I don't know what you see in this graph, but I see a climate that, in modern times, is stabilizing around modern values. We seem to have dampened the wild swings and caused a bit of a stasis. Now, if we're causing that stasis to increase by a half a degree a year, or whatever it is that we're claiming, then that will be absolutely disastrous for human civilization. Now, I can say for sure that this graph shows that, in geological terms, the temperature of the earth has swung wildly. But we, as humans, have a LOT more control over the temperature of the earth than any living being has had before, and thus it's not really intelligent to use the last 500,000 years of geological history to predict what will happen next. I agree that rising temperatures have probably had an effect on CO2 emissions. But this doesn't mean that CO2 emissions don't have an effect on rising temperatures. If anything, we have a positive feedback loop, making it even MORE imperative that we cut down on CO2 emissions and start to reverse them.
Some scientists do actual science. But when you have a political committee like the IPCC voting on things and editing scientists' work, it's no longer science. When you have scientists no longer following the scientific method and insisting things are a certain way, it's no longer the scientific method at play. What it is resembles religion. In fact, scientists predicting the future regarding climate is like astrology and not like science. They can't even predict the weather 3 weeks out and we're to assume their predictions are close to accurate decades or centuries out? Their computer models don't even predict the past. Their predictions about hurricane activity and tornadoes over the past few years have been miserably off. Their data are highly suspect in other respects though they ignore the things that make them suspect, to make them fit the "hypothesis" (it isn't a hypothesis, really) or to come to their desired outcome. Science truly has become a religion. People who point to science as what should dictate behavior are no different than religions that do the same thing. Right down to the burn in hell (due to the planet being too warm!) if you don't do what they say. Al Gore is a joke. His Nobel Prize proves the prize isn't based on anything but popularity anymore. And you can't know at all if there's a consensus, reached by a group as a whole, without a vote. Otherwise it's like what science has become - assertions without evidence or measurements.
Your analysis is like seeing a dead tree in the forest and concluding all the trees in the forest are dead too. What I see is that recent years are no different than other times of peak temperatures. Given the huge time scales in the graph, you can see that temperature change is not a straight line. Any ups/downs in the graph, especially looked at with the small temperature range your graph provides are only useful to scare people for no good reason. There are numerous other explanations for why the earth gets warmer, and there's absolutely no reason to think that 350 parts per million of CO2 has anything to do with anything. The correlation between sunspot activity and temperature is more convincing. Glacier melt under the ozone hole isn't convincing at all. It's imperative that we spend our resources and efforts trying to figure out how to maintain the shorelines or move the cities inland, because no matter what we do, the oceans are going to rise (as they have been long before fossil fuels). Otherwise, we're going to waste our time and a huge amount of money trying to figure out how to not live like cavemen - cold during the winter, in the dark at night, not able to travel very far from where you live. While we're still going to need to figure out (hopefully not too late) how to save the cities.
"There's absolutely no reason"? Really? I mean, here's a reason. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and currently contributes between 9 and 24% to the Earth's natural greenhouse effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas It's a completely logical statement to say that as CO2 percentages rise, so will the greenhouse effect and, thus, Earth's temperature. So, that's a reason. You may argue that other factors are more important (I think the water vapor one is intriguing, actually), but don't go off like there's no scientific basis to the theory that CO2 levels can effect the Earth's temperature.
Look at the concentration of CO2. 350 parts per million = .000350. That aside, CO2 is a good thing, necessary for life to exist (we exhale it, plants "inhale" it). I don't argue that man isn't reshaping the planet. We're damming rivers and flooding plains that aren't naturally flooded - this changes where the water vapor in the air is. We've clear cut vast areas of the amazon rain forest, which means far fewer trees and plants to convert CO2 back to O2. The CFCs in aerosol sprays really did kill a big chunk of the ozone layer. There are natural effects that we can do nothing about that lead to warming. The glaciers have receded from the point where they used to cover the great lakes. The albedo of the planet has changed considerably as the ice receded. What used to be white and reflected light and heat back into space is now dark and absorbs light and heat. That is a feedback mechanism - the less white the more heat absorbed, the more heat absorbed the more ice melts...
Politics is politics. Science is science. The fact that politics exists doesn't invalidate science. I don't think that's a fair assessment. Certainly, climate science has a long long way to go. It is a tough problem. We certainly don't know all the answers. But what you are advocating for, apparently, is just ignoring it all since it isn't complete and guaranteed. That's not a very useful approach. That may be your perception, but I think your perceptions of science are quite flawed. Your suggestion that science wasn't working correctly in the article about archeology you quoted is evidence of that. Well, that is a cute parallel, but do you really want to say that science should not dictate behavior? Maybe you should jump off a tall building onto the pavement. Science says that you'll hurt yourself, but if you want to believe that isn't true, that it's just a bunch of political lies, hey, be my guest. What is your fixation on Al Gore? As we've already both agreed, he's not a scientist. So his actions, or lack thereof, do not reflect upon science. As for the Nobel Peace Prize, how would you go about awarding that in a an objective manner? Of course it is, at some level, a popularity contest. Always has been. Nonsense. I already provided you with the definition of the word. It doesn't include a requirement for voting, your religious belief that it does. barfo
How do you know? Did some scientists tell you that? Those guys can't be trusted. Seriously, since you don't believe in science, why do you believe in that? You certainly didn't observe the ozone damage yourself, right? barfo
The damage to the ozone is understandable, provable, and truly observable. I do believe in science, I don't believe in it as a religion. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]When ultraviolet light waves (UV) strike CFC* (CFCl[SIZE=-2]3[/SIZE]) molecules in the upper atmosphere, a carbon-chlorine bond breaks, producing a chlorine (Cl) atom. The chlorine atom then reacts with an ozone (O[SIZE=-2]3[/SIZE]) molecule breaking it apart and so destroying the ozone. This forms an ordinary oxygen molecule(O[SIZE=-2]2[/SIZE]) and a chlorine monoxide (ClO) molecule. Then a free oxygen** atom breaks up the chlorine monoxide. The chlorine is free to repeat the process of destroying more ozone molecules. A single CFC molecule can destroy 100,000 ozone molecules.[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]* CFC - chlorofluorocarbon: it contains chlorine, fluorine and carbon atoms. ** UV radiation breaks oxygen molecules (O[SIZE=-2]2[/SIZE]) into single oxygen atoms.[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Chemical equation[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]CFCl[SIZE=-2]3[/SIZE] + UV Light ==> CFCl[SIZE=-2]2[/SIZE] + Cl Cl + O[SIZE=-2]3[/SIZE] ==> ClO + O[SIZE=-2]2[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] ClO + O ==> Cl + O[SIZE=-2]2[/SIZE] [/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The free chlorine atom is then free to attack another ozone molecule[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Cl + O[SIZE=-2]3[/SIZE] ==> ClO + O[SIZE=-2]2[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] ClO + O ==> Cl + O[SIZE=-2]2[/SIZE] [/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]and again ... [/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Cl + O[SIZE=-2]3[/SIZE] ==> ClO + O[SIZE=-2]2[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] ClO + O ==> Cl + O[SIZE=-2]2[/SIZE] [/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]and again... for thousands of times.[/FONT]
Sure. But have you understood it, proved it, and observed it yourself? If not, how are you not just believing in it "as a religion"? What makes the climate scientists who study ozone right, and the climate scientists who study global warming wrong? It can't be that you know more about climate science than they do, right? So you are choosing to believe in one set of results, and not another. Your claim is that the latter group is not doing science, but is practicing politics. But that just seems like another religious belief to me. Certainly it could be true - just like extraterrestrial life could exist - but in the absence of evidence, why make that assumption? barfo
I'm satisfied that chemists all over the world agree that chemistry is what chemistry is, and the chemical formula is a scientific FACT. I know more about climate science than Al Gore does, and certainly more than people who fall for the global warming hoax. But that's not saying much.
So, basically you are saying that you know more about climate science than the climate scientists. I'm skeptical. Feel free to prove it to me, scientifically. barfo
I don't think climate scientists who claim there's man made global warming are falling for anything. They know where their grants come from is all. Let me give you something to be skeptical of. Computer models are one of the main sources of the claim of man made global warming. Forget that those models can't predict the past, given all the data they can shovel into them. You should be skeptical because Detroit doesn't use computer models to determine the safety of their vehicles - they actually crash cars into walls at great expense instead. Why on earth would they do that if a much simpler (than geologic time frame climate models) computer model could be used instead?
Why, did they take a vote? If not, your belief in consensus on chemistry is just a religious faith on your part. Without a vote, assertions of consensus are just political claims with no basis, right?
The chemistry of CFCs and Ozone is a fact. It is not in question. The chemistry can be and has been repeated in labs everywhere with the same results. Not true of the global warming hoax. Find me a scientist who refutes the chemistry.
Ah, so they are liars. I see. And you base this belief on what, exactly? Federal crash test requirements, I'd guess. Edit: And seriously, I'm to be skeptical of something because Detroit doesn't do it? Like everything they've done over the past 40 years has been so brilliant? Maybe I should be skeptical of fuel-efficient cars? barfo
"We need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. . . . Each of us has to decide what is the right balance between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both." -- Stephen Schneider, National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist who headed one of the leading climate modeling teams in the United States, Discover Magazine October 1989, page 47
The science behind global warming (greenhouse gases that trap heat) is straightforward chemistry. The data detailing the global rising temperatures over the past century is straightforward also. The only argument that generally comes up is that if you look over many thousands of years, you see a cycling. Yes, that's true, but a bit irrelevant. If we cause temperatures to rise to deadly levels, I'm sure the Earth will cycle back down someday. But a few thousand years of temperatures too high to sustain human life hurts, even if temperatures come down again after that.
