
Everything you know about Global Warming is wrong - inm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6879251.ece
======
Construct
The proposed solution for cooling the Earth in the article is questionable at
best. Furthermore, even if you lower global temperatures through stratosphere
manipulation, there are many other scary unknowns in the field of climate
change. Take ocean acidification for example:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification>

The ocean is a substantial sink for atmospheric CO2. Our best guess is that
1/3 of the CO2 we produced is absorbed by the ocean. As the ocean absorbs CO2,
however, the pH of ocean water drops. Unfortunately, we don't know how this
will affect all of the different species of marine life that live in the
ocean, but early experiments show that shellfish in particular do not tolerate
more acidic waters very well. Furthermore, there is reason to believe that the
ocean's CO2 absorbing capabilities will decrease as the pH decreases, leaving
us with even more CO2 in the atmosphere.

Basically, there are a whole lot of unknowns in the whole debate, many of
which could have unpleasant (to say the least) consequences. Brushing the
entire field of climate science aside and declaring that all of our problems
can be solved by pumping sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere is wildly
irresponsible.

~~~
yummyfajitas
But the climate models say that we can do this. The models are so accurate and
trustworthy that we can totally predict what global climate will be 100 years
in the future depending on whether or not we adopt Kyoto. We can also predict
what they would be now if humans didn't emit CO2.

Why are you denying the consensus and being anti-science? You must also be a
creationist.

</snark>

This is an interesting topic, because it really forces us to evaluate how much
we actually know about climate. To draw conclusions like "the modern warming
trend is anthropogenic in origin", we need to believe that our climate models
are really good. So good, in fact, that they can accurately model virtually
the entire climate, which is what allows us to pinpoint CO2 emissions and rule
out all other forcings as the cause of modern warming.

We do this by running the models with those other forcings, but without CO2,
and observe less warming. But then, we turn around and say "we can't model
$geoengineering_scheme". Why not? Are our models simply incapable of
predicting the response of climate to various forcings?

~~~
anthonyb
The models don't enter into it.

You just need to observe the relative carbon isotope levels in the CO2 of the
atmosphere. If the CO2 is natural, there'll be a large proportion of C-14
(it's created by interactions with cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere). If
it's man made, there'll be a lot of C-12 and 13, since that comes from oil,
which has been nowhere near the upper atmosphere for millions of years.

Oh, and there's now enough man-made CO2 in the air that carbon dating is
inaccurate for recent things (it tests as really old).

~~~
marknutter
The models certainly do enter into it if you want to predict what the
_consequences_ will be of having higher CO2 concentrations. Knowing that we
belch a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere may tell us the cause, but
not the effect. That has to be done with modeling or educated guesses.

~~~
anthonyb
Most of yummyfajitas' post seemed to be name-calling; I was responding to this
point:

> To draw conclusions like "the modern warming trend is anthropogenic in
> origin", we need to believe that our climate models are really good.

Which is entirely wrong. There are plenty of other sources of data which
support that conclusion.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I'll ask you again: without using models, how do we know what the earth's
temperature _would have been_ without anthropogenic CO2?

Without knowing that, we can not draw any conclusions as to whether the modern
warming trend is caused by human-emitted CO2 or not.

Incidentally, I devoted precisely one line of my post to name-calling, namely
reversing a common ad-hominem levied against skeptics of climate modelling.

~~~
anthonyb
Increased CO2 is the only reasonable forcing so far; water vapour, methane,
etc. have too short a half life in the atmosphere. The bulk of the CO2
increase is anthropogenic in origin, ergo the warming is caused by humans - no
models necessary.

------
gjm11
This article:

1\. Is from 2009.

2\. Does not in fact even claim that everything anyone knows about global
warming is wrong. (e.g.: "Everyone in the room agrees that the Earth has been
getting warmer and human activity probably has something to do with it.")

3\. Doesn't do much to substantiate what claims it does make.

4\. Is largely about not global warming as such but possible ways to mitigate
it.

5\. Mostly describes the opinions of people who are not in fact climate
scientists.

6\. Does purportedly give the opinions of one climate scientist, Ken Caldeira
-- but it turns out that he says he's been severely misrepresented by these
people; see, e.g., [http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/18/error-riddled-
superfre...](http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/18/error-riddled-
superfreakonomics-stephen-dubner-says-romm-has-done-a-great-job-amazon-
search/) .

~~~
16s
"Everyone in the room agrees that the Earth has been getting warmer and human
activity probably has something to do with it."

\---

No direct evidence of this exists. Humans may have something to do with it,
and they may not. There is still debate on what the causes might be and much
research still needs to be done.

I find it ironic that scientists can act so religious-like on this topic and
have _faith_ in the _belief_ that humans are the sole reason behind global
warming without solid scientific proof.

Edit: Spelling. No comments, but lots of down votes. Do please cite the
evidence rather than just throw stones.

~~~
jasonlotito
> but lots of down votes.

Because you are making a lot of assumptions. For example:

"the Earth has been getting warmer and human activity probably has something
to do with it."

Is different from "The earth is getting warmer because of human activity."

In fact, you go on to say: "Humans may have something to do with it, and they
may not. There is still debate on what the causes might be and much research
still needs to be done."

A debate on this implies that their are those who think human activity is
partly to blame.

Finally, you go on to say this:

>I find it ironic that scientists can act so religious-like on this topic and
have faith in the belief that humans are the sole reason behind global warming
without solid scientific proof.

Religious-like? Faith? Humans are the sole reason?

"human activity probably has something to do with it."

That's why you are getting down voted. Stop overreacting. =)

------
markkat
I am tired of this hand-waving crap. These guys are making money by pushing
flashy contrarian views with half-baked theories and little to no actual data.
IMHO, this stuff is to science what FoxNews is to politics.

~~~
meric
The article refers to a paper. Is the paper then not actual data? I'm
surprised to see everyone so far just say the article is wrong, without being
specific. Did the article connect the dots wrong, are the 'facts' the article
claim to be true misleading, do the people the article refer to not exist, or
are all the sources the article linked to wrong/irrelevant? I'm not someone
who's acquainted with formal scientific journalism, so it's not something I
can judge well by myself. That means I can't judge whether people saying the
article is wrong are a valid claim either! And that's why I think it'd have
been better if the commenters were a bit more specific.

Part of article I was referring to:

>>

Would it work? The scientific evidence says yes. Perhaps the stoutest
scientific argument in favour of it came from Paul Crutzen, a Dutch
atmospheric scientist whose environmentalist bona fides run even deeper than
Caldeira’s — he won a Nobel prize for his research on atmospheric ozone
depletion.

In 2006 he wrote an essay in the journal Climatic Change lamenting the
“grossly unsuccessful” efforts to emit fewer greenhouse gases and
acknowledging that an injection of sulphur in the stratosphere “is the only
option available to rapidly reduce temperature rises and counteract other
climatic effects”.

Crutzen’s embrace of geoengineering was considered such a heresy within the
climate science community that some of his peers tried to stop the publication
of his essay. How could the man reverently known as “Dr Ozone” possibly
endorse such a scheme? Wouldn’t the environmental damage outweigh the
benefits?

Actually, no. Crutzen concluded that damage to the ozone would be minimal. The
sulphur dioxide would eventually settle out in the polar regions but in such
relatively small amounts that significant harm was unlikely.

~~~
markkat
I read it again. Which paper are you referring to? The essay? -That's not a
scientific paper, it is speculation by a scientist.

You see, the problem is that the issue is too complex to wrap up like they did
here. It is not sexy, but every component that could contribute to climate
change requires careful data collection, analysis and objective consideration.

For example, the article seems to infer that solar panels would result in
global warming because they are dark, and have a 15% efficiency converting
sunlight to electricity. However, this does not take into consideration
factors such as: estimates in increased efficiency as the solar panel
technology matures, or (probably more important) the offset of warming effects
of current fuel sources that solar panels will replace, particularly the
burning of fossil fuels.

The real problem here, IMO, is that people walk away from an article like this
thinking an issue such as global climate change can be understood and resolved
simply by having the correct perspective. However, the reality is that the
issue is much more complex, and that more important than our perspective, is
what we can infer from data and the diligent analysis of that data by people
that are motivated to understand the issue, and not to sell the discourse.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I believe the paper is this one, published in PNAS (one of the top scientific
journals):

Matthews, H.D., and K. Caldeira, Transient climate-carbon simulations of
planetary geoengineering, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of
the United States of America 104 (24): 9949-9954, 2007.

<http://www.pnas.org/content/104/24/9949.abstract>

It's no more speculative than any other climate modelling paper. The
methodology is to run a climate model with and without a forcing and compared
the differences between runs. That methodology should sound familiar - it's
the methodology used to show that global warming is anthropogenic in origin.

~~~
markkat
I didn't see this referred to in the article. And that was my point, it's a
very poorly written article.

~~~
marknutter
Poorly written article you didn't agree with is poorly written.

~~~
markkat
Yes, that happens to be the case. It comes down to data. If you don't have the
science to back it up, then you cannot win me over with speculation about
issues that require scientific investigation and supporting evidence without
bringing some to the conversation. I don't make any excuses for that.

------
ohnonono
...apart from all the bits of Superfreakonomics that have been debunked, that
is. I believe the proportion of error is somewhere in the region of "every
damned thing they wrote".

------
todayiamme
Wait hasn't anyone else noticed how big a PR job this is for intellectual
ventures?

In fact, this is the one chapter in the entire book (superfreakonomics) that
was too hard to stomach. It's just too fake.

There are a lot of rants on HN about this. Pointing out that Intellectual
Ventures is just a patent troll;

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1134762>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1134743> and more.

------
RyanMcGreal
The Peter Principle of pundits and policy analysts is at work.

------
spacemanaki
Elizabeth Kolbert expressed more than a little disdain for the Freakonomics
guys last year in the New Yorker; she's pretty thoughtful about this issue I
think.

newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/091116crbo_books_kolbert

------
steerpike
I wish someone smarter than myself could explain to me why I find articles
written in this style (or tone of voice or rythmn or whatever the correct term
is) so nauseating and irritating?

~~~
nimai
102 paragraphs with no sections, organization, or even an introduction to the
article?

A title that immediately puts you on the defensive?

Quotes like this? “I don’t know anyone I would say is smarter than Nathan,”
Gates, an investor in IV, once observed.

~~~
MC27
It's not really an article, it's a book extract. A demo to get you to purchase
the book and it fills the paper.

------
eogas
I think books like this sell because the subject matter is easy to understand,
but brings about some sense of superiority in the reader for knowing
contradicting theories. These books succeed due to the shock value of the
information they contain. This is in a similar vein to the Penn and Teller
show "Bullshit". If you say something loud enough, and sound relatively
intelligent in the process, people feel smarter when they hear it. I feel that
the same is true about Malcolm Gladwell's writings.

The only problem is that the shock value of the content is in no way related
to how valid the information is. "Bullshit" is terribly biased towards the
presenters opinions, whereas books like these are biased towards whatever
makes headlines, which results in varied levels of validity.

------
MattGrommes
[http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/why_everything_in_su...](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/why_everything_in_superfreakon.php)

This is a good look at the various rebuttals to basically everything in this
chapter of Superfreakonomics.

------
aresant
For anything like this to get approval they need to have a clear "how do we
undo this" plan, that is fundamental to selling this.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Sulfur dioxide rapidly leaves the atmosphere. That's how we undo it.

