Obama wins Nobel Peace prize

You know, I wish you would go read the dozen or so threads we've already had on this topic, I tire of shooting down the same lame objections. But I can't believe you tossed me this softball. I've actually shot it down three times before. A "study" from the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine! Great stuff. Here is what Sourcewatch has to say about the OISM.

This Kook (Robinson) published a bogus report saying that 31,000 scientists were opposed to global warming. It turns out that many on the list were totally bogus (Micheal Fox, Dr. Gerri Halliwell, etc,), most were not scientists (some were actually businesses), and very few were climatologists that could be considered experts on the subject and some of them claimed to no longer support the petition, since it's thesis has been rewritten at least seven times.

That phony list has been thoroughly discredited years ago. You must hate it when your "experts" turn out to be . . . well, something less than experts.

It's a one-paragraph petition, not based on any scientific studies whatsoever. IT's full of people that are completely undocumented. They have gone in and edited out about 700 "scientists" like Mick E. Mouse tha submitted petitions, supposedly and others who were in fact dead before the petition came out. It is remarkably lacking in climatologists, but has loads of other unqualified people. He even has Edward Teller, the inventor of the hydrogen bomb, as if nuclear physics has anything remotely to do with climatology. Hell, you can sign it yourself. Anybody who claims to have a science degree can become global warming expert. You don't even have to prove it.



You know there are a handful of global climatologists who have written peer-reviewed papers in the scientific literature that discount certain elements of human-induced global warming, but nobody here has gone to find any of those and make an argument based on it.

I've said many times that it's easy to find climate change skeptics, but damned difficult to find an expert that has backed up dissenting claims with scientific evidence. And the few that have have not managed to sway the consensus opinion of the IPCC experts.

Here are some links debunking the petition list.

Not at all. I don't dismiss him, but a dissenting opinion simply does not invalidate the science. There are always a few dissenters, but the overwhelming consensus of the experts prevails. Anyway the guy you cite does not refute climate change at all, he merely thinks some of the proposed solutions are expensive and not guaranteed to work, which I tend to agree with. It doesn't mean that the problem doesn't exist, only that it's not an easy fix . . . which is true.

You can find more skeptics, but do try to find some legitimate ones. I can find hundreds of scientific papers from the top experts at the the top agencies. Here is a list of organizations that accept anthropogenic global warming as real and scientifically well-supported:

• NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS): http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): Global Warming Frequently Asked Questions
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis
• National Academy of Sciences (NAS): Nat'l Academies Press Collection: Global Warming/Climate Change Collection
• State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC) - http://www.socc.ca/permafrost/permafrost_future_e.cfm
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Climate Change | U.S. EPA
• The Royal Society of the UK (RS) - http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=3135
• American Geophysical Union (AGU): http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html
• American Meteorological Society (AMS): Climate Change Research: Issues for the Atmospheric and Related Sciences Adopted by the AMS Council 9 February 2003
• American Institute of Physics (AIP): Statement on Human Impacts on Climate Change - American Institute of Physics
• National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR): How Does Climate Change?
• American Meteorological Society (AMS): Joint Academies' Statement
• Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS): Climate Change Policy

Every major scientific institution dealing with climate, ocean, and/or atmosphere agrees that the climate is warming rapidly and the primary cause is human CO2 emissions. In addition to that list, see also this joint statement (PDF) that specifically and unequivocally endorses the work and conclusions of the IPCC Third Assessment report. The statement was issued by:

• Academia Brasiliera de Ciencias (Brazil)
• Royal Society of Canada
• Chinese Academy of Sciences
• Academie des Sciences (France)
• Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany)
• Indian National Science Academy
• Accademia dei Lincei (Italy)
• Science Council of Japan
• Russian Academy of Sciences
• Royal Society (United Kingdom)
• National Academy of Sciences (United States of America)

Argue the politics all you want, its politics. Just don't try to use politics to attempt to dismiss the science.

Politics. It does not have any scientific credibility.

Politics. I agree with criticism of politicians, they distort and twist everything to meet a political agenda. But you confuse politics and science intermittently here. I'm defending the science of climate change and I'm prepared to denounce any political reason for dismissing the science. I do not defend Al Gore and the politics of climate change.

I do not support the Kyoto Treaty myself, because it it unfair to the US politically. Not because climate change is invalid, it certainly is not. Right-wing Kyoto opponents think that they must denounce the science, but it is impossible . . . and unnecessary. Just denounce the bad politics of it.

Try to separate the politics from the real science and things will become clearer.

 

Thank you for your contribution to the discussion, Scooter. Go outside and play now.

 

My friend, I've been an environmental scientist for 30 years. There is real science and there is "popular" science. There are real experts and there are phony experts. There is a major world consensus and there are some dissenters. You make a lot of scientific claims and that's fine, but in science one must be prepared to support ones arguments, that's all. I defend science a lot here.

Please, don't call it ridiculous when you post a claim and have it challenged in a debate forum, OK? The football discussion is happening on another forum, go over there if you wish. You don't know me very well if you think I'm not going to shoot down weak arguments here. It's not personal, we argue a lot in FSA. Most of us enjoy it.

I'm not dismissing them out of hand. I am demonstrating to you that a phony petition does not challenge science. There is a lot of bullchit out there on the net, but I know a proper scientific argument (and they do exist) and I know internet BS. You don't even seem concerned that your "evidence" is not evidence at all.

It's a debate, amigo. I don't have to accept your claims unless you can prove them. You can demand the same for me.

I live this subject, sir. I've alrealy asked you to peruse prior thread on the subject, but you won't so you don't understand. SO I'm trying to make it clear.

Look, I conduct environmental science research for a living. I recognize clear distinctions between scientific evidence and political characterizations on the internet, that's what I'm trying to demonstrate here.

I'm trying to get you to understand that your objections are political, not scientific.

Well, none of those links work, but it's OK, I am very familiar with the much-repeated "700" scientists lists, too. It has been debated here before. It also has been debunked publicy. This time it's not a Kooks list, thank goodness, but amazingly bad spin by the press that thinks it tells them something.

The spin in the claim that more than 700 scientists dissent regarding global warming

#1: 700 scientists is actually not a large number when you look at the overall number of scientists
Just within the United States there are 2,685,000 scientists. This does not include the millions of scientists one could find in Japan, India, China, Great Britain, etc. If we just take the number of scientists in the United States, the number of "dissenters" regarding global warming make up .02% of the overall scientists population. That means at least 99.98% of scientists either are on board with the global warming consensus or do not know of this report. The opposition to climate change legislation makes it seem as though 700 scientists is an overwhelming number of scientists and that no consensus exist in the scientific community.

#2: The 13:1 ratio is bogus
Opponents of climate change legislation claim the doubters of global warming outnumber the supporters 13:1. There are a number of problems with this claim. First, opponents come up with this ratio by comparing the number of scientists they were able to scratch together from the entire scientific community with the number of scientists who authored the U.N. report regarding global warming. The problem is that there exists far many more supporters of global warming than the scientists who authored the IPCC report. By only using the number of authors one significantly skews the numbers. This would be akin to saying socialists outnumber capitalists 1 billion to one because after all Adam Smith is the only person who wrote Wealth of Nations and therefore he must be the only capitalist on earth. We know the truth to be otherwise.

#3: The truth regarding global warming should be about more than "I have more scientists than you!"
The fight over global warming cannot be simplified into a numbers equation. All scientists are not created equal. So, for example, a scientists with a doctorate in atmospheric science would carry much more weight than a scientists with doctorate degree in biology. Just as I would rather have a cardiologist perform my heart surgery rather than a pediatrician I would say that some scientists have more authority than others when it comes to global warming. Even among scientists both holding atmospheric science degrees we must lend more weight to the one who has published hundreds of articles about global warming than the scientists who has published ten articles on acid rain.

#4: If one reads the report you see that not all the scientists actually deny the existence of man-made global warming
Opponents were likely counting on no one actually reading the 255 page report but when you do read the report you find that not every scientists, or even most of them, in the report dispute the existence of global warming. Many of them deny global warming will have catastrophic impacts but they do not deny that global warming exist or that it will have some impact. Some say they have doubts regarding global warming but saying you have doubts is a far cry from denying the existence of something.

Not exactly. The research and published conclusions of the worlds climatological experts are more credible that a simple "list" of scientists, polled on their opinions.

Not at all. We can agree to disagree. But this is a topic very close to me, I understand it pretty well, and I 've already shot down these 31,000- and 700-scientists lists before in FSA. It is only consistent to do so again. It's nothing personal. When you start talking about the political "solutions" to climate change, I may surprise you. Some of them make a lot of sense and dome of them are quite absurd. They just don't invalidate the science behind it.

It is a fact. But it's not a fact that invalidates the overwhelming conclusions of the experts in climatology. The IPCC report is something you should read if you really care about the science. But I don't think it is environmental science that you disagree with, it is environmental politics and guess what? I agree with you that many environmental politics are not well thought out on either side of the issue.

You see? I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that the scientific basis of climate changes is sound and agreed on by virtually of the world's scientific experts. I'm not concerned with the politics of it, do you understand what I'm saying? True scientists can't be concerned with what politicians try to make of their findings. They can't use "higher taxes, increased costs and less personal freedom for you average citizen" in a scientific analysis. The paper would never get accepted in a reputable scientific journal. It would be laughable.

I do not object to you having that political opinion, sir. Why don't you put it that way? I wouldn't have even challenged you. I only object to those trying to debunk climate change with phony science. That's all.

 

No, you are doing exactly the right thing here. You have offered an objection based on science, not politics, and posed four issues to supporting your skepticism. We have a basis for discussion at last.

1) The greenhouse hotspot in the atmosphere is missing.
Ah, David Evans. Very good. OK, David Evans published a piece in The Australian last year where he made a series of arguments against AGW, but the article was most famous for him coining the term ‘hotspot’ and claiming that such a hotspot doesn’t exist. Critique of Evans theory is still coming in, but its already very critical. Here is a good overview of the sticky problems pointed out, but in short, Evans has a very long way to go to prove this yet and will have to address the hot objections that Lambert and others are making to his theory. But it is an acceptable scientific theory, being presented in the right fashion, and being scrutinized by his peers. It's a proper scientific challenge and a valid issue for your skeptic list. Good find. Bravo, that's what I'm talkin' about.

2) Ice core samples indicate that CO2 levels rise hundreds of years after the temperature rises.
Hey, you're on a roll, Dawg. When viewed coarsely, historical CO2 levels and temperature actually show a tight correlation. However, a close examination of the CH4, CO2, and temperature fluctuations recorded in the Antarctic ice core records reveals that, yes, temperature sometimes moves first. What this indicates is that CO2 and temperature affect each other in their tight correlation.

So it is correct that CO2 did not always trigger the warmings, but it definitely contributed to them -- and according to climate theory and model experiments, greenhouse gas forcing was the dominant factor in the magnitude of the ultimate change. You can go here for a discussion of exactly this question by climate scientists, with greater technical detail and full references to the scientific literature.

3) The world has not warmed since 2001.
Softball. :yelwink2: Clearly in natural systems the curve is never a parabola. There are peaks and dips and flat spots in a steadily rising trend corresponding with the introduction of 20th century greenhouse gases.


4) CO2 is already absorbing as much of the sun's energy as it can.
I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to say here. Can you amplify that some? Who says this and why do they think so? How does this relate to AGW?

Uhhh . . . OK. :huh:

Denial surely doesn't change any facts. Science deals exclusively in facts and truth can be determined. It's why scientific opinions can be supported with evidence. I care if one disputes a scientific fact. I can say "show me".

Conversely, political opinions are yours and need not be factual and require no evidence to support. I don't care if one disputes a political opinion. In politics, "truth" is about honesty, rather than facts.