Are we killing ourselves? Or just our Children?

thefultonhow · Post by **thefultonhow** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 7:15 am

I'm actually referencing rallysam's post earlier in the thread with a chart showing that CO2 levels have risen dramatically in the past 50 years or so.

Subtle · Post by **Subtle** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 7:16 am

David

The spike inCO2 could be due to many things, but the record shows, repeat shows, that temps and CO2 are not, repeat not, directly related.

This is evidence not a theory.

The best of science has always gone from evidence to theory.

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 7:24 am

And "basically the entire scientific community"?????? Why do you believe there is this vast consesnus? There isn't among all scientists. There IS a consensus among the "blame CO2" crowd and they're the fortified mob that is hogging all the debate. But the other side is not just a small handfull of people.

But you can't seem to fathom that. Try a little open mindedness on the subject. "Your" world may not in fact reflect the "actual" world.

As I stated before, there is a big difference between evidence formed around a theory and a theory formed from evidence.

rallysam · Post by **rallysam** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:16 pm

Guys, 5, 10 years ago, there was legitimate debate in the scientific community and I did not disagree with people who were deniers. I accepted all possibilities and was open-minded.

Plug in, and realize that that's almost completely gone now as more research has been done.

Every source you've dug up was not credible. Not because they had been smeared by activists, just because they good old fashioned NOT credible

If you want a better list of people who are deniers, included even people who are unsure, I'll give it to you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_skeptic

Not a very long list anymore compared to the thousands who have generally accepted it.

rallysam · Post by **rallysam** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:20 pm

Consensus or no?

In December 2004, an article by geologist and historian of science Naomi Oreskes summarized a study of the scientific literature on climate change.[2] The essay concluded that there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. The author analyzed 928 abstracts of papers from refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, listed with the keywords "global climate change". The abstracts were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. 75% of the abstracts were placed in the first three categories, thus either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, thus taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change; none of the abstracts disagreed with the consensus position, which the author found to be "remarkable". It was also pointed out, "authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific ... ate_change
Note that there are many other studies that have shown the same thing.

rallysam · Post by **rallysam** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:24 pm

Who is distorting science? Warming believers trying to suppress dissent.... or warming skeptics trying to manufacture doubt where there is none?

According to an Associated Press release of 30 January 2007 [17]:

"Climate scientists at seven government agencies say they have been subjected to political pressure aimed at downplaying the threat of global warming.
"The groups presented a survey that shows two in five of the 279 climate scientists who responded to a questionnaire complained that some of their scientific papers had been edited in a way that changed their meaning. Nearly half of the 279 said in response to another question that at some point they had been told to delete references to "global warming" or "climate change" from a report."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific ... ate_change

thefultonhow · Post by **thefultonhow** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 8:34 pm

Richard wrote:And "basically the entire scientific community"?????? Why do you believe there is this vast consesnus? There isn't among all scientists. There IS a consensus among the "blame CO2" crowd and they're the fortified mob that is hogging all the debate. But the other side is not just a small handfull of people.

But you can't seem to fathom that. Try a little open mindedness on the subject. "Your" world may not in fact reflect the "actual" world.

As I stated before, there is a big difference between evidence formed around a theory and a theory formed from evidence.

Sorry, but I refer you once again to the Science Magazine article I posted earlier in the thread:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/f ... /5702/1686

928 scientific studies (they basically went through a bunch of databases and searched for "climate change" in the abstract) and NOT ONE of them disagrees with the consensus position (i.e. that humans are contributing to climate change).

Did you guys legitimately miss this, or are you just ignoring it because it's not convenient to your argument?

BAC5.2 · Post by **BAC5.2** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 10:54 pm

I just heard a scientist on TV say that we could eventually stop global warming by modifying our living habits. I'm pretty sure he's full of shit.

dzx · Post by **dzx** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 12:06 am

Most closed systems have a way of repairing themselves given a chance.

Subtle · Post by **Subtle** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 1:09 am

It isn't the first time that consensus science has been dead wrong for political reasons.

One of the great geophysicists has been Tuzo Wilson and his major work was to introduce the thesis of Plate Tectonics. Nowadays the concept of mountain building and continental drift is widely accepted. Let's face it it would be difficult to promote anthropogenic continental drift. But when Wilson was first presenting it, it was met with considerable hostility be the geological establishment.

A friend who graduated in geological engineering is still practicing as a P. Eng. and tells of attending a lecture by Wilson in 1962.

The faculty of geology was so hostile to the idea of continents drifting around that they sat in a block at the back of the lecture hall and when the presentation was finished all stood up as if rehearsed and departed abruptly, making a point of not asking questions.

It was an intentional insult, given in terms similar to those today who look at the evidence about anthropogenic warming and say that it is unsupported by evidence or logic.

Now the establishment is very hostile to skeptics of today's convictions.

thefultonhow · Post by **thefultonhow** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 2:18 am

I'd like to point out there that there was at least one scientist challenging the consensus in that situation. I am sure that Tuzo Wilson published at least one paper about plate tectonics. There is nobody challenging the consensus in this case besides a few easy-to-discredit scientists who have not actually published scientific papers on the subject.

Yes, scientists are resistant to change from the status quo. Copernicus found this out in the 1600s, and Tuzo found it out in the 20th century. The difference here is that there WAS no status quo consensus on climate change. As little as ten years ago scientists were still figuring it out and there were people on both sides of the aisle. Now there are basically no reputable scientists on the side that denies climate change is a problem.

Heck, even the libertarians at the Cato Institute admit climate change is an issue, even as they say we can't do anything about it:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=7502

Subtle · Post by **Subtle** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 6:33 am

Mankind "causing" global warming is a fabrication intended to grant governments of all levels enormous and unmerited powers.

IPCC is an invention of the extremely corrupt United Nations.

Many of the scientists that have submitted papers have pointed out that it is a non-scientific committee that writes the summary.

Scam all over it.

Speaking of previous researchers, Copernicus lived in the early 1500s and it was Galileo in the early 1600s who had a nasty run in with politically correct science with his heretical observations that the earth was rotating around the sun.

The ego of the all-powerful Vatican was such that the whole of the solar system was doing very complicated patterns around the earth.

More bad, but popular "science"--thanks for reminding of another big example.

thefultonhow · Post by **thefultonhow** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 7:06 am

Even if the abstracts are written by non-scientific committees, that doesn't mean the committees are going to say something completely different than the study shows.

Sorry, but I don't believe your conspiracy theory and I doubt many others on this board believe it, whether or not they think humans are causing climate change. There is no way that the entire scientific community is being manipulated by governments/the UN in order to give those organizations power.

As I said earlier in the thread, I'm going to take the evidence presented by a ton of people who study this stuff for a living over the rhetorical arguments of someone who, even if he studied sciencey stuff in college, is not a scientist.

Also as I said before, this situation is considerably different than that of Copernicus and Galileo because they were challenging entrenched scientific ideas; global warming is by no means entrenched and has been developed as a theory over the past 10 years or so.

So, questions:

Why should I believe you over the scientific community?
Why should I believe a conspiracy theory that I haven't heard from anyone else?
Taking into account my arguments, how is this situation actually similar to those of Galileo and Copernicus?

I eagerly await the answers to these questions.

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 7:46 am

"The great masses of the people... will more eeasily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one" -Adolf Hitler

Something happened recently that should have taught us a lesson. There was this guy who ran a country in another part of the world. This guy was a terrible dictator who oppressed his own people, had a humongous army, and possesed chemical/biological weapons. We knew he had them because he used them on his own people. We also had the reciept. This guy created a lot of chaos in his part of the world. He went to war with Iran, Israel, Kuwait, and eventually the US. (I think Russia belongs on this list, but I'm not too sure.)

When the US fought him, they destroyed a vast majority of his weapons. When the war ended, sanctions were imposed to keep him tied down and unable to be a threat. This guy was cooped up and pinned down like a mofo, but he continued his hostilities towards the US and his neighbors.

Areas of his country were known as "no-fly zones" in which he was not allowed to fly any airplanes. These zones were buffers to keep him away from the neighbors he didn't like, and were patrolled by US aircraft to ensure complicity. His forces constantly "painted" US planes with their anti-aircraft radar as an act of hostility. Some even shot at the US aircraft. These threats were taken out almost immediately by the US forces. Yet, he kept on doing it.

The UN imposed oil sanctions on his country so he couldn't export any oil (he had a lot of it) unless the money went directly for food and aid for the citizens of his country. This was called the Oil for Food Program.

He continuously showed hostility towards the US, partly because the US used to be a friend to him in the past. This guy was even crazy enough to attempt an assasination plot on the US president. But everything he did usually failed. This was the status quo for about a decade. Hostile, but not very effective.

Then some fucked up shit happened that changed everything. Islamic fundamentalists hijacked some planes and flew them into buildings. This terrorist attack happened September 11, 2001. You see, terrorism wasn't a new thing to the US. US interests across the world had been attacked in the past. But this attack was sophisticated and happened on US soil, which really had the US afraid (and pissed off). They started to take shit seriously. The US declared war on these terrorists and a (different) country that gave aid comfort to them.

Back to the dictator. His country was in the same part of the world where fundamentalism was spreading and extremists were being made. Most of the terrorists who flew the planes into buildings were from a country right next to his. He himself belonged to the same religion that fostered the fundamentalism, though he was not really religious or even an extremist for that matter. But he was hostile towards the US and so was most of the region he was in. He praised the terrorist attacks and seemed emboldened by them. They were very effective at harming the country he was hostile to, unlike his attempts.

The US started taking a closer look at him and his actions. He wasn't in a position to start a conventional war with anyone. Most of his weapons were destroyed in the last war and sanctions kept him from rebuilding his army. He did have some capabilities, but his assets would get smoked in an instant by the US if he started something.

They had him pinned down pretty well. When the US started investigating him, they started putting a lot of things together.

1- This guy was a tyrant and dictator who attacked his neighbors, fought the US, and even gassed his own people.
1- He was hostile towards the US and had been so for a long time.
2- He expressed wishes to harm the US and it's allies.
3- He was pinned down and unable to conventionally attack anyone.
4- He was emboldened by recent terrorist attacks.
5- He had lots of money.
6- His country was in the region where there was a great deal of anti-US sentiment.
7- He was the same religion as the religious fanatics.
8- He was in a position where he could fund and supply extremists.
9- He was playing shadow games about the existance of his chemical/biological weapons.

The US began to think that it was possible for him to provide aid and weapons to terrorists and attack them by proxy. He could carry out his intentions to harm the US while not looking like he was doing anything. He could harbor and support terrorists in his own country, seeing the main one they used was occupied by the US. He even had his own suicide squads (remember the fedayeen?)If he had the WMD's he was rumored to have, he could provide them to the terrorists to wreak havoc on US assets and interests. He could also attack Israel outright with them, something he was tempted to do in the last war.

You see, he was being really devious about his weapons. He claimed to have destroyed them, but not a lot of proof was there to support him. He was toying with the UN weapons inspectors. He wasn't forthcoming and was kinda playing a shell game with the inspectors. He wouldn't allow them into certain places. He would sometimes not provide escorts for the inspectors. The inspector's vehicles constantly had flat tires. They were even flat-out lied to. There was suspicion that he was shuffling weapons around so the inspectors never saw them. It was thought that the weapons would be disguised to look like conventional weapons. Things didn't seem right to a lot of people. The US intelligence community couldn't say for sure that he didn't have stockpiles of WMD's though it sure seemed like he was trying to hide something. The other major intelligence agencies in the world came to the same conclusion. Nobody knew because he was playing the deception card. (Deception, by the way, is a powerful tool in warfare, as it keeps the enemy from knowing your capabilities and your intentions.)

Soon, it became apparent that the US was not going to let him attack them or help terrorists. The US saw him as a major threat to the security to the US and started building their case. They started investigating his capabilities and provided a lot of evidence to the public. The UN passed a resolution basically saying to cooperate or face "serious consequences". The UN sent Hans Blix, a weapons inspector, to find out if there really were any weapons. He didn't find any, but there was still suspicion that there were things being hidden from inspectors. The devious dictator simply couldn't be trusted.

The case was being made for the US to take him out. Popular opinion was swaying that way too. There were many people who didn't want to take the risk of a terrorist attack. Not after the terrible one they just suffered. The US began to prepare for war. There was a large amount of people opposed to war. Many questioned the intelligence and exposed holes in the theory. Many had well thought-out contradictions, but the majority of the dissenters were thought to be kooks just trying to prevent the war. Russia and France came to the defense of the dictator, but they had economic ties to his country. Hans Blix was discredited as well. Germany stated it's opposition to war too. People accused the US of manufacturing evidence to support their cause for war. They were all ignored. They hollered and protested and pissed and moaned, but public opinion went the other way. The evidence and public opinion was too much for anyone to stop it. Congress authorized the war and that's exactly what happened.

Hindsight is 20/20. Turns out that the dictator had everyone fooled. Niether side was completely wrong, nor was either side really right. There were no giant stockpiles of WMD's found. That basically shot the US's presumtion all to hell. However, there have been some 500 or more chemical weapons found since the invasion. Bomb removal teams find them being used as IED's. Insurgents and terrorists are using them thinking they're something they're not. They're mostly painted and marked to look like conventional weapons, which is just what the US thought the dictator was doing. But the majority of them are in a state of decay or are not effective. We also found some nuclear material. Still, 500 isn't the giant stockpile there was thought to be.

It was also found out that the dictator was scamming the UN's Oil for Food Program. He was getting money from countries on the side in exchange for his oil, something banned under the sanctions. He was also buying influence in other countries. Many of these countries dealing in the shadows with him were members of the UN. His main goal, we find out, was to get enough support with the UN countries and have them lift the sanctions imposed upon him. Nobody knows what he would have done then, but it was suspected that he would have rebuilt his military.

Now, if there wasn't a fucking lesson to be learned of all of this, I'll be damned. You're soooooo sure of your side, but what about poor Hans?

thefultonhow · Post by **thefultonhow** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 7:54 am

The lesson learned is not to doctor or selectively believe intelligence, but that's neither here nor there. Weren't we talking about global warming and not the Iraq war?

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 8:03 am

"The great masses of the people... will more eeasily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one" -Adolf Hitler

Subtle · Post by **Subtle** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 5:22 pm

David

If you carefully review all the posts in this thread as well read some of the skeptical stuff that is out there, you may be able to distinguish the difference between science and "political science".

Perhaps even some form of reverse engineering could be applied.

Start at the end and work backward-- Who are the main promotors of the notion of anthropogenic warming?

Are they fans of big intrusive government using an almost religious intensity to force changes in behaviour upon society for its own good?

Or, are they dispassionately interested in science for its own sake and without the egotistical and messianaic drive to "save" the world?

Do a little serious reflection, in the meantime, I'm out of here.

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 5:51 pm

Hussein actually offered sympathy for 9/11 FWIW and is of a different sect of Islam from bin Laden. Those sects don't get along very well (see also: quagmire in Iraq). Bin Laden as much of the Middle East saw Hussein as a secular ruler just giving lip service to Islam. The British started this aprticular mess when they drew the borders without regard to ethnic groups that will never get along (like those who oppose global warming and those who believe in it). Saddam was the one that kept them in check and I think that may be the only method of rule those people will accept. Too bad for the oil as the only ones that would care about (what would be) nomadic tribes killing each other off would be bored Hollywood actors.

It's not just the UN that is unwilling to do what's necessary to fix this mess, but at least they didn't stick all their troops in there to be target practice leaving us vulnerable to another nut job next door.

thefultonhow · Post by **thefultonhow** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 6:43 pm

I see you have deftly sidestepped answering my questions, so in the meantime I will answer yours.

Subtle wrote:Start at the end and work backward-- Who are the main promotors of the notion of anthropogenic warming?

Lots of people. It's not like Al Gore invented the notion. He just drew inspiration from the scientific consensus.

Subtle wrote:Are they fans of big intrusive government using an almost religious intensity to force changes in behaviour upon society for its own good?

Some of them may well be. I am not going to argue on that point because arguing about your conspiracy theory is counter-productive -- I'm trying to point out that the opinion of the scientific community > your opinion. But...

Subtle wrote:Or, are they dispassionately interested in science for its own sake and without the egotistical and messianaic drive to "save" the world?

I would say the majority fall under this category. There is no way you are going to convince me that the entire scientific community is engaged in a power grab.

Now that I've answered your questions, I'd like to see if you will answer mine. It seems like you are trying to sidestep the issue here.

Subtle · Post by **Subtle** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 9:56 pm

David

I'll repeat ir one more time:

To beleive that because two events occur at the same time they are causally related is a primitive syllogism. I've been using the old one that the rooster crowing "causes" the sun to rise. What one do you use?

The other is that the theory of man-caused warming is inadequate to explain the fact that temps now are as warm as they were in the late 1200s.

Now David, please stop at this point and think to yourself, What part orf this is so hard to understand?

Because the next step is just as important.

Anthropogenic does not, repeat not, explain the warming trend on Mars and the shrinking of its ice fields.

If you take the time to read some of my earlier posts you would know that the next step is to find an explanation for the Little Ice Age that prevailed for so many centuries.

Diminished out put from the sun and a serious increase in volanic activity.

Then, going the other way, since the mid 1800s there has been a distinctive increase in solar radiation and a decrease in volcanic dust screening.

The latter is particularly interesting as a weather and climate advisory I subscibe to in December called for a cold January based upon some sizable, but not huge eruptions on the Kamchatka Pennisula in December.

Now to deal with one part of the gospel according to Al Gore:

Actually the term gospel is not correct as it means "ggod news", but you will get my drift.

He uses the shrinkage of Lake Chad as a example of our sins.

Lake Chad is an evaporative lake with many sources of water flowing in, wih no significant streams flowing out. Gore's story is that its size has diminished drastically and it is all our fault.

The long history of this and other extremly shallow such lakes is that it does not take much of a change in inflow or rates of evaporation to materially change the area of the lake. At it greatest depth it is only about 15 meters deep.

In the 1800s there a number of times when the lake was almost gone .

Al Gore choose a time when another normal shrinkage could be used to add to the hysteria about climate change, which by the way, the IPCC summary is using instead of global warming.

Trying to help.

thefultonhow · Post by **thefultonhow** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 10:33 pm

You are probably right that there are other causes to the warming trend, but that does not mean humans are NOT contributing.

I ask again:

Why should I believe you over the scientific community when you say that humans are not contributing?

Subtle · Post by **Subtle** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 10:43 pm

B. Sc. Geophysics, age , experience and skepticism of great political promotions.

Tleg93 · Post by **Tleg93** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 11:07 pm

Subtle wrote:Mankind "causing" global warming is a fabrication intended to grant governments of all levels enormous and unmerited powers.

IPCC is an invention of the extremely corrupt United Nations.

Many of the scientists that have submitted papers have pointed out that it is a non-scientific committee that writes the summary.

Scam all over it.

Speaking of previous researchers, Copernicus lived in the early 1500s and it was Galileo in the early 1600s who had a nasty run in with politically correct science with his heretical observations that the earth was rotating around the sun.

The ego of the all-powerful Vatican was such that the whole of the solar system was doing very complicated patterns around the earth.

More bad, but popular "science"--thanks for reminding of another big example.

Umm, political correctness had absolutely nothing to do with galileo's problems. I know your totally convinced but you're really reaching when you flatly write off human causes for global warming. I'm not saying I wholly subscribe to the idea but I sure as hell put more weight on what scientists have to say about it as opposed to some guy in a Subaru forum, no offense.

Another thing, just as a side note really. Pollution is bad no matter how you slice it and I'd rather live in a clean world than one that is dirty and toxic. If you honestly believe that it isn't in our benefit to live cleaner and with a lower impact on our environment then you're...something.

Subtle · Post by **Subtle** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 1:51 am

All for a cleaner environment, but global warming has been on since the last Ice Age.--some 12,000 years ago.

That we are the cause of it ranks with the Old Testament's method of control through the doctrine of original sin.

Ooops repeating myself again--did a better post on this a few days ago.

Tleg93 · Post by **Tleg93** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 6:05 am

Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

It's really too bad there's people out there who refuse to believe the truth. It just goes to show that people will go to any lengths to deny what is right in front of their face, it's sad. Oh well, some people still think the Earth is flat, God is a old man with a white beard and that the messiah will come out of a well to reek havoc on the world.

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