FAQ For Global Warming Denialists

[Doomstone]

Rather than repeatedly address the same old Dittoisms ripped from the pages of Sean Hannity's latest scientific opus, I respectfully direct all readers to this article/FAQ from "New Scientist Magazine" entitled, "Climate change: A guide for the perplexed".
Please be advised that any users who post canards addressed here, such as "Teh Sun causes global warming" or "It's a Librulcommienazi Conspiracy" and so on will be mocked for the crime of intellectual sloth.

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

[booster11373]

Clearly the New Scientist is part of the liberal media elite and thus cannot be trusted

[nevnut]

I kind of like this guys article...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaruherald/4064691a6571.html

[torker]

It's like 20 degrees outside today.

[pennington]

I kind of like this guys article...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaruherald/4064691a6571.html

I hope you're not mocked for the crime of intellectual sloth for liking this article.

[Yerdaddy]

I kind of like this guys article...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaruherald/4064691a6571.html

"The Timaru Herald is a daily provincial newspaper serving the Timaru, South Canterbury and Otago districts of New Zealand. The current audited daily circulation is about 14,500 copies, with a readership of about 31,000 people. The paper is owned and published by Fairfax New Zealand." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Timaru_Herald)

Awesome sourcing by the denialists, (like the word "nucular" and the Bush family, I'm carrying this tradition on and treating "denialists" as a real word, dictionaries be damned!), as usual. I'm curious, what does the Neverneverland Gazette think of climate change? Or hasn't Limbaugh's staff dug that one up yet?

[badmonkey]

"The Timaru Herald is a daily provincial newspaper serving the Timaru, South Canterbury and Otago districts of New Zealand. The current audited daily circulation is about 14,500 copies, with a readership of about 31,000 people. The paper is owned and published by Fairfax New Zealand." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Timaru_Herald)

Awesome sourcing by the denialists, (like the word "nucular" and the Bush family, I'm carrying this tradition on and treating "denialists" as a real word, dictionaries be damned!), as usual. I'm curious, what does the Neverneverland Gazette think of climate change? Or hasn't Limbaugh's staff dug that one up yet?

So does that mean the guy in the article (Augie Auer) is wrong or that the paper sucks? RonFez.net currently has 26,244 registered members, which is a little less than the quoted circulation of that paper. Does that mean you're wrong too? I'm confused.

"August H. (Augie) Auer Jr is an atmospheric scientist and meteorologist in New Zealand." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augie_Auer)


Badmonkey

[Midkiff]

Global Warming Nihilists?

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a212/DiscipleoftheWatch/nihilist.jpg

[keithy_19]

Don't litter, buy hybrid cars(if you can afford it), and any other thing to help save the planet(once again, if you can afford it.).

I'm all for saving the plante, but it's not really in my budget right now. :down:

[Yerdaddy]

So does that mean the guy in the article (Augie Auer) is wrong or that the paper sucks? RonFez.net currently has 26,244 registered members, which is a little less than the quoted circulation of that paper. Does that mean you're wrong too? I'm confused.

"August H. (Augie) Auer Jr is an atmospheric scientist and meteorologist in New Zealand." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augie_Auer)


Badmonkey

No, it means I'm right. If you take a position against the vast majority of science and governments on a global issue like this and you have a smaller readership than I do - you're wrong.

You denialists have put up so many ridiculous "sources" against climate change that I encourage everyone who has accepted the mainstream premise that it's real, a threat, and has to be dealt with to ignore crazy, biased and obscure arguments put out by the denialists. It's called "baiting". You're just trying to waste our time.

[Mike Teacher]

Irrespective of the veracity of the claims of the article; relaize that because the word 'scientist' is on a magazine's title... in short New Scientist is about the level of People or Us Magazine for science.

Also, ya wanna be real careful about saying all the scientists on one side are 'right' while those on the other side are 'wrong'; this is not how science works, at all.

Also realize the vast majority of what scientists claim, historically, irrespective of political and/or personal opinions/feelings, has been dead wrong.

And, anyone who claims knowledge enough to know the atmospheric dynamics such that they know what the climate will be 10, even 5 years from now, that person is bullshitting you. No matter how many letters they have after their name, even if I love them and their work, whether it's in New Scientist, or Nature, it's bullshit.

To deny global warming and some human influence is beginning to strain credulity; but the 'our side is right; humans fucked the world' vs the 'we have zero effect on the environment' polarization results in both sides a] looking bad and worse b] as above; being dead wrong.

[TheMojoPin]

Mike, help me out here...it's always sounded to me in my science classes that my teaches have always said that essentially no scientific theory can be proven in that we have doubt of it's accuracy. Hell, in the paper I wrote last night, the words "prove/proven" were on the professor's verboten list. Isn't this the case with every scientific theory?

[CaptClown]

Mike you're my hero:clap:

[Midkiff]

Mike, help me out here...it's always sounded to me in my science classes that my teaches have always said that essentially no scientific theory can be proven in that we have doubt of it's accuracy. Hell, in the paper I wrote last night, the words "prove/proven" were on the professor's verboten list. Isn't this the case with every scientific theory?

Yeah, you not only thought it, but shoved it down my throat.

[Tall_James]

I get all my global warming news from the scientists on staff at The Onion.

http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/onion_imagearticle2663.article.jpg

[Tall_James]

Nation's Snowmen March Against Global Warming (http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nations_snowmen_march_against)

[Mike Teacher]

Mike, help me out here...it's always sounded to me in my science classes that my teaches have always said that essentially no scientific theory can be proven in that we have doubt of it's accuracy. Hell, in the paper I wrote last night, the words "prove/proven" were on the professor's verboten list. Isn't this the case with every scientific theory?

It's a tough call. To deny flight exists, to deny atoms exist, would severely strain just about all known logic. None of these computers would work if atoms didnt exist, if they didnt do what we think they do.

But we really don't completely understand flight completely, ditto with atoms. We have built up an excellent set of 'rules' that atoms, and things that fly follow, but science isnt absolutely sure on these, hence the use of 'theory' for the explanation.

So, something can be both a law [atoms exist/things fly] and a theory [atomic theory/theories of flight].

Every case? It's really a slippery slope from total guess to hypothesis to theory to law; with many grey areas, and areas that overlap, and cover more then one part of the spectrum.

=

Here's one, we can't find the vast majority of the Universe. We *know* it is there, the galaxies and stars behave as if there is a shitload more matter out there, but we cant detect it. You hear about 'Dark Matter' and 'Dark Energy'; and while 'dark' means undetectable by our current science; it really means 'we really don't know what the hell it is, but it's out there.

=

Right now the largest science experiment in history is about to start; CERN in Europe has built a 16 mile circular tunnel with huge magnets along the whole thing; to shoot bits of matter at each other, watch them slam into each other, and record the results. It will almost surely give us reams of data about what matter really is [coz we dont really know] and may get us closer to what Ron said is his desire in all of this; a Theory of Everything; a theory about the Universe which needs no further explanaation, a theory that describes, essentially, everything.

[TheMojoPin]

It's a tough call. To deny flight exists, to deny atoms exist, would severely strain just about all known logic. None of these computers would work if atoms didnt exist, if they didnt do what we think they do.

But we really don't completely understand flight completely, ditto with atoms. We have built up an excellent set of 'rules' that atoms, and things that fly follow, but science isnt absolutely sure on these, hence the use of 'theory' for the explanation.

So, something can be both a law [atoms exist/things fly] and a theory [atomic theory/theories of flight].

Every case? It's really a slippery slope from total guess to hypothesis to theory to law; with many grey areas, and areas that overlap, and cover more then one part of the spectrum.

I'm just even more confused. The scientific method basically says that you can become more and more "confident" in a theory to the point where it's clearly the obvious answer, but there always has to be that teensy-tiny window of being disproved. Like, 99.99999999999999infinity% proven.

Falsifiability, or the elimination of plausible alternatives. This is a gradual process that requires repeated experiments by multiple researchers who must be able to replicate results in order to corroborate them. This requirement, one of the most frequently contended, leads to the following: All hypotheses and theories are in principle subject to disproof. Thus, there is a point at which there might be a consensus about a particular hypothesis or theory, yet it must in principle remain tentative. As a body of knowledge grows and a particular hypothesis or theory repeatedly brings predictable results, confidence in the hypothesis or theory increases.

Did I get what I just posted above right? I've yet to have a science class where a teacher said anything was proven, and we're typically told to avoid that word in our work. Why are they telling us that?

[sr71blackbird]

Arguing the "proof" of weather an idea is fact or not is not really the issue here. I think the best way to answer this is to present facts that we know are true and see how they hold up to any theory.
We know that there have been ice ages in the past. Many of them. We know at the time of the dinoaurs that the environment was different than it is now.
Now, we have established that the environment changes. This is a fact. It is proven.
The next thing we have to do is see if life can exist is the enviroment changes.
What do you think? Does life die out when the enviroment change? Is there diversity of life on Earth right now? How can there be diversity of life on Earth now if the environment has changed in the past?
It is my belief that life will find a way to survive any change that will occur if the environment changes. Will it be all life? No. Will the types of life that does survive this environmental change diversify and fill any void left by an extinct species? Absolutely! Arent WE proof of this?

Dont worry so much about environmental change. It strengthens life and enables evolution and ultimatly is a good thing in the final analysis.

[Yerdaddy]

Arguing the "proof" of weather an idea is fact or not is not really the issue here. I think the best way to answer this is to present facts that we know are true and see how they hold up to any theory.
We know that there have been ice ages in the past. Many of them. We know at the time of the dinoaurs that the environment was different than it is now.
Now, we have established that the environment changes. This is a fact. It is proven.
The next thing we have to do is see if life can exist is the enviroment changes.
What do you think? Does life die out when the enviroment change? Is there diversity of life on Earth right now? How can there be diversity of life on Earth now if the environment has changed in the past?
It is my belief that life will find a way to survive any change that will occur if the environment changes. Will it be all life? No. Will the types of life that does survive this environmental change diversify and fill any void left by an extinct species? Absolutely! Arent WE proof of this?

Dont worry so much about environmental change. It strengthens life and enables evolution and ultimatly is a good thing in the final analysis.

That's not the issue with the climate change though - that it will/will not kill all life on the planet. Who cares if cockroaches and pidgeons are going to fight over "global cooling" once we're decomposing into their Penzoil of the future? The issue is: how will it effect human life. Then come the questions of how do we minimize our effect on it, how do we adapt to it, etc. Those are the serious questions anyway. The silly ones are still: does it exist, and is it our fault.

[zentraed]

I'm just even more confused. The scientific method basically says that you can become more and more "confident" in a theory to the point where it's clearly the obvious answer, but there always has to be that teensy-tiny window of being disproved. Like, 99.99999999999999infinity% proven.



Did I get what I just posted above right? I've yet to have a science class where a teacher said anything was proven, and we're typically told to avoid that word in our work. Why are they telling us that?

Don't think of science as an attempt to discover "truth". Scientific theories accurately predict *observations*. If a theory seems to always work, then there is a tendency to accept the model underlying the theory as a natural truth, but we have no way of knowing for sure. Many scientific theories, such as Newton's Law of Gravitation, are known to be wrong, but they are still useful in certain situations.

The problem that I have with people who dismiss global warming (and evolution and the big bang theory) is that they ignore the models that the conclusions are based on. As Mike said, we cannot accurately predict dynamical systems over long time intervals, but I suspect that we can conclude whether or not more solar energy is being retained each year than has been the case in the past.

[Mike Teacher]

Don't think of science as an attempt to discover "truth". Scientific theories accurately predict *observations*. If a theory seems to always work, then there is a tendency to accept the model underlying the theory as a natural truth, but we have no way of knowing for sure. Many scientific theories, such as Newton's Law of Gravitation, are known to be wrong, but they are still useful in certain situations.

The problem that I have with people who dismiss global warming (and evolution and the big bang theory) is that they ignore the models that the conclusions are based on. As Mike said, we cannot accurately predict dynamical systems over long time intervals, but I suspect that we can conclude whether or not more solar energy is being retained each year than has been the case in the past.

Yes ! and Yes !

I edited the Newtonian Physics out of my post coz my posts get too big; Newtonian Physics, his laws of motion and universal gravitation work *perfectly* well, they are as true as anything can be, except that at one point we noticed that Newton's rules didnt factor in what nhappens when you're dealing with huge masses and/or very high speeds aka Relativistic Conditions. Here, Netwon's laws, the bedrock of describing how matter behaves, fails utterly.

=

And on the computer modeling; this is where it falls apart. The predictability. On two fronts:

1. Our computers and data gathering are such that we cant do very good computer modeling of complex systems; like the dynamics of a planets weather. I use flight because we're still using wind tunnels coz even the best computer models arent the same as a wing in the wind. And a wing in wind, we have found is extrememly complex... perhaps...

2. ...So complex as to be utterly unpredictable. Not sure if this is more Chaos or Complexity or a bit of Godel Incompleteness Theory but some theorize that there are systems so complex that they cant be predicted at all, ever. Not coz we dont have the computing power, but the very nature of the system makes prediction impossible. I'm getting this wrong on a level or two, the brain feels it, but I'm too lazy to google now.

[zerothehero]

Yet despite all the complexities, a firm and ever-growing body of evidence points to a clear picture: the world is warming, this warming is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and if emissions continue unabated the warming will too, with increasingly serious consequences. ^ very easy to say, difficult to prove. Who needs proof after all?


Decent writing on the subject.

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2007-04-29-1.html