The Great Global Warming Poll

[7,052,770]

Did you make up the 17% number, or is there a "source"?

You are surely aware of the study done by the scientific journal Science, that took a look at the hundreds of articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals that concerned global warming/climate change.  75% of them explicitly agreed that humanity is the primary cause of global warming, and the other 25% were not about the causes, but about solutions.  Not a single one stated that something other than humanity was the cause.

...And libertarians still try to deny there's a consensus....

No, I didn't make it up.  It was either 17 or 18% I can't remember.  I'll try to find the source though.

As for your source, there is a very simple answer to that.  The only scientists writing articles in these journals are big global warming panickers.  They are the big name scientists with government subsidies and corporate sponsorships who don't want to lose their money for dissenting.  And no one's going to publish an article saying we're all fine if there's one about the end of the world.  Published articles say nothing about who's actually out there, in fact it's a clever smokescreen, much more clever than the unabashed biases of big media.  They're all about to have an orgasm over their end of the world stories.  The fact is that global warming is not fact.  After all this hype and publicity, they still can't prove their theories.  There's a reason for that; they're not true.

Sorry, I don't believe in conspiracy theories.  I also don't believe that you know more about climatology than that consensus of modern scientific thought.

[7,052,770]

Did you make up the 17% number, or is there a "source"?

You are surely aware of the study done by the scientific journal Science, that took a look at the hundreds of articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals that concerned global warming/climate change.  75% of them explicitly agreed that humanity is the primary cause of global warming, and the other 25% were not about the causes, but about solutions.  Not a single one stated that something other than humanity was the cause.

...And libertarians still try to deny there's a consensus....

No, I didn't make it up.  It was either 17 or 18% I can't remember.  I'll try to find the source though.

As for your source, there is a very simple answer to that.  The only scientists writing articles in these journals are big global warming panickers.  They are the big name scientists with government subsidies and corporate sponsorships who don't want to lose their money for dissenting.  And no one's going to publish an article saying we're all fine if there's one about the end of the world.  Published articles say nothing about who's actually out there, in fact it's a clever smokescreen, much more clever than the unabashed biases of big media.  They're all about to have an orgasm over their end of the world stories.  The fact is that global warming is not fact.  After all this hype and publicity, they still can't prove their theories.  There's a reason for that; they're not true.

Sorry, I don't believe in conspiracy theories.  I also don't believe that you know more about climatology than that consensus of modern scientific thought.

I don't know much at all about climates, which is why I'm not inclined to believe in an unproven political trend.  And there is no conspiracy, it's simply that an insatiable appetite for money has infiltrated the scientific world.

You actually believe that a few scientists are, for some reason, trying to lie and con everyone out of money by making up a myth of global warming?  Please.
If anything, articles suggesting global warming isn't human-caused would be the ones making money, since everyone would love to hear it's not real and that we're all ok.  It would be great if skeptics turned out to be right.  But when the only evidence the skeptics can offer is either paid off by oil companies, or based on the ridiculous premise that scientists are intentionally deceiving us, I can draw no other conclusion that to trust the consensus of scientific thought that global warming is indeed caused by humanity.

[Sbane]

You actually believe that a few scientists are, for some reason, trying to lie and con everyone out of money by making up a myth of global warming?  Please.
If anything, articles suggesting global warming isn't human-caused would be the ones making money, since everyone would love to hear it's not real and that we're all ok.  It would be great if skeptics turned out to be right.  But when the only evidence the skeptics can offer is either paid off by oil companies, or based on the ridiculous premise that scientists are intentionally deceiving us, I can draw no other conclusion that to trust the consensus of scientific thought that global warming is indeed caused by humanity.

It's becoming fairly clear that you're more interested in being correct yourself in your area of choice political concern, but I'll carry on.  You're taking the things I'm saying and spinning them into some insane far-right conspiracy theorizing global warming denial.  Really, I'm just saying that it all seems a little too political and a little too convenient to all be completely scientific.  And no, people don't like feel-good stories, they like scary attention-grabbing stories about murder, terrorists, and the end of the world.  Sure people would like to hear nice things, but that's not what keeps people coming back for more.  If you don't believe me, there are many, many, many studies on news coverage out there to peruse at your leisure.  And as much as these scientists like to pretend the scientific method does not exist anymore, in favor of appealing to journalists and corporate sponsors, they have not yet reached the point where their assertions can be told as verifiable fact.  It is all still theory and until we have a fact presented to us that global warming is human caused, I'm not going to jump the shark and buy into the fad.  Look what happened in the '70s with "global cooling", which was also at the time the scientific concensus.  I suppose I shouldn't have said "all hype" in my original post, I think it's a definite, if over-hyped, possibility that should continue to be looked into while we all start to make more energy/environmentally conscious decisions anyway.  I'm skeptical of the scientists and the media frenzy, not the theory itself.

Like you yourself said earlier in this thread you do not know much about climate science, so does that not mean you should listen to the scientists who know something about it? Some like to overhype global warming but the truth is that it is a huge long term problem and something we need to plan for now. We do not need to cripple our economy but rather we can find better sources of energy which do not hurt the environment and is hopefully renewable unlike coal and oil. Also "global cooling" is a well understood phenomenom now and actually the world is going into that phase again. The question is will temps actually drop? I would think they would rise slightly or maybe even fall and it could lull is into a false sense of security. When the oscillation changes expect temperatures to rise and if carbon concentration is higher than now I fear for the ice caps. After the ice caps melt we could see some crazy feedback loops occuring. It could lead to a huge cooldown in Europe and it could also lead to the stopping of the oceanic currents and thus our oceans could become deoxiginized(sp). If the ice caps totally melt there will be no white on our earth which can reflect a lot of energy back, leading to even higher temps. That is a feedback loop just in case you did not know.

[7,052,770]

"global cooling" was never the scientific consensus.  That's one of the stupidest and most ignorant comparisons a person can make.

[Ban my account ffs!]

An interesting study was just released (I'll look for the link) which does a great job of throwing doubt into the inevitable "hockey stick" temperature graph that is paraded around by the likes of Al Gore.

The main supporting evidence for the Hockey Stick graph was reliance on oxygen isotopes measured in tree rings in order to determine air temperature and relative humidity during various times in the past.

Much of this method was based on the assumption that tree leaves were always relatively the same temperature as the ambient air temperature around them.  (So, a sitka spruce in Alaska was about 60*F while the Saw Palmetto in Florida was around 85*F)

This study has found, however, that the temperature inside of actively photosynthesizing leaves is nearly a constant 21.5*C (~70*F) no matter where in the world you go.  The study found that the leaves were consistently cooler than surrounding air in warm climates and warmer in cold climates.  Leaves adapt by perspiring at higher or lower levels and through other evolutionary adaptations like leaves bunching together to stay warmer (like your fingers in a mitten compared to in a glove).  This is why, for example, a black spruce has very short, compact needles that are close together but a palm has large leaves that are spaced further apart.

This new information allows us to postulate that trees can still photosynthesize at relatively stable and optimal levels in a relatively large temperature/moisture spectrum.  The big difference from conventional thought is that we now know that a tree could grow at the same rate in 85*F as it does in 68*F provided there is an ample increase in available moisture to keep the internal leaf temperature at that optimal 70*F.  Just like you could still run a marathon in hot weather at the same speed as if it was cooler as long as you drink more water.  Of course, at some point, on either end, it will get either too hot or cold for your body to keep its internal temperature constant and your body inevitably starts to shut down... just like a tree will go dormant during similar changes.

This means that the climate reconstructions that rely heavily on tree ring data (like the Mann et al hockey stick graph) is likely showing the climate as being too constant and static in time periods where tree rings were the main source of data... which was one of its biggest criticisms from teh beginning as it tried to downplay the well established theories regarding the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age.  No longer can we say "oh, there were this many O2 isotopes, so it must have been 80*F", but it could have been warmer or colder.. it's just that the tree had the resources available to keep growing at a normal rate.

  This means that the scientists could be finding equal numbers of the oxygen isotope despite two different years being very different from each other, weather-wise.

What does this mean?  It has just become more complicated to gather climate data from tree rings.  Ice cores, sediment, and good old historical observations are better ways to get past climate data for the time being.

[7,052,770]

"global cooling" was never the scientific consensus.  That's one of the stupidest and most ignorant comparisons a person can make.

Um, it wasn't.  You lose legitimacy in your other arguments when you make claims like that.

Also, your links don't point to a recent 31,000 signatures.  The only one that got nearly that many was the Oregon Petition, which has been thoroughly debunked (as only a couple hundred of the signers were actually climatologists.

Get a grip on yourself and stop taking this little political stunt so seriously, you're being played.

Ah ok, I'll listen to you.  Since you're an expert.  Get a doctorate in climatology, and publish peer-reviewed published papers, and maybe I'll believe you if you say it's not real.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Harry.. perhaps you could explain to me exactly what this consensus is?

Don't expand the consensus beyond what it actually is... just what the consensus is.

I ask because the consensus of climatologists is not what people like Fezzy are debating with you here.  There is a consensus that the planet has warmed in the past 100 years and that at least some significant amount of it is down to human activity.

That says nothing about exactly what amount of the warming is due to us or how much the planet may or may not warm in the future. 

That is still up for debate and that is why these climatologists you hold in such high esteem are still actually studying and researching our climate. 

So quit with the whole "you're not a climatologist, therefore you know nothing" bullsh**t.  Shall I start saying that to you every time you profess to know something outside of what you specifically went to school for?

You just sound like a snotty jerk.  So stop.

[Frodo]

China clearly overtakes U.S. as leading emitter of climate-warming gases

By Elisabeth Rosenthal
Published: June 13, 2008

China has now clearly overtaken the United States as the world's leading emitter of climate-warming gases, a new study has found. The increasing emissions from China - up 8 percent in the past year - accounted for two-thirds of the growth in global greenhouse gas emissions in 2007, the study found.

The report, released Friday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, is an annual study. Last year, for the first time, the researchers found that China had edged ahead of the United States as the world's leading emitter.

But the results were not so clear-cut as those released Friday, and many experts were skeptical of last year's finding. The International Energy Agency continued to say only that China was projected to overtake the United States by the end of 2007.

"The difference had grown to a 14 percent difference, and that's indeed quite large," said Jos Olivier, a senior scientist at the Dutch agency. "It's now so large that it's quite a robust conclusion."

Worse, China's emissions are likely to continue growing substantially for years to come because they are tied to the country's strong economic growth and its particular mix of industry and power sources, the researchers said.

China, like the United States, is heavily dependent on coal for its energy, and it has seen its most rapid growth in some of the world's most polluting industrial sectors, like cement, aluminum and plate glass.

Twenty percent of China's emissions come from its cement kilns, which are essential for the country's construction boom and likely to be working overtime this year as the country prepares for the Olympics and rebuilds after a devastating earthquake.

That being said, the United States has clearly maintained its lead in carbon dioxide emissions per person. The average American is responsible for 19.4 tons, followed by Russia at 11.8 tons, Western Europe at 8.6 tons, China at 5.1 tons and India at 1.8 tons.

Experts said the new data underscored the importance of getting China to sign on to any new global climate agreement. Neither China nor the United States participated in the current treaty to limit emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. It will be replaced by a new agreement to be signed in Copenhagen at the end of 2009. 
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To read more, click here.

[7,052,770]

Harry.. perhaps you could explain to me exactly what this consensus is?

Don't expand the consensus beyond what it actually is... just what the consensus is.

I ask because the consensus of climatologists is not what people like Fezzy are debating with you here.  There is a consensus that the planet has warmed in the past 100 years and that at least some significant amount of it is down to human activity.

The consensus, established by the IPCC Report, and confirmed by studies such as the one by the journal Science that show that dissenting opinions are practically nil, is that the Earth is warming, and the primary cause is (with greater than 95% certainty) human release of fossil fuels.

That says nothing about exactly what amount of the warming is due to us or how much the planet may or may not warm in the future. 

That is still up for debate and that is why these climatologists you hold in such high esteem are still actually studying and researching our climate.  .

There is an extreme minority that do not believe the consensus, and they are often paid off by oil companies.

So quit with the whole "you're not a climatologist, therefore you know nothing" bullsh**t.  Shall I start saying that to you every time you profess to know something outside of what you specifically went to school for?.

Sure.  I am a political science major, and the vast majority of my posts that aren't shoot-the-breeze type posts are on politics.  If I try to post on a serious thread on an area outside my area, I identify myself as a non-expert, and that I am merely quoting experts instead of offering my own opinion.

You just sound like a snotty jerk.  So stop.

That's not really my intention, but I really let global warming deniers (and, similarly, evolution deniers and Holocaust deniers) get under my skin.  I really ought to just not bother with threads like these.

[dead0man]

Harry, I think you missed Snowguy's point.  The "consensus" you keep talking about isn't about what you think it's about.  Read this again:

That says nothing about exactly what amount of the warming is due to us or how much the planet may or may not warm in the future. 

That is still up for debate and that is why these climatologists you hold in such high esteem are still actually studying and researching our climate.

The Scientific consensus is that it's happening and is most likely helped some by humans.  That's all.  Al Gore's movie is NOT the consensus, it's propaganda.  Global warming deniers are often closed minded morons, Global warming enthusiasts are often the same.  Both sides slow the discussion down and breed more closed minded morons.

[DownWithTheLeft]

"global cooling" was never the scientific consensus.  That's one of the stupidest and most ignorant comparisons a person can make.

Harry, this seems to be the MS senate race all over again. 

I'll spell it out for you then:
What does Harry believes IS NOT = TO consensus

[Sbane]

"global cooling" was never the scientific consensus.  That's one of the stupidest and most ignorant comparisons a person can make.

Harry, this seems to be the MS senate race all over again. 

I'll spell it out for you then:
What does Harry believes IS NOT = TO consensus

DWDL global cooling never had any  scientific consensus. It happened due to a natural cycle that we understand now and may be the reason why our planet might cool a bit in the next decade or two. The funniest thing about global cooling is that by the time they got the attention of congress and the media, the climate had already started its current warming trend.

[Ban my account ffs!]

There have also been some major disagreements among scientists because the observations that NASA uses, which are the oft-cited statistics used in reports on global warming do not cover vast portions of the globe.

For example:  During the month of March 2008, the satellites that measure the entire surface of the earth showed global temperatures to be slightly above normal.  At the same time, NASA's dataset came out claiming it was nearly the warmest March on record.

This is because the NASA data had almost no observations from Canada, Antarctica, Greenland, and most of Africa outside of the extreme north.

Coincidentally, the coldest areas on earth relative to average during March 2008 were in Canada, Antarctica, Greenland, and Africa outside of the extreme north (as per the satellite readings).

Furthermore, the baseline that NASA uses for its temperatures is oddly different from what pretty much everybody else uses.  In the past, it was normal for weather bureaus to use a 30 year data set ending at the end of the preceding decade as the "average" on which current temperatures were based.  This was so that they could account for longer term changes in the weather.

From 1981-1991, they used the 1951-1980 data set, from 1991-2001 the 1961-1990, and they are supposed to be using the 1971-2000 averages now.. except many don't because that period was significantly warmer than the previous two sets, and thus the "warming" doesn't look so impressive.

Oddly, NASA is using the 1951-1980 set as a baseline when they have data reaching back to 1895.  This period also happens to be the coldest period of the century.

If you look at satellite temperatures, which are far more accurate but only go back to 1979 (hence the preference for surface observations), the planet has been on a downward slide, temperature-wise for the past 6 years, with 2008 in free-fall.

This is at the same time that new information is coming out that the sun's magnetic field has weakened to levels never recorded as well as a record slow-down in the conveyor, being described as having fallen off the bottom of the charts... and a subsequent delay in the start of solar cycle 24 that is over a year behind original forecasts.

Also, the flooding that has been linked to global warming lately by various climate groups (you know.. rain, snow, cold, warmth.. it's all global warming), is totally bogus.  This is a result of the dwindling La-Nina, a cold ocean event, and the fact that the planet is actually cooling.  When you warm the planet, you increase evaporation which increases humidity.. when you suddenly cool it down, like it has done this year, that moisture condenses and falls as rain.  Likewise, when temperatures are cold, the atmosphere dries out and then when it warms up, it supports sinking air and drought.

This isn't climatology that only climatologists understand.. this is basic common sense.  You don't look to toilet manufacturers to tell you when to wipe your ass... so stop applying that logic to everything else.

[DownWithTheLeft]

"global cooling" was never the scientific consensus.  That's one of the stupidest and most ignorant comparisons a person can make.

Harry, this seems to be the MS senate race all over again. 

I'll spell it out for you then:
What does Harry believes IS NOT = TO consensus

DWDL global cooling never had any  scientific consensus. It happened due to a natural cycle that we understand now and may be the reason why our planet might cool a bit in the next decade or two. The funniest thing about global cooling is that by the time they got the attention of congress and the media, the climate had already started its current warming trend.

I never suggested it did, but it does have a group of scientists that believe in it, so in Harry's view it must be a consensus

[Sbane]

"global cooling" was never the scientific consensus.  That's one of the stupidest and most ignorant comparisons a person can make.

Harry, this seems to be the MS senate race all over again. 

I'll spell it out for you then:
What does Harry believes IS NOT = TO consensus

DWDL global cooling never had any  scientific consensus. It happened due to a natural cycle that we understand now and may be the reason why our planet might cool a bit in the next decade or two. The funniest thing about global cooling is that by the time they got the attention of congress and the media, the climate had already started its current warming trend.

And that's the basic root of the problem.  If the "facts" about climate can change so drastically in a relatively short amount of time, how can we jump on this so quickly without proving the theory first?  Who knows what might have happened if we jumped the gun on global cooling, which was obviously enough of a consensus to have made a serious impact on Congress.  We say we "know" now what will happen, but we've said that time and again before, let's take things a little slower this time and not get so excited about an unproven theory.

Yes but your side has been saying that for what 20 years now. This argument certainly made sense in 1988 and perhaps 1998 but it is pretty apparent now what is occuring. We are going into a cooling period and earth might not cool!!! You see anything wrong with that?

[7,052,770]

"global cooling" was never the scientific consensus.  That's one of the stupidest and most ignorant comparisons a person can make.

Harry, this seems to be the MS senate race all over again. 

I'll spell it out for you then:
What does Harry believes IS NOT = TO consensus

DWDL global cooling never had any  scientific consensus. It happened due to a natural cycle that we understand now and may be the reason why our planet might cool a bit in the next decade or two. The funniest thing about global cooling is that by the time they got the attention of congress and the media, the climate had already started its current warming trend.

And that's the basic root of the problem.  If the "facts" about climate can change so drastically in a relatively short amount of time, how can we jump on this so quickly without proving the theory first?  Who knows what might have happened if we jumped the gun on global cooling, which was obviously enough of a consensus to have made a serious impact on Congress.  We say we "know" now what will happen, but we've said that time and again before, let's take things a little slower this time and not get so excited about an unproven theory.

For the nth time, "global cooling" was just a fad.  It never reached the level of scientific belief that global warming has today.  It's not a legit comparison.

[Person Man]

"global cooling" was never the scientific consensus.  That's one of the stupidest and most ignorant comparisons a person can make.

Harry, this seems to be the MS senate race all over again. 

I'll spell it out for you then:
What does Harry believes IS NOT = TO consensus

DWDL global cooling never had any  scientific consensus. It happened due to a natural cycle that we understand now and may be the reason why our planet might cool a bit in the next decade or two. The funniest thing about global cooling is that by the time they got the attention of congress and the media, the climate had already started its current warming trend.

And that's the basic root of the problem.  If the "facts" about climate can change so drastically in a relatively short amount of time, how can we jump on this so quickly without proving the theory first?  Who knows what might have happened if we jumped the gun on global cooling, which was obviously enough of a consensus to have made a serious impact on Congress.  We say we "know" now what will happen, but we've said that time and again before, let's take things a little slower this time and not get so excited about an unproven theory.

For the nth time, "global cooling" was just a fad.  It never reached the level of scientific belief that global warming has today.  It's not a legit comparison.

Actually, there is reason to believe that Global Cooling could have been caused by CFCs and Sulfer Oxides that used to cause the O3 layer to deplete. However, we have made strides with that and now we are only producing excessive Dioxins that cause Global Warming. Therefore, you could have stated if we did nothing about the Ozone layer, we wouldn't have Global Warming, but then again, we would all be pretty crispy critters.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Caused mostly by nature, but we're not helping.  It'll revere itself eventually.

[Ban my account ffs!]

"global cooling" was never the scientific consensus.  That's one of the stupidest and most ignorant comparisons a person can make.

Harry, this seems to be the MS senate race all over again. 

I'll spell it out for you then:
What does Harry believes IS NOT = TO consensus

DWDL global cooling never had any  scientific consensus. It happened due to a natural cycle that we understand now and may be the reason why our planet might cool a bit in the next decade or two. The funniest thing about global cooling is that by the time they got the attention of congress and the media, the climate had already started its current warming trend.

And that's the basic root of the problem.  If the "facts" about climate can change so drastically in a relatively short amount of time, how can we jump on this so quickly without proving the theory first?  Who knows what might have happened if we jumped the gun on global cooling, which was obviously enough of a consensus to have made a serious impact on Congress.  We say we "know" now what will happen, but we've said that time and again before, let's take things a little slower this time and not get so excited about an unproven theory.

For the nth time, "global cooling" was just a fad.  It never reached the level of scientific belief that global warming has today.  It's not a legit comparison.

James Hansen... the other posterboy for global warming was one of the biggest alarmists concerning global cooling in the 1970s... he had a model out and everything that predicted an impending ice age.  Then in 1988 he apparently changed his mind.

Now he's busy fudging numbers to make the planet look really warm by completely ignoring places like... Canada, most of Africa, Antarctica, and Greenland.  Apparently spotty surface obs which are corruptible by bad placement, the urban heat island effect, and pollution are more accurate than satellite observations that measure the entire surface of the globe at various levels.. and have shown a much weaker trend of warming than surface obs and a significant cooling trend since 2002.

If all it took was 13 years of warming from 1975 to 1988 to convince Dr. Hansen of global warming, surely 6 years of cooling can convince him he may have been wrong?

No.  If the globe cools, it'll be global warming... or will they have completely settled on "climate change" by then?

[SPC]

I'm going to be lazy and not read the entire six pages of this thread, so I will assume that these questions haven't been asked before:
1. If humans are causing global warming on Earth, then who is causing global warming on Mars and Jupiter?
2. Does the fact that most of the greenhouse effect comes from water vapor in the atmosphere mean CO2 emmisions don't have a significant effect.

[John Dibble]

1. If humans are causing global warming on Earth, then who is causing global warming on Mars and Jupiter?

First off, there are different atmospheric conditions on those planets, especially Jupiter. It is well established fact that climate change does occur naturally on Earth. However, that is not to say that whatever is affecting those planets might not also be affecting Earth - the primary common shared aspect between these planets is the sun. If the sun changes its output, which we know it does, it will affect the planets. It can be the case that changes in solar activity are causing Earth's temperature to rise, but that can also still be combined with human influences. They are not mutually exclusive cases by any means.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Not at all. CO2 definitely has an effect. Water vapor is not often talked about in terms of global warming for the simple reason that it is not really involved in 'forcing' - the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is more of a function of temperature. If you put more water into the atmosphere right now, say 5% of the current amount, it would turn into precipitation very quickly and be removed from the atmosphere. On the other hand if you pump CO2 or many other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere it can take anywhere from years to centuries for it to be removed from the atmosphere since the processes involved in removing them are so much slower. If you got rid of all greenhouse gasses other than water vapor from the atmosphere, you'd get a colder planet and the water vapor would begin turning into precipitation, which will result in further cooling and more precipitation until such point as you have no water vapor at all and Earth turns into a big ball of ice due to the lack of heat retention.