Anthropogenic Global Warming 101

Climate scientists at NASA, NOAA, and a few others are only in it for the gold...



Obviously. Fast cars and beach houses for all of 'em!

It's a shame BWG bailed. I'd have loved to hear his opinion on this. NASA recently relaunched their climate change website:

http://climate.nasa.gov/

Skeptics will note the continued lack of "It's a conspirasay!!! YAYS GOLD!!":





But of course, it snowed during winter, therefore... There's simply not enough tinfoil left in the world for this large a conspiracy.

And Lindsey Graham proves he's more rational than his peers:

Quote :

Graham says GOP should stop demonizing climate change: You’re risking ‘your party’s future with younger people.’

Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spoke with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to discuss clean energy legislation. During the interview, Graham warned his party that it will fall into irrelevancy if it continues to embrace climate change deniers:

Quote :

I have been to enough college campuses to know if you are 30 or younger this climate issue is not a debate. It’s a value. These young people grew up with recycling and a sensitivity to the environment — and the world will be better off for it. They are not brainwashed. … From a Republican point of view, we should buy into it and embrace it and not belittle them. You can have a genuine debate about the science of climate change, but when you say that those who believe it are buying a hoax and are wacky people you are putting at risk your party’s future with younger people.

Kudos to that, though I'm sure such reason and rationality will not go unpunished by the crowd still searching for a birth certificate...

Heretic wrote:

And Lindsey Graham proves he's more rational than his peers:

Quote :

Graham says GOP should stop demonizing climate change: You’re risking ‘your party’s future with younger people.’

Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spoke with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to discuss clean energy legislation. During the interview, Graham warned his party that it will fall into irrelevancy if it continues to embrace climate change deniers:

Quote :

I have been to enough college campuses to know if you are 30 or younger this climate issue is not a debate. It’s a value. These young people grew up with recycling and a sensitivity to the environment — and the world will be better off for it. They are not brainwashed. … From a Republican point of view, we should buy into it and embrace it and not belittle them. You can have a genuine debate about the science of climate change, but when you say that those who believe it are buying a hoax and are wacky people you are putting at risk your party’s future with younger people.

Kudos to that, though I'm sure such reason and rationality will not go unpunished by the crowd still searching for a birth certificate...

I'm sure the Drugster and the rest of the hate-radio crowd are sharpening their knives as we speak. They were never big fans of his in the first place. Good thing he's not up for reelection for another 4 years or I'm sure the teabaggers would dig up some knuckledragging Neanderthal to challenge him in a primary.

This one covers just about everything on the evidence of warming, from the observed physical effects to the radiative properties of the CO2 molecule.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9SGw75pVas

Artie60438 wrote:

I'm sure the Drugster and the rest of the hate-radio crowd are sharpening their knives as we speak. They were never big fans of his in the first place. Good thing he's not up for reelection for another 4 years or I'm sure the teabaggers would dig up some knuckledragging Neanderthal to challenge him in a primary.

I don't post here much anymore. Is the Drugster, The Mailman?

As for the nasa website, I'll look at it this weekend. In the meantime,

Quote :

Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels

Study claimed in 2009 that sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century – but the report's author now says true estimate is still unknown...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/21/sea-level-geoscience-retract-siddall/print

BigWhiteGuy wrote:

As for the nasa website, I'll look at it this weekend.

I posted quite a few links in your short absence. I'd love to hear your thoughts on any/all of them.

BigWhiteGuy wrote:

In the meantime,
Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels

Study claimed in 2009 that sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century – but the report's author now says true estimate is still unknown...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/21/sea-level-geoscience-retract-siddall/print

It's hard to address these spam sessions without a little bit of context from you. Does this put you back in the "it ain't happenin'" camp? Or "the whole theory's busted 'cause they're not infallible"? I'll just never understand why "skeptics" are always so surprised to see that peer review works.

Denialists follow a predictable pattern - latching onto a media headline that appears to support their stance without any understanding of the material contained therein. Safe to assume this recently hit Drudge?

There have been quite a few studies that have been done since the IPCC came out that demonstrated that their sea level rise projections were awfully conservative, and that things were accelerating far more than projected. But then Siddall et al. published their work in Aug 2009 or so, low balling those new projections. This was, predictably, championed by skeptics as the End of Al Gore and the IPCC, even though the errors contained were quickly pointed out. So finding the errors led to corrections; corrections led to the retraction. Now denialists are forced to abandon their previous argument, so it looks like they're reframing it as "the whole theory's busted 'cause they're not infallible".

Regardless, it's a nonstory. It's just peer review at work; a surprise only to "skeptics" ignorant of the process. And self-correcting behavior largely absent in "skeptics" themselves.

You can also tell it's nonsense because while denialists like creationists and AGW "skeptics" maintain that a single retraction or study like this somehow throws the whole (or part) of theory into doubt, they never suggest germ theory's (or any other "just a theory", for that matter) is busted after similar retractions in medical journals.

A talk by Naomi Orsekes on her new book:

Quote :

Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming

The troubling story of how a cadre of influential scientists have clouded public understanding of scientific facts to advance a political and economic agenda.
The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. Our scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers.
Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly—some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. These "experts" supplied it.
Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.

Like I said before, anyone who is familiar with how the tobacco industry behaved will find the same behavior involved in AGW "skepticism". The fact that the same companies and individuals (Steve Milloy, for instance) are involved is not a coincidence.

Congratulations, "skeptics". Creationists are now using you to dumb down our education system even further.

Quote :

Darwin Foes Add Warming to Targets

Critics of the teaching of evolution in the nation’s classrooms are gaining ground in some states by linking the issue to global warming, arguing that dissenting views on both scientific subjects should be taught in public schools.

In Kentucky, a bill recently introduced in the Legislature would encourage teachers to discuss “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”

. . .

The linkage of evolution and global warming is partly a legal strategy: courts have found that singling out evolution for criticism in public schools is a violation of the separation of church and state. By insisting that global warming also be debated, deniers of evolution can argue that they are simply championing academic freedom in general.

Teabaggers, twoofers, and creationists. Oh my.

I've always said AGW "skeptic" arguments were identical the objections to evolution used by creationists. Looks like they think so too.

Another great video on the dishonesty inherent to AGW skeptics, as well as their allegedly "fair and balanced" media counterparts: