Tom Toles for February 22, 2010

What’s climate change, another phrase for season’s?

Ahhhh!!!!!!!!!! It’s warming the globe during summer time!!!!! …buy my book, please…

It’s called “Putting more energy into the heat engine we call ‘climate’; thus our ‘weather’ gets weirder. Noticed lately?”

Curiously naive to think we can just keep pouring garbage into the atmosphere without any consequences at all.

Yes Quinn. Cause profits trump our livelihoods, never mind nature.

When we can get the country that puts poison in their baby formula to do something, we might see a difference. On this side, see a lot of talk, little action. Real or not, we’re hosed. Cheers!

Tom, isn’t China doing more than we are to combat pollution?

They’ve built that huge Three Gorges hydroelectric plant, and are the world leaders in solar…

I’m not yet firmly on either side of this debate, since I am still in the process of learning the science – as well as I can given the limitations of time and intelligence. But here’s one thing I am pretty sure about – anyone who is unable to discuss in an intelligent way the interaction between atmospheric carbon dioxide and the oceans is simply not in a position to contribute to the discussion.

What I read over and over “I am so smart and everyone who disagrees with me is so dumb” “Impossible to understand the scientific ignorance of the deniers”.

There are Nobel prize winners who question just how settled AGW actually is. Many proponents conflate global climate change and a mostly human cause of the change.

May i suggest you actually read some of the opposition.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704757904575077741687226602.html?mod=rssToday%27sMost_Popular

Start there.

Libertarian – please note that I did not say what conclusion one should reach. I am aware that there is a controversy, and I have read some of the opposition. I have not come to a conclusion, so I am not in a position to say “everyone who disagrees with me is dumb”, and that’s why I didn’t say it.

I read your link Quinn. Its says that global warning exist, but they are not sure how fast we are destroying the planet. CO² apparently is absorbed by the oceans, thus changing water temperature. If I understand this correctly the man made co² is causing all kinds of havoc to our environment, meaner hurricanes being one of the symptoms of climate change. I’m no scientist since I stopped with the subject in high school, but the resident scientists believe in it and ill take their word for it. I also find it very suspicious that Exxon Mobil is funding a study that debunks something they are responsible for.

It is truly interesting that the opinions here range from “well, there’s a lot of data that supports it, and we are discussing it, but there’s clearly something going on,” which is the liberals’ view, and then there’s the “It’s a hoax put together by Al Gore to strip us of our money!!!” line, coupled with “this whole concept is stupid because they overlooked X,” where “X” is usually the most obvious thing in the world (like “the sun”). This latter view seems to be held overwhelmingly by the rightists on this list, with very little variation around it. Who would you trust to have an intelligent conversation on this issue? Yes, folks, climate scientists spend a lot of time discussing the sun, past weather patterns, past climate patterns (not the same thing), CO2 absorption by the oceans (for the record, they’re now approaching a stage of saturation, meaning that the oceans cannot absorb as much CO2 as we are putting out without creating significant oceanic change, like increased acidity), etc., etc., etc. There are thousands of climate scientists who think anthropogenic climate change is happening; the debate is mostly about how much and how fast. There is a relative handful of dissenters. The thoughtful ones who happen to actually be climate scientists are having their debate where they should - with other scientists of equivalent expertise and knowledge. The others are appearing in the media. Again, who would you trust?

scott; Earth wenth through climate changes before, okay.

Species, were wiped off, too. And I’m not talking about simple bugs.

But it’s kinda hard for someone who thinks the Earth was made 6000 years ago to understand anything about an ice age that ended 10 000 years ago.

Actually, the increase in CO2 was releasedfrom the polar ice caps back when they were melting, NOT from human activity. You have reversed the cause and effect. Yes, the 90’s were hot, and yes, ice melted. The warm weather was first, and caused the increase in CO2. Now we are seeing the increase in vegetation, growing where it hasn’t for the past couple centuries, because it is supported by the increase in CO2. The world will heal itself, that is why it has supported life for so long. Evolution? Of course. Climate change? Yup, just like the past few million years. Don’t waste energy? Certainly. Work on renewable energy sources? Absolutely! But don’t be suckered in to the money-grabbing scheme of a failed politian, even if he DID invent the internet.

Simple facts:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/01/22/nasa.warmest.decade.data/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn

Also a fact: Most of the people who advocate denying global warming are the same ones who are pro-corporation, and pro-pollution.

Why is that?

Because the act of living can be messy, Anthony…there is no utopia…seriously, people are actually against wind power because it kills birds and ruins the “view”. There is no perfect solution to mankind’s problems, so I would say the “deniers” are more realists than anything.

My reality is not to worry about CO2 because it is NOT a pollutant, and there is abundant science which suggests that an atmosphere even richer in this substance would be a good thing for billions of humans.

Your definition of “realists” means that there’s no hope…we’ll just continue to increase both our population and amount of pollution geometrically until catastrophe intervenes.

And I think you’re right.

Fighting pollution doesn’t work if only a minority does it. And the pro-pollution people outnumber those who want to do something about it.

Nice sentiment, Atma, but you’re taking to a nation in which the majority of people will say they don’t believe in evolution (and the majority of those can’t even define it).

In other words, they aren’t going to listen to scientists.

Anyone that is arrogant enough to believe that we as a puny species can influence the climate, deserves the ridicule you get. There is nothing concrete in science either way to support climate change, that has not already occurred somewhere in time.

Anyone that is arrogant enough to believe that we as a puny species can influence the climate, deserves the ridicule you get. There is nothing concrete in science either way to support climate change, that has not already occurred somewhere in time.

atma – I agree that the discussion should be scientific, at least in the first instance, but I’m not sure that it should be left to the scientists. We have come to the point, like it or not, when scientific questions turn into political questions, and we will do better as a (world) society if (world) citizens know enough science at least to follow the arguments. I know I will never understand everything the scientists understand, but I hope to be able to follow the basic discussion, so that I can have some idea why they believe what they believe, so that I can try to evaluate the disagreements among scientists. The more citizens who have a decent level of education in science the better.

Atma, glad you asked. The scientists who screamed loudest first were the well funded ones who were told what data to put together by Chicken Litte and the politicos with the money, such as George Soros, and his slaves in the UN. The MAJORITY of the scientists stayed silent and didn’t intervene because they feared for their jobs. So we did “let them come to come to” some consensus, and it turns out that they are not convinced that mankind had anything to do with the period when temperatures were higher than normal.

Anthony, just curious, since the theory of evolution (which I agree with) includes “survival of the fittest,” then you obviously cannot support the extreme activists who try to save species from becoming extinct. It defies evolution. Isn’t that right?

Loco, Fennec kind of beat me to it, but I did say, “…and the majority of those can’t even define it”…

I rest my case.

Corcho99, ever heard of the concept of “nuclear winter”? Just wondering.

I did not say that it was a vote of the masses, I said it was a consensus of the scientific community, but I am impressed that you both concede that the majority of the populace finds difficulty accepting “climate change” or the catch phrase of the day. Fennec, what do scientists know about science? They know that they can produce “data” to be sold to the highest bidder, especially medical scientists. Does everyone believe every word that pharmaceutical companies claim?

Selective advantage? Don’t let Jesse J or Louis F hear you say that!

I agree that the worth of a scientific theory is not determined by the popular vote of the masses – and I hope that I didn’t seem to be saying that – but I think it’s not good for society if there is too great a gulf between scientists and non-scientists. It’s not that the masses should vote on science, but the masses should want to become educated enough to understand what science is about. I hope that the masses can become citizens.

Loco, your statement is a smear on a lot of good scientists. And what does that comment about Jesse J or Louis F supposed to mean?

^MM The concept of selective advantage is considered racist by some. We all know that every human being on earth is absolutely identical. There are no genetic differences or intellectual differences. If you claim there are you are by definition a racist.

Motive, it merely means that when I said, “…and the majority of those can’t even define it”…I was, as they say in law school, “on point”.

Harley, you’re going all over the map here.

First you said, “I am a theoretical evolutionist”.

Now you’re referring to, “theistic evolution”.

Do you, in fact, understand the difference between “theoretical” and “theistic”? They are very, very different.

Wow…the tone of Human’s post sounds as wild as any of those of the evangelical christians…

But I believe it.

MM: Reading a reply to your post, MM, I sense in the topic something similar to a conversation I recall you having had a few months back (included discussions on the Bell curve etc). I found the chat you were having then very interesting. I hope it starts up again, I don’t know enough to be a part of it but it was fascinating.

This is funny!

If you know anything about the nature of science and discovery you’d soon figure out that any scientist that says they are 99.5% sure of anything is exaggeration at best and arrogance at worst.

Let’s face it: the people of Earth were 100% sure that the Earth was flat….until someone discovered otherwise.

So far the biggest manifestation of climate change hasn’t been climate change oddly enough. The biggest manifestation of climate change is the political exploitation of it. It has been the vehicle that politicians like to use to expand their own power, fill their own coffers and even oppress those who they represent…the ones they are supposed to be working for.

I have yet to see someone disprove the notion that these changes are cyclical…changes that occur in a pattern exanding hundreds or even thousands of years (which is easily beyond our record-keeping).

I think so many people believe anthropological climate change because they believe what they are told rather than challenging what they are told and insisting that its merits be laid bare on the table.

Loco, Libertarian, Anthony, omQ R - now I get it. I have not heard the concept that evolution is racist, but it is quite true that people have used the concept in racist or classist ways, e.g., “Social Darwinism,” which has no relation to real Darwinism or evolutionary theory. (In the US evolution was used to justify racism; in the UK class bias.) A wonderful and enraging source on such misuses of social science is The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould. The fallacy here is that the most striking thing about the human genotype is its variability. As one eminent scientist told me, if you wiped out everyone in the world except for one inbred tribe in the jungles of New Guinea, you would still retain 85% of the variability of the human genotype. A few thousand years of geographic separation introduces genetic drift – hence the physical variations in humans – but nothing as dramatic as speciation, especially with all the traveling around we do. The idiocy of The Bell Curve, as I’ve noted before, is that it takes an biased and limited tool (the IQ test) and claims that it can stand for something fundamental and fixed in the human genotype, that can differentiate by race. Nonsense. fennec is the biologist, not me, but there’s only one real race - the human race.

David–the vast majority of climate scientists ARE looking at cycles. That’s why they think anthropogenic climate change is occurring, because the shifts we are seeing contrast with the expected trends (e.g., towards a new Ice Age). Go check out some of the sites maintained by real climate scientists, like realclimate.org, and search the word “cycle.” You’ll get a lot of hits.

Thanks, Church. Wasn’t aware of that.

This article from three years ago in New Scientist seems to suggest a nuclear war could generate some worldwide climate changes, though:

http://tinyurl.com/yjjzy8j

“Now scientists have re-calculated the likelihood of nuclear winter using modern, vastly improved climate models and a more likely modern scenario for small-scale nuclear war. Brian Toon, head of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Alan Robock of Rutgers University in New Jersey, both in the US, predict less cooling than the 1980s modellers. However, they predict the cooling would last longer, with potentially devastating consequences.”