Global Warming opinions

me when people who are not scientists in a relevant field refuse to accept scientific consensus and argue with scientists in that field. Perfect example: global warming

... but there isn't a consensus? Liberals only recognize scientists who agree with them thus making any consensus produced artificial.

edited 5th May '11 3:20:22 PM by secretist

You're never going to have total, 100% consensus on any one topic even among experts who specialize in that topic. However, when things like this are part of the mainstream scientific community:

http://www.seattlepi.com/default/article/Scientists-agree-Humans-causing-global-warming-1227187.php

...then I think it's safe to say that the issue has been researched to its final conclusion.

(Edit: If you feel like more sources, Wikipedia has a list of a few dozen scientific organizations that have also concluded that global warming/climate change is really happening and really is the fault of humans.)

edited 5th May '11 3:37:25 PM by Karkadinn

What I find most telling is that the 'debate' shifted from "there is no global warming" to "it's not caused by us".

Related pic.

http://tinyurl.com/68cfafo

Edit: That said, never mind the actual article. I just liked the picture.

edited 5th May '11 4:58:46 PM by StrangeDwarf

I've noticed that the scientists quoted in newspapers as not believing in global warming tend to be geologists or botanists rather than climatologists. You've got to wonder at their qualifications on discussing the subject.

But it's a science degree! Every journalist knows there's only one kind of science.

Here's the way I see it, and the one argument I've never seen refuted in any sort of intelligent way.

Now don't get me wrong, I know the consensus is that there is such a thing as global warming, and the world is warming faster than it ever has in the past. The biggest person who was throwing doubt into early reports was a Bush era oil-lobbyist turned lawyer serving as the Chief of staff for the council for environmental policy, who literally ran red pens through reports from that era specifically to introduce doubt.

Now, even if you don't buy that, consider this.

We know we are producing tons and tons of CO 2-there's more in the atmosphere than there has been for 650,000 years.

We know that CO 2 does, in fact, have a greenhouse effect. It's readily observable, and not up for debate. Sunlight striking the Earth radiates back as heat, but gets reflected by CO 2. Pretty simple, really.

Therefore, we are having an effect on the climate.

We also know that a few degrees more of warming would, to put it mildly, fuck our shit up pretty royally.

Some people would argue that the effect is negligible. But even if it is, continuing to increase our output of CO 2 can only increase the effect we are having. In fact, considering the delay involved in the effects, our effect on the system would continue to rise for years even after we lower our levels.

So with all that in mind-do you really want to take that chance? Even if we're contributing 20% to the warming of the planet, and it's all "natural cycles" or whatever, we need to control what we can-because the effects of continued warming are just too damn high. And of course that 20% could well be more like 50%, or higher.

Well there's just so much annoyance to me about how people discuss the issue.

• Arguing that the climatologists have no consensus. Not having 100% rate of agreement is the point of scientific research but when 99% of climatologists believe global warming is occurring and that it is likely caused by humans, talking about the one percent as not agreeing and therefore throwing EVERYTHING into question is stupid.
• Arguing on specific studies that show the opposite. Almost all statistical studies are designed to be correct 19 times out of 20. Maybe most laymen don't understand what that means but I'll lay it out clearly. It means if you do the same test 20 times, you get the opposite answer (statistically speaking) once. Equating one study to 19 studies and then going, "results are inconclusive" is stupid. That's how tobacco companies "proved" cigarettes don't cause cancer.
• Arguing against climatologists on very specific technical topics. I don't know anything about climate, most people don't know anything about climate, so when pro-big-business polluters scream in your face "You can't read the data, you don't know what you're talking about!" it goes both ways. They don't know what they're talking about either. You might as well make your decision on the topic by flipping a coin. We have to rely on the technical experts on the subject, all you can do yourself is push for more accuracy or transparency but it's not like you can come up with any answer whatsoever.