According to Britain’s “highly respected” Meteorological Office (Reuters). Global warming and the United States are the primary culprits. The article chastens the U.S. for rejecting the Kyoto Protocol while calling the United States “the world’s biggest polluter.” From the article: “Most scientists agree that temperatures will rise by between two and six degrees Celsius this century due mainly to carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport. They say this will cause polar ice caps to melt and sea levels to rise and weather patterns to change bringing floods, famines and violent storms, putting millions of lives at risk.”I say break out the surf boards and sun tan oil!
8 comments:
I was in 7th grade during the very first Earth Day celebration in 1970. At that time, we were warned that we would run out of fossil fuels in 25 years. We were warned that the population growth would outstrip the planet’s ability to produce food by 2000.
During the 70’s, we were warned that the earth was headed towards another ice age. Check out Time Magazine, June 24, 1974. As late as 1994, Time magazine was STILL talking about the possibility of an Ice Age.
I would like to see the same computer models that project global warming to accurately show past temperatures when executed in reverse.
Now call me jaded, but you will have to forgive me for not getting worked up over this latest crisis de jour.
There is no knowledgeable scientist who believes there is no global warming or that a significant percentage of the change is anthropogenic.
Here's a short list of "knowledgeable scientist" who would disagree with your blanket statement, rob:
Jan Veizer, environmental geochemist, Professor Emeritus from University of Ottawa
Henrik Svensmark, Danish National Space Center
Willie Soon, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Fred Singer, Professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia
Nir Shaviv, astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Frederick Seitz, retired, former solid-state physicist, former president of the National Academy of Sciences
Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and Professor of Geology at Carleton University in Canada
Marcel Leroux, former Professor of Climatology, Université Jean Moulin
Zbigniew Jaworowski, chair of the Scientific Council at the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection in Warsaw
William M. Gray, Colorado State University
George V. Chilingar, professor of civil and petroleum engineering at the University of Southern California
Robert M. Carter, researcher at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Australia
Sallie Baliunas, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Robert C. Balling, Jr., director of the Office of Climatology and an associate professor of geography at Arizona State University
Claude Allègre, French geophysicist, Institute of Geophysics (Paris)
David Deming, University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs
Richard Lindzen, MIT meteorology professor and member of the National Academy of Sciences
Roy Spencer, principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville
Rob,
I appreciate your perspective, but I think that we will need to respectfully disagree.
I question the accuracy of global climate models. There is ample evidence that scientists still are unsure of the relationship between CO2 and another “greenhouse gas”, water vapor, and its effect on temperature.
I agree that there are political forces driving this debate. The U.N. has been salivating at the thought of charging a global carbon tax on developed countries since 1992.
To say that scientists are unsure of the relationship between CO2 and other "greenhouse gas" and global warming is at best preposterous, and it borders on a lie.
Rob, buddy, pal, let’s keep this respectful. When discussing global warming variables, including water vapor, there is evidence that scientists are unsure of its effects on temperature. From the Global Hydrology & Climate Center under Nasa: “Although water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, we haven't adequately sampled its four-dimensional variability--across space and time--over the globe.”
http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/ghcc_cvcc.html
Can we agree to disagree?
Name one paper published on global warming in a reputable refereed journal by one of them.
So that's the new definition of being a "knowledgeable scientist", rob? Unfortunately, global warming is such a politically charged issue that doing an internet search on these people brings up more political commentary than actual information.
To say that scientists are unsure of the relationship between CO2 and other "greenhouse gas" and global warming is at best preposterous, and it borders on a lie.
You throw around the word "lie" so much it has lost its effectiveness.
Anyways, as you can see here, there is a clear relationship between the number of Pirates and global temps.
It's the same song, just a different tune, and you've fallen for a typical industry FUD campaign.
Yeah, because those CO2 levels are obviously also causing global temp increases on Mars and Venus (cue 30% defense from the flawed Scafetta/West study).
Maybe someone will record their hanging with a cell phone and post it to YouTube.
You're right, because not swallowing the "popular beliefs" kool-aid should be punishable by death. Too bad it wasn't in effect back when that nutjob Francesco Redi took a stand against Spontaneous Generation back in 1668. After all, as one of the leading scientists of his day stated: To question spontaneous generation is to question reason, sense and experience." He should also have been hanging from the gallows!!!
ExonMobil Spent Nearly $16 Million to Fund Skeptic Groups, Create Confusion
You're right. After all, that is "bad money", whereas grant money and donations from groups like the Sierra Club is "good money." So, an industry who's economic wellbeing is threatened funds scientists who hold an opposition view to popular theory. I really can't say I blame them, considering the viceral reaction and the need to silence those who disagree within the scientific community on politically charged issues.
The models do predict accurate past temperatures.
Oh, and sources, please.
First off, I'll say a prayer for your father-in-law. I hope and pray he recovers from whatever put him in the hospital.
These three items ought to provide you with more than enough sources, although the SciAm blog is pretty good, too:
Thank you for the sources. I'll check them out when I have some time... and I'll take them seriously if they present both sides of the issue.
His book, "The Republican War on Science"...
...but given the title of this book, I don't hold out high hopes.
And by the way, the Bush administration has declared that the evidence that anthropogenic global warming is occurring is incontrovertible.
The only thing I was able to find was the putting of Polar Bears on the indangered species list because of disappearing habitat, which is being hailed as the FIRST legally binding admission of the administration to the reality of global warming. No where is there anything about it being man made. Please cite your sources.
The Bush administration's answer is that to do anything about it now would affect the energy industries.
rob, I want you to paint a scenario of society in your mind as to what would happen if the energy industries were to found liable for global warming, and bankrupted by the resulting lawsuits.
And yes, my definition of "knowledgeable scientist includes both competency and an unwillingness to lie to get funding from the oil companies. I'm funny that way.
Now we come to the crux of the issue. You automatically assume that anyone who holds an alternative view must be lying to get funding from the oil companies. Your constant emotion-based discernment of others' motivations is indicative of complete closed-mindedness, which immediately makes me question ANYTHING you have to say. This is something I see throughout the left. Not only that, but it is completely inconsistent, as you are not applying the same criteria to the pro-human-induced global warming side and their government and university grants, plus donations from pro-environmental groups.
Finally, Christianity is becoming tightly associated in the public mind with the opposition to doing anything about global warming.
Christians have been painted as the unifying "boogie-men" of the left, as the Soviets were for the right in the 80's.
When people find out that they have been lied to, how do you think they will treat the Gospel?
Again, you flipantly throw around the word "lie". Were we "lied" to when we were warned about the coming ice age 25 years ago? Or is this another example of a double standard in the form of those that agree with the left and are wrong have committed errors while those that disagree with the left and are wrong have lied?
Rob – I second the Unseen One’s prayers on behalf of your father-in-law. I hope that he has a full recovery.
Granted, this quote regarding water vapor is a little dated, but I think that it still applies:
From the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):
``Feedback from the redistribution of water vapour remains a substantial uncertainty in climate models...Much of the current debate has been addressing feedback from the tropical upper troposphere, where the feedback appears likely to be positive. However, this is not yet convincingly established; much further evaluation of climate models with regard to observed processes is needed."
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd06oct97_1.htm
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