the Blame America For Everything Wrong On Earth crowd...

And what will the Anybody Who Disagrees With The Bush Administration On Anything At All Hates America crowd say? Just wondering.

the lunatic fringe would be anyone who mentions iran in response to a story on rising sea levels and the a's new ballpark.

Actually, it was a joke that got taken seriously, and sort of escalated from there.

yeah and by escalating the situation you didn't give the international community the time necessary to successfully resolve the crisis. typical americans, have you learned nothing?

If you don't cut this out, I'm gonna drive down to Winston-Salem tomorrow and have a little chat with your tenure committee.

More accurate: tenure committees or the Veterans Committee? Discuss.

You're a year late, but come on down and I'll show you the paperwork over drinks. :)

And there you go. Reasoned debate from scientific journals, where the consensus of those who study the topic say the world is heating up, human activity at the least contribute to that warming, and something must be done ... and jackasses will sit around and call it junk science.

I don't really think the argument is that the world is not heating up but rather:
1. Is it something that can be reversed/slowed down?
2. What are the factors heating it up? We have seen things range from humans are doing it all to it is a natural fluctuation not unlike what was going on 1000 years ago to the sun is more active in terms of sunspots which is causing our Earth to heat up. 3. How much of the available data is politically driven? You seem to think that there is a consensus by calling everyone that doesn't think it is exactly as you think it is a jackass. Scientific Journals are filled with people who have political and personal motivations. While you may just be calling the people who say global climate change is a myth jackasses it sounds like you think we have the answer and it is the jackasses who are screwing with your mind.

His comments are based on the fact that even here where there is more "thinking" people from different backgrounds cannot come to a conclusion as to what is happening.

More accurate: tenure committees or the Veterans Committee? Discuss.

Nothing to discuss. Clearly the latter. In a landslide.

You're a year late, but come on down and I'll show you the paperwork over drinks. :)

In a nutshell, the problem with tenure.

but how the hell are climatologists in any position to determine whether or not something must be done? how exactly does their area of expertise allow them to reach this conclusion?

Probably because many of the obvious repercussions of their research would mean massive displacement and death?

The Copenhagen Consensus Center's conclusion that you linked to notes that we live in "a world of limited ressources, if we cannot do everything at once, what should we do first?" Frankly, I'm all for following the CCC's suggestions. The problem clearly isn't that we're addressing global warming ahead of disease or malnutrition, it's that until gas in the USA got expensive and Al Gore made a movie, we didn't really address it at all.

In a nutshell, the problem with tenure.

Indeed. I had a "Countdown to deadwood" going as the days ticked off until the promotion became official. Of course, I post here less now than I did before.

I would consider the lunatic fringe to be around the 3-4% of the most extreme viewpoints on any particular issue. PETA is extreme. ALF is the lunatic fringe. The anti-abortion movement is a side of a debate. Operation Rescue is the lunatic fringe.

I guess I don't see how the lunatic fringe has taken over the "global warming is a big problem" side of the debate. Would you call the IPCC the fringe?

I don't really think the argument is that the world is not heating up but rather:

The one you left out that I've had people argue in my real life and has also been discussed on this thread is

4. Does it matter?

There's a school of thought that basically says, "So, the Inuits will have to move to North Dakota, we'll have to import wheat from Canada, and we'll have to move San Francisco a few more miles inland."

In the long run, I suspect this is the most likely scenario - humanity adapts to climate change and continues to survive, albeit differently from now (maybe better, maybe worse, probably some of each). But, as John Maynard Keynes said, "In the long run, we're all dead."

And to answer bunyon's various questions, summarized in #205. In order, Pecota, economic models, economists, global economic models.

We have seen things range from humans are doing it all to it is a natural fluctuation not unlike what was going on 1000 years ago to the sun is more active in terms of sunspots which is causing our Earth to heat up.

Like I said in a previous post, it's impossible to distinguish between naturally occurring global warming trends from those that may be caused by global warming, but the effect is the same. It's not just that the global climate is rising, but that its rising so much is so short a time, and the recent UN report seems to imply we're past the tipping point of keeping the rise to a few degrees.

BTW, did you know we're at the low point of the sunspot cycle right now? Can't wait until it gets hot!

You seem to think that there is a consensus by calling everyone that doesn't think it is exactly as you think it is a jackass.

No; I called those people who didn't even RTFA jackasses because the research reported by the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research didn't jib with their own beliefs. Between those people and the energy industry, we end up with labels of "extremists" for men and women who have done some excellent research.

And please, I used the word 'consensus' for a reason. Obviously, there's a lot of doubt as to what we should do now, but the fact that it took until last month for our president to even acknowledge "the challenge of global climate change" is indicative of how poorly our national dialogue on global warming and a new energy policy has gone.

Lets face it, the real question is if the new Stadium did go under water, would beer be any cheaper?

Reasoned debate from scientific journals, where the consensus of those who study the topic say the world is heating up, human activity at the least contribute to that warming, and something must be done ... and jackasses will sit around and call it junk science. Existing energy industries won't want to change from their profitable status quo, so they lobby the pols, nothing gets done, and all those folks in the science journals get labeled extremists for wanting to make changes.

Put aside for a moment the idea that a consensus is wholly outside the scientific method (facts are facts, independent of how popular they are, and history is full of examples where what was "mainstream" was in direct opposition to reality).

As you go from "the world is heating up" to "the world is heating up and human activity contributes to that" to "the world is heating up and human activity substantially contributes to that" to "the world is heating up and human activity substantially contributes to that and we need to do something about it" to "the world is heating up and human activity substantially contributes to that and we need to do something about it NOW" members drop out of that consensus.

This is a highly politicized issue and there are legitimate rebuttals to the "consensus" opinion. There is a reality that we cannot really predict with substantial accuracy what the weather is going to be in a particular region on a particular day in the near future. It smacks of extraordinary hubris to state with such certainty details about the climate of the entire globe at some time 100 (or 1000!) years from now.

It is not an outrageous, head in the sand position, to say that we need more direct evidence of what is occurring, how much it is occurring, what measures might mitigate this damage, how much those measures will mitigate this damage, and how much it will cost before simply demanding action be taken. "Junk science" might be a tad strong. "Incomplete science" is probably more fair.

Lets face it, the real question is if the new Stadium did go under water, would beer be any cheaper?

I bet it'd be watered down.

4. Does it matter?

Ah, yes, the "So what?" question. My old prof insisted that be the first question asked in any debate.

Again, it's impossible to distinguish between naturally occurring global warming trends from those that may be caused by global warming. We already know that naturally occuring warming trends tend to play havoc, on a limited scale, with things like extreme droughts, flooding and hurricane seasons. One would intuitively expect, and it is the consensus of the scientific community, that human activity-aided global warming, if it's as bad as the UN IPCC suggests, would make those conditions a permanent part of our lives, and it would behoove us to try and mitigate the effects as much as we can.

That said, nobody knows for sure; global weather modeling is nothing if not inexact. However, there are so many other economic and political advantages to shifting towards a greener energy policy, why shouldn't we move in that direction anyways?

Good reason to invade Canada now.

Wouldn't it make more sense to just sell them our topsoil?

For all those interested, Chris Mooney's excellent "The Republican War on Science" details the history (at the national level) of "manufacturing uncertainty." It became a big money political enterprise in the 1980s, when Reagan was attempting to get Star Wars off the ground and the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) shot him down. But the roots go back into the Nixon administration, as well.

For those unsure of whether the carbon dependent industries "manufacture uncertainty," this link was the first that came up on a google search, and it's exactly the link I was looking for.

In other recent news, a lobbying group funded by Exxon Mobil has offered to pay experts of any kind--climate scientists, geologists, biologists--to refute the IPCC report. I wish I could obtain a copy of that report, but I haven't been able to find one.

Ah, never mind. Here's a copy of the report. I believe it's the first stage.

Oh, so my point is basically that the climate experts, biologists, geologists, statisticians--everyone who matters--agrees that global warming is a) happening (remember when conservatives were denying that the world was getting warmer at all? I'll never forget the day that Al Gore gave a speech on global warming in the winter. The republican response was "Look outside, al. it's cold out." That's verbatim. I'll never vote for a republican for important office. Ever.) b) is caused by humans and c) is a huge ******* problem.

Now, you either acknowledge that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases emitted by burning coal and oil since the beginning of the industrial revolution in 1750, or you don't, depending on whether you're right or wrong, respectively. And if the oil industry had nothing to hide, why "manufacture uncertainty?"

Good reason to invade Canada now.

If it gets us out of Iraq, then I'm all for it.

Oh, so my point is basically that the climate experts, biologists, geologists, statisticians--everyone who matters--agrees that global warming is a) happening (remember when conservatives were denying that the world was getting warmer at all? I'll never forget the day that Al Gore gave a speech on global warming in the winter. The republican response was "Look outside, al. it's cold out." That's verbatim. I'll never vote for a republican for important office. Ever.) b) is caused by humans and c) is a huge ******* problem.

So, basically a bunch of people who already agreed on something got together and agreed to agree on it even more? I'm not saying they're wrong, but I fail to be wowed by this.

It's the height of irresponsibility to just ignore them, to poo-poo the bearers of bad tidings.

General Melchett: Is this true, Blackadder? Did Captain Darling pooh-pooh you?
Captain Blackadder: Well, perhaps a little.
General Melchett: Well, then, damn it all! What more evidence do you need? The pooh-poohing alone is a court martial offense!
Captain Blackadder: I can assure you, sir, that the pooh-poohing was purely circumstantial.
General Melchett: Well, I hope so, Blackadder. You know, if there's one thing I've learnt from being in the Army, it's never ignore a pooh-pooh. I knew a Major, who got pooh-poohed, made the mistake of ignoring the pooh-pooh. He pooh-poohed it! Fatal error! 'Cos it turned out all along that the soldier who pooh-poohed him had been pooh-poohing a lot of other officers who pooh-poohed their pooh-poohs. In the end, we had to disband the regiment. Morale totally destroyed... by pooh-pooh!

I guess I don't see how the lunatic fringe has taken over the "global warming is a big problem" side of the debate. Would you call the IPCC the fringe?

I would not. I have questions about their methodology, their accuracy, and their bias, but they aren't the fringe. (Why do I have these questions? Because there is substantial dissent in the scientific community.)

The IPCC isn't driving the debate down here where the non-scientists hang out. Most people haven't even heard of them.

We're still talking about a theory that many legitimate scientists debate, at least on a partial basis.

you either acknowledge that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases emitted by burning coal and oil since the beginning of the industrial revolution in 1750, or you don't, depending on whether you're right or wrong, respectively.

What about the position that global warming is a complex issue with several causes, where one contributing factor is the burning of fossil fuels?

Isn't one of the positions that if we stopped completely tomorrow, we'd still have warming issues throughout the rest of the millenium? There's a lot of money to spend that potentially will have zero effect for the next thousand years. If that's true, in the grand scheme of things, no matter how catastrophic the problem is, it has to be back-burnered in the face of many more compelling world issues.

So, basically a bunch of people who already agreed on something got together and agreed to agree on it even more? I'm not saying they're wrong, but I fail to be wowed by this.

That's how science works! But to correct your sentence a bit, it wasn't only the people who were agreeing, it was the data. This IPCC report includes data from up to 2005, meaning that it does not take into account the accelerated melting in the Greenland Ice Sheet. Here's two links you might want to look at on this point:

Climate report too optimistic
Retreating Glacier reveals island in Greenland

So the people who already agreed got together, found at that the data had moved further to support their position, and cemented global climate chance up one more rung on the certainty ladder.

I would not. I have questions about their methodology, their accuracy, and their bias, but they aren't the fringe. (Why do I have these questions? Because there is substantial dissent in the scientific community.)

One of the nifty things the IPCC did was replace 75% of the people who wrote the last assessment report so they could get new, diverse voices to contribute. They did went out of their way to try to include dissenting voices, and the L.A. Times reported having last weekend that the latest report offered as conservative a senario as possible on the effects of warming.

Isn't one of the positions that if we stopped completely tomorrow, we'd still have warming issues throughout the rest of the millenium?

Yes, the report implies we're past the tipping point for containing warming to just a few degrees. But it also notes that those warming issues could get a whole lot worse if present activity remains unchecked. Essentially, we could do something, and have warming issues we can live with, or we could /not/ do something, and have conditions we can't live with.

That's how science works!

Thomas Kuhn is laughing from the grave.

I would not. I have questions about their methodology, their accuracy, and their bias, but they aren't the fringe. (Why do I have these questions? Because there is substantial dissent in the scientific community.)

You know, I've heard there's substantial dissent on evolution, too, and the age of the earth. Before I believe you, you will have to provide links. And don't mention that Canadian article: it's full of malarkey. And I can and will provide links to that effect, if requested. But man, I feel kind of researched-out right now.

What about the position that global warming is a complex issue with several causes, where one contributing factor is the burning of fossil fuels?

Isn't one of the positions that if we stopped completely tomorrow, we'd still have warming issues throughout the rest of the millenium? There's a lot of money to spend that potentially will have zero effect for the next thousand years. If that's true, in the grand scheme of things, no matter how catastrophic the problem is, it has to be back-burnered in the face of many more compelling world issues.

So, basically, we dilly-dallied for a long time, asked for "more data" and "more study," said "it's just a theory," and now it's too late? First, I won't accept that line of reasoning. That's not good enough. Second, the IPCC report makes it clear that over the next century, not even over the next millenium, the effects of global warming can be substantially blunted.

YOU want to be the one to tell the 90% of the earth's population that lives within ten miles of year round water (a total that includes river and lakes, but was the best figure I could find) that they have to move to higher ground? YOU want to be the one to move the pacific islanders to new homes? I thought not. We did the deed, we pay the price.

And excuse the excessive use of CAPSLOCK that is about to follow, but I want everyone to read this: IF YOU ARE GOING TO CLAIM THAT THERE IS "SIGNIFICANT DEBATE" AMONG "LEGITIMATE SCIENTISTS" AS TO THE "ISSUE OF GLOBAL WARMING," AND YOU WANT TO BE TAKEN MORE SERIOUSLY THAN THE GUY WHO SAYS THE SAME THINGS ABOUT THE AGE OF THE GRAND CANYON BEING 6,000 YEARS OLD, PROVIDE LINKS OR EVEN TELL US WHERE YOU HEARD IT, READ IT, WHATEVER. BUT YOU CANNOT JUST 'SAY IT' INTO EXISTENCE.

end caps. if scientists disagree, they publish or critique papers. there is no amorphous "debate" in the scientific community, with faceless people taking up sides the way you want them to. they have names, they have journals which have names, they name their papers. if you think that there is debate as to global warming, then NAME some of the participants or FIND one of the papers. failing that, just say where you think you got the information.

Good heavens, even George W. Bush has moved beyond denial of the reality of the global climate change complex of problems. I find it amazing that intelligent people are finding ways to continue to resist overwhelming factual evidence.

He the paradigms dude, JRE?

Yup.

He would no doubt find the debate over global warming (and the solutions thereto) to be endlessly fascinating.

I strongly suspect Kuhn would argue that those who either deny the human contributions to global warming, or those who don't think anything should be done about it, are clinging too tightly to allegiances that have nothing to do with science.

Yes, the report implies we're past the tipping point for containing warming to just a few degrees. But it also notes that those warming issues could get a whole lot worse if present activity remains unchecked. Essentially, we could do something, and have warming issues we can live with, or we could /not/ do something, and have conditions we can't live with.

It depends on how much of the buffer system we have left. If the oceans can absorb more CO2, then we'll be OK. The problem is that the buffer effect has greatly slowed, and reefs aren't sequestering carbon at the rate they should be (due in large part to massive die offs of corals). The risk is that we may not be far from a positive feedback loop, in which greater temperatures would melt more ice, raise the temperature of the oceans while at the same time changing the salinity and pH slightly, all of which could lead to less carbon sequestration, which would in turn lead to greater temperatures...

Also, anybody wanting to be addicted to a game on global warming can try this simulation. I always manage to get emissions down to 0, but in the process I run Europe's economy into the ground. I haven't found a way to balance the two yet. It is kind of fun to run Europe's economy into the ground, though.

Thomas Kuhn is laughing from the grave.

Yes, obviously! But I'm laughing from my chair because you didn't get my idea. Not all advances in science are from revolutions. Some are from the slow accumulation of data and the refining and compromising inherent in building a consensus theory. And I'd rather be laughing from my chair then from my grave. But I think we can all agree that we're at least not in Philadelphia.

I strongly suspect Kuhn would argue that those who either deny the human contributions to global warming, or those who don't think anything should be done about it, are clinging too tightly to allegiances that have nothing to do with science.

Absolutely. Both the "is global warming for real" and "is human activity a signficant cause" science paradigms shifted long ago.

Also, anybody wanting to be addicted to a game on global warming can try this simulation. I always manage to get emissions down to 0, but in the process I run Europe's economy into the ground.

Hey, you'd do better than the real thing.

I couldn't be bothered to finish the thread, so I deserve whatever comes to me. The answer to my question is probably just later in the thread ;)

But I was wondering if I was the only one who saw a difference between getting together with a different civilization and negotiating with them over the destruction of their civilization and just saying, "They are smaller than us" destroying their civilization and then attempting to buy them off?

Furthermore, doesn't it bear an eerie resemblance to our ancestors' (by "our ancestors" I mean "our white ancestors--of course, I'm kidding) manifest destiny beliefs which they seemed happy to employ no matter the size of the civilizations they subjugated?

I would be surprised if people's arguments changed at all if their were 500 million Inuit.

That being said, aren't several of the world's biggest cities near sea level?

I'm also curious whether people are factoring the imminent economic expansion of China into the collapse of the planet (:)) I don't know what to say about that--I mean the Chinese have just as much right to irresponsibly pollute the planet as we do, right?

But in order for a self-interested, capitalist economy to be successful, don't we need some sort of control for externalities?

Not all advances in science are from revolutions. Some are from the slow accumulation of data and the refining and compromising inherent in building a consensus theory.

In reality, of course, very little of the advancement of science is revolutionary. If Kuhn is laughing at anything from his grave, it's the ridiculous overuse of the term he coined.

Hey, you'd do better than the real thing.

I doubt it would be as fun in real life. I'm actually busy playing the game again. This time around, I'll raise emissions and see what happens. So far, each run through whether I've lowered emissions--or not--I've trashed the economy. So it may just be the way the game rolls. BTW, you can only play as Europe, so maybe the game designers were just pessimistic about Europe's economic future. Considering the game's made by the BBC, I'd say that's a distinct possibility.

Good heavens, even George W. Bush has moved beyond denial of the reality of the global climate change complex of problems. I find it amazing that intelligent people are finding ways to continue to resist overwhelming factual evidence.

Yes, Steve, but he "moved" his position (from "global warming is a liberal myth" to "global warming is a too large a problem to do anything about") instantaneously and without fanfare, so you can imagine not all the wingnuts have caught up.

As I pointed out over on Catfish Stew, the most amusing thing about all of this "concern" is that the A's current home lies 21 feet below sea level. The park in Fremont is an improvement.

This is certainly not correct. Nowhere is there a 21+ foot levee surrounding the ballpark. The channel that runs behind the stadium (the one that is crossed by the pedestrian overpass from the BART station) IS at sea level - it is directly connected to Alameda estuary thus the Bay and Pacific Ocean. I would guesstimate the ballpark is about 5 or 10 feet above MSL.

I'll never forget the day that Al Gore gave a speech on global warming in the winter. The republican response was "Look outside, al. it's cold out." That's verbatim. I'll never vote for a republican for important office. Ever.

So, when a number of prominent Democrats pointed outside when the northeast had that warm spell last month and said "see! global warming!" did you resolve to never vote for a Democract for important office?

But I was wondering if I was the only one who saw a difference between getting together with a different civilization and negotiating with them over the destruction of their civilization and just saying, "They are smaller than us" destroying their civilization and then attempting to buy them off?

That didn't really get much play, but yeah, I'd think it would be more evolved to buy them off before you destroy their way of life rather than after.

I'm also curious whether people are factoring the imminent economic expansion of China into the collapse of the planet (:)) I don't know what to say about that--I mean the Chinese have just as much right to irresponsibly pollute the planet as we do, right?

That's the next big thing. Economic expansion is always going to beat down ecologial caution. There is a movement in the Chinese government to try and be responsible in their expansion -- toxic winds blowing about the Molgolian desert sent shockwaves through the government a few years ago, and prompted their present auto emission standards, which are actually more demanding than American standards. In the short run, though, expansion's going to win, and it's not going to be close.

Ultimately, I think the responsible thing for the US to do is to try and as fast and in as strong a manner as it can towards green energy policies, and try and foster the development of new technologies for ourselves. At some point, China's going to start running into the same political issues we run into now in the MidEast, and if the technology is available for sale, they'll buy from us. Hopefully.

The word I wanted was aquarian, not riparian

When the moooooon is in the second house...and Jupiterrrrrr aligns with Mars...

Yup. I ran Europe into the ground again. Here's my last economic report:

You left the economy in ruins. Hyper-inflation and joblessness are endemic across Europe. People are starving and crime and lawlessness have taken hold. Extremists have become more influential and threaten to undo any good you did during your presidency.

All in a day's work, ladies and gentlemen. Well, considering that this is the BBTF, I guess just "gentlemen" will suffice.

Yup. I ran Europe into the ground again. Here's my last economic report:

Sounds like France when the Muslims figure out that the French basically imported them in order to be a permanent underclass.

In a nutshell, the problem with tenure.

So you would prefer for your children not to have any professors who have reached the career stage at which they can focus on education instead of frantically producing what are often nearly worthless papers to keep their jobs? Much--likely most--of the best research, of course, is done by people who are doing it because they're actually interested and passionate, rather than because they have to do it to get tenure.

Now, there are two possibilities as to what a system without tenure would look like. One is that contracts would be renewed on the basis of satisfactory teaching. The other is that contracts would be renewed on the basis of satisfactory number of publications. You get three guesses as to which of those possibilities would come to fruition. And this is notwithstanding the fact that tenure is necessary for academic freedom, and freedom of speech in the university.

Or people would realize that the world doesn't really need musicologists. Or more to the point, realize that they could do something about it.

Jesus H. Christ. It was a goddam freaking joke. You know what a joke is, don't you?

Besides, bunyon is in a field where, tenured or not, his academic viability will continue to depend on his performing high quality research for the rest of his career.

a) happening (remember when conservatives were denying that the world was getting warmer at all? I'll never forget the day that Al Gore gave a speech on global warming in the winter. The republican response was "Look outside, al. it's cold out." That's verbatim. I'll never vote for a republican for important office. Ever.) b) is caused by humans and c) is a huge ******* problem.

So, basically a bunch of people who already agreed on something got together and agreed to agree on it even more? I'm not saying they're wrong, but I fail to be wowed by this.

The part in bold is just flat out false. The recent report, which supports past reports but says it more strongly, simply says that human activity is a factor in global warming (to a 90% certainty). It does not say, or come close to saying, that global warming is caused by humans. It also does not quantify to what extent scientists think the human factor plays a role in global warming.

Jesus H. Christ. It was a goddam freaking joke. You know what a joke is, don't you?

Isn't a joke some sort of planned incongruity or over-repeated social convention that is intended to trigger some sort of amused response, especially laughter?

Yeah, was never into those things.

So, when a number of prominent Democrats pointed outside when the northeast had that warm spell last month and said "see! global warming!" did you resolve to never vote for a Democract for important office?

No. I'm part of the reality based community, and thus only have one party to vote for on the national level. The Democrats could pass a law saying that the Indiana Jones movies were documentaries about an actual character and I'd still vote for them. The only way they could lose my vote is saying things like "we ought to teach the controversy on evolution" or appointing anti-science individuals to the national park service and to NASA, while continuing to mangle science and ethics for politics and go to war on dubious grounds while "protecting" stem cells from research.

That, and pointing out the weather in winter would cause me to not vote for the democrats.

I'm not going to read the whole thread, but I'll respond to this:

The shelf life of a stadium is 20-30 years. Why worry about the end, the end of the century?

Ramones fan,

The shelf life has been 20-30 years on average. Actually it was once longer, if you consider the period beginning when construction methods were advanced enough (~1910) and before the great suburban shift and "white flight" of the 1960s. The shelf life for new stadiums, usually built alongside expansive residential and retail development, should be much longer. Unless Wolff & Cisco plan for their new condo community to fall into similar urban disrepair within the next 20-30 years and then decide to build even further away from Oakland proper...

100 years should be the minimum in forecasting the stadium's environmental effects and how it will interact with the area, obviously. The spokesperson's joke was pretty stupid in that regard -- by that logic, the A's could probably start dumping their trash nearby, as long as it didn't pile up too much during Wolff's lifetime. However, 100 years of global warming, for this particular project, shouldn't be much concern (maybe very tangentially through improved mass transit or something, but that's about it).

The part in bold is just flat out false. The recent report, which supports past reports but says it more strongly, simply says that human activity is a factor in global warming (to a 90% certainty). It does not say, or come close to saying, that global warming is caused by humans. It also does not quantify to what extent scientists think the human factor plays a role in global warming.

You say potato, and I say pot-A-to,
you say tomato, and I say "You're Wrong!"

Those of you that have mentioned "Big Oil" please try to contain your irritation to those oil companies that have actively funded efforts to discredit climate research. ExxonMobil is the top transgressor on that front. If you go to the BP or Shell websites they have clear statements on climate change and it does not say "not our fault."

Many of the oil companies are into alternative fuels but have not seen the ROI yet, and have massive capital investments in fossil fuels. The smart companies will be there when the alt energies are ready for prime time. XOM will probably not. Couldn't happen to nicer people.

tenure is necessary for academic freedom, and freedom of speech in the university

Absolutely. And tenure, of course, also exists in community colleges where research is not an issue at all (and in schools where academic freedom has strict limits; you can't discuss just anything with fourth-graders). This is for the excellent reason that if you devote a life to teaching you are devoting it to a skill-set that is useless in industry, that there is no market for. If you want to have schools at all, you should have a system that compensates people for taking themselves out of the competitive labor force. It's not all that different from civil-service protections for postal workers or generous retirement deals for cops and firefighters. If you want people to serve at non-productive but necessary work, for low pay, for their whole careers, they need some assurances beyond "I reckon we might still need a philosophy department next year, but who knows?"

i love these debates on the internets. and when mitigation of the effects of global warming costs trillions, please don't mind me while i say that people who opposed taking measured steps to slow it down should have to foot all the damned bill.

Sigh. It is a shame that all governments look at is the short term (now until the next election) as a rule thus making breakthroughs far harder to achieve. To me the end point is clearly - make it cheaper to be environmentally friendly than not to be. Then, and only then, will China, India, and other countries jump on board.

needed to be repeated. what really bothers me about those who don't see the need to do anything about global warming isn't that they're about as scientifically backed as Creationists are in regards to Darwinian theory, but that even when they agree that the earth is warming, and that people are a partial cause of it, they don't really seem to think that anything good could possibly come from trying to mitigate it.

so rather than deal with the issue and actually weigh the pros and cons, they just say "well, it's not economically viable right now, and who cares, it'll probably be good for us anyways."

You say potato, and I say pot-A-to,
you say tomato, and I say "You're Wrong!"

Why don't you read the report? It is freely available. It says man exacerbates global warming; man is a factor in global warning. It doesn't even say, as Treder above falsely claims, that man is a significant factor. They just don't know.

It also says that there is a 10% chance that man is not a factor.

I believe global warming is exacerbated by man's actions. I just hate how everybody (in particular, the media) is misstating what the report says. As was pointed out by 'zop on the first page, most climatoligists are not really alarmed by what is going on; they are just acting alarmed to get some action.

It is easy to correspond with one or more of the scientists involved in the creation of the report. They will answer random emails with educated responses. They don't agree with about 90% of what you (zip code) have posted in this thread.

Lowering greenhouse gas emissions is prudent if you are risk averse, as I am. It is also a good idea if you care about the environment for the environment's sake, as I do. But it is not necessarily necessary.

woo! i am hugely popular in that game but i have no money and i have blown up the world. #### you, gaia!

Why don't you read the report? It is freely available. It says man exacerbates global warming; man is a factor in global warning. It doesn't even say, as Treder above falsely claims, that man is a significant factor. They just don't know.

Where are you getting this? The report says that "Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years (see Figure SPM-1). The global increases in carbon dioxide concentration are due primarily to fossil fuel use and land-use change, while those of methane and nitrous oxide are primarily due to agriculture." It also says that "Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations12."

I know. I linked to it. Above. And I intend to read it and see precisely what sort of analysis they conducted.

It also says that there is a 10% chance that man is not a factor.

This is technically true, but without having read the entire report--which isn't that long, incidentally--I can't say if they were conservative in their methodology or not.

most climatoligists are not really alarmed by what is going on; they are just acting alarmed to get some action.

They don't agree with about 90% of what you (zip code) have posted in this thread.

But it is not necessarily necessary.

That's a heaping helping of...stuff. And that's about the best I can say. I haven't read the first page of the thread, so I'll have to find that post. That said, I wonder what you mean by "alarmed by." If you mean "surprised by," then I agree with you. If you mean "apprehensive of," then I disagree with you completely.

Also, what I've said on this thread is fairly tame. I think you're wrong in your assertion that the majority of climatologists would disagree with me. In fact, I'd swing that percentage right around to agreeing with me, and call that a safe assumption. I wonder, though, where are you getting your info for that statement? What leads you to believe that?

needed to be repeated. what really bothers me about those who don't see the need to do anything about global warming isn't that they're about as scientifically backed as Creationists are in regards to Darwinian theory, but that even when they agree that the earth is warming, and that people are a partial cause of it, they don't really seem to think that anything good could possibly come from trying to mitigate it.

How much is man resposible for this global warming? How much will it cost to fix it in dollars? In lives?

so rather than deal with the issue and actually weigh the pros and cons, they just say "well, it's not economically viable right now, and who cares, it'll probably be good for us anyways."

A moderately warmer earth would be beneficial on the whole to mankind. Why spend trillions trying to stop it?

A moderately warmer earth would be beneficial on the whole to mankind

Clearly you didn't spend last summer in Texas.

A moderately warmer earth would be beneficial on the whole to mankind. Why spend trillions trying to stop it?

You're kidding, right? Good thing you're not in charge. Either back that up or take it back, cause I'm not buying that.

The thing is, the earth getting warmer isn't just one isolated change in the earth system: it's a suite of changes, most of which are undesirable. Changed weather and current patterns certainly are not desirable, as they would change growing areas across the Earth's surface. Higher sea levels are also not desirable, as they encroach upon heavily populated shorelines. Neither is collapsing the Earth's CO2 buffer system desirable, as it blunts the Earth's ability to moderate its temperatures.

No, Global warming is a very bad thing, no matter how you slice it. "[M]oderately warmer" temperatures are in no way--no single way--beneficial to mankind or the planet, and are detrimental to both in numerous ways, a few of which I outlined above.

How much is man resposible for this global warming? How much will it cost to fix it in dollars? In lives?

1) A good bit. The earth is, right now, pretty cold when you compare it to the averages of temperature highs and lows over geological time, so a good bit of regression to the mean could be expected. That said, that regression doesn't involve the temperature rocketing up over a three or four centuries, beginning in the 1800s.
2) Less than it would to pretend it didn't exist and cheerfully embrace the consequences
3) ditto

Global warming could inundate deltas, destroy cities and change growing zones for crops, lowering their productivity. It could increase desertification and exacerbate water shortages. It could lead to increases in tropical diseases and a destruction of sensitive or weakened environments that are nonetheless essential for life on earth. It could inundate whole islands in the pacific. It could change storm patterns. It could do all these things at once. In no way is it desirable.

I think you're wrong in your assertion that the majority of climatologists would disagree with me. In fact, I'd swing that percentage right around to agreeing with me, and call that a safe assumption. I wonder, though, where are you getting your info for that statement? What leads you to believe that?

I re-read what you have posted on this thread and, surprisingly, you haven't said much content-wise. You have basically said three things:

1. Global warming exists -- scientists agree.

2. It is caused by man's actions -- scientists don't agree with this -- all scientists agree that global warming would be happening right now if man did nothing. Your quote above regarding temperatures in the last 50 years is the closest the report comes to even saying that man has a significant effect on global warming. In the summary, after three weeks of debate, the scientists decided that they could not agree how to characterize/quantify the effect and went with the very weakest language of the options they were discussing.

3. Global warming is a huge f-ing problem -- most scientists believe global warming might be a huge problem and even if there is only a 1% chance of it being a catastrophic problem, we ought to try to do someting about it because global catastrophic problems are something you probably shouldn't risk.

The passage below is just flat out wrong, and no climatoligist would agree with it. I guess it is your use of causes rather than exacerbates that really gets my goat -- and I've been voting Green for 18 years -- back when it was hard to find a Green candidate and my family mocked me.

Now, you either acknowledge that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases emitted by burning coal and oil since the beginning of the industrial revolution in 1750, or you don't, depending on whether you're right or wrong, respectively.

A moderately warmer earth would be beneficial on the whole to mankind. Why spend trillions trying to stop it?

A moderately warmer Earth would mean an increase in global climate of ... 1 degree F. The latest estimates have increase moving as high as 7 or even 8 degrees F.

Why try and mitigate the effects? From the report.

• It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.
• Based on a range of models, it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will becomemore intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases oftropical SSTs.
• The corresponding future temperatures in Greenland are comparable to those inferred for the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago, when paleoclimatic information suggests reductions of polar land ice extent and 4 to 6 m of sea level rise.
• Dynamical processes related to ice flow not included in current models but suggested by recent observations could increase the vulnerability of the ice sheets to warming, increasing future sea level rise.

Even if the report is only partially correct, we're talking about the greatest natural disaster in human history. I'd like to see how many trillions of dollars and billions of lives could be saved if we could somehow blunt the rise of global warming.

One thing Zipcode is right about: For the former deniers of global warming, the talking points have changed from "it's not happening" to "it's happening, but it's got nothing to do with humans" to "it's good that it's happening" or "there's nothing we can do about it, so let's do nothing." It's a grossly dishonest way to approach the issue.

I just read the report again. I love the chart on page 9.

It is amazing how carefully chosen every word in that report it is. It is an incredibly responsible document and, in my view, evenhanded.

I don't even know how non-scientists can doubt its accuracy. It just doesn't say what the alarmists say it says.

the talking points have changed from "it's not happening" to "it's happening, but it's got nothing to do with humans" to "it's good that it's happening" or "there's nothing we can do about it, so let's do nothing." It's a grossly dishonest way to approach the issue.

I think the the talking points have changed to "(1) its happening but (2) humans don't have a lot to do with it and (3) it isn't that bad". I agree with one, I'm undecided on two and I'm not willing to take the risk of being wrong on three.

i like how being 90% certain man has played a role in global warming over the past 50 years is evidence that we shouldn't do anything because we don't know whether or not we're playing a role or not.

i also like how the old adage an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is ignored by people who usually come at this with an "economic" argument about why climate change shouldn't be mitigated.

i like how being 90% certain man has played a role in global warming over the past 50 years is evidence that we shouldn't do anything because we don't know whether or not we're playing a role or not.

I think I am the only one who referred to the 90% figure and I have never said or implied what you next attribute. I have consistently stated in this thread that we should do something about it even if we don't know (for certain) whether or, perhaps more accurately, to what exten,t man's role is in exacerbating the problem.

2. It is caused by man's actions -- scientists don't agree with this -- all scientists agree that global warming would be happening right now if man did nothing. Your quote above regarding temperatures in the last 50 years is the closest the report comes to even saying that man has a significant effect on global warming. In the summary, after three weeks of debate, the scientists decided that they could not agree how to characterize/quantify the effect and went with the very weakest language of the options they were discussing.

3. Global warming is a huge f-ing problem -- most scientists believe global warming might be a huge problem and even if there is only a 1% chance of it being a catastrophic problem, we ought to try to do someting about it because global catastrophic problems are something you probably shouldn't risk.

Perhaps we're talking past each other, or there's an idea / word choice barrier here. You keep saying these things in bold, though, and I keep not believing them. You're going to have to do more than repeat yourself to convince me.

I've already agreed that's its likely that the world would be warming already were we not here. Here's where I say that very thing:

The earth is, right now, pretty cold when you compare it to the averages of temperature highs and lows over geological time, so a good bit of regression to the mean could be expected.

But natural warming is not the same thing as warming caused by natural regression to the mean. We are actively and daily filling carbon sinks in the ocean. We're melting permafrost to release more gases (I'll provide a link if you don't believe me). We're limiting the planet's ability to regulate its own temperature by maxing out (and therefore removing) the oceanic and terrestrial buffer systems on earth. Here's where I say that very thing above:

The thing is, the earth getting warmer isn't just one isolated change in the earth system: it's a suite of changes, most of which are undesirable. Changed weather and current patterns certainly are not desirable, as they would change growing areas across the Earth's surface. Higher sea levels are also not desirable, as they encroach upon heavily populated shorelines. Neither is collapsing the Earth's CO2 buffer system desirable, as it blunts the Earth's ability to moderate its temperatures.

Global rises in temperatures are not the same as global rises in temperatures caused by greenhouse emissions, specifically carbon dioxide. This difference is subtle, and I'm sure you grasp it, but it toys with the dynamic equilibrium of carbon here on earth. For example, global warming isn't going to cause the extinctions of reefs. But by limiting their growth--which I believe is a valid observation based on a paper I did for a marine biology course last semester--we're limiting their ability to function as a carbon sink. I could be wrong on this point, though.

The passage below is just flat out wrong, and no climatoligist would agree with it. I guess it is your use of causes rather than exacerbates that really gets my goat -- and I've been voting Green for 18 years -- back when it was hard to find a Green candidate and my family mocked me.

Now, you either acknowledge that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases emitted by burning coal and oil since the beginning of the industrial revolution in 1750, or you don't, depending on whether you're right or wrong, respectively.

You're right. In a limited sense that's inaccurate word choice. However, it would be entirely correct if I said that carbon emissions have caused the artificial warming of the planet, which is really where most of the danger lies. Further, to your point that there's a "1% chance of it being a catastophic problem", there's a 100% chance that rising sea levels will cause problems, problems I would characterize as serious enough to change how we live here on earth. Whether they're of the "catastrophic" variety depends on word choice and whether you're the one being affected. I'm sure pacific islanders would characterize them as "catastrophic," as would farmers on the Nile or the Ganges (I'm speculating on this one. I'll freely admit it).

Also, there's no need to prove anything to me. I'm not accusing you of being anti-environment. Far from it. I'm just curious as to how two people who come to the same conclusion--Global Warming BAD!--get there with such different and contradictory data.

But natural warming is not the same thing as warming caused by natural regression to the mean.

SHOOT! This should read "But global warming is not the same thing as warming caused by natural regression to the mean."

In other recent news, a lobbying group funded by Exxon Mobil has offered to pay experts of any kind--climate scientists, geologists, biologists--to refute the IPCC report. I wish I could obtain a copy of that report, but I haven't been able to find one.

That's entirely true, except for the part about them being a lobbying group, funded by ExxonMobil, and that they offered to pay people to refute the IPCC report. Other than that, your statement was entirely accurate.

Here's some interesting pieces of the report:

• Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher
than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in at least the past 1300 years.
Some recent studies indicate greater variability in Northern Hemisphere temperatures than suggested in the
TAR, particularly finding that cooler periods existed in the 12 to 14th, 17th, and 19th centuries. Warmer
periods prior to the 20th century are within the uncertainty range given in the TAR. {6.6}

• It is likely that increases in greenhouse gas concentrations alone would have caused more warming than
observed because volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols have offset some warming that would otherwise have
taken place. {2.9, 7.5, 9.4}

• The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the
conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past fifty years can be explained
without external forcing, and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone. {4.8, 5.2, 9.4, 9.5,
9.7}

In other recent news, a lobbying group funded by Exxon Mobil has offered to pay experts of any kind--climate scientists, geologists, biologists--to refute the IPCC report. I wish I could obtain a copy of that report, but I haven't been able to find one.

That's entirely true, except for the part about them being a lobbying group, funded by ExxonMobil, and that they offered to pay people to refute the IPCC report. Other than that, your statement was entirely accurate.

How so? Was that story refuted?

The thing is, the earth getting warmer isn't just one isolated change in the earth system: it's a suite of changes, most of which are undesirable.

So what do you think is the optimum temperature for the earth, and how did you calculate that? Wouldn't it be an odd coincidence, given all the natural fluctuations in the earth's temperature over millions of years -- ice ages, little ice ages, warming periods -- if the temperature of the earth in 1750 was exactly the best temperature for the earth?

A moderately warmer Earth would mean an increase in global climate of ... 1 degree F. The latest estimates have increase moving as high as 7 or even 8 degrees F.

As high as 7-8 degress? What is the low range? And over what period of time? A year? A decade? A century?

Why try and mitigate the effects? From the report.

• It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.

More frequent compared to what?

• Based on a range of models, it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will becomemore intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases oftropical SSTs.

Again, more compared to what? What were the historical records back during the last global warming period? Last global cooling period?

• The corresponding future temperatures in Greenland are comparable to those inferred for the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago, when paleoclimatic information suggests reductions of polar land ice extent and 4 to 6 m of sea level rise.

Interesting cut and paste job there. You seemed to have snipped the part where it said the sea levels can be expected to rise .4 meters per century...quite a ways from your 4 to 6 m claim.

Even if the report is only partially correct, we're talking about the greatest natural disaster in human history. I'd like to see how many trillions of dollars and billions of lives could be saved if we could somehow blunt the rise of global warming.

LOL. Funny stuff. You don't even believe all the scare tacticts in this report...just think it might happen.

One thing Zipcode is right about: For the former deniers of global warming, the talking points have changed from "it's not happening" to "it's happening, but it's got nothing to do with humans" to "it's good that it's happening" or "there's nothing we can do about it, so let's do nothing." It's a grossly dishonest way to approach the issue.

No, it is skeptism about the scientists that routinely put out this line. And please don't talk about the dishonesty of my side when is you who was cherry-picking the information in the report.

Now let's play a game so we can figure out how credible this report is: Let's say we go to a Boston Red Sox season ticket holder meeting and request a consensus report on which team is going to win the AL East. What team do you think will be picked?

That's what this report is. The three lead authors are all comign from the same side: Susan Soloman, who made her big splash saying CFCs were destroying the ozone layer. 2) Dahe Qin, a Chinese scientist whose country would reap great benefits a Kyoto type agreement throttling the West's economy 3) Martin Manning, another strong global warming advocate.

what really bothers me about those who don't see the need to do anything about global warming isn't that they're about as scientifically backed as Creationists are in regards to Darwinian theory, but that even when they agree that the earth is warming, and that people are a partial cause of it, they don't really seem to think that anything good could possibly come from trying to mitigate it.

so rather than deal with the issue and actually weigh the pros and cons, they just say "well, it's not economically viable right now, and who cares, it'll probably be good for us anyways."

I think the reason that most people don't want to face the global warming issue is pretty simple: Aside from haphazardly planning for their own personal futures, most people are profoundly uninterested in anything that happened before they were about 18 years old (hence the derisive "that was before my time" comment you always hear in the context of many informal discussions of historical events), or anything that they can't envision happening in the very short range future. They pretty much live in the moment, and their conception of the future, SciFi fantasies aside, is usually little more than a linear projection of the changes that have taken place in the past few years. It's really not surprising that global warming seems still to be largely an abstraction that only those "PBS types" really care about.

These global warming cynics kind of remind me of my best friend in college, who at the time was a heavy smoker, and who always said that he figured by the time he got old enough to get lung cancer, "science" will have invented a cure for it. Fortunately for him he stopped smoking very shortly thereafter and is still going strong many years later, but back then he even seemed to believe that Winstons and Marlboros were relatively safe---because they had a filter! And of course the sort of BS put out by the tobacco companies back then ("tobacco hasn't been PROVEN to cause cancer") is wholly reflected in the Exxon / Mobil propaganda put out today---with the same set of pet parrots echoing them all the way.

because volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols have offset some warming that would otherwise have
taken place.

The 20th century was actually a pretty quiet one as big bangs went.
17th and 19th century had more big volcanic eruptions.

Thus, we just need to persuade more volcanoes to erupt, and... temperature problem solved :P
Thank you, thank you... I'm now going to figure out how to get the Brewers in the World Series.

That's entirely true, except for the part about them being a lobbying group, funded by ExxonMobil, and that they offered to pay people to refute the IPCC report. Other than that, your statement was entirely accurate.

Anyone interested in the American Enterprise Institute's offer to a climate scientist to write a paper on the IPCC report can go to <a href="volokh.com/posts/1170541963.shtml"> this Volokh.com discussion thread.</a href> DMN's comments on it are included. :-)

Personally -- and I don't mean to start that same thread here -- but the fact that AEI went after a professor with a history of being critical of present global warming models is shocking, SHOCKING! That said, the paper hasn't been completed, so we all of us might be surprised by the paper's conclusions. I'm sure AEI will present the paper with great fanfare when it's done.

Tom Poquette posted : [snip]

I'll mercifully refrain from cutting and pasting the #284. Instead, I'll just direct you to the report on the <a href="www.ipcc.ch/">IPCC site</a href> and you can read the reports for yourselves on time frames and get context to the questions Tom's asking. To the accusations of 'cherry-picking' ... it's an 18-page report; I'm not going to c&p anything but highlights into a discussion thread.

I will, though, ask exactly where did I mislead? The report predicted temperatures would rise 3.2 to 7.2 degrees F by 2100. I didn't include a timeframe, but I referenced the report several times. If you're so eager to debunk the report, you should read it.

That's what this report is. The three lead authors are all comign from the same side ....

And all those industry-funded scientists are speaking truth to power. Did you miss the part about how three quarters of the contributors to the IPCC report were new, not having contributed to their last report? Or the part about how the language of the report was couched in the most conservative manner they thought they could get away with?

It's the curious media phenomenom of our age that liberals are always being painted as the conspiracy theorists, yet we routinely see the right wing come around with "Dahe Qin, a Chinese scientist whose country would reap great benefits a Kyoto type agreement throttling the West's economy" claims as a reason to completely throw out a report 200 climate scientists worked on. I'm guessing people do that when they can't dispute the data.

How so? Was that story refuted?

Absolutely. AEI is not a lobbying group; it's a think tank. It is not "funded by" ExxonMobil; ExxonMobil does give money to it, but most of its money comes from individuals. A percent or two of its monies may come from Exxon.

And they did not offer money "to refute the IPCC report." They requested that various experts review and analyze the report, and offered to pay them for their work -- hardly unusual, since few scientists or economists work for free. The actual letter that they sent out was this; I've underlined the key passages for emphasis:

Dear Prof. Schroeder:

The American Enterprise Institute is launching a major project to produce a review and policy critique of the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report (FAR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due for release in the spring of 2007. We are looking to commission a series of review essays from a broad panel of experts to be published concurrent with the release of the FAR, and we want to invite you to be one of the authors.

The purpose of this project is to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC process, especially as it bears on potential policy responses to climate change. As with any large-scale “consensus” process, the IPCC is susceptible to self-selection bias in its personnel, resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent, and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work of the complete Working Group reports. An independent review of the FAR will advance public deliberation about the extent of potential future climate change and clarify the basis for various policy strategies. Because advance drafts of the FAR are available for outside review (the report of Working Group I is already out; Working Groups II and III will be released for review shortly), a concurrent review of the FAR is feasible for the first time.

From our earlier discussions of climate modeling (with both yourself and Prof. North), I developed considerable respect for the integrity with which your lab approaches the characterization of climate modeling data. We are hoping to sponsor a paper by you and Prof. North that thoughtfully explores the limitations of climate model outputs as they pertain to the development of climate policy (as opposed to the utility of climate models in more theoretical climate research). In particular, we are looking for an author who can write a well-supported but accessible discussion of which elements of climate modeling have demonstrated predictive value that might make them policy-relevant and which elements of climate modeling have less levels of predictive utility, and hence, less utility in developing climate policy. If you are interested in the idea, or have thoughts about who else might be interested, please give Ken Green a call at 202-XXX-XXXX at your convenience.

If you and Prof. North are agreeable to being authors, AEI will offer an honoraria of $10,000. The essay should be in the range of 7,500 to 10,000 words, though it can be longer. The deadline for a complete draft will be December 15, 2007. We intend to hold a series of small conferences and seminars in Washington and elsewhere to coincide with the release of both the FAR and our assessment in the spring or summer of 2007, for which we can provide travel expenses and additional honoraria if you are able to participate.

Please feel free to contact us with questions and thoughts on this invitation.

Cordially,

Steven F. Hayward, Ph.D, Resident Scholar Kenneth Green, Ph.D, Visiting Scholar

Ken Green is not a "denier"; he is on record as believing that anthropogenic global warming is occuring. Ditto for Hayward.

I wonder what the longest thread ever on BTF is? This has gotta be close.

I wonder what the longest thread ever on BTF is? This has gotta be close.

This one almost certainly does not make the top 50. Probably not the top 100.

Not even.

I wonder what the longest thread ever on BTF is? This has gotta be close.

At 290 posts?

This puppy isn't even out of Low-A yet.

So what do you think is the optimum temperature for the earth, and how did you calculate that? Wouldn't it be an odd coincidence, given all the natural fluctuations in the earth's temperature over millions of years -- ice ages, little ice ages, warming periods -- if the temperature of the earth in 1750 was exactly the best temperature for the earth?

I'm not going to be a jerk about this, unless I am, but this comment is wrongheaded on four levels. First, any change greenhouse emissions cause that diminishes the earth's ability to buffer carbon intake is a bad idea. It changes sea chemistry and causes sea levels to rise. It has symptoms beyond the planet simply getting warmer. If I'm not explaining this properly just let me know. Or let me know if I'm wrong!

Second, there is no optimum temperature for earth, and no doubt the climate will fluctuate. That we are causing the temperature--and this is just the temperature now, no other associated effects on global warming--to rise at a rate unprecedented in recent geological time (I'm not making this up, I can pull the citation out of the IPCC report we've been talking about) and likely unprecendented in longterm geological time is a very bad thing.

Third, how would one measure optimum temperature? The mean? The mode? The highest biomass supportable? The highest species diversity supportable? The lowest / highest frequency of storms? What? How are we to define this quantity?

Fourth, who gives two ***** what the earth's optimum temperature is, however we define it? Here, I'll define it: the Earth's optimum temperature is the one we're at right now! If it goes higher it'll certainly cause damage to cities and coastlines, and there is the potential for other changes (along with a small chance for a catastrophic change, as has been pointed out above by Daryn above), none of which are beneficial to humanity as a whole. That's the optimum temperature. I don't care about any other measurement.

Absolutely. AEI is not a lobbying group; it's a think tank. It is not "funded by" ExxonMobil; ExxonMobil does give money to it, but most of its money comes from individuals. A percent or two of its monies may come from Exxon.

And they did not offer money "to refute the IPCC report." They requested that various experts review and analyze the report, and offered to pay them for their work -- hardly unusual, since few scientists or economists work for free. The actual letter that they sent out was this; I've underlined the key passages for emphasis:

You may be right on the 1 or 2%, but where did that info come from? If it's an educated guess, say so. And a think tank is worse than a lobbying group for the purposes of this discussion. Think Tanks act as echo chambers to amplify and--in some cases--create ideas. They are the perfect vehicles to "manufacture uncertainty." I think that the AEI is going to be looking a lot more at the report's "weaknesses" than its strengths, and I think those weaknesses are going comprised of ad hominem attacks on the researchers as we've already seen from Tom Poquette on this thread and inferior scholarship and appraisal suitable only to produce doubt.

Ah, and I just read the end of your post. Well, I'm keeping my overheated rhetoric because I'm too lazy to change it. I will say that I don't trust AEI or these researchers farther than I can collectively throw them. Being paid directly for a critique like this has so much potential for conflicts of interests that Ken Green or Steven Hayward may bow to the pressure to produce something amenable to AEI's wishes. Now, I can read, and I know you claim they aren't "deniers." I halfway believe you.

Were I to read the paper they produce I would judge it by its merits, of course. I would also hold it to a much higher critical standard than a comprable paper, simply because it was produced as a product of science for sale.

I wonder what the longest thread ever on BTF is? This has gotta be close.

If Juan Uribe had been there he would have shot at the two women for drowning too close to his Jeep.

"A moderately warmer earth would be beneficial on the whole to mankind. Why spend trillions trying to stop it?"

Tom,

An atmospheric scientist, Professor Bryan Weare of UC Davis (who is one of the IPCC scientists) told me a couple of years ago (in an interview) an interesting thing about what raising the Earth's mean surface temperature "a few degrees" means.

He said: "For the United States, the changes (expected over the next 100 years) are in the range of 7 to 9 degrees F..."

For comparison, he added: "... the last ice age -- about 16 to 17 thousand years ago -- was only 5 to 6 degrees colder than today, in terms of global average temperatures."

What I take from that is that life just about everywhere in our country is going to be severely affected by global warming, very much as it was devastated by the last ice age in most places. Where we rely on rivers flowing for irrigation and drinking water, for example, that will in many places cease during new, very hot dry months. (In California, where we rely on the Sierra snow-pack, this will be especially harmful.) Native trees, bushes, and some species will die out in large numbers, if the conditions change dramatically. And insofar as we humans rely on given climate conditions to feed 6 billion people -- expected to peak at 12 billion in 50 years -- that could be much harder when some of our crops cannot be adapted to the new climate.

Fourth, who gives two ***** what the earth's optimum temperature is, however we define it? Here, I'll define it: the Earth's optimum temperature is the one we're at right now! If it goes higher it'll certainly cause damage to cities and coastlines, and there is the potential for other changes (along with a small chance for a catastrophic change, as has been pointed out above by Daryn above), none of which are beneficial to humanity as a whole. That's the optimum temperature. I don't care about any other measurement.

Here is the train of thought I take issue with:

1) The climate is changing at a higher rate than it has before.

=>

2) The endpoint of this change will be a climate very different than the current one.

=>

3) Based on other models, the human population could be 12 billion in 2050.

=> We are on the brink of disaster.

I like to think I'm fairly scientific -- I hold a BS (Cognitive Science) from a pretty good university, and I'm a grad student now. I consider myself pretty non-partisan, having voted for both candidates from both parties in the last two election cycles. I also don't consider myself well informed on the issue.

But the train of thought being advocated by zip code is far less than convincing to me, and here's why:

1) The fact that the climate is changing at an "unprecedented" rate does not intrinsically mean anything to me. I agree that it's changing and that human activity probably contributes, but in and of itself, the fact that it's unprecedented because of human activity and therefore somehow artificial does not bother me.

2) I can grasp that there's a chance that the sea level will be X meters higher in 100 years, but it doesn't naturally follow to me that "the destruction of x% of costal cities" will therefore occur.

I assume that the sea level will not stay at the current level for 99 years and then suddenly jump up by 6 meters in a month, and will happen gradually enough that the ocean isn't suddenly going to rise up and kill anyone.

To me, it's the same thing with crop migration, desertification, etc. Because the changes are happening over a large period of time, gradually (I imagine), I have to believe that people will adapt.

Things change all the time. Just this year, the price of corn feed for livestock has doubled because of increased demand for ethanol. Raising pigs in the old way is suddenly not economically viable. I'm sure people will cope and find a new way to grow livestock.

To me, catastrophes, in the sense that zip code seems to be using it, occur when things drastically change suddenly. To say that global warming will "destroy" cities is not really accurate in the way that we typically mean "destroy," as far as I can tell.

Now, I don't think that we should ignore global warming, and I think we should develop more sustainable sources of energy, if for no other reason than because whoever comes up with a good one is going to be ####### rich when we run out of oil. Big oil? Psh. In 200 years we'll be complaining about Big Solar or Big Wind.

Life will undoubtedly be different because of global warming. There are ways in which it will be worse for some people, probably. There are probably unforseen benefits as well. It seems pretty unintuitive to me that a global climate change will produce uniformly bad consequences for humanity, or that that could be definitively or even convincingly proven ahead of time if it were the case.

I'm not saying that global warming isn't bad or that we shouldn't do anything about it -- I'm just explaining why, even after reading this thread, I am unconvinced by the case for drastic action right now.

Big oil? Psh. In 200 years we'll be complaining about Big Solar or Big Wind.

Doing like France did and having "Big Nuclear" for power would seem to be the likeliest, at least in the short-term.

Doing like France did and having "Big Nuclear" for power would seem to be the likeliest, at least in the short-term.

It's likely that nuclear power isn't a long term solution, either, though it is preferable to coal.

I assume that the sea level will not stay at the current level for 99 years and then suddenly jump up by 6 meters in a month, and will happen gradually enough that the ocean isn't suddenly going to rise up and kill anyone.

Tell that to the people of New Orleans. Warmer sea temps mean more frequent and more powerful hurricanes, a greater range of said storms, and a longer season (the 2005 season went into January 06 for crissakes)

Based on a range of models, it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will becomemore intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical SSTs.

Actually, while the killer storm stuff makes eye-catching copy, they're fairly cautious in the summary, except for the part you quoted above:

There is observational evidence for an increase of intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since
about 1970, correlated with increases of tropical sea surface temperatures. There are also suggestions of increased intense tropical cyclone activity in some other regions where concerns over data quality are greater.

Multi-decadal variability and the quality of the tropical cyclone records prior to routine satellite observations in about 1970 complicate the detection of long-term trends in tropical cyclone activity. There is no clear trend in the annual numbers of tropical cyclones.

Also, if it's human caused or not (from the fine print of one of the charts):

Magnitude of anthropogenic contributions not assessed. Attribution for these phenomena based on expert judgement rather than formal attribution studies.

I assume that the sea level will not stay at the current level for 99 years and then suddenly jump up by 6 meters in a month, and will happen gradually enough that the ocean isn't suddenly going to rise up and kill anyone.

And by the time a 20-year old cigarette smoker is old enough to get lung cancer, I'm sure that either his body will adapt to all the carcinogens or that they'll have invented a cure for lung cancer. In any event, why bother to address an issue until it puts you in the hospital?

Daryn -- are you going to respond to post 268? If not, I'll just assume that you agree that the report says that most of the warming is caused by fairly recent human activities.

Absolutely. AEI is not a lobbying group; it's a think tank. It is not "funded by" ExxonMobil; ExxonMobil does give money to it, but most of its money comes from individuals. A percent or two of its monies may come from Exxon.

And they did not offer money "to refute the IPCC report." They requested that various experts review and analyze the report, and offered to pay them for their work -- hardly unusual, since few scientists or economists work for free. The actual letter that they sent out was this; I've underlined the key passages for emphasis:

Sophistry at its finest.

One thing that's always disappointed me about this whole issue is how hard the data is to find.

We have temperature data going back to the 1800's. I've found average global temperature before, after typing in several variations of those words, probably going 10-15 pages deep in google before finding a decent link, and navigating through it.

Pretty much everything encountered on the way (either pro or con global warming) is speculation, propaganda, and hysteria.

Its kind of like if I wanted to know how many homeruns Barry Bonds hit each year of his career, and instead of getting his B-Ref page all I could find were descriptions of how far he hit certain balls, how much of his prowess is do to steroids, what a jerk he is, how much money he gives to charity, etc.

Where's the B-ref of global warming? If it does exist, thanks in advance.

Daryn -- are you going to respond to post 268? If not, I'll just assume that you agree that the report says that most of the warming is caused by fairly recent human activities.

I'm flattered you care.



The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the
conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past fifty years can be explained
without external forcing, and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone. {4.8, 5.2, 9.4, 9.5,
9.7}

This summarizes my view of man's effect on global warming.

However, it would be entirely correct if I said that carbon emissions have caused the artificial warming of the planet, which is really where most of the danger lies.

No, this would be entirely correct: Carbon emissions have exacerbated the warming of the planet.

Your sentence isn't necessarily wrong but it makes a distinction between artificial (which I take to mean man-caused) and natural warming that we just don't know enough to make. We don't even know if there are synergies between/among artificial and natural warming that in fact may make the artificial warming worse.

Where are you getting this? The report says that "Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years (see Figure SPM-1). The global increases in carbon dioxide concentration are due primarily to fossil fuel use and land-use change, while those of methane and nitrous oxide are primarily due to agriculture." It also says that "Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations12."

Sentence 1 doesn't say anything about man's role in global warming.
Same with sentence 2.
Sentence three does and I addressed that in post 273. It certainly is the strongest tie in the 18 page report between global warming and man and I think it is inconsistent with their final conclusion (set out above -- 3rd paragraph of this post). I'm not sure what to make of that. It is also contradicted by the charts on page 9 of the report.

IF YOU ARE GOING TO CLAIM THAT THERE IS "SIGNIFICANT DEBATE" AMONG "LEGITIMATE SCIENTISTS" AS TO THE "ISSUE OF GLOBAL WARMING," AND YOU WANT TO BE TAKEN MORE SERIOUSLY THAN THE GUY WHO SAYS THE SAME THINGS ABOUT THE AGE OF THE GRAND CANYON BEING 6,000 YEARS OLD, PROVIDE LINKS OR EVEN TELL US WHERE YOU HEARD IT, READ IT, WHATEVER. BUT YOU CANNOT JUST 'SAY IT' INTO EXISTENCE.

Caps are completely unnecessary. A simple "got a link" would have been fine. But because you asked:

Are observed changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere really dangerous?

Dr. Robert Balling: The Increase in Global Temperature: What it Does and Does Not Tell Us

Statement of Dr. David Denning to U.S. Senate Committee

The Press Gets It Wrong

Global Warming Science vs. Computer Model Speculation: Just Ask the Experts

"The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmist

I am sure that I could find more if I was particularly dedicated, but there's plenty there to at least refute the idea of a clear consensus.

And by the time a 20-year old cigarette smoker is old enough to get lung cancer, I'm sure that either his body will adapt to all the carcinogens or that they'll have invented a cure for lung cancer. In any event, why bother to address an issue until it puts you in the hospital?

There's something between "we have to act now or the world will end" and "this is something we can make a different with and should fix." If the position is "global warming is happening, it's probably caused by man, and we should be taking it seriously," few people are really arguing. If the position is "global warming caused Hurricane Katrina and if we don't make sweeping, economy crippling changes right away, a quarter of the population will have to relocate," that's considerable grounds for discussion.

Really I've only read BTF for a couple of months now....how long have some of them go?

I love Michael Cruchton's essay Aliens Cause Global Warming. Here are two of my favourite quotes:

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

and

Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

Really I've only read BTF for a couple of months now....how long have some of them go?

4000+. It doesn't even count as long until it hits 755. The basketball thread hit that last week. PETCO is the yardstick for long threads -- in its day, it was the longest -- I believe it made its way up to 1700 or so posts. You could check the wiki for that and other historical info.

PETCO made it to 2413 after a revival a few years after it started.

Sentence 1 doesn't say anything about man's role in global warming.
Same with sentence 2.
Sentence three does and I addressed that in post 273. It certainly is the strongest tie in the 18 page report between global warming and man and I think it is inconsistent with their final conclusion (set out above -- 3rd paragraph of this post). I'm not sure what to make of that. It is also contradicted by the charts on page 9 of the report.

Sentence 1 says the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere has increased significantly over the last 250 years as a result of human activities. Sentence 2 says that that increase is primarily due to fossil fuel use and agriculture. Sentence 3 says that most of the warming of the last 50 years is due to the increase in greenhouse gases from human sources. It's not hard to follow.

Your claim that the report does not say that humans are primarily responsible for warming is simply inaccurate. You're either misreading it or cherry picking pieces to support your predetermined view.

Citing Michael Crichton does not help your cause.