
IPCC climate report: humans 'dominant cause' of warming - sambeau
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24292615
======
Shivetya
In other words, they are still guessing, however to keep themselves in
business they give their dire predictions even more wildly varied results and
put them far enough out that accurate incremental measurement is meaningless,
26cm over the next ninety years? So in four years or so when the next reports
comes out what will the prediction be.

That is the key here, its prediction based on theory. They are constantly
having to adjust this because they haven't got it figured out. They do seem
adept at changing the years referenced, its likely cherry picking data is far
easier when you keep moving the points.

When called to task to explain why observed data is not matching models they
always fall back on the "the time frame is too short" or other such nonsense.
Call me when there aren't so many people more interested in profit, political
or monetary, who push this

~~~
DanBC
The lack of imagination from some HN readers is always disappointing when
climate change is discussed.

Imagine for a moment that climate change is a scam, and isn't happening, and
that we're all wrong about it.

Why are increasing efficiency, reducing waste, investigating new energy
generation methods, etc, bad things?

Bob has a car that can do 25 MPG. Does he want more cup holders, or does he
want better fuel efficiency? (actually, he probably wanted more cupholders,
which is one of the reasons the US car industry is so broken now. I know you
need comfy cars when you drive so far, but I don't understand why you don't
need better fuel efficiency even if fuel is cheap.)

PS: Googlers: It'd be interesting to see how popular a
([https://www.google.com/lowercarbon](https://www.google.com/lowercarbon))
site would be. That site would use Google's best tech to aggressively reduce
the CO2 cost of searching.

([http://www.slate.com/articles/business_and_tech/design/2004/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business_and_tech/design/2004/03/drink_me.html))

> _In a recent New Yorker article on sport-utility vehicles and safety,
> Malcolm Gladwell quotes the French cultural anthropologist G. Clotaire
> Rapaille expressing amazement that the first thing educated car-buyers look
> at in a car is how many cup holders it has. My experience is that people
> shopping for a new car or truck are more discriminating. It is not so much
> the number of cup holders as their design that can tip the balance between
> choosing one vehicle over another. (I have repeatedly heard articulate
> people say that their family 's latest automobile purchase hinged on which
> cup holders worked best for them.)_

~~~
npongratz
> Why are increasing efficiency, reducing waste, investigating new energy
> generation methods, etc, bad things?

These are not bad things. They are clearly good things. The "bad thing" is
when someone proposes to use government force and threats to push these things
to market. Obviously, force and threats are bad.

If these things are good enough, then smart people engaged in peaceful, free
exchange will introduce them to market. No force or threats necessary.

~~~
rtpg
>obviously, force and threats are bad

Dunno about that. Some people don't mind the existence of government to patch
some things up.

Force and threats are pretty useful when trying to fix market failures or
tragedy of the commons-type situations. Lack of regulations wouldn't suddenly
create free markets because consumers aren't always smart , information isn't
perfect, sometimes there are only two producers (so there's pricing
influence), etc.

------
sambeau
Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy Blog has a good piece on Climate Change Denial too:

 _" And I’ll remind you that while denialists are distracting everyone about
the “pause”, about climate sensitivity, and all that, the Arctic sea ice is
melting. Antarctic land ice is melting. We just experienced the hottest decade
on record. And it’s difficult to stress this enough: The trend over time is
higher temperatures."_

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/09/26/climate_...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/09/26/climate_change_denial_james_delingpole_tells_it_like_it_isn_t.html)

Elon Musk first drew my attention to this article. His Twitter feed is full of
useful/insightful climate change information.

~~~
todd8
I'm not a climate scientist, but something bothers me about this debate. Why
is it that skeptics are dismissed at best as ignorant or stupid, as paid
shills for big oil, or even terrorists. I'm skeptical of at least some climate
change claims, but I don't feel like I'm stupid or ignorant or a terrorist.
Instead, I constantly hear confused or misleading statements about the
environment, often stated with a religious fervor that characterizes those who
doubt as sinners.

While at happy-hour, a friend's boyfriend started complaining about how much
waste there was in some pizza box. So far, I'm at least partially on-board
with what he's saying, but then it goes off into alarmist claims about
landfills. Now, I'm starting to realize that he hasn't really read anything
about the subject (I read a lot). So I say, "Well, it's probably not the
world's biggest problem, there's not a shortage of holes in the ground." He
end's up getting mad and casting aspersions. (The best being that he accuses
me of being a "Capitalist").

At a party I'm talking to a self-identified "geologist". He's talking about
global warming and loss of glaciers, etc. I say, "Isn't it weird that that's
going on while central Antarctica is actually cooling?". His response was "Oh,
well of course, warming can cause that too." He was a nice enough guy, but I
notice that it didn't matter what direction the temperature of Antarctica was
heading, to him, it confirmed his belief.

I really like Phil Plat's Bad Astronomy, but even his recent post makes me
wonder: he notes that temperatures haven't headed up as the models predict,
but oh this isn't really a problem the heat has decided to go into the oceans.
He says "it's observed" and not at all a new idea "we've known" this. Well I
follow the link [1] and the way I read the web page is that top 700 meters of
the ocean haven't warmed (hmm..), oh but the next 800 meters have and below
that, well, we don't know or we don't understand or it doesn't seem to matter.
This is so weak and unconvincing that I turn to another link in Phil's blog
post, the "it's observed" link [2]. I don't get very far with this one either
because this page says:

    
    
        If the oceans are warming up, this implies that the Earth must absorb more solar energy 
        than it emits long-wave radiation into space. This is the only possible heat source. 
        That’s simply the first law of thermodynamics, conservation of energy. This conservation 
        law is why physicists are so interested in looking at the energy balance of anything. 
        Because we understand the energy balance of our Earth, we also know that global warming 
        is caused by greenhouse gases – which have caused the largest imbalance in the radiative 
        energy budget over the last century. 
    

This is just such horse-poop. The author is trying to impress us with (the
scary word) "thermodynamics" and (wow) what "physicists" are interested in
while telling us that this "is this only possible heat source". What happened
to the heat generated by radioactive decay of the earths isotopes or
primordial heat from the earth's core, these certainly affect the earth's heat
balance. See what physicsworld.com has to say about this [3]. That web page
sites a study claiming that about 50% of the heat given off by the earth is
from radioactive decay. The page's author might be right about the oceans
absorbing heat, but this doesn't sound like a real scientist speaking.

This is how it goes. I see journalists, newscasters, everyday friends and
associates making uneducated and unscientific statements, while accusing
skeptics of being flat-earthers. Every storm, every tornado, every hot summer
afternoon (or cold winter morning) further justifies their belief in dangerous
climate change. Even though they know nothing of the science behind climate
and the real challenges of moving our planet to a more sustainable future.

[1] [http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Heat-Content-And-
The-I...](http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ocean-Heat-Content-And-The-
Importance-Of-The-Deep-Ocean.html) [2]
[http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/what-o...](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/what-
ocean-heating-reveals-about-global-warming/) [3]
[http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2011/jul/19/radioac...](http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2011/jul/19/radioactive-
decay-accounts-for-half-of-earths-heat)

~~~
waps
It isn't just climate theory. I have the distinct impression that the whole
world has been getting every more "certain" and intolerant about the local
viewpoints, and it has become ever less acceptable to diverge from the norm.
Alternative viewpoints used to be more than acceptable, and attacking people
over alternative viewpoints was what was bad.

Today there's a million thing you can't disagree with in polite company.
Climate theory (even the lunatic claims, like that temperature will keep
rising until the seas boil or other such drivel), and the associated evil of
humans, and the goodness of nature (pointing out exactly what natural
selection means is liable to make you persona non grata). Species that can't
quickly adapt don't deserve to live. That's what evolution says. But guess
what, that's not what anybody means when they say nature. That seems to come
from Disney films.

You aren't allowed to deny that alternative "natural" things are good for you,
when in fact that's usually flat out wrong. Natural bread is not, in fact,
better for you. And yes, fibre is good for you, but fibre in scientific papers
is something _entirely_ different from what makes bread brown. Telling someone
who believes in homoeopathy that they're, well, morons, is no longer
acceptable. In climate "intolerance", at least the scientific side can be said
to have the upper hand, but ...

The same goes for cultures. Anyone with a basic knowledge of different
cultures knows that every culture has extremely offensive and immoral
components. Equality of cultures ... great soundbite ! Except ... we do put
our own culture first, and in practice all religions and ideologies except
western Christianity promote completely unacceptable. Equality, between men
and women, and legal equality between people in society is something uniquely
western. Tolerate muslims ... sounds good, until you actually read how the
culture works. Look up dhimma, look up devshirme, look up zakat, look up the
racist conditions of halal meat, those things are morally reprehensible.
Likewise, the structure of Hindu society is morally abhorrent in it's
inequality. God forbid anyone mentions that. And God forbid anyone asks a
muslim whether they think the prophet is a moral abomination, no matter how
obviously true it is. Facts no longer matter.

Another problem is that I've visited Egypt a few years back. Complete
intolerance for any differences in opinion is also happening there, and it's
doing the exact same thing. Believe it or not, the divergence of society
around religion (you can't put it like this in Egypt or you'll get shot, but
it's essentially true : ex-muslims versus extremists) is nothing new. It
existed 50 years back just the same as today. What IS new, however, is that
it's perfectly normal for both sides to violently suppress any sign of the
other side where they see it. It's not just muslim extremists being
intolerant, the regular kind is just as bad these days, and so are the "non-
religous", it's just as much the ex-muslim side. Asking a woman to cover up
for a special event, no matter how atheist she felt, was perfectly acceptable.
Now it's likely to get you shot. The same happens on the other side. 30 years
ago, girls from religious families dated (that they still -sort of- do, in
fact they're much more easy to get in bed, both the religious and the non-
religious), and they dressed according to the occasion, what they expected
their date to prefer. For going dancing religious girls certainly didn't don
"traditional" clothing. Today, asking a woman on a date to take off her veil
will immediately provoke violence from bystanders, even if the girl herself
wants to do it (probably even if she were to take the initiative). This was an
extremely normal thing to do 15 years ago. What the fuck. But I'm seeing signs
of the same thing happening right here in America.

And yes, the ex-muslims seem to be losing the fight, in Egypt, but it's not
over. The extremists have no good alternative, so they're fighting for
nothing. Which means either side can't win. Both sides have more than proven
they can do a lot of damage before they lose. But why is there a fight at all
? Clearly it _is_ possible to live together, they've fucking done it for 50
years.

We seem to generally feel that anyone is entitled to their own belief, and is
allowed to act like a total moron on the matter. And yes, I will call climate
"advocacy" just a belief, because the vast majority of people pushing it
wouldn't know how to average a temperature series. And you can call in
"facts", sure. But the only kind of valid facts are facts that are properly
sourced. If you don't know why you believe something and can point to serious
publications defending that, it's not a fucking fact.

Where a belief has the majority of the population on it's side, whether it's
islam, climate adherents or denialists, socialists, bible-thumpers,
communists, ... that majority finds now finds it perfectly acceptable to use
psychological and real violence against the other side. Maybe I didn't look
around enough when I was younger, but I certainly get the impression things
have gotten worse. A lot worse. Because the majority of people are morons, no
matter the specific belief they're pushing, you find basic logic errors and
inconsistencies a 4 year old could find in pretty much every popular text on
any subject, as you illustrate with climate science. WTF. Also, that majority
is allowed to invent or deny facts to support their view, and obvious logical
errors go unchallenged.

Of course we've also managed to adopt contradictory views in the meantime, and
over "large" distances, the adopted ideologies differ quite a bit. And
everybody is digging in.

This will not end well.

~~~
anu_gupta
Well done for turning an article about climate change into an opportunity to
vent your hatred of Islam. That really is quite impressive, in an unhinged,
wouldn't want to get sit next to you on a plane, kind of way.

~~~
Executor
I didn't sense any "hatred" of Islam from that author. Can you explain how you
perceive this to be so?

------
ethana
I remember in the 70s and 80s, the climatees were barking about a news ice
age. I wonder whatever happened to that argument. Must've not gotten as much
benefits as 'global warming' I guess.

~~~
rsynnott
> I remember in the 70s and 80s, the climatees were barking about a news ice
> age.

A lot of people seem to be "remembering" that lately. Indeed, there were some
concerns of an ice age somewhere in the next few millennia, but global warming
was already on the table, and becoming the mainstream (scientific) view by the
80s. The term didn't really hit mainstream public use until the late 80s.

There was a separate scare about imminent global cooling in the early 70s, but
it was largely media-driven, had little support in the scientific community,
and never became terribly mainstream.

~~~
DanBC
My local museum had dioramas about the coming ice age. It was science of its
time - we've spent a lot more time and money on climate science since then. We
have much more powerful computers (What's a modern smartphone like compared to
the total world computing power in 1975?).

It is unfortunate that denialists use it to argue against ACC but don't make
the mistake of saying that "the ice age was never serious" \- it was.

------
vanderZwan
Can someone draw up a list of things science is _less_ certain about than
climate change? Not that I think there's much hope for the people who still
think 95% means "guessing," but still.

~~~
eatmyshorts
The error bars are from 95-100% certain. In science and statistics, this is
pretty compelling. It's not guessing. There is a chance that the prevailing
climate science is wrong. It's not a very big chance. But it does exist.

~~~
glenra
Which error bars do you mean? The recent warming "pause" currently puts us
_outside_ the 95% error bars for nearly all of the individual climate models,
demonstrating that either climate sensitivity is being drastically
overestimated or natural variability is being drastically underestimated.

(see the latest ClimateAudit post for pretty box charts and some analysis:
[http://climateaudit.org/2013/09/24/two-minutes-to-
midnight/](http://climateaudit.org/2013/09/24/two-minutes-to-midnight/) )

------
qwerta
What do you mean "95% certain that humans are the dominant cause of global
warming"? I was told several times it is proven beyond any doubts, we are one
and only cause of global warming.

~~~
eatmyshorts
From the IPCC press release: "In this IPCC assessment report, specific terms
are used to indicate the assessed likelihood of an outcome or a result. For
those terms used above: virtually certain means 99–100% probability, extremely
likely: 95–100%, very likely: 90–100%, likely: 66–100%." They have moved their
assessment from "very likely" to "extremely likely". Note that the range still
includes values up to 100%.

Scientists try to be very precise with their language. As a result of this
precision, people that disbelieve in anthropogenic climate change can pick
selective phrases, or statistics, that appear to support their own opinion,
but in reality do not support their own opinion.

------
frank_boyd
I expect the same amount of corrective action and measures from our "leaders"
and "representatives" to this global threat as we've gotten after the reality
check offered by Snowden.

The reason behind it: Our fundamental system(s) being rotten and having become
unable to correct themselves.

Conclusion: Change is only coming when _rich_ people are directly and
negatively affected by the issues. As long as they can insulate themselves
from the problems, change will not happen.

~~~
vixen99
What kind of change though? [http://topher.com.au/50-to-1-video-
project/](http://topher.com.au/50-to-1-video-project/) gives pause for
thought. The 5th IPCC report suggests that Topher was too generous in his
assessment.

------
SingleFounderCo
After reading the quotes of 'scientists' like those mentioned in this article
I AM 100% SOLD! Man is bad! They sound so positive (and smart) so there's no
need to even study the issue any more. IT'S DONE.

But....

There actually is a large counter argument (not profiting like the pro
argument which includes everyone from Al Gore to the energy companies). To me
it’s suspicious that the pro side keeps getting caught lying and colluding and
has been forced to backtrack on their fear mongering claims and arguments. If
it is found that this is a for profit fraud which is raising energy prices,
food prices, etc. then those profiting from the possible deaths and starvation
of others should be held responsible.

And the 95% agree reported in this article or 97% agree 'fact' tweeted by the
president seems to actually be the complete opposite upon peer review. 0.3%
instead of 97%.

See [http://floppingaces.net/most_wanted/0-3-consensus-
not-97-1-q...](http://floppingaces.net/most_wanted/0-3-consensus-
not-97-1-quantifying-the-consensus-on-global-warming/comment-page-1/)

(10 pages of references for this article here:
[http://floppingaces.net/cook-97-consensus-2013.pdf](http://floppingaces.net/cook-97-consensus-2013.pdf))

~~~
eatmyshorts
From the source you linked to:

"Cook et al. (2013) stated that abstracts of nearly all papers expressing an
opinion on climate change endorsed consensus,which, however, traditionally has
no scientific role; used three imprecise definitions of consensus
interchangeably; analyzed abstracts only;excluded 67% expressing no opinion;
omitted some key results; misstated others; and thus concluded that 97.1%
endorsed the hypothesis as defined in their introduction,namely that the
“scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the
current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW)”. The authors’ own data file
categorized 64 abstracts, or only 0.5% of the sample, as endorsing the
consensus hypothesis as thus defined. Inspection shows only 41 of the 64, or
0.3% of the entire sample, actually endorsed their hypothesis. Criteria for
peer review of papers quantifying scientific consensus are discussed."

They sampled the data. Just because they didn't review _every_ paper doesn't
mean that the papers they didn't review disagree with their assessment.
Furthermore, the fact that 67% didn't express an opinion simply shows that
they were scientists. One goal of scientific publications is to not
editorialize, to not express opinions. However, the results of their research
still point to anthropogenic climate change.

------
eddieh
It was "unequivocal" in the previous IPCC report too. The interesting part is
that the likelihood of humans being the dominant influence causing the
observed warming has increased since the previous report. Previously it was
considered "very likely" and now it is considered "extremely likely." The
report defines "very likely" as 90-100% and "extremely likely" as 95-100%.

Both the headline here and the BCC article seem a little sensational to me. I
recommend reading the reports yourself. They're not very long nor are they
difficult to read.

------
jaap_w
That small margin of uncertainty will keep the global warming denialists
alive. In the coming days we will hear several myths from them about global
warming. See also:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6456476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6456476)

~~~
MortenK
"Denialists"? You couldn't have found a more polarizing term for people with
differing opinions? I mean we have to get the hate mongering up to a higher
level, "denialists" just seem way to soft for these sub-people.

~~~
eatmyshorts
Over the past several years, I've had discussions with a number of people
about anthropogenic climate change and global warming. A number of people that
disagreed with anthropogenic climate change were adamant that a number of
scientists had decreed that the world was, in fact, getting cooler. I asked
them for sources, and several sources were put forth. In _every_ instance, the
sources they provided were in agreement that the world was, in fact, getting
warmer (I'm not sure of any scientist that would say otherwise when looking at
the past 150 years). The sources they provided were arguing against the
anthropogenic causes, not that the world wasn't getting warmer. This is what I
would call "denial"\--when the facts coming from their own sources are in
direct contrast to their own beliefs.

Furthermore, when confronted with compelling evidence that atmospheric carbon
dioxide levels are the result of the burning of fossil fuels, not natural
emissions of carbon dioxide (such as algae blooms, volcanic activity, or the
thawing of carbon trapped in ice), they continue to argue that the CO2 levels
are not due to human activity. The compelling evidence comes from carbon
isotope analysis--C14 levels are consistent with atmospheric conditions from
some 60 million years ago, ruling out recent biological releases and releases
from trapped ice, while C13 levels rule out sources from volcanic activity.
Both are consistent with output resulting from the burning of fossil fuels.
This, to me, is a case of cognitive dissonance--when facts are in direct
conflict with strongly held beliefs, cognitive dissonance can lead to a denial
of said facts. This is another case of "denial".

~~~
mcv
Here's another fine example: [http://www.noconsensus.org/ipcc-audit/findings-
detailed.php](http://www.noconsensus.org/ipcc-audit/findings-detailed.php)

This obviously biased site conducted a survey of how well the peer-review in
the previous IPCC report was. They claim it got an F, but when you look
closely, all the chapters on the science of global warming got all A's and
B's. It's the "what are we going to do about it" that gets the failing grades.

But by presenting their results backwards, your first impression is going to
be that the report is really bad.

