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The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism (2 Viewers)

NCCommish

Footballguy
Are you a global warming skeptic? There are plenty of good reasons why you might be.

As many as 757 stations in the United States recorded net surface-temperature cooling over the past century. Many are concentrated in the southeast, where some people attribute tornadoes and hurricanes to warming.

The temperature-station quality is largely awful. The most important stations in the U.S. are included in the Department of Energy's Historical Climatology Network. A careful survey of these stations by a team led by meteorologist Anthony Watts showed that 70% of these stations have such poor siting that, by the U.S. government's own measure, they result in temperature uncertainties of between two and five degrees Celsius or more. We do not know how much worse are the stations in the developing world.

Using data from all these poor stations, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates an average global 0.64ºC temperature rise in the past 50 years, "most" of which the IPCC says is due to humans. Yet the margin of error for the stations is at least three times larger than the estimated warming.

We know that cities show anomalous warming, caused by energy use and building materials; asphalt, for instance, absorbs more sunlight than do trees. Tokyo's temperature rose about 2ºC in the last 50 years. Could that rise, and increases in other urban areas, have been unreasonably included in the global estimates? That warming may be real, but it has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect and can't be addressed by carbon dioxide reduction.

Moreover, the three major temperature analysis groups (the U.S.'s NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.K.'s Met Office and Climatic Research Unit) analyze only a small fraction of the available data, primarily from stations that have long records. There's a logic to that practice, but it could lead to selection bias. For instance, older stations were often built outside of cities but today are surrounded by buildings. These groups today use data from about 2,000 stations, down from roughly 6,000 in 1970, raising even more questions about their selections.

On top of that, stations have moved, instruments have changed and local environments have evolved. Analysis groups try to compensate for all this by homogenizing the data, though there are plenty of arguments to be had over how best to homogenize long-running data taken from around the world in varying conditions. These adjustments often result in corrections of several tenths of one degree Celsius, significant fractions of the warming attributed to humans.

And that's just the surface-temperature record. What about the rest? The number of named hurricanes has been on the rise for years, but that's in part a result of better detection technologies (satellites and buoys) that find storms in remote regions. The number of hurricanes hitting the U.S., even more intense Category 4 and 5 storms, has been gradually decreasing since 1850. The number of detected tornadoes has been increasing, possibly because radar technology has improved, but the number that touch down and cause damage has been decreasing. Meanwhile, the short-term variability in U.S. surface temperatures has been decreasing since 1800, suggesting a more stable climate.

Without good answers to all these complaints, global-warming skepticism seems sensible. But now let me explain why you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer.

Over the last two years, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project has looked deeply at all the issues raised above. I chaired our group, which just submitted four detailed papers on our results to peer-reviewed journals. We have now posted these papers online at www.BerkeleyEarth.org to solicit even more scrutiny.

Our work covers only land temperature—not the oceans—but that's where warming appears to be the greatest. Robert Rohde, our chief scientist, obtained more than 1.6 billion measurements from more than 39,000 temperature stations around the world. Many of the records were short in duration, and to use them Mr. Rohde and a team of esteemed scientists and statisticians developed a new analytical approach that let us incorporate fragments of records. By using data from virtually all the available stations, we avoided data-selection bias. Rather than try to correct for the discontinuities in the records, we simply sliced the records where the data cut off, thereby creating two records from one.

We discovered that about one-third of the world's temperature stations have recorded cooling temperatures, and about two-thirds have recorded warming. The two-to-one ratio reflects global warming. The changes at the locations that showed warming were typically between 1-2ºC, much greater than the IPCC's average of 0.64ºC.

To study urban-heating bias in temperature records, we used satellite determinations that subdivided the world into urban and rural areas. We then conducted a temperature analysis based solely on "very rural" locations, distant from urban ones. The result showed a temperature increase similar to that found by other groups. Only 0.5% of the globe is urbanized, so it makes sense that even a 2ºC rise in urban regions would contribute negligibly to the global average.

What about poor station quality? Again, our statistical methods allowed us to analyze the U.S. temperature record separately for stations with good or acceptable rankings, and those with poor rankings (the U.S. is the only place in the world that ranks its temperature stations). Remarkably, the poorly ranked stations showed no greater temperature increases than the better ones. The mostly likely explanation is that while low-quality stations may give incorrect absolute temperatures, they still accurately track temperature changes.

When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that. They managed to avoid bias in their data selection, homogenization and other corrections.

Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.

Mr. Muller is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of "Physics for Future Presidents" (W.W. Norton & Co., 2008)

WSJ
If you are not familiar Muller was a darling of the deniers. Well until now. In fact several of them said they would go by his results regardless. Of course since it turned out different than they expected now not so much. As he says his study doesn't address the human element but what it does is take on the attacks on the base data.
 
Not an overly impressive case. I have never heard of Muller before this, now he is being promoted as this leading skeptic, which he is not. I am not sure how the only 0.5% of the globe is urbanized is calculated or why it matters. Many of these stations (27 percent) are located near areas populated my 50,000 or more people. I have no idea what their definition of urban includes.

Besides, most skeptics accept that there probably has been some warming, the biggest problem is there is no real linkage to man. This study did not even address that, so this is mostly over-hyped headlines which mean nothing.

 
Even if global warming is happening and 100% man-made, I don't see why the U.S. should spend money making our companies even less competitive when our competitors have no such regulations.

I don't see how anything we do alone could have an effect when the worst CO2 producing countries will continue doing nothing.

The money would be better spent reducing real pollution that can have an immediate and measurable impact.

 
'jon_mx said:
I am not sure how the only 0.5% of the globe is urbanized is calculated
Do you have a better number to use?
Urban heat island effect is not limited to only highly developed massively populated regions. It is anywhere that has seen development. Payment, removal of trees, all contribute to the effect. Again, not my biggest problem with this. My problem is how it is being spun because this study does nothing to fix the weakest link in the man-made global warming theory....the actual proof that man causes the warming.
 
If you are not familiar Muller was a darling of the deniers. Well until now. In fact several of them said they would go by his results regardless. Of course since it turned out different than they expected now not so much. As he says his study doesn't address the human element but what it does is take on the attacks on the base data.
He mentions the IPCC margin of error, what is the margin for his group's findings? Oh, and this statement just isn't true: The two-to-one ratio reflects global warming.This also ignores the problems inherent in the models used to predict such a complex system as the earth's climate.

Regardless, people should continue to be skeptics. Such a mindset leads to better science.

 
Pavement retains heat. Empty grass fields do not. Urban areas are warmer than rural areas. We should be getting warmer simply as a function of city sprawl. I remember many summer days out on the farm where we'd have to bundle up at night because it got so cold, while it was never like that in town.

A key question is where are these stations located? In urban or rural areas?

 
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It is climate change, not global warming. Bad choice years ago to call it that. Climate change is happening, people, and it is our fault.

 
It is climate change, not global warming. Bad choice years ago to call it that. Climate change is happening, people, and it is our fault.
That's going to be a very hard sell because climate change has happened since the Earth was created. The climate is never static. If the human race went extinct, it would still change over the next billion years.
 
The optimum way to phrase the debate is not Global Warming. Its also not climate change. Its pollution. People can debate whether or not global warming or climate change exists. Those are concepts that can seem very detached from people's day-to-day lives. But when you talk about pollution, that gets people's attention. They get it. They understand it is harmful and it worries them.

Take coal burning power plants. Instead of debating how they can cause climate change, point out the harmful effects of breathing polluted air from coal. No-one is going to debate you.

People will be very concerned about protecting the environment when you talk pollution. But climate change? People think its crap science. Why argue from the weaker position?

 
The optimum way to phrase the debate is not Global Warming. Its also not climate change. Its pollution. People can debate whether or not global warming or climate change exists. Those are concepts that can seem very detached from people's day-to-day lives. But when you talk about pollution, that gets people's attention. They get it. They understand it is harmful and it worries them.Take coal burning power plants. Instead of debating how they can cause climate change, point out the harmful effects of breathing polluted air from coal. No-one is going to debate you. People will be very concerned about protecting the environment when you talk pollution. But climate change? People think its crap science. Why argue from the weaker position?
You actually make sense with this point. If that is, coal fired plants were as bad as they were 20 years ago. Some of them may be, like the ones in China maybe?
 
The optimum way to phrase the debate is not Global Warming. Its also not climate change. Its pollution. People can debate whether or not global warming or climate change exists. Those are concepts that can seem very detached from people's day-to-day lives. But when you talk about pollution, that gets people's attention. They get it. They understand it is harmful and it worries them.Take coal burning power plants. Instead of debating how they can cause climate change, point out the harmful effects of breathing polluted air from coal. No-one is going to debate you. People will be very concerned about protecting the environment when you talk pollution. But climate change? People think its crap science. Why argue from the weaker position?
You actually make sense with this point. If that is, coal fired plants were as bad as they were 20 years ago. Some of them may be, like the ones in China maybe?
Impossible to say for certain. China isn't transparent. But considering what we know it wouldn't be surprising to learn that their coal fired plants are horrific.Maybe environmentalists refuse to focus on pollution because its a boring subject. They know everyone is on their side. They just want to argue. So they take a flimsy argument and go at it. :D
 
The optimum way to phrase the debate is not Global Warming. Its also not climate change. Its pollution. People can debate whether or not global warming or climate change exists. Those are concepts that can seem very detached from people's day-to-day lives. But when you talk about pollution, that gets people's attention. They get it. They understand it is harmful and it worries them.Take coal burning power plants. Instead of debating how they can cause climate change, point out the harmful effects of breathing polluted air from coal. No-one is going to debate you. People will be very concerned about protecting the environment when you talk pollution. But climate change? People think its crap science. Why argue from the weaker position?
You actually make sense with this point. If that is, coal fired plants were as bad as they were 20 years ago. Some of them may be, like the ones in China maybe?
Impossible to say for certain. China isn't transparent. But considering what we know it wouldn't be surprising to learn that their coal fired plants are horrific.Maybe environmentalists refuse to focus on pollution because its a boring subject. They know everyone is on their side. They just want to argue. So they take a flimsy argument and go at it. :D
One way I would refute the hypothesis of carbon dioxide in the air is to point out that the strongest evidence comes from stations on Hawaii, and it is thought to be well-mixed. However the trade winds that blow across Hawaii originate where exactly? One of the most rapidly industrializing parts of China. Unless the developing world is willing to make sacrifices too, us making sacrifices won't matter.
 
Unless the developing world is willing to make sacrifices too, us making sacrifices won't matter.
:goodposting:This really is the key point. I'd much rather argue this with environmentalists than argue science, which I believe that ultimately conservatives will lose. As the OP points out, climate change really does exist, it's happening, and we're probably the cause. Those who dispute this look more and more foolish, and it's problematic that they've come to dominate the Republican party. It makes them look like crackpots IMO.But your point is one that environmentalists and progressives have no answer for. Do they really want us to punish our own industries (and way of life) with no measurable gain in return? Do they really think, against all evidence, that other nations will follow our example? Or is this very real problem being used by some as a means to attack capitalism?
 
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We don't have a good number for how much the climate has changed, how much it would have changed naturally, or if and how much man is responsible for. We are really debating assumptions at this point. Unfortunately, there is a lot more we don't understand about the environment than we do understand. Nothing is settled about the science. It is mostly fear-mongering, which is where 99 percent of all funding is.

It is really not a debate about pollution either, since these are gases which are necessary for life. There is nothing harmful being put in the air as far as this debate goes.

It is a debate really about big government solutions, none of which really addresses the assumed problem in any significant way.

 
My problem is how it is being spun because this study does nothing to fix the weakest link in the man-made global warming theory....the actual proof that man causes the warming.
Talk about spin--so you hold man entirely unaccountable? That's convenient. Personally, I don't get into the argument per se. I ask myself:

Is it possible that 7 billion human beings have some kind of impact on the earth? (Yes)

Does that impact always have a positive effect? ...a negative effect? (No)

Would it be best if we try to minimize the negative impact? (Duh)

Doesn't really seem to matter what we call it--if the air is too noxious to breathe or if the water is so polluted to cause fish kills--it ain't a good thing. :shrug:

 
Greenhouse gases have zero to do with the air being too noxious to breath or the water being polluted. The effort to do real environmental cleanup has ceased and now are only worried about a clean gas, CO2. HTH.

 
Unless the developing world is willing to make sacrifices too, us making sacrifices won't matter.
:goodposting:

This really is the key point. I'd much rather argue this with environmentalists than argue science, which I believe that ultimately conservatives will lose. As the OP points out, climate change really does exist, it's happening, and we're probably the cause. Those who dispute this look more and more foolish, and it's problematic that they've come to dominate the Republican party. It makes them look like crackpots IMO.

But your point is one that environmentalists and progressives have no answer for. Do they really want us to punish our own industries (and way of life) with no measurable gain in return? Do they really think, against all evidence, that other nations will follow our example? Or is this very real problem being used by some as a means to attack capitalism?
Like I said, climate change has been happening since the Earth was created. That sentence makes it sound like humans are the sole cause of climate change. That's not a very intelligent thing to say, because its inevitable that nonhuman causes will conflict with expected results, making climate change science look like a crackpot idea.
 
My problem is how it is being spun because this study does nothing to fix the weakest link in the man-made global warming theory....the actual proof that man causes the warming.
Talk about spin--so you hold man entirely unaccountable? That's convenient.Personally, I don't get into the argument per se. I ask myself:

Is it possible that 7 billion human beings have some kind of impact on the earth? (Yes)

Does that impact always have a positive effect? ...a negative effect? (No)

Would it be best if we try to minimize the negative impact? (Duh)

Doesn't really seem to matter what we call it--if the air is too noxious to breathe or if the water is so polluted to cause fish kills--it ain't a good thing. :shrug:
Without proof, you leave the whole climate change industry wide open to corruption. Government officials can use scare tactics claiming some industry is causing climate change as an excuse to grease the palms of whatever lobby is funding them for doing it, or to get rid of political rivals, or any number of reasons.Always need clear proof.

 
Not an overly impressive case. I have never heard of Muller before this, now he is being promoted as this leading skeptic, which he is not. I am not sure how the only 0.5% of the globe is urbanized is calculated or why it matters. Many of these stations (27 percent) are located near areas populated my 50,000 or more people. I have no idea what their definition of urban includes. Besides, most skeptics accept that there probably has been some warming, the biggest problem is there is no real linkage to man. This study did not even address that, so this is mostly over-hyped headlines which mean nothing.
The rest of the conversation is going pretty well but I thought I'd address the Muller thing. He has been one of the most quoted and really one of the most respected skeptics. He has been quoted by numerous deniers including the lead denier Senator Inhofe. He is now getting torn up by denier bloggers and others who feel betrayed despite saying they would trust his science.
 
Always need clear proof.
There's never clear proof until it's too late. Meanwhile there's stalemate, and just as with political stalemate where 99% wring their hands while 1% grease theirs--here the 99% scream for change while the 1% protect their profit line. I am of the mind that some restraint and reforms are necessary. I'm also of the opinion that there are those who want to protect us soooo much from threats of any form that it will kill us. There's got to be a middle ground, but in this country too many people only espouse extremes--and that leads to a stasis which benefits the few. :coffee:
 
The last time I checked, pretty much everyone in the US produce a ####load of CO2. This isn't about hitting the 1 percent's profit margin. The is about making gas so expensive you are forced to reduce your driving or shell out $60K for some new vehicle. This is about replacing trillions of dollars of energy plants with more expesive alternative forms of energy. In short, this is about making everything you do much much more expensive and scraping tens of trillion of dollars worth of stuff which operates off of fosil feuls. We will being wasting a lot of effort in replacing stuff that already works fine in an effort maybe to make a small difference 100 years from now in the climate.

 
The first half of the article grants legitimacy for many arguments that AGW enthusiasts have written off as being espoused by idiots, fanatics and corporate shills....interesting

 
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Just think of all of the money we could save on vacation travel if we didn't have to go to FL for warm weather in the winter.

 
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-ap-us-sci-climate-skeptic,0,3548437.story

Skeptic's own study finds climate change real, but says scientists should be more critical

SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer

10:55 a.m. CDT, October 30, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) — A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly.

The study of the world's surface temperatures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers. He pursued long-held skeptic theories in analyzing the data. He was spurred to action because of "Climategate," a British scandal involving hacked emails of scientists.

Yet he found that the land is 1.6 degrees warmer than in the 1950s. Those numbers from Muller, who works at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, match those by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

He said he went even further back, studying readings from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. His ultimate finding of a warming world, to be presented at a conference Monday, is no different from what mainstream climate scientists have been saying for decades.

What's different, and why everyone from opinion columnists to "The Daily Show" is paying attention is who is behind the study.

One-quarter of the $600,000 to do the research came from the Charles Koch Foundation, whose founder is a major funder of skeptic groups and the tea party. The Koch brothers, Charles and David, run a large privately held company involved in oil and other industries, producing sizable greenhouse gas emissions.

Muller's research team carefully examined two chief criticisms by skeptics. One is that weather stations are unreliable; the other is that cities, which create heat islands, were skewing the temperature analysis.

"The skeptics raised valid points and everybody should have been a skeptic two years ago," Muller said in a telephone interview. "And now we have confidence that the temperature rise that had previously been reported had been done without bias."

Muller said that he came into the study "with a proper skepticism," something scientists "should always have. I was somewhat bothered by the fact that there was not enough skepticism" before.

There is no reason now to be a skeptic about steadily increasing temperatures, Muller wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, a place friendly to skeptics. Muller did not address in his research the cause of global warming. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists say it's man-made from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Nor did his study look at ocean warming, future warming and how much of a threat to mankind climate change might be.

Still, Muller said it makes sense to reduce the carbon dioxide created by fossil fuels.

"Greenhouse gases could have a disastrous impact on the world," he said. Still, he contends that threat is not as proven as the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it is.

On Monday, Muller was taking his results — four separate papers that are not yet published or peer-reviewed, but will be, he says — to a conference in Santa Fe, N.M., expected to include many prominent skeptics as well as mainstream scientists.

"Of course he'll be welcome," said Petr Chylek of Los Alamos National Lab, a noted skeptic and the conference organizer. "The purpose of our conference is to bring people with different views on climate together, so they can talk and clarify things."

Shawn Lawrence Otto, author of the book "Fool Me Twice" that criticizes science skeptics, said Muller should expect to be harshly treated by global warming deniers. "Now he's considered a traitor. For the skeptic community, this isn't about data or fact. It's about team sports. He's been traded to the Indians. He's playing for the wrong team now."

Muller's study found that skeptics' concerns about poor weather station quality didn't skew the results of his analysis because temperature increases rose similarly in reliable and unreliable weather stations. He also found that while there is an urban heat island effect making cities warmer, rural areas, which are more abundant, are warming, too.

Among many climate scientists, the reaction was somewhat of a yawn.

"After lots of work he found exactly what was already known and accepted in the climate community," said Jerry North, a Texas A&M University atmospheric sciences professor who headed a National Academy of Sciences climate science review in 2006. "I am hoping their study will have a positive impact. But some folks will never change."

Chris Field, a Carnegie Institution scientist who is chief author of an upcoming intergovernmental climate change report, said Muller's study "may help the world's citizens focus less on whether climate change is real and more on smart options for addressing it."

Some of the most noted scientific skeptics are no longer saying the world isn't warming. Instead, they question how much of it is man-made, view it as less a threat and argue it's too expensive to do something about, Otto said.

Skeptical MIT scientist Richard Lindzen said it is a fact and nothing new that global average temperatures have been rising since 1950, as Muller shows. "It's hard to see how any serious scientist (skeptical, denier or believer — frequently depending on the exact question) will view it otherwise," he wrote in an email.

In a brief email statement, the Koch Foundation noted that Muller's team didn't examine ocean temperature or the cause of warming and said it will continue to fund such research. "The project is ongoing and entering peer review, and we're proud to support this strong, transparent research," said foundation spokeswoman Tonya Mullins.

 
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-ap-us-sci-climate-skeptic,0,3548437.storySkeptic's own study finds climate change real, but says scientists should be more critical
You into Japanese vehicles? The question is not if temperatures have increased some, they have. The question is if there is anything which links the change to man-made greenhouse emissions, which has never been done. All there is is models and assumptions with no skepticism allowed.
There is no reason now to be a skeptic about steadily increasing temperatures, Muller wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, a place friendly to skeptics. Muller did not address in his research the cause of global warming. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists say it's man-made from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Nor did his study look at ocean warming, future warming and how much of a threat to mankind climate change might be.Still, Muller said it makes sense to reduce the carbon dioxide created by fossil fuels."Greenhouse gases could have a disastrous impact on the world," he said.
one of the leading skeptics of global warming conducts a study partially funded by the Koch brothers, in an attempt to discredit global warming... he concludes that the planet is warming and says "Greenhouse gases could have a disastrous impact on the world,"and now the new rally cry from skeptics is "well.... we never said global warming wasn't real.... just that it's not being caused by greenhouse gases".in internet this is known as "backpedaling"
 
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-ap-us-sci-climate-skeptic,0,3548437.story

Skeptic's own study finds climate change real, but says scientists should be more critical
You into Japanese vehicles? The question is not if temperatures have increased some, they have. The question is if there is anything which links the change to man-made greenhouse emissions, which has never been done. All there is is models and assumptions with no skepticism allowed.
There is no reason now to be a skeptic about steadily increasing temperatures, Muller wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, a place friendly to skeptics. Muller did not address in his research the cause of global warming. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists say it's man-made from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Nor did his study look at ocean warming, future warming and how much of a threat to mankind climate change might be.

Still, Muller said it makes sense to reduce the carbon dioxide created by fossil fuels.

"Greenhouse gases could have a disastrous impact on the world," he said.
one of the leading skeptics of global warming conducts a study partially funded by the Koch brothers, in an attempt to discredit global warming... he concludes that the planet is warming and says "Greenhouse gases could have a disastrous impact on the world,"and now the new rally cry from skeptics is "well.... we never said global warming wasn't real.... just that it's not being caused by greenhouse gases".

in internet this is known as "backpedaling"
As the article states:Skeptical MIT scientist Richard Lindzen said it is a fact and nothing new that global average temperatures have been rising since 1950, as Muller shows. "It's hard to see how any serious scientist (skeptical, denier or believer — frequently depending on the exact question) will view it otherwise," he wrote in an email.

I follow the global warming debate rather closely, and I have never heard of this 'leading expert' Muller before. You could easily find numerous posts on this forum of me admitting the earth has warmed some LONG before this article was published.

 
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-ap-us-sci-climate-skeptic,0,3548437.story

Skeptic's own study finds climate change real, but says scientists should be more critical
You into Japanese vehicles? The question is not if temperatures have increased some, they have. The question is if there is anything which links the change to man-made greenhouse emissions, which has never been done. All there is is models and assumptions with no skepticism allowed.
There is no reason now to be a skeptic about steadily increasing temperatures, Muller wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, a place friendly to skeptics. Muller did not address in his research the cause of global warming. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists say it's man-made from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Nor did his study look at ocean warming, future warming and how much of a threat to mankind climate change might be.

Still, Muller said it makes sense to reduce the carbon dioxide created by fossil fuels.

"Greenhouse gases could have a disastrous impact on the world," he said.
one of the leading skeptics of global warming conducts a study partially funded by the Koch brothers, in an attempt to discredit global warming... he concludes that the planet is warming and says "Greenhouse gases could have a disastrous impact on the world,"and now the new rally cry from skeptics is "well.... we never said global warming wasn't real.... just that it's not being caused by greenhouse gases".

in internet this is known as "backpedaling"
As the article states:Skeptical MIT scientist Richard Lindzen said it is a fact and nothing new that global average temperatures have been rising since 1950, as Muller shows. "It's hard to see how any serious scientist (skeptical, denier or believer — frequently depending on the exact question) will view it otherwise," he wrote in an email.

I follow the global warming debate rather closely, and I have never heard of this 'leading expert' Muller before. You could easily find numerous posts on this forum of me admitting the earth has warmed some LONG before this article was published.
:lmao: Ok jon
 
I can post a few....Here is one from 2010:
You did not do the best job at that. The term global warming has a connotation to the theory that man-made CO2 is causing the earth to warm. What the report and articles talk about is proof that the earth is warming, which is the least controversial part of the theory which few people deny that there has been some warming.
So there is no backtracking. Exact same position as this post over a year ago.
 
I can post a few....Here is one from 2010:
You did not do the best job at that. The term global warming has a connotation to the theory that man-made CO2 is causing the earth to warm. What the report and articles talk about is proof that the earth is warming, which is the least controversial part of the theory which few people deny that there has been some warming.
So there is no backtracking. Exact same position as this post over a year ago.
Perhaps you could articulate your data-driven hypothesis for what is causing global warming. Since, you know, you acknowledge that global warming is a fact.
 
I can post a few....Here is one from 2010:
You did not do the best job at that. The term global warming has a connotation to the theory that man-made CO2 is causing the earth to warm. What the report and articles talk about is proof that the earth is warming, which is the least controversial part of the theory which few people deny that there has been some warming.
So there is no backtracking. Exact same position as this post over a year ago.
Perhaps you could articulate your data-driven hypothesis for what is causing global warming. Since, you know, you acknowledge that global warming is a fact.
We don't understand 10% of what we need to know to understand all the factors which effect climate. Long-term historical data prove that CO2 is not as strong of a driver as the models assume. We have hundreds of thousands of years of evidence which show CO2 lagging about 600 years behind temperature. That is not how something that is suppose to be a huge driving factor should behave. Until we understand better how all of the variable impact climate, we have to term it natural variations. In a relatively short time, we have gone from our continent being largely glacier covered, to what it is now. Those changes were not caused by man and there is little reason to conclude the changes that are happening today are largely a result of what we have done.
 
The last time I checked, pretty much everyone in the US produce a ####load of CO2. This isn't about hitting the 1 percent's profit margin. The is about making gas so expensive you are forced to reduce your driving or shell out $60K for some new vehicle. This is about replacing trillions of dollars of energy plants with more expesive alternative forms of energy. In short, this is about making everything you do much much more expensive and scraping tens of trillion of dollars worth of stuff which operates off of fosil feuls. We will being wasting a lot of effort in replacing stuff that already works fine in an effort maybe to make a small difference 100 years from now in the climate.
It is about time we got serious about jobs and the economy in the USA. Things have been in the :censored: since old fashion American planned obsolescence was no longer viable in a global economy. This should correct a good bit of that and, make the gap between the 1% and the 99% even greater.
 
'jon_mx said:
'Alex P Keaton said:
'jon_mx said:
'Alex P Keaton said:
I can post a few....Here is one from 2010:
You did not do the best job at that. The term global warming has a connotation to the theory that man-made CO2 is causing the earth to warm. What the report and articles talk about is proof that the earth is warming, which is the least controversial part of the theory which few people deny that there has been some warming.
So there is no backtracking. Exact same position as this post over a year ago.
Perhaps you could articulate your data-driven hypothesis for what is causing global warming. Since, you know, you acknowledge that global warming is a fact.
We don't understand 10% of what we need to know to understand all the factors which effect climate. Long-term historical data prove that CO2 is not as strong of a driver as the models assume. We have hundreds of thousands of years of evidence which show CO2 lagging about 600 years behind temperature. That is not how something that is suppose to be a huge driving factor should behave. Until we understand better how all of the variable impact climate, we have to term it natural variations. In a relatively short time, we have gone from our continent being largely glacier covered, to what it is now. Those changes were not caused by man and there is little reason to conclude the changes that are happening today are largely a result of what we have done.
So to summarize your perspective: you have no clear hypothesis.
 
'jon_mx said:
'Alex P Keaton said:
'jon_mx said:
'Alex P Keaton said:
I can post a few....Here is one from 2010:
You did not do the best job at that. The term global warming has a connotation to the theory that man-made CO2 is causing the earth to warm. What the report and articles talk about is proof that the earth is warming, which is the least controversial part of the theory which few people deny that there has been some warming.
So there is no backtracking. Exact same position as this post over a year ago.
Perhaps you could articulate your data-driven hypothesis for what is causing global warming. Since, you know, you acknowledge that global warming is a fact.
We don't understand 10% of what we need to know to understand all the factors which effect climate. Long-term historical data prove that CO2 is not as strong of a driver as the models assume. We have hundreds of thousands of years of evidence which show CO2 lagging about 600 years behind temperature. That is not how something that is suppose to be a huge driving factor should behave. Until we understand better how all of the variable impact climate, we have to term it natural variations. In a relatively short time, we have gone from our continent being largely glacier covered, to what it is now. Those changes were not caused by man and there is little reason to conclude the changes that are happening today are largely a result of what we have done.
So to summarize your perspective: you have no clear hypothesis.
Don't most all scientists agree we have been warming up from a mini ice age since about 1900? How warm was it before the mini ice age? How warm is too warm compared to past history. Maybe with enough warming, the Vikings could make a comeback and start farming Greenland again?
 
Unless the developing world is willing to make sacrifices too, us making sacrifices won't matter.
:goodposting:

This really is the key point. I'd much rather argue this with environmentalists than argue science, which I believe that ultimately conservatives will lose. As the OP points out, climate change really does exist, it's happening, and we're probably the cause. Those who dispute this look more and more foolish, and it's problematic that they've come to dominate the Republican party. It makes them look like crackpots IMO.

But your point is one that environmentalists and progressives have no answer for. Do they really want us to punish our own industries (and way of life) with no measurable gain in return? Do they really think, against all evidence, that other nations will follow our example? Or is this very real problem being used by some as a means to attack capitalism?
Like I said, climate change has been happening since the Earth was created. That sentence makes it sound like humans are the sole cause of climate change. That's not a very intelligent thing to say, because its inevitable that nonhuman causes will conflict with expected results, making climate change science look like a crackpot idea.
There are empirical scientific reasons why CO2 could cause global warming. It's pretty well understood how the CO2 molecule absorbs heat, and a more CO2 will cause the atmosphere temperature to increase. So...we know there is more CO2 in the atmosphere. We know that more CO2 can cause temperatures to rise. We observe that temperatures are indeed rising. What we don't have a good grasp on is the many different feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative, which can have a dramatic effects.

It's far from a crackpot idea...in fact, IMO the crackpot position is to refuse to address any impact we may have.

 
Scientist who said climate change sceptics had been proved wrong accused of hiding truth by colleagueBy David RoseLast updated at 6:11 PM on 30th October 2011It was hailed as the scientific study that ended the global warming debate once and for all – the research that, in the words of its director, ‘proved you should not be a sceptic, at least not any longer’.Professor Richard Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) claimed to have shown that the planet has warmed by almost a degree centigrade since 1950 and is warming continually.Published last week ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa, next month, their work was cited around the world as irrefutable evidence that only the most stringent measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions can save civilisation as we know it.Hot topic: The plight of polar bears captures the hearts of many, but are the ice caps still shrinking?Hot topic: The plight of polar bears captures the hearts of many, but are the ice caps still shrinking?It was cited uncritically by, among others, reporters and commentators from the BBC, The Independent, The Guardian, The Economist and numerous media outlets in America.The Washington Post said the BEST study had ‘settled the climate change debate’ and showed that anyone who remained a sceptic was committing a ‘cynical fraud’.But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis.Prof Curry is a distinguished climate researcher with more than 30 years experience and the second named co-author of the BEST project’s four research papers.Her comments, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, seem certain to ignite a furious academic row. She said this affair had to be compared to the notorious ‘Climategate’ scandal two years ago.Like the scientists exposed then by leaked emails from East Anglia University’s Climatic Research Unit, her colleagues from the BEST project seem to be trying to ‘hide the decline’ in rates of global warming.In fact, Prof Curry said, the project’s research data show there has been no increase in world temperatures since the end of the Nineties – a fact confirmed by a new analysis that The Mail on Sunday has obtained.‘There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped,’ she said. ‘To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate.’However, Prof Muller denied warming was at a standstill.‘We see no evidence of it [global warming] having slowed down,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. There was, he added, ‘no levelling off’.A graph issued by the BEST project also suggests a continuing steep increase.But a report to be published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation includes a graph of world average temperatures over the past ten years, drawn from the BEST project’s data and revealed on its website.This graph shows that the trend of the last decade is absolutely flat, with no increase at all – though the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have carried on rising relentlessly.‘This is nowhere near what the climate models were predicting,’ Prof Curry said. ‘Whatever it is that’s going on here, it doesn’t look like it’s being dominated by CO2.’Prof Muller also wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal. It was here, under the headline ‘The case against global warming scepticism’, that he proclaimed ‘there were good reasons for doubt until now’.This, too, went around the world, with The Economist, among many others, stating there was now ‘little room for doubt’.Such claims left Prof Curry horrified.‘Of course this isn’t the end of scepticism,’ she said. ‘To say that is the biggest mistake he [Prof Muller] has made. When I saw he was saying that I just thought, “Oh my God”.’In fact, she added, in the wake of the unexpected global warming standstill, many climate scientists who had previously rejected sceptics’ arguments were now taking them much more seriously.They were finally addressing questions such as the influence of clouds, natural temperature cycles and solar radiation – as they should have done, she said, a long time ago.Yesterday Prof Muller insisted that neither his claims that there has not been a standstill, nor the graph, were misleading because the project had made its raw data available on its website, enabling others to draw their own graphs.However, he admitted it was true that the BEST data suggested that world temperatures have not risen for about 13 years. But in his view, this might not be ‘statistically significant’, although, he added, it was equally possible that it was – a statement which left other scientists mystified.‘I am baffled as to what he’s trying to do,’ Prof Curry said.Prof Ross McKittrick, a climate statistics expert from Guelph University in Ontario, added: ‘You don’t look for statistically significant evidence of a standstill.‘You look for statistically significant evidence of change.’The BEST project, which has been lavishly funded, brings together experts from different fields from top American universities.It was set up 18 months ago in an effort to devise a new and more accurate way of computing changes in world temperatures by using readings from some 39,000 weather stations on land, instead of adding sea temperatures as well.Some scientists, Prof Muller included, believe that this should provide a more accurate indication of how the world is responding to carbon dioxide.The oceans, they argue, warm more slowly and this is why earlier global measurements which also cover the sea – such as those from the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University – have found no evidence of warming since the Nineties.The usual way a high-profile project such as BEST would publish its results would be in a scientific journal, following a rigorous ‘peer review’ by other experts in the field.The more eminent journals that publish climate research, such as Nature And Science, insist there must be no leaks to the media until this review is complete and if such leaks occur, they will automatically reject the research.Earlier this year, the project completed four research papers.As well as trends in world temperatures, they looked at the extent to which temperature readings can be distorted by urban ‘heat islands’ and the influence of long-term temperature cycles in the oceans. The papers were submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research.But although Prof Curry is the second named author of all four papers, Prof Muller failed to consult her before deciding to put them on the internet earlier this month, when the peer review process had barely started, and to issue a detailed press release at the same time.He also briefed selected journalists individually. ‘It is not how I would have played it,’ Prof Curry said. ‘I was informed only when I got a group email. I think they have made errors and I distance myself from what they did.‘It would have been smart to consult me.’ She said it was unfortunate that although the Journal of Geophysical Research had allowed Prof Muller to issue the papers, the reviewers were, under the journal’s policy, forbidden from public comment.Prof McKittrick added: ‘The fact is that many of the people who are in a position to provide informed criticism of this work are currently bound by confidentiality agreements.‘For the Berkeley team to have chosen this particular moment to launch a major international publicity blitz is a highly unethical sabotage of the peer review process.’In Prof Curry’s view, two of the papers were not ready to be published, in part because they did not properly address the arguments of climate sceptics.As for the graph disseminated to the media, she said: ‘This is “hide the decline” stuff. Our data show the pause, just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline.‘To say this is the end of scepticism is misleading, as is the statement that warming hasn’t paused. It is also misleading to say, as he has, that the issue of heat islands has been settled.’Prof Muller said she was ‘out of the loop’. He added: ‘I wasn’t even sent the press release before it was issued.’Prof Muller defended his behaviour yesterday, saying that all he was doing was ‘returning to traditional peer review’, issuing draft papers to give the whole ‘climate community’ a chance to comment.As for the press release, he claimed he was ‘not seeking publicity’, adding: ‘This is simply a way of getting the media to report this more accurately.’He said his decision to publish was completely unrelated to the forthcoming United Nations climate conference.This, he said, was ‘irrelevant’, insisting that nothing could have been further from his mind than trying to influence it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.htmlMaybe it's not settled after all.......
 
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I don't see how anything we do alone could have an effect when the worst CO2 producing countries will continue doing nothing.
The US is among of the world's highest producers of CO2 per capita; twice as much as Europe, three times as much as China, and ten times as much as India.The question you should be asking is, why would developing countries reduce their emissions while we continue doing nothing?
 
I can post a few....Here is one from 2010:
You did not do the best job at that. The term global warming has a connotation to the theory that man-made CO2 is causing the earth to warm. What the report and articles talk about is proof that the earth is warming, which is the least controversial part of the theory which few people deny that there has been some warming.
So there is no backtracking. Exact same position as this post over a year ago.
Perhaps you could articulate your data-driven hypothesis for what is causing global warming. Since, you know, you acknowledge that global warming is a fact.
We don't understand 10% of what we need to know to understand all the factors which effect climate. Long-term historical data prove that CO2 is not as strong of a driver as the models assume. We have hundreds of thousands of years of evidence which show CO2 lagging about 600 years behind temperature. That is not how something that is suppose to be a huge driving factor should behave. Until we understand better how all of the variable impact climate, we have to term it natural variations. In a relatively short time, we have gone from our continent being largely glacier covered, to what it is now. Those changes were not caused by man and there is little reason to conclude the changes that are happening today are largely a result of what we have done.
So to summarize your perspective: you have no clear hypothesis.
Nothing new about that.
 
When I was growing up I started to hear the whispers. It didn't bother me much back then. In to my teens the whispers started getting louder and it started to get to me. These "skeptics" were coming out of the wood work. When the internet boom hit in the late '90s, the skepticism started growing by leaps and bounds. LEAPS AND BOUNDS I TELL YOU! Now, it's just one article and blog after the other doubting me...doubting my existence...doubting my influence on the world!!!

I'm here to stay skeptics! Get used to it!!!

ETA: I'll be taking questions after lunch.

 
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WASHINGTON — The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world’s efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.

The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.

“The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing,” said John Reilly, co-director of MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

The world pumped about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That’s an increase of 6 percent. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries — China, the United States and India, the world’s top producers of greenhouse gases.

It is a “monster” increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate Department of Energy figures in the past.

Extra pollution in China and the U.S. account for more than half the increase in emissions last year, Marland said.

“It’s a big jump,” said Tom Boden, director of the Energy Department’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at Oak Ridge National Lab. “From an emissions standpoint, the global financial crisis seems to be over.”

Boden said that in 2010 people were traveling, and manufacturing was back up worldwide, spurring the use of fossil fuels, the chief contributor of man-made climate change.

India and China are huge users of coal. Burning coal is the biggest carbon source worldwide and emissions from that jumped nearly 8 percent in 2010.

The world is slowly using more coal and less natural gas when it should be doing just the opposite because of climate change, Marland said.

In 2007 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its last large report on global warming, it used different scenarios for carbon dioxide pollution and said the rate of warming would be based on the rate of pollution. Boden said the latest figures put global emissions higher than the worst case projections from the climate panel. Those forecast global temperatures rising between 4 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century with the best estimate at 7.5 degrees.

“Really dismaying,” said Granger Morgan, head of the engineering and public policy department at Carnegie Mellon University. “We are building up a horrible legacy for our children and grandchildren.”
 
'StrikeS2k said:
Scientist who said climate change sceptics had been proved wrong accused of hiding truth by colleague

By David Rose

Last updated at 6:11 PM on 30th October 2011

It was hailed as the scientific study that ended the global warming debate once and for all – the research that, in the words of its director, ‘proved you should not be a sceptic, at least not any longer’.
Maybe it's not settled after all.......
This changes my opinion on the matter.I originally thought that Muller was refuting a strawman. He showed that the globe is warming — but pretty much nobody says it isn't. The interesting debate isn't about whether the globe is warming; the interesting debate is about to what extent human activity is responsible for it. My understanding is that Muller did nothing to address that issue, so his findings amount to a non-story.

The Daily Mail article quoted above is evidence against my position. Maybe there are still people who deny that the globe is warming. Huh. Go figure.

 
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