Polar bears have been at the attention of the media after a study that showed a 40% decline in polar bears due to melting ice caps that destroyed their natural habitat. There was even a picture of a lonely polar bear stuck on a piece of drifting ice in the middle of the artcic ocean with nowhere to go. Lots os environmental organisations picked up the story, and the heartbreaking picture, and ran with it. The polar bear has become the poster boy for the melting ice caps, and the global warming disaster.
But when he dug into the story he found that the study was on a small group of ten polar bears, of which four had died. Two of the polar bears died because they were shot by hunters.
I'm not arguing for or against global warming, just pointing out that you should look at the evidence and not at the media, which are appallingly bad at conveying the facts.
liberals not required. It's just bad science to extend scientific consensus into the political arena. It makes scientists political figures. Politics and science work in different ways. Science should always be willing to be proven wrong. Politics is about fear and emotion and statements and consensus and all of that.
We already had a bunch of smart guys who ruled by consensus. It was called the church. Didn't work out too well.
There certainly is no official scientific consensus on anything. That's an oversimplification made by politicians for mass consumption. That's fine and dandy.
Nonetheless, the vast majority of relevant scientists believe in global warming. Call it consensus, or whatever you want (or nothing at all), it's very real and stupid to ignore.
What about the consensus of scientists that don't believe in the man-made Co2 theory of global warming and the lack of evidence to support the Co2 theory? I've looked at the research and journals for both sides, and the Solar scientists who are accurately predicting this current cooling and actually an acceleration of this trend seem far more convincing.
The consensus of 1% of the scientists, when directly opposed to the consensus of the other 99%, is not very convincing, nor is their ability to convince laymen.
I'm not sure where you get 1% opposed? The group of opposing scientists seems to be growing every year. Even back in 2007:
"Challenge to Scientific Consensus on Global Warming: Analysis Finds Hundreds of Scientists Have Published Evidence Countering Man-Made Global Warming Fears "
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,1...
Does this mean there are 3.1 million scientists in favor of the Co2 theory? Not that the quantity in either direction really matters, its the facts that count.
Ignoring is one thing, asking for proof is another.
I must have missed science class the day they talked about counting up scientists who "believe" in one thing or another and using as a proxy for personal responsibility. In my class, we were taught that science was falsifiable, reproducible, and tentative.
I'm no expert, but I've spent a couple of hundred hours on the evidence, both pro and con. And so far, I'm not convinced of any dire calamity awaiting mankind if we don't act radically and immediately. If that's being stupid, then I can go spend some more time learning. At the end of the day, however, the climate is always changing. The question is to what degree is it anthropogenic and whether that's bad, good, or indifferent. Unless we're tying to control the climate to one certain setting (which has never been done), then, like all life before us, we're just along for the ride. If we _are_ trying to control the climate (because we like sea levels the way they are or some such) then that's ridiculously sisyphusian. You could easily call such ideas stupid.
Fred, I still haven't seen that convincing, peer-reviewed source disproving global warming. Where is it? All of this anti-global warming stuff is just so anecdotal compared to an overwhelming scientific establishment consensus.
What makes you think you are right and that there is a vast conspiracy among the mainstream scientific community?
There is a growing body of research done by scientists on the role the Sun plays in global climate. Here's an example: "Do Models Underestimate the Solar Contribution to Recent Climate Change?" http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/StottEtAl.pdf The answer, of course, is yes as there has never been an accurate computer model prediction of temperature using the manmade Co2 theory.
Anthropogenic global warming hasn't been "proved" either. And the agreement by peer review of however many climatologists, whose jobs also depend on global warming's acceptance, doesn't really lend it any credibility in my eyes.
Of course one month is anecdotal, and you're right to say it is -- it undermines the anti-warming camp's credibility rather than helping it. But every year up until this one, any mention of the hot summers on the BBC (I live in the UK) was always attributed to global warming. So the pro-global warming guys don't hesitate to promote anecdotal evidence that favours them, too. The sooner both sides drop it, the better.
My own opinion is that the 150 years or so that the global warming discussion centres on is insignificant looking at the bigger picture. Just look at the MWP, which happened on its own without fossil fuels, etc. Trends like the one that's happening now have always happened; there's always been warming and cooling. Add to that the ~15-year periods of cooling in the 50s and 90s, and I'm hardly convinced there's correlation with CO2 output, let alone causation.
But even after that big rant, I still wish people would keep this stuff off HN. It doesn't belong here -- keep it to Reddit or wherever.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/02/chart-day-2142...
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_la...
That's why they call it "global climate change" and not "oh noes it's cold in my neighborhood global warming is a lie lol"