It seems very fashionable at the moment to cast doubt on the science associated with climate change, even to argue that there is some global conspiracy amongst the thousands of scientists working with the data to mislead us, to coerce us into changing our lifestyle, and to excessively govern our actions. Such an action is of course seen as a violation of our rights, and we are encouraged to become indignant and hostile to it.
Of course, everyone acknowledges that there is something going on with the weather, that the polar ice caps are losing some of their ice, that the sea is warming up, and that the carbon dioxide level is increasing in the atmosphere. Many also concede that weather systems seem to be becoming rather more unstable and accept that there has been an increase in the number of serious hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, and violent storms. And yes, it's true that habitats are disappearing leaving some species on the verge of extinction.
But, the argument goes, it's just a natural process, something that happens to the world in cycles, and we'll just need to ride it out and everything will be fine again. For every piece of research or data that shows the seriousness of the problem, there appears to be someone else willing to say that the science is either wrong or insufficient. The idea of doubt in the data is a very powerful mechanism for getting people not to believe any of it.
But let's think about that doubt for a moment. Science is of course full of doubt: if there weren't doubt, science would just stop. Scientists are driven by doubt, by wanting to understand things fully, and in the case of climate change, no scientists would be satisfied that they had all the data they wanted. But doubt doesn't at all imply that the data is inadequate to inform a decision. We can have sufficient data to be sure of the right thing to do, long before we have sufficient data to say we fully understand the problem.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - pablo
"No one who has considered the evidence can doubt that carbon dioxide build-up is the major cause of the problem. Nor can they doubt that human activity is at its source."
Talk about falsehoods, what a bunch of crap. Literally thousands of scientists doubt that carbon dioxide is the cause of global warming, now called climate change by the propagandists.
In point of fact increased co2 levels in the atmosphere have never preceded global warming in the past, in fact just the opposite is true.
The conspiracy that you deny is so in your face that you are the one who is in denial Mr. Lloyd.
2 - Dr Dreadful
In point of fact increased co2 levels in the atmosphere have never preceded global warming in the past, in fact just the opposite is true.
Which should tell you that something unprecedented is up, shouldn't it, Pablo?
3 - Priyank Chandra
Pablo: So true. There is no global warming. No climate change.
As Jon Stewart once said : "The rising sea levels are because of God's tears."
Hopefully the people on those small islands can evolve gills within a few decades. (unless evolution is a hoax too)
4 - Glenn Contrarian
Pablo -
If a high CO2 content has never preceded global warming...then what about Venus? Its atmosphere consists mainly of CO2 and a small amount of nitrogen.
And if you still don't think anything's wrong with a high CO2 content in the atmosphere, how about oceanic acidification? When water absorbs CO2, it forms carbonic acid. This is a very slow process, granted, but when the CO2 level of the air raises, the seawater turns more acidic, and the acidification is now proceeding more rapidly than earlier climate change models predicted, according to this article in the Washington Times...oh, we all know that the Washington Times is such a far left-wing extremist rag, but you might learn something from it anyway.
Or you could peruse this article from England's Royal Society - but oh, silly me, if someone from England says something it must be false.
And then there's this article from Arstechnica, but I'm sure you know they're just a part of the vast left-wing conspiracy too.
And while the ocean becomes progressively more acidic, perhaps you can tell us what we're all going to do when the oceanic ecosystem collapses? Hint: it doesn't just stop with "don't eat any more seafood".
And one last thing, Pablo - you know all those scientists who are 'crying wolf' about climate change? They HOPE they're wrong - they really do. They WANT to be wrong...but that's just not what their data is showing them, and they - like me - believe in letting the facts determine what they believe, rather than in hiding their heads in the sand like the climate-change deniers are doing.
5 - pablo
Priyank,
I never said not implied that there is not climate change, climate change is a given, nor did I imply that there has not been global warming.
Dread, yes there is something up, its called Chicken Little, and it was invented by the Club of Rome, Maurice Strong, and the Rothschilds.
Contrarian,
I never give any credence to any article written in a newspaper owned by reverend Moon, that would be crazy. The fact that your last sentence in your little tirade ends with "climate-change" deniers says it all. First off I do not know of any scientists or laymen that are "questioning" whether co2 causing global warming as denying that there is climate change occuring, as it has been occuring for ages.
The fact that you choose to use that derogatory terminology "deniers" with obvious connotations to holocaust denial, speaks volumes about your hysteria.
6 - pablo
Glenn,
Perhaps Mars and Pluto are heating up because of high concentrations of co2 too!
7 - Dr Dreadful
Pablo,
Mars and Pluto are not Earth, and the reasons why they may or may not be heating up have nothing to do with why Earth is.
8 - Ruvy
All you climate change freaks out there. Have you ever heard of rushing the job? Climate change is being used by the control freaks in the CFR etc., because it is a convenient tool TO EXERCISE CONTROL OVER YOUR LIVES! Don't any of you get this at all?
The nature of control needed to deal with a real threat to the climate would be dictatorial. If you don't believe me, pick up a science fiction novel written around 35 years ago called "Heat" which does describe the kind of dictatorial control needed.
The problem here is that the control freaks can't wait. So, they fudge the numbers, and shovel the shit and manipulate the media, and try to hustle a treaty that would indeed be dictatorial down your throats.
There is major degradation to the environment, and it has been caused by the same capitalists who are now trying to screw you all over. But that is not the issue. The issue is that the proof is just not all in because of things like global dimming which hides a lot of the symptoms by cutting sunlight. And these control freaks have another agenda going of imposing some kind of dictatorship by x date - so they want to rush the job.
They made the commercial, they but never watched - "We shall serve no wine before its time." They are looking to serve unripened grapes and want to call it wine.
And suckers like y'all buy into the bullshit. What fools you are!
9 - Dr Dreadful
Ruvy, your theory might make a tiny bit more sense if the heads of state had actually 'agreed' to a stronger deal at Copenhagen that would have given them that sort of control...
10 - Ruvy
your theory might make a tiny bit more sense if the heads of state had actually 'agreed' to a stronger deal at Copenhagen that would have given them that sort of control...
They tried, DD, they tried. The implications evolving from a successful treaty would have led to this dictatorial control by local jurisdictions. But they failed. There is no honor among thieves and that was the big lesson to be drawn from Copenhagen. There are no heads in the sand, except those of the fools who buy this bullshit lock, stock and scandal - like the author - and you, Priyank and Glenn Contrarion.
If these guys can't cut a deal on climate control, they'll cast about for something else - like "smart cards" embedded in your skin to allow the government to trace where you go, while allowing you the "convenience" of buying, selling and having your medical records read easily.
All these things described are means of control, and the unfortunate thing is that they are not science fiction. They are being developed as I type this comment.
Even the "security" at airports (talked about in a different article) is a primitive form of this control. But it is truly primitive and reactive, and does not really give a control-minded regime the power it needs; all it really does is discriminate against non-whites in American airports.
Which is why Priyank wrote that article. That is how all this affects him.
11 - Priyank Chandra
Being a non-American who lives half the world away, in a quiet city in India, I certainly do feel indignation at any attempt of the American government to control me.
Thanks Ruvy for the heads up.
12 - Bob Lloyd
[In point of fact increased co2 levels in the atmosphere have never preceded global warming in the past, in fact just the opposite is true.]
Pablo, that's just untrue. At around 65 million years ago, there was a very abrupt increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (thousands of ppm) that led to a very rapid rise in temperature. Then again at 55 million years ago, the surface temperature of the earth rose by 5-10 degress - the evidence was from the Ocean Drilling Program cores from the Shatsky Rise (32N 158E) and it corresponded to a rapid increase in carbon dioxide in the sea. Around 3000 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide had been injected into the atmosphere. We even know the source of the carbon: the north and central atlantic, and a region off the coast of Norway.
But you're right that the role of carbon is complex. It gets absorbed by animals who use carbonates for skeletons, it forms carbonates which sediment, it gets soaked up by plankton that are in turn affected by sea temperatures. Sediments produce fixed carbon in the form of coal and oil. Living organisms acts to fix carbon and remove it from the atmosphere, as well as contributing to it by respiration. And the changes are of course not instantaneous - they took place over decades. And when there is a complex cycle, you can't expect to say simply A (on its own) caused B. But you can with certainty say that an increase in the atmospheric carbon dioxide always caused a tendency for increased temperature.
During various periods of cooling, counteracting tendencies came into play too. For example, an increase in the ice pack reflects more of the sun's energy back from the surface accelerating a reduction in overall temperature. An increase in carbon fixing reduces carbon dioxide reducing the greenhouse effect causing cooling. It's a dynamic system which is why we have to use detailed climate models to take into account the size of all these effects.
That's been done. The carbon cycle is fairly complex and it's too simplistic to simply say that CO2 is not the problem. Whichever way you cut the data, the overwhelmingly important factor is CO2. The objections that are now being raised by the deniers have already been anticipated by climate scientists who have investigated the size of these factors and the effects they have on climate. The data is there to show which ones are more and which ones are less important.
By the way, Venus is an excellent and extreme example of what happens in the greenhouse effect. When it lost its water, there was nowhere for the atmospheric CO2 to go and it now forms 96% of the atmosphere leading to a surface temperature of around 460 degrees.
13 - fcetier
Reads above like Ruvy has read Michael Crichton.
14 - pablo
Bob Lloyd:
The primary reason that Venus is so hot has to do with how close it is to the sun, so the last sentence of your diatribe is disingenuous at best. I have never argued that co2 in enough concentrations will not act with a greenhouse effect, however that is not the case currently.
As I am obviously not a scientist I can should you desire quote numerous climate scientists who say that co2 levels increase after warming and not before it.
I stand with Ruvy on this issue, and I will be the first to say, unlike all of you human caused global warming freaks to say that I may be wrong. Again the fact that you use the word deniers as a cute disparaging colloquialism does not help your case.
The fact is that the human cause global warming community has done everything in its power to stifle open debate on this issue, up to and including the fraudulent criminal activities revealed in Climategate.
Yes there is a conspiracy afoot to track your every carbon footprint via rfid tags, and it is not to save the planet. It is to enslave you, the fact that you cannot see this obvious tyranny only leads me to believe that perhaps you need enslavement, as you are so quick to lick the boots of your master.
Dread,
Your comment in 9 speaks for itself, and does not even warrant a response, except to say the following; the sun is the primary cause of warmth in our solar system, not co2, and the primary cause of hot air is coming from your own ignorance which I see on this issue in spades.
When someone such as Gore speaks lies on a continual basis concerning this issue, and positions himself to reap billions he does your cause no favor. When he says that there is consensus on this issue that too is a lie, if he were even a bit honest, which he is not he would maybe try to say that there is a majority, which even that I would debate.
15 - Clavos
Pablo,
Mars and Pluto are not Earth, and the reasons why they may or may not be heating up have nothing to do with why Earth is.
Good point, Doc, but should have been directed to Glenn, he's the one who initiated the non sequitur, in #6.
16 - Clavos
Apologies to Glenn (and Doc) -- #15 should have referred to Paulie (and was itself a non sequitur).
In the words of the late Gilda Radner:
"Never mind!"
17 - Dave Nalle
Scientists are driven by doubt,
Bob, if that were actually the case in the climate debate then it would have a lot more support. But as has been made clear recently the scientists advocating global warming are driven by politics and fanaticism rather than doubt or scientific inquiry.
Dave
18 - Clavos
Just how much anthropogenic CO2 is IN the atmosphere, anyway???
19 - Bob Lloyd
[Bob, if that were actually the case in the climate debate then it would have a lot more support. But as has been made clear recently the scientists advocating global warming are driven by politics and fanaticism rather than doubt or scientific inquiry.]
That's sad prejudice Dave. Scientists do doubt their own data and check it and challenge each others. Even if they did have a political agenda, the data has to speak for itself. Any colleague would take apart unfounded conclusions.
And can you really seriously conceive of a conspiracy to promote a universally unwelcome climate prediction, involving collusion between thousands of scientists, all apparently walking into the arms of increasing government power?
It's as daft as the one about global warming being a conspiracy to sell low-energy lightbulbs. Whatever happened to that one?
20 - Dr Dreadful
Clav, while water vapour is indeed the most dominant greenhouse gas, its effects are exacerbated by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. This is pretty basic chemistry, actually. But the page you linked to seems to discount any potential interaction at all between the two gases.
21 - Clavos
Even if it didn't, Doc, the percentage indicated, if true, is very low.
22 - Glenn Contrarian
Bob -
You're absolutely right - and it's something I've pointed out before several times on different subjects...but the Rabid Right is convinced beyond question that this is all some sort of vast left-wing conspiracy.
And Dave's no exception. He's a very intelligent man, but is all too eager to have another cup of the grape Kool-Aid. In a recent column, he claimed that the Democrats in Congress and the White House are deliberately sabotaging the American economy. He'd answer for himself, but if his conspiracy-meter is as pegged as it was a couple weeks ago, then right now he's probably looking out the window, waiting for the hordes of Democrat-controlled black helicopters coming to take him away, ha-ha, they're coming to take him away!
And for Dave - that's about as close to an insult as I've ever posted about a private citizen here or on any other forum or blog. I hope that instead of taking it as an insult, that you'll perhaps wonder if maybe, just maybe your grand conspiracy theory is a bit too far on the wacko side of the common-sense-o-meter.
23 - Glenn Contrarian
Clavos -
Of course it's too low to matter, huh? So I'm all ears to hear you explain the (geologically-speaking) VERY sudden rise in the pH of the oceans....
24 - Bob Lloyd
[The primary reason that Venus is so hot has to do with how close it is to the sun, so the last sentence of your diatribe is disingenuous at best.]
Pablo, NASA and four other astrophysics sources I checked confirm that by far the greater proportion of the heating effect on the surface of Venus is down to the carbon dioxide fuelled greenhouse effect. So in the absence of better data from yourself, we really ought to accept that.
25 - Bob Lloyd
[So I'm all ears to hear you explain the (geologically-speaking) VERY sudden rise in the pH of the oceans....]
I think you mean a drop in pH corresponding to a rise in acidity. The deniers have trouble explaining this but it's quite easy.
As CO2 dissolves in water it forms carbonic acid which lowers the pH. Normally this is counteracted by marine life such as foraminifera which take up carbon and uses it in the form of carbonates for shells, lowering the concentration and tending to restore the pH. In acid seas, the foraminifera dies off and cannot fix the carbon. Normally, when the foraminifera dies, it sinks taking the carbonate with it to sediment, thus removing it from the sea-atmosphere cycle. Once the seas become acidic, this mitigating factor in the carbon cycle is lost making the problem accelerate.
And another point re Venus, Pablo, is that if the heating of Venus was mainly due to the proximity to the sun, you wouldn't have the hottest part of the atmosphere (the troposhere) closest to the surface, just like earth. It's the greenhouse effect which gives rise to this phenomenon just as it does here on earth. Check it out.