worry about the part we play ourselves? Can we say that what we are doing to the Earth, such as changing the composition of the atmosphere, isn't affecting the temperature of the Earth?

I don't think we can. I want to point out, too, that to the best of the understanding of astronomers, the Sun is going to grow slowly but inexorably warmer (that is to say, it is going to release ever more energy) as it grows older. In other words, the long term effect of the Sun on the Earth is going to make it progressively hotter. Does that mean that we ourselves should be careful so that we don't add to any general climate changing trend? Yes, in my opinon, we should.

Ann

My problem with the word "consensus" is that it doesn't lend itself to science. If we had a consensus that pi was 3.1415887, that wouldn't make it true.

The fact is that the Earth has gone through both cooling and warming cycles in the past, quite independently of human activities. The Little Climactic Optimum occurred around 1000 A.D., and it was warmer then than it is now -- and there wasn't enough human population of the Earth at the time to have any effect on the climate at all. As a matter of fact, there is now global warming on other planets in the Solar System as well -- Mars, and even Pluto, and I hardly think we can blame humanity for that. Every time a volcano erupts, it spews more CO2 into the atmosphere than all the cars on the planet. When Krakatoa blew itself to bits in the 1800s it blasted a tremendous amount of CO2 and dust into the atmosphere, and temperatures around the Earth were cooler for a few years afterwards, while the sunsets were more spectacular.

I'm not saying that the theory of global warming has no merit. I'm saying that there are so many variables that we simply don't know enough to form a meaningful conclusion yet. We don't hear much of it from the media because they've bought into the idea of global warming, but the fact is that there are a good number of very reputable scientists who disagree with it. So I, for one, am not going to go running off half-cocked while we don't know what we're talking about. We need to study the climate a lot more thoroughly before we do anything drastic. After all, considering that we *don't* know what we're doing, we could as easily make the wrong choice as the right one.

And there's also this to think about. There is a greater climactic cycle as well -- the ice age that occurs about every 100,000 years, and lasts about 90,000 years. We've had about 12,000 years of temperate climate since the end of the last ice age. Going by geological evidence, we could be headed for an ice age soon.

See what I mean? When you don't know enough about it, you can find statistics that can "prove" anything you want. Besides, it's a known fact that as soon as politics gets mixed with science, the science immediately becomes unreliable. Remember the theory of acquired characteristics being inherited? They were pushing that one because a powerful leader wanted them to. That still didn't make it true.

I prefer to wait a little while until we are a little more sure of our facts. Jumping the gun could do a lot more harm than good.

Nan

I'm not sure I agree with this.

As one goes up the ranks of the sciences (or any institutional discipline) regardless of what the underlying "fact" may be consensus seems to be what moves the masses. A theory gets validated not only because it is "proven" to be a fact, but rather because a large number of scientists with good reputations give it the thumbs up (and we like to think that they do it after extensive testing, but we're all human and the idea that science is devoid of politics from the get-go is really naive, those dudes want awards and tenure just as much as any other person).

I'm not implying that if those dudes say we can fly, we will. That's too crude. My point is that the validation of "fact" has more to do with consensus than most people think and that it goes without saying that this means that even science is always political one way or another. So unless you're out there measuring for yourself, getting the "facts" without any add ons or skew is impossible and even if you do, it still needs consensus to fly and be important to anyone but you. So yes, consensus is much more significant than people give it credit for.

Phew.

alcyone

I'm pretty well in line with Lab; I think we are going to believe whatever we've already been exposed to. Me, I listen to the worries of global warming a lot more than the counter-arguments people make against it. Does it mean I'm going to play my guitar in the forest and protest a hundred things at Capitol Hill? No. I think more importantly, it means I'll be a little more Earth-conscious, regardless of the effect that has on the rising temperatures. Who's going to throw a fit if I become a little more environmentally-friendly?

JD

Can we agree on the following...?

1. We are affecting our environment through various forms of pollution.

2. We have become dependent on, and are rapidly using up, finite resources such as fossil fuels.

3. In the long run, we'd probably be better off doing less of both.

To me, that's the important stuff. Whether Item 1 includes global warming or just other, more easily provable, things (case in point: the lovely central NJ groundwater, or the huge ozone hole now affecting millions of people in the Southern Hemisphere) is beside the point. Most of the things that they say contribute to global warming (massive burning of fossil fuels, slashing and burning acres and acres of rainforest to raise massive herds of cattle, etc) have other negative effects.

Why waste all this time and energy debating whether or not the smog that we're continually releasing into the atmosphere is affecting our climate, when I think most of us can agree that we'd rather not be breathing it?

Hear, hear, Paul!

Thanks, Darcy.

Came back because I thought of a couple of different ways to put it.

It's good to know things like just how much lead constitutes a toxic dose, how it gets absorbed into the body, how much is used in certain types of bullets, etc., but aren't there better things to worry about when you've shot yourself in the foot, you're bleeding, and there's a chance of infection?

As has been pointed out, it's not like we have a spare planet if we screw this one up. How are things going to look 50 years from now?

Option 1: "New data is in. Oops, we were wrong about global climate change. Guess we all started on those healthier lifestyles for nothing. Our bad."

Option 2: "New data is in. Oops, we were wrong about global climate change. Turns out we're doomed, after all, and now it's too late to do anything. Our bad."

Some things just seem more important than politics, or even than being proven right.

This is such a serious topic and I fear , at times, our media has handled it in both a superficial and sensational way.

Ann and Nan make very valid points - the issue isn't a simple one, involving just one variable. But because some of the actions we might urge our governments to take could have a very drastic impact on the basic lives of ordinary people, although not on multi-millionaries, of course, it's important for us to be both well-informed and thoughtful about *all* the variable involved.

Yet Paul has a good point - we can't ignore our individual contributions to the problem. So do what we can individually - and that should include Mr. Gore's moving out of that huge carbon emission mansion.

Here in Canada we've been engaging in several months of national (a loaded word in Canada btw) of simplistic self- flagellation, in the naive belief that we can stop global warming.
Yet Canada accounts for only 2% of global carbon emissions.
If we were to revert to the lifestyles of 200 years ago we still would make only a microscopic difference.

But we still must try.

c.

I'm with Nan on this topic. When you don't know enough, it doesn't make sense to drastically change all of our lifestyles to prevent a "what if". This doesn't mean that we shouldn't do anything at all. I have no problems with reducing our dependencies on fossil fuels. I think Brazil had it right when they went with all ethanol. Less dependence on the Middle East or Venezuela and more dependence on our own corn farmers can't be a bad thing.

The one thing we don't want to do is go overboard. Kyoto is an example of going overboard. Analyses have shown that it could easily cripple the economy of the United States and other industrialized nations and put us into a deep depression. Sure, that's economic voodoo that can't be proven, but neither can GW with any certainty.

What is smart is to try to move towards cleaner fuels and cleaner energy. Moving at a respectable pace is also smart. We should move for the right reasons, not because of a panic scare. What is funny is that many of the advocates of moving towards clean energy and reducing carbon emissions are also the main stumbling blocks in preventing us from reaching those goals. The same ones touting "An Inconvenient Truth" are the same ones picketing nuclear power plants, keeping windmills out of their backyards, knocking out power-generating dams because they were preventing salmon from reaching their hatching grounds, fighting ethanol subsidies since they are a sellout to Big Agriculture, and imposing horrid restrictions that have caused brownouts in the state of California. They're also the same people who were scaring us in the 1970's with global cooling.

Another thing is to keep in perspective just what mankind can do. Nature is powerful. We can make quite a bit of progress only to find one volcano undoing everything we've done in our entire history. As Nan pointed out, a single volcanic eruption puts out more carbon emissions than all the cars have done since the invention of the Model T. Mount Pinatubo drastically changed the weather of southern California. Before it erupted, San Diego was a very dry city with moderate temperatures. After it erupted, the weather patterns were changed dramatically with humidity rocketing skyward until it's often around 70-80%. Fortunately I left and headed into the great Pacific Northwest.

It's also interesting that Mount Krakatoa caused a case of global cooling! Which is it? Do carbon emissions cause warming by trapping warmth on the surface or do they cause cooling by blocking sunlight from reaching the ground? I've never heard a reasonable explanation from anyone about how the same gases can be the cause of global warming and global cooling. I think the answer to that depends on your political leanings.

In reference to Al Gore's tendency to bring cold weather everywhere he goes, I find it funny that the purveyors of GW as fact say that unusually cold weather is a sign that global warming is real while at the same time saying that hotter temperatures are also a sign that global warming is real.

People laughed at Ronald Reagan when he claimed that trees and cow flatulence were huge contributors to green house gases. It turns out, he was right as we now know. It isn't just people who can affect the environment. As Nan says, there are just too many variables. We can detect warming is taking place, but there's no way our science can currently figure out what people alone are responsible for. Our science can't even agree how much warming is taking place. Every other day it seems, there's another story about an environmental scientist saying how our measurements are wrong and that either more warming or less warming is taking place.

Why is it that the coldest places on earth are also the places that warmed the most? Siberia has warmed about 4C while in the supposed hotbed of all the pollution and carbon emissions in the world, the United States, the temperatures have only increased by about 1-2C in the last century? More things to ponder. Why isn't it that the US is 10C warmer and Siberia isn't much colder since there's nothing there? That tells me that there are other causes other than humans that may be contributing. Nobody doubts that warming is taking place. What's in doubt is the cause and how much it is actually warming.

The media has arrived at the consensus that global warming is real and has been incontrovertibly proven to be real. Schools now teach the same thing. Yet it turns out that in the United States, 93% of people in the print and television media are liberals and/or Democrats and voted for Al Gore. A similar ratio occurs in academia. Coincidence? My leanings tell me to ignore the media and try to find facts for myself. I can't tell you whether GW is human-caused or a natural cycle, but until someone really does prove it one way or the other conclusively, I don't see any reason to destroy our economies and our way of life. It's wise to clean up our environment and go towards non-polluting energy even if GW were false, but trying to push huge negatively life-altering solutions on a gullible population isn't the answer.

Actually it is a bad thing. When you can't trust a paper to give you the straight story, what good is it? When their editorials don't sound any different from their front-page stories, why read them? I get a newspaper for only one reason now: store ads. Their circulation numbers and constant layoffs reflect the decline of that once great paper.

THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S OPPOSITE DAY!!!
Zombie Squirrel in: Global Warming