Posted by Dee Norris
skep·tic
One who instinctively or habitually doubts, questions, or disagrees with assertions or generally accepted conclusions.
from Greek Skeptikos, from skeptesthai, to examine.
I have been reading a lot of the debates that inevitably follow any MSM story on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). In this story at the NewScientist, one of the comments stood out as a vivid example of the polarization that has developed between the those of us who are skeptical of AGW and those of us who believe in AGW.
By Luke
Fri Sep 12 19:15:22 BST 2008
The difference in response between skeptics and scientists is easily explained as the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning. Skeptics look for evidence to prove their conclusion and ignore any that does not fit what they believe. This makes it possible for them to believe in revealed religion and ignore anything that disputes it. I guess inductive reasoning can best be classified as deliberate ignorance. My condolences to practitioners of inductive thinking for your lack of logical ability. You don’t know what a pleasure it is to be able to think things through.
I was trained as a scientist from childhood. My parents recognized that I had a proclivity for the sciences from early childhood and encouraged me to explore the natural world. From this early start, I eventually went on to study Atmospheric Science back when global cooling was considered the big threat (actually the PDO had entered the warm phase several years earlier, but the scientific consensus had not caught up yet). One thing I learned along the way is that a good scientist is a skeptic. Good scientists examines things, they observe the world, then they try to explain why things behave as they do. Sometimes they get it right, somethings they don’t. Sometimes they get it as close as they can using the best available technologies.
I have been examining the drive to paint skeptics of AGW as non-scientists, as conservatives, as creationists and therefore as ignorant of the real science supporting AGW – ad hominem argument (against the man, rather than against his opinion or idea). Honestly, I have to admit that some skeptics are conservative, some do believe in creation and some lack the skills to fully appreciate the science behind AGW, then again I know agnostic liberals with a couple of college degrees who fully accept the theory of evolution and because they understand the science are skeptics of AGW. On the other hand, I have met a lot of AGW adherents who fully accept evolution, but have never read On The Origin of Species. Many of the outspoken believers in AGW are also dedicated foes of genetically modified organisms such as Golden Rice (which could prevent thousands of deaths due to Vitamin A deficiency in developing countries), yet they are unable to explain the significance of Gregor Mendel and the hybridization of the pea plant,
In his comment, Luke (the name has been changed to protect the innocent) attributes inductive reasoning to skeptics and deductive to scientists. Unfortunately, he has used inductive reasoning to draw general conclusions about skeptics based on his knowledge of a few individuals (or perhaps even none at all).
Skeptics are a necessary part of scientific discovery. We challenge the scientific consensus to create change. We examine the beliefs held by the consensus and express our doubts and questions. Skepticism prevents science from becoming morbid and frozen. Here are just a few of the more recent advances in science which initially challenged the consensus:
- The theory of continental drift was soundly rejected by most geologists until indisputable evidence and an acceptable mechanism was presented after 50 years of rejection.
- The theory of symbiogenesis was initially rejected by biologists but now generally accepted.
- the theory of punctuated equilibria is still debated but becoming more accepted in evolutionary theory.
- The theory of prions – the proteinaceous particles causing transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diseases such as Mad Cow Disease – was rejected because pathogenicity was believed to depend on nucleic acids now widely accepted due to accumulating evidence.
- The theory of Helicobacter pylori as the cause of stomach ulcers and was widely rejected by the medical community believing that no bacterium could survive for long in the acidic environment of the stomach.
As of today, the Global Warming Petition Project has collected over 31,000 signatures on paper from individuals with science-related college or advanced degrees who are skeptical of AGW. Someone needs to tell the AGW world that’s thirty-one thousand science-trained individuals who thought things through and became skeptics.
It was Cassandra who foretold the fall of mighty Troy using a gift of prophecy bestowed upon her by Apollo, Greek god of the Sun. So it would seem fitting that I assume her demeanor for just one brief moment –
- The theory of anthropogenic carbon dioxide as the cause of the latter 20th century warm period was widely accepted by the scientific consensus until it was falsified by protracted global cooling due to reductions in total solar irradiance and the solar magnetic field.
I am a skeptic and I am damn proud of it.
[The opinions expressed in this post are that of the author, Dee Norris, and not necessarily those of the owner of Watts Up With That?, Anthony Watts, who graciously allows me to pontificate here.]
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@Mary H:
The sea levels are now at the highest for 120,000 years
Considering we are emerging from an ice age that is about 120 kilo-years old, I am not at all surprised that sea level is at it’s highest.
Nice try, tho.
Richard,
I think you need to use more up to date references, a lot has happened in this field since 1992 and you are obviously confused about the mechanisms for sea level change. There has been a noticable increase in rate of 50% recently.
Boris:
You say:
“I gave you the exact page and quotes from the IPCC AR4 in the previous thread (I suggest also reading the section on C12/C13 isotopes and the cited literature). I would think that, as a skeptic, you would inquire about the matter yourself.
Denying that humans are responsible for the CO2 increase in the atmosphere and ocean also defies common sense. We know that we emit CO2. We know that CO2 has not been at the current level for at least 800,000 years. We know that CO2 concentrations track with the increase in FF burning. Even without isotope evidence the answer is obvious. Where do you think ton after ton of carbon is going?”
Firstly, I agree that “Denying that humans are responsible for the CO2 increase in the atmosphere and ocean also defies common sense.” But in this case – as in much else in the real world – “common sense” is misleading.
You refer to the carbon isotope ratio changes in atmospheric CO2 and – as you say – some (e.g. IPCC) have claimed that the carbon isotope ratio changes support a suggestion for an anthropogenic source of the increases. All such claims omit a quantitative analysis of the isotope ratio changes because the direction of the ratio changes agrees with the claims but the magnitude of the ratio changes does not.
The quantitaive discrepancy is at least a factor of three. It suggests that most of the observed increases in CO2 are caused by something other than “human emissions”. And if that unknown ‘something’ is causing most of the isotope ratio changes then the ‘something’ could be causing all of these changes.
And you ask,
“Where do you think ton after ton of carbon is going?”
I answer, into the carbon cycle.
The subject the recent rises in atmospheric CO2 concentration is bedeviled by people who hold various opinions each proclaiming unwarranted certainty in their opinion. I fail to understand why they have such certainty when the errors in the estimates of carbon in parts of the carbon cycle are larger than the observed changes.
For example, see
http://science.hq.nasa.gov/oceans/system/carbon.html
This NASA provision shows the estimated amounts of carbon in the various parts of the carbon cycle. (All such estimates are very gross, but this one is widely accepted.) And it shows that the carbon in the air is less than 2% of the carbon flowing between parts of the carbon cycle. The recent increase to the carbon in the atmosphere is less than a third of that less than 2%.
The diagram also provides estimates of the flows of carbon between the parts of the carbon cycle. Please note the squiggles which indicate the flows between deep ocean and ocean surface layers are completely unknown and it is not possible even to estimate them.
And the NASA diagram provides an estimate that the carbon in the ground as fossil fuels is 5,000 GtC and humans are transferring it to the carbon cycle at a rate of 6.5 GtC per year.
In other words, the annual flow of carbon into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels is less than 0.02% of the carbon flowing around the carbon cycle.
It is not obvious that so small an addition to the carbon cycle is certain to disrupt the system because no other activity in nature is so constant that it only varies by less than +/- 0.02% per year.
There are only two certainties in this matter; viz.
1.
It is not known what – if any – contribution the human emissions have made to the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 contribution, and
2.
until that is known then any effect the human emissions will have on the future atmospheric CO2 cannot be determined.
Indeed, these certainties are admitted by the IPCC.
Chapter 2 from Working Group 3 in the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (TAR) considers scenarios that induce future atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.
It uses the following method.
a) “Storylines” of future human activity changing over time are created
(i.e. social/technology change scenarios).
b) For each “storyline”, the GHG emissions anticipated in future years are estimated
(i.e. emissions modelling).
c) The changes to mean global temperature in future years resulting from the anticipated future GHG emissions are estimated
(i.e. climate modelling).
The complete scenario contains all three stages; (a), (b) and (c). Hence, in each complete scenario, accumulating effects resulting from social/technology changes alter extrapolations from existing social/technology systems, existing GHG emissions, and existing climate.
The Chapter states that, “Most generally, it is clear that mitigation scenarios and mitigation policies are strongly related to their baseline scenarios, but no systematic analysis has published on the relationship between mitigation and baseline scenarios”. This statement is in the middle of the Chapter and is not included in the Chapter’s Conclusions. Failure to list this statement as a conclusion is strange because this statement is an admission that the assessed models do not provide useful predictions of effects of mitigation policies. How could the predictions be useful if the relationship between mitigation and baseline is not known ?
Also, the only valid baseline scenario is an extrapolation from current trends. The effect of an assumed change from current practice cannot be known if there is no known systematic relationship between mitigation and baseline scenario.
(Also, each of the scenarios is a claimed effect of changes from current practice. So, the TAR itself says the scenarios are meaningless gobbledygook).
So, the IPCC says;
“no systematic analysis has published on the relationship between mitigation and baseline scenarios”.
Putting that in plain English,
“the IPCC (2001) admits there is no published relationship between anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.
For more information on the possible sources of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration please see
Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005)
Richard
PS These two quotations seem apt.
“There are only two truly infinite things, the universe and stupidity.
And I am unsure about the universe”. — Albert Einstein
“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in
practice there is”. –Anon
Mary Hinge:
You say to me:
“I think you need to use more up to date references, a lot has happened in this field since 1992 and you are obviously confused about the mechanisms for sea level change. There has been a noticable increase in rate of 50% recently.”
Sorry, but you compound your misunderstanding. I could provide other and more recent references that would say the same. I note that you cite no references.
There have been several claims of a recent “jump” in sea level rise. But the claim is twaddle based on the most blatant ‘cherry picking’.
A typical presentation of the claim is provided by Joe Romm and his explanation of it can be seen at
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/8/1/14411/92880
At that URL one finds two graphs and Romm comments on them saying.
“Here is the expanded chart showing the recent 70 percent jump in sea level rise:”
But, the apparent “jump” is a rate of change from 2mm/year from ~1880 to 1990 to 3.4mm/year from 1993 to the present.
And from this he says:
“So sea levels are now rising about 1.3 inches a decade. This is not yet worrisome, but if current emissions trends continue and the rate of sea level rise merely continues the same relationship to global temperature rise that it has had in recent decades, then we could see a total rise of up to five feet by 2100, at which point the rate of sea level rise would exceed six inches a decade,”
Well, no! Lower down on his same page one also finds another graph. And – merely by eyeballing it – this graph is seen to show the trend from 2003 to the present is almost flat. On the basis of this data one could claim that there has been a recent collapse – since 2003 – of sea level rise.
Choose your time periods (Romm compares a selected 110 years to a selected 15 years) and anything can be misrepresented.
As I said, the reality is that rate of sea level rise varies with time but it has been rising since the last ice age and there has been no significant alteration to the rate of sea level rise for about 3000 years.
Richard
Well, if we are going to say that the sea is rising due to thermal expansion, then we need to measure the ocean heat content and observe it changing.
See, while it can be said that it is “likely” that it is due to heat, we are nevertheless all familiar with the idiom, “a likely story”.
Stefan,
your logic is flawed again, “Well, if we are going to say that the sea is rising due to thermal expansion, then we need to measure the ocean heat content and observe it changing.”
We are observing it changing and we know that thermal expansion is a major contributary cause of sea level rise. We know that the sub ocean heat is released during an El Nino. We know that the upper 2km of ocean has cooled slightly but the sea level is continuing to rise.
Your argument is I’m afraid so typical, by sticking ‘a likely story’ tag on you show that you have no alternative mechanism to explain this so your response is like the schoolchild. You just gainsay anything that doesn’t sgree with your feeble arguments. There’s the bell…off you go..
Richard, you really are wobbling aren’t you.
“But, the apparent “jump” is a rate of change from 2mm/year from ~1880 to 1990 to 3.4mm/year from 1993 to the present.”
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that about a 50% rise as I said?
” I note that you cite no references.”- Refer to the graphs I supplied
“There have been several claims of a recent “jump” in sea level rise. But the claim is twaddle based on the most blatant ‘cherry picking’. ”
You agree there has been a “jump” so how is this ‘twaddle’ and where is the ‘cherry picking’?
“this graph is seen to show the trend from 2003 to the present is almost flat. On the basis of this data one could claim that there has been a recent collapse – since 2003 – of sea level rise.”
How can a ‘flat’ trend represent a ‘crash’?
“Choose your time periods (Romm compares a selected 110 years to a selected 15 years) and anything can be misrepresented.”
If you’d bothered to refer to the links supplied you will see the reason for 15 years and that other graphs supplied show the sea level change going back 150,00 years.
To be blunt Richard, you have no real understanding of the subject, like Stefan you can only gainsay, you don’t read the arguments and ignore the facts. You are also very good at contradicting yourself.
As for Dee Norris, “Nice try, tho.” Nice try at what? I was only stating this as a point of interest.
REPLY: Mary I’m going to set the record straight for you. The global sea level has dropped since about 2006 after continuing to rise post ice-age for quite a long time. This is the data from the TOPEX and the JASON satellite systems
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/SeaLevel_TOPEX.jpg
The fact that this has occurred in nature, when all models and speculation say it should continue to rise, should give anyone pause. Sea level is dropping and it is undisputed satellite data that does not suffer from the vagaries and inaccuracy of tide gauges and human error in measurement.
On another note. please take a more courteous tone in dialog. Thank you for your consideration. -Anthony
Mary, regarding the “New and Improved” Hockey Schtick(tm):
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3651
Anthony,
you obviously haven’t looked at the graph, for your information I will again insert links to the TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1graph http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_last_15.html
You can see where the sea level dropped mid to late 2007 (La Nina) but note how it is now rising again. To say that sea level is dropping is blatantly untrue and, to be honest, I would have expected better from you.
REPLY: “I would have expected better from you.” Mary, we are all growing weary of this condescending attitude toward anyone that has a different view than you here. I’m fine with disputing data and methods on their merits, but on every comment you make, you add these sorts of denigrating things. Either stop that sort of commentary and concentrate on the questions at hand or quit posting please.
That said, the graph you cite is formulated and sourced differently. Its a 3 month running trend versus a 2 month running trend. Which to believe? Can you say with certainty that the one you cited is correct and the one I cited is wrong? As you know, anyone can present data in many different ways to show different things. The dataset you cite is from CSIRO whereas the one I cite is from University of Colorado. CISRO in Australia is a well known AGW advocate, I’m unsure about the group from Colorado. They don’t make the same sort of political noise that CSIRO does.
When choosing data, would you not say it’s better to trust a source that is non-political?
What is clear though that in both graphs is the short term flattened out and did drop, whether it will recover from this short term drop and continue to rise can only be told by the data itself as we progress. Temperatures globally have also dropped during the same period. -Anthony
Mary, I’ll try to keep this my last response, if you’ll bear with me. Thermal expansion can be a cause, and it is one of many.
Are all the other causes known measured quantities? Or are they guesstimates? (as in “broad assumptions and computations”)
Personally I think that it is OK to say that sea level rise is the result of a collection of guesstimated causes–that’s just stating our current level of understanding.
But it is not OK to say that the missing heat must be located deep in the rising ocean, as the rising ocean is only understood by guesstimates anyway. I think we can say that it could be deep in the ocean, but until it is directly measured, the ocean heat content (and the sea level) can’t in itself be used to support or deny any other argument about AGW in general.
The heat is still missing because you haven’t actually found it. It is the difference between the theory of where it should be, and the data of finding it.
Mary Hinge:
At no time have I been “wobbling”. I have provided clear statements that are open to dispute by contrary evidence and/or argument. And your comment which you claimed is “blunt” was not: it was a factually inaccurate insult.
I now write to answer your questions to me (n.b. as clear demonstration that I was not and I am not “wobbling”) but before providing the answers I offer you some kindly-meant advice.
You persist in thinking that ad hominem comment is an adequate substitute for evidence and logical argument. It is not, and your use of such comments reduces your cogency.
To answer your questions to me:-
I wrote:
“There have been several claims of a recent “jump” in sea level rise. But the claim is twaddle based on the most blatant ‘cherry picking’. ”
And you replied by asking:
“You agree there has been a “jump” so how is this ‘twaddle’ and where is the ‘cherry picking’?”
Please read the message you are answering because I completely explained this. I said that Romm compares a selected 110-year period with a selected 15-year period. And I said that if he had compared the first 10 years with the last 5 years (of his 15 year period) then he would have shown a dramatic reduction in the rate of sea level rise most recently.
As I said;
“Choose your time periods (Romm compares a selected 110 years to a selected 15 years) and anything can be misrepresented.”
I do not know how I could have been more clear and, therefore, I fail to understand the reason for your question.
I also fail to understand the purpose of your other question: i.e.
you quote my having said,
“this graph is seen to show the trend from 2003 to the present is almost flat. On the basis of this data one could claim that there has been a recent collapse – since 2003 – of sea level rise.”
and you ask,
“How can a ‘flat’ trend represent a ‘crash’?”
We were discussing rate of sea level rise. The purported “jump” was an increase in the rate of the rise (that has been happening for thousands of years) and the “collapse” was a reduction of the rate of rise to zero for the last 5 years. I have again read what I wrote and I think this was very clear in its context.
I concluded;
“the reality is that rate of sea level rise varies with time but it has been rising since the last ice age and there has been no significant alteration to the rate of sea level rise for about 3000 years. ”
That is true, and I explained the reason for it in a previous posting (above). Furthermore, what may or may not have happened in the previous 150,000 years does not alter the truth of it.
To conclude this response, I remind that this discussion of sea level rise began because you asserted;
“But we know the heat is down there, the rise in sea level indicates that.”
My subsequent postings clearly prove your assertion is wrong, and no amount of bluster can hide that fact.
Richard
Anthony
Apologies for jumping in at you, I like to give as good as I get and I was out of order this time.
It will be interesting to see what results Jason2 comes up with.
Oh, and to Stefan, thanks for finally acknowledging that thermal expansion is at least a part of the reason for sea level rises.
Mary Hinge: “The reason they sponsor so many sceptics is they can ultimately get the consumer to pay to support their mission of disinformation.”
That smacks of conspiracy theory.
I wish some of them would sponsor my skepticism which, BTW, I’ve had since long before blogs were invented.
“If they didn’t do this they know they will lose money as demand for their products fall either by a popular concensus or by government policies.”
Except that the companies you’re alluding to are the energy companies, and they’re in no danger of losing demand for their products anytime soon.
“Mary Hinge: “The reason they sponsor so many sceptics is they can ultimately get the consumer to pay to support their mission of disinformation.”
Sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander.
There is a billion dollar industry associated with AGW, grants, tenure tracks, CO2 hot air businesses, etc. I do not have a link, but I believe that these renumerations from the public trough are at least an order of magnitude more plentiful than what the oil and what not companies disperse. In addition Nuclear loves AGW and I am sure a careful audit would show some income from there too.
So there.
Well that wasn’t really the point.
The point was whether the increase in sea level was really evidence of warmth at depth and evidence of AGW. This is in the context where you are defending AGW against accusations that it is a “weak” theory.
Claiming that the heat must be down there, when other things also affect sea level, makes it sound like a weak theory.
Like I said, I can be swayed either way, and that’s why I keep reading.
Mary
You wrote : “I think you are getting a bit mixed up here, the ‘hockey stick’ is based on measurement of global temperatures by proxy, such as tree rings etc. The methods used can only give some degree of accuracy back 1,000 years or so due to the methods available. It is not arbitary at all but a reflection of what data can be used.”
I accept your correction as to the limits of the ‘hockey stick’ data. I will alter my terminology from ‘restricted’ to ‘limited’ so as to avoid the implication that the data period was deliberately chosen.
But that does not alter my point. Whatever the merits of the data, whether or not the graph is accurate or distorted (and others have vigorously debated that here and elswhere), the period of climate history which it represents is only a minute part of the whole.
The point I made is that a proponent of AGW has to show that the present state of climate is extraordinary; that it goes so far beyond what one might expect to occur in the course of the natural climate cycles as to require a new explanation and that explanation is the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
To base any assertion to that effect (i.e. that the present climate is extraordinary) on such a limited sample of global climate history is completely misleading.
As a corollary – if it can be shown that conditions similar to the present state of climate have occurred in the past, then that would lend strength to an argument to the effect that what is occurring now is not unusual and therefor requires no new theory to explain it.
Mary,
“You will also notice the instrumental data and the unprecedented rise in temperature. It is certainly a lot warmer globally now than during the MWP.”
See my post above. What you say here demonstrates the importance of the point I make – that a proponent of AGW must show that the current state of climate is extraordinary.
Let’s look carefully at what is happening here.
You point to an “unprecedented” rise in temperature.
I immediately ask ‘Unprecedented in relation to what?’
Clearly you do not mean the temperatures on Venus.
What then?
Well apparently by ‘unprecedented’ you mean unprecedented ONLY in relation to that part of earth’s climate history covered by the ‘hockey stick’ – the past 1500 or 2000 years.
From that perspective you are able to say “It is …a lot warmer…now than during the MWP”, and thereupon invite the conclusion that something more than merely ‘natural’ causes are at work.
But I put it to you that this perspective is far too restricted to bear the weight of the conlusions which you seek to draw from it.
Even if you are right and the ‘hockey stick’ is completely accurate, it is meaningless to conclude that therefore the present state of climate is beyond the natural climate cycle requires a new explanation.
If it is extraordinary then it is so only in relation to the data with which you choose to compare it; so what?
When we finally have thermometers in the depths of every ocean, sea, gulf, bay, lake and all rivers, we still won’t know if the temperatures there are above or below normal. We still won’t know if any heat is “hiding” there.
Oh, and to Stefan, thanks for finally acknowledging that thermal expansion is at least a part of the reason for sea level rises.
Actually, I think the IPPC makes it about two thirds responsible.
It might even explain why SL has been dropping (seas cooling) even as ice is said to have been melting. But we seem to get no reports of land ice. Glaciers are around 0% [sic] of land ice. The rest (c. 100%) is in Antarctica and Greenland (80/20).
I am forced to agree with Boris about the human contribution to atmospheric CO2 levels. We have a natural system where X goes in and X comes out. Humans add just a small bit in on a regular basis. The result is that it accumulates. X +H goes in X goes out.
Actually, that is slightly simplistic. A little more goes out as well, too. It’s really more like X+H goes in and X+(H/2) goes out. The remaining H/2 accumulates.
There’s more to all this when one factors in persistence, ice ages, and such, but that is the simple version of what is going on.
But (and here I depart from Boris), I do not think an increase of a third to a teeny amount of CO2 matters worth a damn, except for an increase in biomass (which is a good thing). Without positive feedback loops, CO2 warming doesn’t add up to squat. And positive feedback theory is currently in tatters.
Reply – Boris asserts that the increase in atmospheric CO2 mass since date X is 100% anthropogenic. This theory can be tested very easily. If you add up the anthropogenic CO2 added to the system by measuring sources for the past 10 years (lets ignore sinks) and compare it to the mass of the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration for the past 10 years, they would be equal under the 100% anthropogenic premise, if they are not equal, then the premise is false or the data is in error. Either way, the 100% anthropogenic theory can no longer be asserted with 100% confidence. – Dee Norris
This is actually why I’m so insistent with Mary; so much of climate science, from my POV as a layman, seems to be about a multitude of effects, and when one thing doesn’t seem to fit the theory, other effects are brought into play to make up for it.
Instead of relying on such postrationalised inferences, like “sea level rise accounts for missing heat”, I wish people would just measure it and just nail it down, and keep nailing down each part of the picture in turn, until the starting picture is quantified.
I know the empirical part is progressing in leaps and bounds, with new instruments and measuring networks, and I just wish that the environmental movement would have some patience and wait until it is all watertight. First they predicted global cooling, then they predicted global warming… its now becoming “climate chaos”… the public will judge it by the “three strikes and you’re out”, and environmentalism will be irreparably damaged.
Without sufficient real data, the debate lacks enough data to arrive at solid conclusions that any rational person can agree with, and so instead, people’s predispositions come into play, which in climate change, seem to be, on one side a heartfelt desire to act now to protect the environment, versus a colder and skeptical predisposition towards taking things slowly and figuring more things out.
So “skeptic” becomes a disparaging and demeaning accusation.
Yes, I agree. There are an awful lot of overlapping factors in play. Every time we change one piece we have to rearrange all the others.
Nowadays there are ten times the amount of students enrolled in climatology, and I predict we are going to find out a lot more. But that’s gonna take a few years. And I’d just as soon not wreck the world economy before we get more real results; too many lives (and deaths) are at stake.
I have to disagree with anna v (I think, a first). I totally disagree with the Malthusian approach. We have expanded food supply FAR more than we have increased population. And there is a far smaller percentage starving now than, say, fifty years ago.
It has gotten to the point where the nations with the most food and best medicine have birthrates well below the replacement rate of 2.1 per couple, average.
The Malthusian food model works for most animals (esp. those which typically give birth to many at a time), but the human animal has busted the equation utterly. Even Malthus, in his declining years, conceded this.
And if there had been hybrids to bypass the LIA wheat disaster or the potato blight, those concerned would have avoided famine, plain and simple.
Dee: “I guess either you have not read Homer…”
Dee, I got the Cassandra reference. I understood you were making a prediction. I also understand what you are implying in your article when you say: “Here are just a few of the more recent advances in science which initially challenged the consensus…”
You are trying to link your five examples of scientific theories with a hypothetical falsification of AGW, by using the notion of “challenging the consensus” as a common term, thus hoping by association to graft scientific history and respectability onto AGW scepticism.
But your attempt distorts the reality, which is that the likes of continental drift, punctuate equilibira, and of course AGW are theories which over time gained the acceptance of most scientists. Thus, the relevant common phrase is ‘accepting the theory’, not “challenging the consensus”.
So even if your private fantasy of a falsification of AGW were to transpire, your attempt to liken apples and oranges would still fail.
Reply – If you got the fact that I was wishful thinking, why did you try to imply I was intending otherwise? Are you to be my Ajax? – Dee Norris
the myth of the noble savage
I endeavor to be both.