
Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change - stevekinney
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/223471/physicist-offers-10000-for-anyone-to-scientifically-disprove-climate-change/
======
crdoconnor
Let's flip this:

1\. I will award $10,000 of my own money to anyone that can demonstrate, via
the scientific method, that man-made global climate change __IS __occurring;

2\. There is no entry fee;

3\. You must be 18 years old or older to enter;

4\. Entries do not have to be original, they only need to be first;

5\. _I am the final judge_ of all entries but will provide my comments on why
any entry fails to prove the point.

Obviously not hard to see how a global warming denier could get away with not
paying anybody.

Does anybody seriously believe that would prove anything either?

~~~
paulhauggis
My issue is that I've heard many pro global warming scientists on public radio
say that even if man-made global warming doesn't exit, we should have all of
these regulations and tax increases because it's good for the environment.

~~~
asgard1024
So what exactly do you have to lose if you leave the oil/coal in the ground?
It will still be there for your descendants.

Especially, if you accept that global warming exists but is not man-made, it
may be useful to keep backup of energy to be able to deal with it in the
future, wouldn't it?

~~~
glenra
Our descendants will be vastly richer and smarter and better informed than we
are, so you're saying we should tax the poor to help the rich.

Making energy more expensive now reduces economic progress, which is exactly
the thing we need to outgrow this and all other future potential threats.

~~~
asgard1024
Yeah. Or our descendants will be doomed. We have no idea.

This could be a good argument if the actual profits from coal and oil were
really going to development of sustainable technologies (or poor people, in
case of argument from streptomycin). In fact, that's precisely what the carbon
tax proposals try to induce.

But I am not convinced; oil and coal companies fight this tooth and nail.

~~~
glenra
Profits are irrelevant. What matters are the _benefits_ , which include the
_consumer_ surplus as well as the _producer_ surplus. So long as coal and oil
are the cheapest most reliable source of energy, using them makes the economy
more efficient than not using them and an efficient, functioning economy buys
us more safety margin for just about _any_ conceivable future threats, not
just climate-related ones. Whereas a crippled economy where we use less energy
automatically makes us more vulnerable to many _other_ conceivable future
threats, even ones we didn't explicitly prepare for. (Getting hit by an
asteroid, disease epidemics, global _cooling_...)

Switching to less CO2-intensive technologies will happen anyway regardless but
if you want to push it along, how about removing some of the roadblocks to
nuclear power? (Including recycling/reprocessing waste into more fuel, which
has been illegal in the US since the 1970s)

------
unabridged
This is why I'm a skeptic, change my mind:

Let's say we have 150 years of accurate temperature data, and it shows an
increase of a few degrees. What is the standard deviation in global
temperature for 150 year periods for the last 100K or 1M years? How do we know
what is significant change?

Any data gathered from models (ice core, tree rings, ...) just doesn't have
the resolution to answer these questions.

~~~
mkhaytman
What difference does it make if the cause is entirely man made or not. Should
we let 80% of worlds population who live on the coast just deal with rising
sea levels, because it natural? Do you really need to know it's causing a rise
in temperature to want less trucks and cars polluting the air in your city? Or
does the fact that we will never have the historic data to know for sure if
humans are causing global warming, make it okay to ignore the issue entirely,
forever?

~~~
triangleman
>What difference does it make if the cause is entirely man made or not.

If it's not entirely man made, it would mean that efforts to curtail emissions
(and consequently economic output) would be pointless and unnecessary.

>Should we let 80% of worlds population who live on the coast just deal with
rising sea levels, because it natural?

It's not like the sea will simply rise several meters overnight, if it does
actually rise. And again, if it's natural, then wouldn't that mean that we
must, in fact, "deal with it"?

>Do you really need to know it's causing a rise in temperature to want less
trucks and cars polluting the air in your city?

The air pollution you are concerned about here is sulfur, particulates, and
other things unrelated to the CO2 debated over by politicians currently.

>Or does the fact that we will never have the historic data to know for sure
if humans are causing global warming, make it okay to ignore the issue
entirely, forever?

It certainly moves one's focus of concern to more pressing environmental and
social issues.

------
dirktheman
If I put 20 mice in a container, together with a toy car, measure the
temperature in the container for 2 months and write a report about my
findings, would that count as scientific proof? Because by definition,
scientific proof does not result in 'true' or 'false', right?

According to Socrates it's impossible to disprove anything. That's purely a
philosophical theory, but in this case it applies pretty well. You can't prove
manmade global warming is NOT occuring because, in theory, the global warming
that we're seeing (note that the definition of 'global warming' isn't set in
stone, too) could be caused by other factors.

So, proving something isn't possible is impossible, and to top that this
person runs a blog on global warming skepticism. I have the feeling he/she
could be somewhat biased...

Just to be clear: I'm not debating man-made global warming. It's just that
these kind of challenges bug me.

Side note: what is 'scientifically proven' anyway? I wrote a thesis on
propaganda, and discovered (among other things) that when you say something is
'scientifically proven' most people stop questioning your claim.

------
triangleman
Considering that the theory of anthropogenic climate change is not falsifiable
in the first place (a key tenet of the scientific method), this is a strange
offer indeed.

There may be a purported "consensus" on climate change but that does not make
it scientific: [http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/07/a-question-for-
oreskes...](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/07/a-question-for-oreskes-but-
what-do-we-mean-by-consensus/)

------
msandford
I was just commenting to my girlfriend the other day after the John Oliver
"Statistically Accurate Climate Science Debate" that I would love to see the
US government spend $100mm or $1b or $10b (say over 5 years) on grants to try
and disprove climate change.

Now obviously there might be some issues ensuring that you get researchers who
want to make a real go of trying to disprove it rather than erect straw men
and tear them down. But that's probably solvable.

Yes in many respects it would be a big waste of money, but after you poke a
million little holes in climate change they will be fixed. And that will
strengthen our understanding of the climate and in all likelihood
substantially bolster the claim that climate change is real and man-made. And
if it takes $100mm or $1b or even $10b worth of very public extra research to
really convince people it would be worth it.

The US Global Change Research Program's budget is $2.6b annually so $20mm per
year is a joke, $200mm a year is a bit substantial and $2b per year might
actually be a reasonable amount.

[http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2012/02/14/presidents-201...](http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2012/02/14/presidents-2013-budget-
requests-6-percent-increase-for-usgcrp/)

Again I realize that for many people it would be a "waste" of money. But if it
was publicized properly (and I do realize that's a big IF) it could go a long
way towards garnering the public support necessary to do some economically
difficult things. When politicians are happy to kick the can down the road
every couple of years it's pretty tough for the public to understand why this
is an issue that can't be kicked as well.

EDIT: I also realize it's stupid to waste taxpayer money, something I'm
vhemently against. But while I'm dreaming here, let's suppose that the money
is taken from the military budget for the duration of the grant period.

~~~
glenra
In context, that John Oliver debate segment was dumb. They took a perfectly
reasonable Gallop poll result - that 1 in 4 Americans think the threat of
climate change has been _exaggerated_ \- and rhetorically pretended the claim
being made was that climate change "isn't real" or "doesn't exist".

But establishing that a threat _exists_ is quite a lot different from
establishing whether it's being overestimated or underestimated in the media,
so the whole segment was a non sequitur - it didn't respond in any way at all
to the news article it was allegedly answering.

My guess is that they had Bill Nye, wanted to do this gag, couldn't come up
with any _valid_ reason to do it based on any actual news stories, then said
"heck, let's do it anyway; maybe nobody will notice!"

(As a side note, if you look into how the claims of "97% agreement" were
determined, you'll find that most "skeptics" would also be in the 97%. It's
pure propaganda at this point to claim 97% support for some vague "the
consensus" without actually specifying what exactly "the consensus" they agree
to IS. The original value of "the consensus" seems to have been: (a) CO2 is a
greenhouse gas, (b) it's gotten warmer recently, (c) _human activity_ has had
a _significant_ warming effect, where both the nature of the "human activity"
and the meaning of "significant" are usually left vague and unstated.

Oh, and to get a number as high as "97%" what gets measured is usually not the
level of agreement among "scientists" but rather among a tiny subset, such as
"those climate scientists who publish the most in the field".)

------
hartator
The article has a weird tone.

Why is he being so agressive against people who think the opposite of him? I
mean if you are tolerant against people whose religion place the women in a
submission role and restrain to nothing individual rights, you can be also
tolerant to people who think the earth is not warming up.

~~~
waps
Somehow that doesn't seem to be possible.

The entire question is a fraud of course : the argument for climate change is
based on statistical likelihood of existing trends continuing based on past
measurement. While that does satisfy some standards used in science, no
scientist in his right mind would refer to that as "proven", because it isn't.

So here's my version :

1) There is no argument from either maths, or even a simulation from first
principles (NOT measured data and statistics and correlations) that shows a
scenario like global warming.

2) principle of the excluded third ("tertium non datur") was an accepted
standard in logic before Christ was born. It states that any statement that
cannot be proven from first principles is disproved just by that fact (NOT
wrong, but that wasn't asked)

Ergo, climate science disproved. Or at least, there is no known proof. There
is loads and loads of statistical correlations indicating it exists, but there
is no correct argument from first principles known, which is what I'd require
to say "proof". It is overwhelmingly likely (well I haven't checked, but I
believe them) that it exists, but not proven.

Now please keep in mind what I am and am not claiming here before you vilify
me. I am claiming that climate science is very far from satisfying the
standard used in exact sciences that is referred to when scientists use the
word "proof".

Obviously I am not claiming that global warming will reverse or is just a
mistake or whatever. The graph has been rising pretty constantly for 150 years
or so, and yes, it absolutely does not look like it will reverse. This is
however very far from having an explanation from first principles for climate
change.

~~~
Iftheshoefits
> the argument for climate change is based on statistical likelihood of
> existing trends continuing based on past measurement. <

That can easily be generalized to any scientific construct, since all
predictions and theories based on experiment implicitly contain the assumption
of their continued validity. Consequently what you're doing is conflating an
argument against the metaphysical underpinnings of science (amusingly, by
arguing from the assumptions of rationalism which are themselves subject to at
least as much skepticism and scrutiny) with an argument against the products
of scientific discovery.

~~~
waps
No it can't. You'll find exact sciences don't work like this.

First in maths you have models. Of course some models match reality and some
don't, but proven "given" a model means a very specific thing and is extremely
rigorous.

Second physics, at least particle physics, has a lot of models these days. The
most famous "in use" one is the standard model. It is not based on
measurement, but on the assumption that a specific geometric shape determines
the laws of physics, along with a number of constants, none of which can be
directly measured (and generally, you don't use the "real" ones for
calculation because they're somewhat inconvenient). The conclusions of the
standard model are valid given those assumptions, just like mathematical
theories are. That has good sides and really bad ones. The good, everybody
knows. The worst: according to the standard model, gravity shouldn't exist.

You'll find most rigorous theories of exact sciences work like that. We can
give a very, very thorough argument why electrical current and magnetism work
in perpendicular planes, give exact values for the magnitudes, and you will
not find a single measured quantity anywhere in that argument with one
exception : the one that determines the units used. But that is an arbitrary
constant, different for the metric versus imperial system.

Now I'm not saying there aren't variations on what it means to be proven
within these sciences, but you can reasonably say that given the peano axioms
and the model used, these conclusions are proven.

No such claim can be made for climate science. The "laws" of climate science
are not the result of first principles (because they don't match observed
behavior of the atmosphere), but statistical best estimators of observed
measurements. This is absolutely not the same standard as used in exact
sciences.

~~~
Iftheshoefits
> The "laws" of climate science are not the result of first principles
> (because they don't match observed behavior of the atmosphere), but
> statistical best estimators of observed measurements. <

I didn't read the comment I replied to this way; my mistake. By the way, I
understand how exact sciences work (I chose astrophysics and relativity for my
specializations in physics), but thanks for the exposition.

------
mdip
Let's just take this a piece at a time.

    
    
         ...there is a 97% consensus that humans are causing and exacerbating climate change...
    

Ignoring the lack of citation, why is it necessary to resort to band-wagon
style marketing?

    
    
         ...the only reason so many scientists agree on climate change being a thing is because all the ones who disagree are being “censored” or something...
    

I don't think that most of us who are skeptical about climate change believe
that scientists are being censored as a matter of scientific conspiracy. It
happens that the "fix" for man-made climate change also aligns well with a
particular political party. Unfortunately, this results in people who are
equally ignorant about the science involved supporting climate change simply
because they support the economic policies that would be enacted to "reverse"
climate change.

    
    
         ...These people often believe that there is actual scientific evidence disproving climate change. There, of course, is not.
    

Isn't that the same argument made by academics when religious observers
attempt to reason faith against evidence? And isn't the author now asking for
us to "prove via the scientific method" something that would be impossible to
do? Perhaps that's the point? Who wants to lose $10,000 of their own money?

I know nothing about this guy except what I've read in this one post, but I
feel that the author is being intellectually dishonest and with his "prize"
and, instead, is attempting to argue his point via propaganda.

------
bprieto
Disproving climate change is virtually impossible. Every scientist agree that
climate changes, it has done so in the past, will do in the future and is
doing it in the present.

That is not an interesting question.

The interesting questions are:

\- Is climate changing in a different way (faster, for example) than it has
done in the past?

\- Do humans have anything to do with it? Is it caused by increasing levels of
atmospheric CO2?

\- Will this change be negative?

\- If the change is negative (be it man-made or not), can we stop it?

\- If we can stop this climate change, how much will it cost? Will this money
better spent stopping climate or is a better strategy to adapt to this change?

\- Do we understand climate physics well enough to create models that can
predict the climate of the future?

This last question is important, because if we can not produce a model that
can predict the future well enough, all the other questions are irrelevant.
And it seems that predictions of the models and reality are showing quite
significant discrepancies: [http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/06/ipcc-
ar5-weakens-the-case-...](http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/06/ipcc-ar5-weakens-
the-case-for-agw/)

So it's not black or white, yes or no, good or bad. As usually it is in
science. Name-calling, appealing to consensus, arguments of authority… those
are never the result of science at work.

------
tedunangst
It seems longbets.org would be a more appropriate arena. "The average
temperature of the earth will (not) rise by more than X degrees in the next
twenty years."

~~~
imacomputer2
That would be an excellent bet for the person betting that the temperature
will increase. However, it doesn't prove that human actions are causing it. I
think most deniers do believe that the climate is changing - even that the
temps are going up. The problem is that causation is hard to measure. I'm not
a scientist, but I think theories explain causes, and you can't directly
measure a theory, only the observations that support it.

So, maybe a bet that includes more measurements (green house gas emissions,
etc.) would be needed to prove man-made global warming. The outcome of the
total of those bets would either support or not support the theory. But that
might be a lot of bets and a mixed result could complicate things.

------
logfromblammo
Well, let's just rough out the experiment, shall we?

First, we need to establish that human activity can change the climate. For
the sake of argument, let's try rainfall in the Sonora Desert. What we could
do is to burrow an underground canal from the Gulf of California into Laguna
Salada, and from there to the Salton Sink. This would establish shallow,
inland, saltwater seas upwind of the desert, in a very sunny area, as a source
of atmospheric humidity. Evaporation would be further encouraged with sea salt
manufacturing beds and Salicornia bigelovii plantations.

(It would also displace thousands of people whose homes would now be
underwater, but let's handwave that aside for now.)

We then erect solar-powered ionization towers downwind of the new seas, to
stimulate cloud formation via charged particles of dust. Those clouds will
tend to blow east over the desert and rain out. To extend the rainfall further
east, we simply plant dry-tolerant plants--such as sorghum, lucern, and field
pea--in the newly wet areas, to recycle moisture back into the air via
transpiration.

Results of the experiment will compare weather patterns in Yuma and Mexicali
before and after the megaproject.

And then, after spending (optimistically) $20 billion on the subterranean
saltwater tunnels, and $100 million on the cloud seeders, we can collect our
$10000. Yay!

In comparison to what it would cost to test experimentally a hypothesis that
states the entirety of global human economic activity is influencing weather
patterns, you will have to spend an amount capable of simulating a portion of
the global human economy towards a directed experimental purpose. $10000 isn't
even a round-off error.

You would be better off buying up unproductive arid land and leasing it to
cattle ranchers as semi-arid grazing land afterward.

------
pessimizer
A lot of crackpots think that they already have. To make this a good-faith
offer, it might be good to google all of the major theories from the denialist
side and explain in black-and-white terms why they would or would not qualify
for the prize. Otherwise, it's just asking somebody to volunteer to be your
punching bag for free.

------
ZenPro
Another stunning HN thread where a subset of posters have decided they know
more about climate change than people dedicating their lives to the study of
climate change.

Since so many of you are _wagering_ or believing let me just toss out what I
believe.

I believe that credible and respected climate change scientists have forgotten
more than you could ever know about the subject.

Climate Change deniers are a joke and a menace and are tied neck and neck with
creationists for the moron awards.

~~~
paulhauggis
So because I'm not an expert, I should have no opinion on the subject? Experts
make mistakes all the time. They are just people, after all.

I look at the tech world (which I know very well) and "experts" are wrong all
the time. I can't imagine it being much different in other fields.

I see people here on HN making comments about the economy. Should all of these
opinions be ignored because they aren't experts?

Look at the guy that discovered bacteria: The experts of his time shunned him
and he died in an insane asylum.

Scientists pretty much lose their career overnight if they have any study or
research on non man-made climate change.

How can we really have an honest debate when this kind of behavior is going
on?

~~~
DanBC
People are paid money to sow uncertainty about climate science. These tactics
are the same ones used by tobacco companies. The tactics are the same and many
of the scientists are the same.

That's not an honest debate.

The reason people don't engage with you has nothing to do with whether you're
an expert or not. It's because people who deny climate change often grab a
snippet of science, out of context, and that's been given a spin by deniers.
Then, rather than learning why that bit is flawed or what the context is
they'll just throw it into a discussion and demand that it is explained. And
then they'll grab another bit. And another bit. Eventually it's easier to
regard this as trolling (which it is - concern trolling) and treat
appropriately (by stopping feeding the trolls).

------
facepalm
Can you really prove something by the scientific method? Maybe it would be
better to say "show a likelihood of at least x%"?

~~~
rossjudson
Yes. You can prove that water boils when you add enough heat. You are making a
philosophical argument, not a scientific one.

~~~
msandford
No, incorrect. In science nothing is ever REALLY proven.

But there are standards by which scientists agree that a certain amount of
evidence will be accepted as "proof". At least for a while. Where everyone
understand that it could always be overturned by some evidence to the
contrary.

In particle physics it takes five sigma to make a claim. In other fields,
often less. [http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/the-particle-
proof-1150/](http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/the-particle-proof-1150/)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_evidence#Concept_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_evidence#Concept_of_.22scientific_proof.22)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability)

For example everyone knew that water boiled once it got hot enough. Then
someone invented a pressure vessel and wasn't able to boil water over a fire
because as the pressure rose, so did the boiling point. And thus a thing that
everyone knew was true for thousands of years wasn't quite anymore.

------
7952
It is well understood that the atmosphere is a highly chaotic system. Small
changes can have dramatic impact. It is completely inconceivable that six
billion humans have had no impact on weather and climate. Arguing about the
exact consequences of that is a complete waste of time. Humans have the
ability to influence the environment and we need to do that in an educated
way. Fixating on climate science distracts from more tangible environmental
issues that need to be addressed.

------
peter303
Considering my classmates the Koch brothers have given $10Ms to various
organizations with the same goal, this is small potatoes.

------
antonwinter
does that mean that lack of scientific proof means it is real? is that what
they are trying to get at?

------
eglover
97% consensus? Right away I'm calling bullshit. I think this only proves how
immature the academic world tends to be and may point to a bigger problem.

~~~
headShrinker
There are plenty of areas to pick apart this article and motivations behind
it. 97% consensus isn't one of them.

Denial, is old and dead amongst the well informed. Join us.

~~~
msandford
That kind of consensus is actually worrying to me. It makes it seem like there
is very little effort going into ensuring that all the research the climate
scientists are doing doesn't have errors.

In other words, in the echo chamber there are no critics.

Kinda like the dumb ideas that occasionally come out of SF because nobody
there knows about the real problems that real people have, they just know
about the trivial problems that they as single dudes in SF have.

~~~
DCKing
It's quite the same as the fact there are incredibly few biologists who think
that evolution is false. The debate is simply not worth having, even though a
large number of uninformed people still don't accept it.

~~~
paulhauggis
500+ years ago, very few scientists of that day thought the world was round.

A scientist should be able to study the other side without threat of being
fired or completely losing their career.

Your viewpoint is as close-minded as many religions.

~~~
DCKing
I'm not saying that people should not discuss this. I'm saying that the debate
is over unless substantial other facts are presented than we do now.
Discussion value based on _evidence_ and not conjecture. Claiming that this is
the same as the dogma and falsehood of religions is plain insulting.

Besides, the last time anyone thought the world was flat was a lot longer ago
than 500 years, and 'scientists' as such did not exist yet.

~~~
msandford
The thing that bugs me is that there's all this "it's CO2 stupid!!!" and a lot
less "what if it were something else?"

Has the planet gotten warmer in the last 150 years? Yes.

Does that correlate with increasing CO2 concentration? Yes.

Does that prove the causal link? No.

There are about a million confounding factors that could disprove that
causality. I mean there are enough man-made refrigerants in the atmosphere to
literally blow a hole in the ozone layer. That's a real, proven, nobody-
argues-about-it thing.

But if you look at the wikipedia refrigerants page you can see their Global
Warming Potential (GWP).
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_refrigerants](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_refrigerants)
Many of them are quite high, such that even at tiny concentrations they can
have a significant impact.

The wikipedia page on CO2 emissions has this picture, which shows that
tropospheric ozone, methane, nitrogen dioxide and the refrigerants combine to
have as much impact as CO2 does.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmos...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#mediaviewer/File:Radiative-
forcings.svg)

That to me says that things are pretty complicated. The idea that our
understanding of something that's complicated like that MIGHT not be complete
isn't unreasonable.

Furthermore a lot of people say "climate change is settled, we need to do
something about CO2" and I don't buy that argument. MAYBE climate change is
settled, but even if it is there's a lot that can be done without even
touching CO2 and all the economic pain and/or non-compliance to agreements
that'll happen.

What I mean is that it might well be easier to deal with methane, NO2, and
refrigerants than CO2. If it doesn't require the entire world giving up on
developed country standards of living in the near future that's going to be a
much easier sell. Mandating efficiency doesn't work re: jevons;
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox)
Putting hard limits on emissions in the developed world is doable but nearly
impossible in the developing world.

And even if we could get all the countries in the world to agree to hard
limits on emissions, it's got to be population based, not history-based (i.e.
the developed countries get larger quotas because they're already developed)
or else you're basically making the undeveloped world slaves to the developed
world. But even if you could somehow get the entire world to agree to such a
thing, it's still terrible for one of two reasons:

1\. if individuals can sell their quota on the open market fraud will be
rampant since verification is impossible

2\. if they can't, their governments will do so for them and we'll continue to
prop up dictators all around the world

Neither is a very defensible moral position to take.

So while I'm less skeptical of climate change today than I was 10 years ago I
am not 100% convinced as of yet (since complex things are complex). And all
the "obvious" solutions to the problems even if I were to say "sure, it's a
big enough problem we gotta do whatever we can!" end up with neutered, bad or
horrible outcomes for the world. Possibly even in a worse way than if climate
change continues.

EDIT: The other thing I'll mention is that we already have proven success on
the trace gas emissions problem. The ozone hole should eventually close now
that the problem has been solved. Rather than attacking energy (which is a
multi-trillion dollar industry and affects every person on the planet) perhaps
going after other sources would be more fruitful.
[http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/ozon...](http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/ozone.php)

~~~
DCKing
> Does that prove the causal link? No.

Yes, for all reasonable definitions of 'prove', the vast amount of evidence
collected that is a proven fact. Although correlation of one metric does not
necessarily imply causation of some other, evidence upon evidence upon
evidence _does_ imply causation. And that is what we have.

The fact that you can casually obtain this information from Wikipedia already
means that the scientific community is open to, and aware of, other greenhouse
gases. Your information also confirms that CO2 in itself is probably the
biggest problem. It is also the one that people likely can control most in
their day-to-day lives. So if that's what's driving public policy, that's
probably not a bad thing either.

~~~
msandford
No, correlation does not imply causation. There are a dozen things which can
correlate with rising temperatures and CO2 is only one of them. Some of them
aren't even in/on the Earth!

Here's atmospheric methane:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#mediaviewer...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#mediaviewer/File:Mlo_ch4_ts_obs_03437.png)

Here's atmospheric refrigerants:
[http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/mguidry/Unnamed_Site_2/Chapter%2...](http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/mguidry/Unnamed_Site_2/Chapter%202/Chapter2D2.html)

Here's sunspot activity:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle#mediaviewer/File:Su...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle#mediaviewer/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png)

Here's a paper that shows that poor station siting could explain all the
upwards trend in temperatures:
[http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/r-367.pd...](http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/r-367.pdf)
Here's the website journaling the research:
[http://www.surfacestations.org/](http://www.surfacestations.org/)

Here's the Wikipedia page that would tend to indicate that such a journal
isn't a sham made up by the Koch brothers to discredit climate science:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Geophysical_Research](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Geophysical_Research)

Remember, "prove" means that ANY reliable information to the contrary
overwhelms all the other evidence and/or theories because at it's core science
is about falsifiability. If your theory cannot be falsified by new evidence,
it's not science, it's religion.

~~~
DCKing
I can't tell whether you are deliberately being dishonest or genuinely don't
understand how to have a proper debate.

> Correlation does not imply causation.

You can't simply wave this around to invalidate information that does not suit
your liking. You can use also use this statement to disqualify the fact that
sex causes the spread of AIDS. It's a hollow statement if the evidence is
overwhelming.

You can point to all other contributing factors to climate change. Yes,
climate change is complex, there are many contributing factors, and not all of
them are CO2. It's very important to realize, but these things _are not
ignored_. In any case, those _do not_ invalidate the claim that CO2 is one of
the most important driving factors of current climate change, and that it is
man-made.

Next you pretend that it is somehow a religion. Thirty to fifty years of
gathering information, getting to know our environment and recognizing
patterns in them is not a religion. That is an insult to all hard work
humanity has put into this partial understanding of our world. There are
thousands of ways to falsify man-made climate change (eg. CO2 increase is
largest on the ocean floor, temperatures decrease over ten years, molecular
nitrogen is found to be a significant greenhouse gas) _none of which_ have any
real support.

In the end you are advocating critical debate, which is fine. But don't do
that by ignoring the larger discussion and only picking out the parts you
like.

