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There is no real scientific debate any more about whether climate change is real and substantial. That debate is over. That debate was decided in scientific communities a decade ago, and the consensus opinion is clear... climate change is real, and it's accelerating.
The only place left where there is still substantial debate about this issue is in political circles, and it's well documented that Big Energy interests like the Koch Brothers have financed that political resistance to the scientific facts.
That's why the US Department of Defense has been spending Billion$ on planning and mitigation of the effects of rising seas, rising air and sea temperatures, shifts in storm patterns, etc. because they know they will have to fight wars in the future in a very different physical environment than we all grew up with.
Anybody who doubts that the CO2 level in our atmosphere, which has been steadily rising since the Industrial Age began, can eventually make life uninhabitable on Earth if it rises high enough, should watch the final episode of Cosmos, with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, on the Fox channel and elsewhere. In it he presents the evidence in devastating detail, with visuals anybody can understand, of how serious this issue is for mankind.
The debate is NOT over. That's the typical argument that a supporter of something likes to make when they really don't have any idea what they're talking about.
Until you are able to pull a very large sample size of scientists together, that are RANDOMLY selected, and get them to explain their beliefs along with why, you cannot say scientists agree or that the debate is over.
The global warming kooks have a habit of putting together statements like this, but not telling us WHO their "scientists" are, what study they've all done, where they got this grouping of scientists, etc.
We'll never see true, unbiased facts. Just selective choosing of their "scientists" and statements saying "the debate is over". But no real meat behind anything.
It appears that the article you have linked is simply ignored by the deniers.
When one wants to believe in a particular way, additional information and contrary reports are avoided. Makes it much easier to believe and pass on the false assumptions of the OP.
Can't understand thousand year old ice flows disappearing in 50 years? Can't understand disappearing polar ice caps? Like I said... look at the the data concerning the consistent rise in CO2 content in the atmosphere since the beginning of the Industrial Age. It's indisputible. And it's a primary mechanism to raise the atmospheric temperature, the temperature of the seas, and the acidifiation of the oceans.
You are talking about a few isolated areas, not the world as a whole. Moreover, the world as a whole shows no aggregate temperature rise. "Global warming" means warming across the globe. Where's the proof that is happening?
Further, you are implying that the changes in these isolated areas you cite are the result of man-made activities. Where's the proof that is true?
But that's not fair, why didn't ordinary folk get to put their 2 cents in to help form this consensus? I'm not sure I trust those scientists, who do they think they are? So annoying, throwing around facts and figures and observations.
If being pedantic were a virtue, you'd be a saint by now. If your thesis was that even in 2014 it is possible for a person to appear reasonably coherent and yet ignore reams of scientific fact to cling to long-held beliefs, then you hit a home run. But we already knew it was possible, so you're proving nothing new.
What you're really asking for is for somebody to go back in time and create two identical earths, one that develops exactly as our reality has, and the other that saw Homo Sapiens die out and no other intelligent species come along to take over the world and pump a quadrillion tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, and then compare the two earths at the same point in time (2014). And if there's a difference, then you'll finally understand. Failing that, science will never change your mind. And then you'll die. So, I ask you, why would you create this thread? Just why do it?
Do you actually believe you'll convert somebody from a place of understanding to one of ignorance? Why would anyone want to go down that path with you? Or were you just hoping to preach to an increasingly marginalized choir?
I can't even tell if you're denying global long-term average temperature changes exist, or denying the effects of this such as the dwindling northern sea ice, or just denying that humans could possibly have had anything to do with it.
I want you to know, that never gets old.
Global warming supporter need to do two things.
1) Show the indisputable aggregate temperature data that proves their theory that the world is warming.
2) Show the highly reliable evidence that proves this aggregate temperature warming date is the clear and unyielding result of man-made activities.
So far, you have laid out evidence that proves neither. Where is your case?
A melting bucket of ice water stays at approximately 0 degrees C until the ice is finished melting. This is because the energy added to the system is melting the ice rather than warming the water. Global warming is a slight misnomer, in that warming is a symptom rather than the source of the climate change, and that many of the more serious consequences of climate change, including sea level rise, ocean acidification, and changes in the convective ocean currents can be observed with or without an associated increase in observed temperature. There are big differences between the terms heat, specific heat, kinetic energy, internal energy, temperature, enthalpy, and heat capacity, and a thorough understanding of all of them is required to explain the consequences of the planet absorbing more energy than it radiates away. Unfortunately, the only thermodynamic measurements understood by the general public are isolated thermometer readings and yearly snowfall totals. Trying to explain why evidence based on satellite data, ice cores, carbonate/bicarbonate equilibria, and atmospheric gas composition are important to the climate falls on deaf ears when talking to climate change deniers.
The debate among scientists who understand the issues has been over for a decade. The semantic debates over the difference between climate and weather and the epistemological debate over the limits of human knowledge are only being continued for political reasons. Most climate change deniers are just not savvy or informed enough to recognize that their sources are garbage and they legitimately believe what they say. A few, though, know exactly how serious climate change is but willfully disregard the dangers because they fear the personal economic impact of a responsible environmental policy would hurt their bottom line. Others see opportunities in the geopolitical changes that climate change will surely bring, particularly those in the mid to high latitudes who tend to come out ahead relative to the tropics when it comes to agricultural productivity.
And this is why science is great. It's open to new ways of thinking based on new evidence.
We do need climate science to be open to new evidence as well.
But the fact that our understanding has historically changed over time does not invalidate what we currently understand based on all currently available evidence.
But it also doesn't allow for the following quote to be universally used and beaten over all of our heads:
"The science is settled."
No true scientist uses this statement simply because we've been known to be wrong before. At the turn of the 20th century, it was generally assumed that the field of physics was almost complete in terms of knowledge. How arrogant they were.
The evidence of climate change is great - in terms of data. Anthropogenic climate change, OTOH, is less so, especially when its used in a political sense.
BTW, I'm not a denier... merely a skeptic, with the 25 years of scientific background/education to justify it.
Last edited by Starman71; 06-20-2014 at 08:38 AM..
1) Show the indisputable aggregate temperature data that proves their theory that the world is warming.
2) Show the highly reliable evidence that proves this aggregate temperature warming date is the clear and unyielding result of man-made activities.
So far, you have laid out evidence that proves neither. Where is your case?
There's no such thing as "indisputable" in the sense of data that nobody disputes. There's data that is factual, and the dispute might be stupid astroturf corporate smokescreening, but if you insist on calling that data "disputable" on that basis then there's really no response to it.
None of which has anything to do with the actual fact of global warming, just your worthless circular debate-framing.
Last edited by FrankMiller; 06-20-2014 at 10:17 AM..
People who claim that man-made global warming is happening should certainly be able to produce very clear aggregate global warming data that supports their theory.
Just as prosecutors must provide jurors with clear and unyielding evidence before they can expect a jury to support their theory of a defendant having committed a crime, similar evidence should exist and be presented by global warming supporters. However, aggregate global warming data since 1997 works against their theory.
Where the beef?
If you say so!
I've been all over the World on business and more often than not there were reports of weather that was out of the norm!
It's also my understanding that the exceptionally hot weather ( records being broken) has coincided with a period when the suns energy should have led to the reverse situation!
I'm not a " Green" but I am pretty certain we have altered natural events!
People who claim that man-made global warming is happening should certainly be able to produce very clear aggregate global warming data that supports their theory.
Just as prosecutors must provide jurors with clear and unyielding evidence before they can expect a jury to support their theory of a defendant having committed a crime, similar evidence should exist and be presented by global warming supporters. However, aggregate global warming data since 1997 works against their theory.
Where the beef?
don't you know, they call it climate change now, even though climate change has been around since the birth of the planet and will be here even after the planet no longer has man on it. the sun has does more for global warming than man ever could.
plus the reason that the global warming fanatics say climate change instead of global warming, is that they found out that not many people really believe in global warming and that they could not implement their socialist policies. so they just say climate change instead.
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