Tim Smith

That may be the first time I've ever seen the slowly heating frog analogy used as an argument AGAINST global warming. Man. That's talent. Gator. Can you explain more about why these people who will go to any length to control every aspect of your life? ...and since you think they are terrorists, do you think you should deal with them as terrorists?

If you want it, it's out there. You probably have more resources than I do to make it happen.

Yeah. I hear it's happening all over the Northern Hemisphere. Happens a lot this time of year... ...average global temperatures though? Goin' up. No fishing for me until I'm back in Belize, Fly. Then I'll be looking for snook.

The discussion seems to be headed in a constructive direction. Hopefully re-touching a few points won’t derail that... That may be true. But if the cyclic theories are correct the next ice age is probably 10,000 years away, approximately the same age as modern civilization. That seems like a long time to wait. There is a larger point underneath that current climate change debate that because of the size and technical capacity of human populations, we’ll always affect climate. 10,000 years from now (assuming we’re still around and technology and science continue to advance) we may have the capacity to more easily and intentionally affect the climate. We might even be able to offset an ice age... HA! I agree that population growth is a key issue, but it also gets down to the same basic human issues as climate change. It demands that we give up some things (i.e. the 2nd, 3rd or 5th kid). That has occurred is through draconian laws (China) OR from rising standards of living (the West and some parts of Asia). So far, rising standards of living have meant rising carbon footprints too. Unfortunately, people have given up their 8th kid but opted instead for an 8th cylinder. The humane path at this point seems to be to try to keep our standard of living high but decouple it from dependence on greenhouse gases. First, what policy proponents were proven as frauds? I suspect you mean the East Anglia emails, but those are scientists, not policy makers and they didn’t commit fraud (although they did say some mean and sarcastic things and they didn’t deal with discredited minority views with adequate transparency). Secondly, where did this paranoia come from about the private sector? What is wrong with an investor making money on an investment? The private sector (yes even green companies) wants active markets and they have nothing to gain by deflating the economy. They want money in your pocket because it makes them wealthy too. So far in this debate, people have asserted that the government, religion and business are variously out to destroy us all. Is the basic assumption here that it is human nature to try to destroy the people around you (i.e. the world is out to get us)? Isn't it more logical to think that people just want to live well? Third. How did you get to a place in your life where you can only be happy if your truck has 8 cylinders? If you could still go where you want on 4 cylinders, why are you so committed to 8? Is the point here that you have control everything before you can do anything? You’d never put on a seat belt if that made any sense.

Man does not live by paranoid fantasy alone, grasshopper.

It's a constant in these debates. It wasn't politicians who cleared the Penn State and East Anglian scientists, it was a panel of scientists who analyze data for a living and whose funding depends on maintaining their integrity. Tell you what, gator...why don't you post a fake finding someone emailed back and forth. Painting climate change as a left/right issue is a complete dodge. Science is about data and logic, not partisan politics. You've been fed a mountain of bull about climate change science and I'm still waiting for you to post even one thing about it that is factually correct. On the other hand, you probably should be worried aobut policy, because it is vastly less clear cut how that is going to turn out. The private sector has by far the biggest role to play in how this plays out...unless they're too committed to their paranoid fantasies to engage logically in the discussion.

No no no...don't do that!. It' Waterworld. If you watched it I would be morally responsible for wasting 2 hours of your life.

Ah yes. You're citing the work of Dr. Kevin Costner, noted NASA Egomatician. He called and wants his movie back.

Agreed that the debate is secondary to action. However, it would make the policy part a lot easier the debate was being conducted between valid data and logical arguments. We're probably not going to solve this by accident. And your point here about the size of the national response is probably right, although the market is going to have to take a much bigger role than in the space race or war. What makes it even harder than either of those, is that it's a global problem, not just a national one. That means places like China and India and Russia have to do their part as well. But, there are signs of hope. Even fruit-loop contries like North Korea aren't entirely nuts (they didn't fire on the South Korean military exercises today and start a war), and even though there is significant cheating on the regulations, the CFC ban appears it might have been effective enough to begin closing the ozone hole.

This picture only shows half the planet burning. NASA's data clearly shows that the ENTIRE planet is on photoshop fire (of 0.7 C). Try again.

...guys...forget the press. This isn't a debate between MSNBC and Fox. If you have ever been interviewed and watched your words get mangled and misinterpreted in the press you know you can't depend on a reporters and TV broadcasters to get this right. Even when their reporting is unbiased, it's often wrong because they don't have an in depth understanding of topic (although some do spend the time to get it right...the Economist is a right leaning magazine that tends to report responsibly on climate change). Go to the science and the scientists who actually study these things. Go to the data. Sift the numbers and ask hard questions with an open mind.

When did the memo go out that its ok to be wrong on every technical point as long as you hate Al Gore? Gator, you've got bad information here. Back in the 70s the press made some noise about a coming ice age, but there was no scientific consensus that the planet was about to freeze. There were more papers in the 70s about the general trend toward warmer global temperatures than worries about a cooling planet. That's not the case now. 97% of climatologists currently believe the planet is warming. You are right that there has always been a lot of carbon moving back and forth on the planet. But we have never had centuries of burning of fossil fuels coupled with the current levels of deforestation. That's completely unique in our history. The people who study those things are fully aware of all these things, and none of that came from Al Gore... ...if your "way of life", can only exist by burning petroleum you'll will be giving that up soon, global warming or no. Crude oil is running out fast.

...as with most of the Wikileaks scandal, there's nothing especially surprising here if you keep up with the news and knows how dirty politics is. The Guardian, however, has a history of spotty reporting on climate change in general (think BP). Here,the Guardian reports that scientists made some miscalculations and retracted a peer-reviewed article on sea level rise. They said the retraction indicated there was now no evidence that sea level would rise due to climate change. They were right that the scientists did retract the article because they made a miscalculation. However, the result of the miscalculation was that they now are unsure about the UPPER LIMIT of sea level rise. Sea level has been rising steadily for decades.

It's about cooperation... ...and spending the time to actually look at the facts.

Haven't seen much worship of graphs recently that I can recall. I have, however, seen a few studies examining consequences of the current temperature rise. Whatever else is ahead of us or behind us we're going to have to deal with that one. It would be interesting to know how you decide someone is a scientist.... ...when apparently you think scientists shouldn't study the work of people in their field or reject any of the findings of their colleagues? Do you have a specific criticism or do just want to stand pat with "climatologists aren't scientists".

Fly guy. Your point about toxins was clear. I'm asked you what toxin in the environment is so dangerous and prevalent that we should ignore global warming? More to the point I'm asking why we have to ignore one problem just because another one also exists. You also didn't respond to the cherry picking issue at all. You accused Al Gore of cherry picking. Then you said his analysis of global warming data wasn't valid because he didn't (cherry) pick out little pieces of the data set and present those. You're expecting him to cherry pick the data before you'll believe what he says. I also don't see much hysteria here (although there are plenty of logical fallacies to go around).

Fly guy, it's no wonder you're calling for a close of topic. You've painted yourself into a rhetorical corner and you're going to have some some work to do to dig yourself out. Crashing into a thread, making a series of flawed assertions and then yelling for the thread to close is pretty much what a bomb thrower does. I'm still waiting for you to point out what toxins you think are more important than climate change. I'm still waiting for you to explain how you can accuse someone of cherry picking and then immediately engage in cherry picking yourself. I'm watching you call for political balance...and then linking to a conspiracy web site misrepresenting the views of one man. Here's an annotated synthesis of the climate science from the '70s. Here. You can check out the references. Even in the 70's most scientific papers were noting a modern warming tend in the climate. The concensus among climatologists about warming is decades old. The kind of flip-flopping you're trying to portray simply hasn't occurred. Now if you want to talk about what the popular press (not the scientific majority) has been saying, you are on much better ground. Yes. The Ice Age did get sensationalized in the press in the 70s. The press, clearly, are not scientists. If you want to make the point that the press runs too far with scientific speculation sometimes, yes. That's clearly true. If you want to make the point that there are political dangers involved in making policy or dealing with large scale problems, yes, we agree there too. But you have a lot of other things to clean up here.

I did think about that. And you haven't. The work in the 70s predicted an ice age 10,000 years from now. Global warming is happening now. The climatologists aren't confused about that, but you are. That distinction was even covered this on this very thread. You may need something stronger than coffee.

That's how data always looks in complex systems. Lots of things are interacting there. That's why you don't make conclusions about climate based on 1 or 2 or 8 years of data. You track it over many decades...as has been done.

Dude. It's GLOBAL warming. You could stand here for decades and say "well yeah the planet is warming but that little spot over there isn't warming?" You're breaking off little pieces of a data set to build the conclusion you want...that's called CHERRY PICKING!!!! You're doing the very thing you're accusing others of doing...which makes it pretty clear you haven't even bothered to think this through. Brew some coffee...clear your head...try again.

Yeah, Creighton writes a pretty good froth novel, but I didn't see much from him so far that makes sense regarding global warming and most of his stuff reflects a fairly gimmicky ideas about how ecosystems (and research) really works. What specifically did you like about his book? Are there specific toxins you're worried about here? The clearing rates for the ones in auto exhaust are generally much faster than CO2. The ozone hole over Antarctica is finally shrinking (so apparently the CFC ban DID work and we CAN cooperate on hard issues like this one). Where are we going with this? Estrogen mimics? Mercury switches? What's the specific issue?

The goal isn't to limit the economy. The goal is to detach it from carbon-based fuels in a sustainable way. If everything we do depends on carbon then yes, the economy will slow down. But if we can end the nonsense debates (and maybe we've reached that point in this thread?), admit there is a problem, and then start acting together to solve this over the next several years and decades, it can be done. Personally the only way I see that this can be done is if most people feel they can make money off the change or at least not loose much. Some people are going to have to find different ways to make money than they do right now. As for the car thing, mine makes 32 MPG on the highway and most days I telecommute instead of driving it. When I'm in Belize, I have a 14$ utility bill and the 100cc bike I ride there can get almost 100 MPG on a good day. I also have a hobby of planting trees...and the projects I've run are past 22,000 since 2007. Unfortunately I spend way too much time in planes and driving cross country. I'm doing my best to fix that. Do what you can do, right?

By God, I think we've solved global warming.

I have no interest in judging you or bragging about my kayak. I might make fun of you for using a paddleboat, however.

Bad religion is definitely a problem in this issue, but GOOD religion...certainly good ethics....are our best hope to find out way out of this mess. And Gary, I would have waited for your answer, but I'm sort of out of time for the short term. The quick answers to solar forcing as the source of global heating and the scientific concensus issues are: 1. The current science shows no relationship between solar radiation and global temperatures. Here's a rebuttal piece from the Stanford Solar Center They say the current increase is primarily due to greenhouse gases. Here's a review article that covers that topic in detail. The graphs in the paper you posted (did they have a citation?) are not the current understanding of that dynamic. People who subscribe to solar forcing are a tiny minority of dissenters in the field... 2. ...as is the larger list of dissenters at the end of your article. That list, like all those lists of dissenters gathered minorities from a variety of disciplines (social sciences!!?!) and is in no way the mainstream scientific view on this topic. Check the Harris poll links. We've covered this already. I can follow up more later if you like. ...and with that, I'm going to have to pause a bit here. I have some reports due that I have neglected badly these last couple of days. I'll leave you with a brand new video link of some people I work with in Belize, some of the things they are trying to do to adapt to climate change (i.e. create a coastal plan), and some shots of the utter devastation that climate change inflicted on their reef (more than adequate motivation to do some thing about this problem). Enjoy.