
Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate - nickb
http://www.dailytech.com/Myth+of+Consensus+Explodes+APS+Opens+Global+Warming+Debate/article12403.htm
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ajross
How about linking to the _actual_ _source_ instead of a flamebait media piece?
Good grief:

<http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/editor.cfm>

I'm having a little trouble finding the "explosion" in that text. They're
publishing one paper by a presumptive skeptic, and are (ZOMG!) open to debate.
Yeah, that's blown the consensus thing wide open, it has...

~~~
thaumaturgy
Let's also take a closer look at the two groups being asked to write the
opposing opinions.

On the dissenting side, we have Christopher Monckton. Mr. Monckton is not a
scientist by trade; he is, first and foremost, a politician, and a businessman
next. He has recommended that the AIDS epidemic be dealt with by forcefully
quarantining all individuals in the U.S. and U.K. who are infected. His
policies and positions are similar to those of the current U.S. neo-
conservative; you might imagine that Dick Cheney wrote an article critical of
anthropogenic climate change, and you wouldn't be far off the mark.

On the supporting side, we have David Hafemeister (I didn't bother Googling
"Peter Schwartz"). David holds a PhD in physics from the University of
Illinois, and is currently employed at CalPoly. He has authored or coauthored
a ... well, shall we say, "respectable" number of books, and an even larger
quantity of papers. Peer-reviewed papers, no less. The next time you're
feeling lazy, you might want to read his c.v.
[<http://www.calpoly.edu/~dhafemei/dh_cv_1107.pdf>].

Disclaimer: I am not a fan of arguing by appeal to authority, and I do happen
to think that some aspects of human impact on global climate have been
politicized and blown out of proportion -- somewhat. I have always advocated
the approach that we should try to live as efficiently as possible, leaving as
small of a footprint on the planet as possible, even while continuing to
understand all of the mechanisms involved in global climate patterns. That
said, I think it's just silly to lend any credence whatsoever to the
dissenting opinion in this case, and it's certainly ridiculous to claim that
the "myth" of global warming has been "blown wide open".

~~~
1gor
Why do you need to focus on personalities? Is it because the arguments are too
persuasive to discuss?

~~~
thaumaturgy
I'm tempted to not even reply to this, but most of your previous comments
aren't so trollish.

Did you completely skip over the first part of my last paragraph? "I am not a
fan of arguing by appeal to authority." So, yes, naturally the relative
backgrounds of the authors in question should be completely ignored.

In principle, it's wrong to attack a person's reputation in a debate, but I'm
not entering the global warming "debate" here. I am instead criticizing the
stupid tone of both the article and the headline posted here on News.YC.

Furthermore, even though in principle either ad hominem or appeal to authority
fallacies shouldn't be used in debate, there are practical reasons for doing
so. For one, I could devote every waking moment of the rest of my life to
analyzing global climate patterns and the vast array of variables that
influence them, and I still would not understand the field perfectly.
Therefore, given two dissenting opinions, I will be more inclined to lend more
credence to the opinion coming from the person that has spent that kind of
time on analyzing the system.

I'd prefer not to fall into the tarpit of debating Darwinism with a
creationist, nor social responsibility (or human rights, or liberty, or ...
well, pretty much any sociological subject) with pretty much any current
member of the U.S. Congress, nor global warming with Christopher Monckton.

And, finally, in case you missed it the first time: this is coming from
someone who takes a stance very far away from what passes for environmentalism
in the U.S.

~~~
1gor
The bulk of your first post still reads like a character attack, regardless of
the disclaimers you've put in.

A nazi can do perfectly good rocket science, an oil company researcher can
produce perfectly valid climate studies. Discussing character of your opponent
in a debate in any form is off topic, unless you are on the Oprah show.

P.S. Sorry for the Godwin's.

~~~
jsmcgd
A Nazi can do perfectly good rocket science. But can a Nazi be trusted to do
good science when it comes to race, sexuality or disability?

There are times when a person's background and motivations must be weighed
against their position.

------
m0nty
Hmmm, let's leave global warming aside for a few moments and consider the
other reasons to stop polluting:

* We're running out of oil.

* Oil costs too much.

* The oil we do have comes from unstable parts of the world with political regimes we might prefer to avoid providing money to.

* We face increased competition for fuel from developing nations like India and China.

* There are other environmental effects of pollution in addition to global warming.

* Our current reliance on "dirty fuels" is (quite probably) leading to an increase in respiratory diseases like asthma in developed countries.

* Our activities in general are leading to species and habitat loss at an unprecedented rate -- effectively, we are an extinction event.

I think too many "global warming sceptics" are motivated either by a desire to
carry on as normal, or (as Homer Simpson put it) not letting "the
environmentalists win". But clearly, we need to find alternative energy
sources regardless of global warming, and we need to do it now.

~~~
hugh
All (mostly) true. I don't think any sensible person could deny that we need
to be finding better alternatives to fossil fuels as soon as as possible.

There is, however, room for some disagreement on exactly how large and how
urgent the problem is. If the only problems are as you suggest, then we can
pretty much afford to sit back and let research progress as normal, safe in
the knowledge that market forces and the natural advancement of technology
will mean that renewable CO2-neutral energy sources will become economical in
the coming decades.

On the other hand if, as some of the more alarmist global warming advocates
would have us believe, a few more years of current CO2 emissions will suddenly
put us over some kind of tipping point causing the melting of Antarctica, the
stopping of the gulf stream, a neverending drought and the end of all life on
Earth (and I'm only exaggerating their predictions slightly) then we'd need to
take more severe actions -- like severely cutting energy consumption right now
instead of waiting to develop better energy sources.

Right now we have all sorts of people using scenarios on the Al Gore doomsday
end of the scale in order to justify policies such as cap-and-trade and carbon
taxes. In the end these sorts of policies, as well as causing hardship to
everybody, might wind up being counterproductive, since they'd slow down the
economy and hold up the development of the alternative energy sources which
are the real long-term solution.

It doesn't help that most of the people who are pushing for, say, increasing
taxes on CO2 are exactly the same sort of people who are always calling for
increasing taxes on _something_.

Like I've been saying for years, global warming is a technological problem,
and we should always beware of people trying to push sociological solutions to
technological problems.

~~~
m0nty
"we should always beware of people trying to push sociological solutions to
technological problems"

I'd go along with that. I think ideas like carbon trading are clearly designed
to subsidise poorer nations, without actually reducing the amount of CO2 in
the atmosphere. Someone eloquently described such trading systems as "carbon
indulgences", in that it makes people feel better about the pollution they
produce while actually doing precious little about it in real terms.

<http://www.carbontradewatch.org/pubs/carbon_neutral_myth.pdf>

My main point is that arguing about global warming is a big waste of time, and
we should concentrate on finding efficient, clean and sustainable ways to live
as we want to.

~~~
jerry5
Reducing the amount of CO2 is - strictly speaking - not the immediate goal of
carbon trading, the goal is to keep the annual emissions below a certain
threshold, and that part is what carbon trading clearly _is_ designed to do.
Carbon trading is also called cap-and-trade and the 'cap' part refers to the
limitation in emissions. Since, due to the artificially enforced limitations,
emissions become just another scarce commodity like wheat or oil, the same
trade mechanisms can be applied to it.

------
Anon84
"Whether or not human produced carbon dioxide is a major cause of impending
climate change (as is being debated in the two articles of this issue), the
issue of energy “production” by our Earth-bound societies must be faced.
Fossil fuel supplies may become unavailable in this century – or the next –
but in a finite system, obeying the laws of thermodynamics, non-fossil energy
sources will have to become available to mankind, sooner or later (within the
foreseeable lifetime of our planet)."

\-- From the original APS article
<http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/editor.cfm>

------
dominik
Suppose climate change is real.

What do we do about it?

Massive centralization and government control?

Or free-market based solutions, based on: 1. restoring individual property
rights, 2. re-classifying pollution as trespass rather than nuisance, 3.
providing legal remedy?

~~~
jerry5
Mister, property rights and the legal system are entirely functions
implemented by a centralized government. So it's not either/or. It's just a
question of _which_ centralized government mechanism we want. Trespassing laws
and the legal system were created to keep my neighbor from building the
extension to his house onto _my_ lawn. I don't see how I can sue someone from
the other side of the world that's polluting my air with their CO2 under the
same system.

------
overreact
This is a forum posting by some editor -- a single person -- of the APS. The
official stance[1] says that evidence of global warming is "incontrovertible".

Besides, it seems to go on to say that there is usefulness in finding
alternative fuels anyways. Of course, we all know what the OP's statement will
be used for and alternative energy is certainly not it.

1 - <http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm>

------
jerry5
Probably a a good time to remember that nickb = pg
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152361>), which also explains the spate
of climate change denialism which swamps this otherwise largely sane site
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=242215>).

~~~
axod
Do people deny climate change? I don't think so. People are however very
skeptical that it's all down to us humans. I'd say that's a sane viewpoint.

~~~
jerry5
Some people do deny climate change. You will find plenty on the Internet. I
for one found one in today's local newspaper, circulation ca. 1 million. The
linked article stopped just short of explicitly denying climate change by
calling climate change a "myth" and instead calls the consensus on climate
change a myth. That people are skeptical is indeed down to us humans, and
especially so to scientists like me who only come to a verdict after
performing a lot of observations and pondering. In climate change politics
however "climate change skeptic" is a euphemism for denialist.

~~~
hugh
The trouble with the word "denialist" is that it's not clear exactly what the
denialist is denying. There are a bunch of different things which one could
deny, ranging from the sensible-to-deny to the silly-to-deny.

~~~
jerry5
It _is_ exactly clear what climate change denialists are denying: They are
denying that humans should do something about reducing greenhouse gas
emissions. There are a number of different ways to 'implement' that denial,
such as denying that climate change is happening in the first place or denying
that humans are causing it, but it always leads to the same conclusion, and
therefore - I am suspecting - always has the same motivation: Intellectual
laziness, not wanting to rethink one's own lifestyle.

~~~
axod
I disagree passionately. I complete agree that the climate is changing. It
could have devestating effects, but the idea that it's caused by us, is not
backed up by evidence IMHO.

There is a whole raft of evidence showing that co2 is released _because_ the
earth is hotter. There's evidence to show the 'green house effect' doesn't
really do much. There's evidence to show direct correlation between sunspots,
and the temperature on earth.

To label people 'denialists' and 'intelectually lazy' is offensive. Of
_course_ we shouldn't use so much oil. We should be more efficient. But the
reasons for blaming humanity for global warming are shady. More to do with
money and power, and oppressing the third world.

The "Global warming is caused by man" theory has turned into a religion
instead of actually looking at the latest available evidence to make an
informed decision. _that_ is intelectually lazy.

~~~
jerry5
Well thanks for disagreeing "passionately", seems like you have evidence that
I don't have. I can only hope for you that your conclusions match your reality
and that you will therefore have a happy life with no bad surprises.

