
More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims - gibsonf1
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6
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KevBurnsJr
Arguing about the cause of global warming is like standing on the railroad
tracks arguing whether the train is your fault. We see the train, and it ain't
stoppin'.

[http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/files/norock/research/glacier_anim...](http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/files/norock/research/glacier_animation.gif)

The debate is moot. Time to concern ourselves with stepping out of the way.

~~~
mseebach
No?

If global warming is happening for whatever non-man-made-CO2 reason, spending
ridiculous amounts of money cutting carbon won't help us.

Since that's the preferred public policy option these days, it's pretty
relevant arguing over the cause.

~~~
khafra
I'm not sure your conclusion follows from your premise. For instance, it could
be the case that global warming is caused entirely by increased sun activity,
but that concerted human effort to decrease atmospheric greenhouse gasses
could still cool the earth off. Combinatorily, I see 7 possibilities combining
global warming (exists/doesn't), and is (entirely/partially/not at all)
anthropogenic, and (can/cannot) be ameliorated by human effort.

*sponsored by the committee for strong syllogisms

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pg
If anything this article makes me more convinced global warming is a real
problem, not less. It has the tone of an infomercial, and they seem to have
had to dig very deep to find people to quote.

~~~
aristus
It doesn't convince me either way, but it does bother me that it's been a long
time since I've heard anything other than "scientist counts" for _and_
against, rather than actual evidence.

Forget the scientist counts -- a lot of doctors went to their graves
denouncing Pasteur as a quack. What's the actual evidence for and against?
What's the CO2 count lately? Is that number significant? Have ocean levels
risen? Where? How much? Etc.

The financial crisis is pretty complex too but there have been many insightful
and detailed essays written about it.

~~~
mattmaroon
All of that evidence is easy to find. It's not what the media reports on
because the average CNN viewer can't handle it.

~~~
simoncoggins
Indeed it is. This shows global CO2 and temperature data from the last 400,000
years (several ice ages and interglacials):

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/6/63/200611...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/6/63/20061104010439!Co2-temperature-
plot.svg)

Most would agree that they appear to be correlated.

This shows a close up of the increase in CO2 since the industrial revolution
(time axis reversed from other plot):

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png>

The sudden CO2 increase is consistent with the quantity of CO2 output from
human sources.

It is not hard to understand what is happening. I work for the British
Antarctic Survey and my girlfriend is an atmospheric chemist. Many of my
friends are climate change or environmental scientists. Let me tell you there
is as near to complete agreement about what is happening as it is possible to
have in science.

Of course it is possible to find some people who disagree. It would be
unhealthy if you couldn't. Science _works_ because of debate.

The post is pretty awful, but what really got me was the claim that because
650 is a bigger number than 52 more people are sceptical than support the
IPCC. That is laughable:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Clim...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change#Contributors)

~~~
kingkongrevenge
> Most would agree that they appear to be correlated.

Everyone agrees they're correlated. Not everyone notices the warming precedes
the increases.

> I work for the British Antarctic Survey and my girlfriend is an atmospheric
> chemist. Many of my friends are climate change or environmental scientists.
> Let me tell you

You have to admit you and your associates have certain interests at stake...

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simoncoggins
I agree, in previous natural cycles it did. Increased temperatures (due to
orbital effect) lead to increased CO2, which increased temperatures further,
releasing more CO2. A positive feedback mechanism. The problem is that man-
made atmospheric CO2 has upset that natural balance (CO2 is now significantly
higher than it has been in the last 400,000 years - see second graph). Will
that increase global temperatures? Scientists think so, and there is some
evidence it is already happening. If so, the results are likely to be very
serious indeed. Should we wait to find out?

~~~
kingkongrevenge
The pattern held throughout the 20th century during massive industrialization.

> Scientists think so

The word "scientist" needs to be banned. There is no such thing as a special
class of people called "scientists."

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apu
So you mean John Q. Public is as qualified to speak about science as people
who spend several years of their life learning about all the necessary
background in their field of study, and then spend the rest of their lives
contributing original research in that field? Or are the latter merely
charlatans and frauds?

~~~
mattmaroon
That's the ultimate way of dismissing anything, just attack the very concept
of credibility. It's downright idiotic to say there's no such thing as a
scientist. That's like saying there's no such thing as a dentist.

Sure, there's some semantic considerations, and the word means different
things to different people and may sometimes be used incorrectly, but there is
a such thing as a scientist.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
Experimental physicist is to dentist as "scientist" is to ...?

"Scientist" is a meaningless word. Knowing that someone is called a scientist
tells you absolutely nothing about their qualifications.

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mattmaroon
Knowing that someone is a dentist tells you little. They could be a good one
or a bad one. They could have not practiced in a long time. It doesn't mean
"dentist" is not a word. Scientist is a rather general one, but still means
anyone to whom it is rightfully applied is many orders of magnitude more
likely to have intelligent feedback on global warming than the general
populace.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
Who said anything about the general populace?

~~~
mattmaroon
The term exists to delineate between a subset of the general populace and the
rest. Just like dentist. Dentists are the subset of the population that you
see when your tooth aches, and scientists (especially a few specializations)
are the ones you ask when you want to know why the glaciers are melting.

When someone say scientists agree on global warming, its like saying dentists
agree on the causes of cavities. It's useful because it's talking about people
in the know who are more apt to make such conclusions.

That's why you apologists try to demean the term. If nobody is a scientist
then nobody has any more valid opinion than yours.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
> say scientists agree on global warming, its like saying dentists agree on
> the causes of cavities

Not even close. I really hope you can stop and think about this analogy and
see how both the professional labels and the questions differ dramatically.

> If nobody is a scientist then nobody has any more valid opinion than yours

Nobody is a "scientist" because there's no such thing. There are etymologists
and geologists and chemists and so on, just as there are plumbers and
linguists, each qualified in their domains. As best I can tell all that
unifies the "scientific professions" is that the paychecks are mostly from
academia, because the work isn't commercially viable. That's not a slight at
all, it's just to throw light on how ridiculous the distinction is. Any high
IQ job involves problem solving and theory.

~~~
mattmaroon
sci⋅en⋅tist (noun) an expert in science, esp. one of the physical or natural
sciences.

You don't think there are experts in science?

You're somewhat right about 'dentist' as 'scientist' is more akin to doctor,
but that doesn't make your overall argument any less silly.

I'm officially going to give up on you now though, it's clear I won't learn
anything from this. You can have the last belligerent word.

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Paul_Morgan
This is a minority report blog. It's just more Republican propaganda using the
senate.gov source to give it credibility.

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timr
Wow. Six-hundred fifty, eh? That sure is a _big number_!

(Sounds like we need another Project Steve:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Steve>)

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earle
Listen. Mars is heating at the same rate as Earth.

The explanation is really that simple.

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josefresco
"Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any
funding, I can speak quite frankly.As a scientist I remain skeptical."

Whoopty fricken' do, you're "skeptical", now how about you actually go out and
do some 'science' and prove some people wrong. Simply writing a letter about
how you're skeptical does nothing, solves nothing and is just a distraction.

