Spend 8 minutes and get a beautifully and calmly presented set of facts. You'll feel better and you can focus on what actually matters.
http://www.kusi.com/home/78477082.html?video=pop&t=a
Hags
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A vigorous political blog, not for the fainthearted.
11 comments:
Hags:
You should know better! This is exactly my point - you provided more rhetoric but nothing that would suggest that the scientific community agrees with your point of view. The problem is - they do not.
The anti-science community, the Republican base, is in complete accord with your video.
Why, pray tell, do you think that John Coleman knows better than 90% of the scientific community? The video was just more blather from a climate change skeptic - a small minority viewpoint.
If there are awards for verbosity and repetitive rhetoric, John Coleman gets my vote.
Great Post!
Thanks, Mark!
I know you get things mixed up, the "Post" was made by Hags. You made a "Comment" after the "Post". The praise I gave was for the "Post". That's why they have that box that says "Leave your comment". You'll get the hang of it!
It's okay if you changed your mind...
Rich Baxter! You scoundrel!
What...are you a F moron?
That was an objective argument against the theory of Climate Change.
Both sides are engaging in hyperbole.
The 90% figure you keep citing is just fantasy. In fact, where did you get it?
The questions I would like answered are: Is the rise in CO2 significant in relative terms and how does the anti theorists explain away its precipitious rise.
There are still no alternatives, there are still no theories of "devastation", there is still ongoing death that limiting fossil fuels will exacerbate.
The climate change community never answers these questions, instead trying to emotionalize there theories.
Capitalism will come up with an answer, what you propose is exactly the opposite, controlled capitalism with is...Socialism.
Just trying to lighten things up a little, Dr J.
I have twice posted links which support the 90% figure. Just go back a few days. Don't be helpless.
ALL of your arguments have been answered by the scientific community. You simply choose not to accept them. Apparently, your side is more comfortable with paranoid conspiracy theories.
Hags did surprise me - he's a bright guy with a tremendous resume and a generally moderate, pragmatic, businesslike view of the world. Then he sends this 8 minute video of an old man using tired rhetoric with amateurish graphics and that is supposed to change minds? If only we can get the video in front of the scientists that will end all debate? Puhleeze.
Capitalism is a tool, my friend. Its job is not to mitigate climate change unless it is so directed. It is not Exxon's job to be kind to the environment - it is their job to make as much money as possible for their shareholders. That is their role. It is GOVERNMENT'S job to make the laws and set the rules such that Exxon will do it's job without damaging the environment.
You think capitalism will just solve the problem, willy nilly, undirected and on it's own? Why would it?
Rich(ie), I have tried to link to your site to no avail.
Here is one, Blah, blah, blah.
BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER:
The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
Naomi Oreskes*
Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change" (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.
The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].
IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].
Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).
The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.
This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.
The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.
Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.
The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.
You are just not going to get this.
You sent me a PDF citing a survey with a 30% return rate asking academics of their opinion.
We get this stuff all the time and it is not worth a hill of beans.
If you asked Cardiologists if angioplasty works, you would get a 90% yes response. Lo and behold, recent data suggest it is over used and the criteria are changing.
There is no scientific consensus, there is only data, obtained under rigorous circumstances, published in peer reviewed journals.
One last time, any scientific opinion of such a charged nature must be viewed with suspicion.
The guy from the weather channel, instead of calling him an old man, someone should challenge him and his theory, we do this stuff all the time.
Sara....Help!
Jim, you ignorant slut.
On this topic, you need to learn humility. You are not qualified to argue the science. Period. Neither am I. We need to look to the scientists - the experts.
A 30% return rate on such a survey is huge. Many statistically useful surveys have less than a 10% response rate. If you don't get this stuff, you must have studied a great deal using the rote method rather than fully understanding the subjects.
Do you grasp the concept of erring on the side of caution? If we take your approach, don't we risk waiting too long until only the slowest among us have come around? If the scientists are right, inaction could be devastating. If they are wrong, we will still have moved away from our reliance on foreign energy. We will still have weakened the hand of Russia, Venezuela and Iran.
What is the downside of a revenue neutral carbon tax, with offsetting tax cuts elsewhere? Shouldn't our energy supplies reflect their true cost rather than just the obvious expenses of extraction, transportation and refining?
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