# Any Other Lefties Dubious on AGW? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 27, 2009, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156 "2009-06-27T06:56:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/21 "2009-06-27T17:03:58Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > So we’ve got 4 possible options : > > 1. It’s not real and we do something about it : we’ve just lost money, and developped cleaner energy solutions in the process, or infrastructures that make us depend less on cars. Not optimum, but there’s a silver lining. > 2. It’s not real and we don’t do a thing. Nothing changes until fuel runs out. Then we have to spend money urgently to develop alternatives. > C) It’s real and we do something about it : we’ll never know whether or not we were in any danger, but we’ve survived yet another Doomsday. > IV) It’s real and we do nothing about it : flooding, crops failing, water crisis, year round hurrican season, the zombies rise from the grave. OK, maybe not the last one 🙂 You’re forgetting the 5th option: AGW is real and a necessary (albeit unintended) counter to natural global cooling, so if we do something about it, the next ice age will come all the faster. Rock \<-\> Humanity \<-\> Hard place. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/22 "2009-06-27T18:22:15Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > The micro-climates of cities, where much of the weather info is gathered, has changed over the years. We now have massive concrete heat islands that affect temperature readings. In addition, within cities many weather gathering stations have moved over the years. Portland’s moved from downtown to the airport. Thses two areas have very different climates. If this theory were true, then land based temperature records would show a big difference from sea based measurements, wouldn’t they? They don’t. We could discard the land based equipment measurements and use proxies like tree rings and ice cores to eliminate this factor as well. Guess what? Thy show the same results as the instrument measurements do. The urban heat-island claim as it relates to AGW is a myth, and a bad one at that. A thermometer in New York City can’t explain why the oceans are getting warmer. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2009, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/23 "2009-06-27T18:36:53Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > I like science and understand the difference between mainstream viewpoints and a few fringe whackos, but there is something about AGW that sets off warning signals in my mind. I don’t like AGW opponents being marginalized as “denyers”, and I am leery of the political turn the debate has taken of both sides. > > Some of the things I think about: > > The climate has changed dramatically over history. When the Pilgrims landed in NA we were still in a little ice age. Paintings of Holland show skaters on canals that no longer freeze on a tregular basis. What is it about recent changes that make AGW proponents sure that we are seeing man-made changes and not natural ones? > > What’s up with the change from “global warming” to “climate change”? It makes it tough to prove or disprove when change in any direction is “proof” of your theory. > > The micro-climates of cities, where much of the weather info is gathered, has changed over the years. We now have massive concrete heat islands that affect temperature readings. In addition, within cities many weather gathering stations have moved over the years. Portland’s moved from downtown to the airport. Thses two areas have very different climates. > > The affects of AGW are stated in ways that seem extreme. When we hear about cities being “inundated” by rising water it sounds like something that will happen quickly rather than over decades. We aren’t going to be running from waves of water. > > I guess my BS meter and general cynicism are kicking in. There are events that impact the global weather temporarily. Volcanoes can give us very cold weather until the dust settles. In the 188s Krakatoa chilled the planet. It is just one of several that have impacted the whole world. Check for volcanic disasters before you decide a short cold spell in America was not impacted by one. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/24 "2009-06-27T18:38:22Z")
> [@Weston](#): > > Emphasis mine. How do you know what the price of renewable energy will be in 20-30 years? Did you perhaps mean ‘Short run’? Good point. Let me rephrase that to “all renewable energy sources will likely be more expensive than current energy prices, and switching over now will result in long-term higher energy prices and slower economic growth.” Sure, oil will eventually run out (more realistically, it will be pumped from harder-to-extract sources and prices will rise), and switching over THEN would make economic sense and the market can take care of that. But that is not what GW activists are pushing for. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/25 "2009-06-27T18:38:50Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > You’re forgetting the 5th option: AGW is real and a necessary (albeit unintended) counter to natural global cooling, so if we do something about it, the next ice age will come all the faster. Since the glaciers are melting that’s impossible; it implies that AGW is balanced by a global cooling trend, which it clearly isn’t. It seems rather more likely that there won’t even be another ice age; that we are moving ourselves into a new climatological era. One warmer than humanity has ever lived though. > [@athelas](#): > > Good point. Let me rephrase that to “all renewable energy sources will likely be more expensive than current energy prices, and switching over now will result in long-term higher energy prices and slower economic growth.” The error in that argument is that it assumes that letting AGW run it’s course won’t cost anything. And it assumes that we have a choice; there’s no magic bottemless well of oil. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/26 "2009-06-27T19:13:55Z")
I’m not a lefty, but I think AGW is real. There’s no doubt in my mind that the spike in CO2 levels is caused in part by man, and since CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas, that this has contributed somewhat to heating the planet. That’s where the science is, and I’m comfortable with that. What I’m _not_ comfortable with is the belief that from this basic mechanism we can predict what the climate will be 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now. There is still far too much we don’t know about how the earth deals with changes like this - what feedback mechanisms exist. There’s still too much we don’t know about other climate drivers. The fact is, there are forces going on on the planet which dwarf our efforts. A single algae bloom can contain as much carbon as all the carbon released by the U.S. in a single year. A weak solar sunspot cycle can drive temperatures down faster than C02 emissions can prop it up. We’re just learning about the effects of cosmic rays and how they affect global warming and cooling. There’s still much we don’t undertand about how global ocean currents regulate temperature, and how plant life and clouds will respond to higher temperatures. I believe there’s a good analogy here with economics. Economics is similarly an observational science where basic mechanisms are well understood, but their long-term interactions are so complex that we seem utterly incapable of predicting effects over any reasonable length of time. For example, we know that an increase in CO2 should lead to an increase in temperature, just as we know that an increase in the money supply should lead to an increase in inflation, or that higher taxes should lead to more government revenue. And yet, we are completely incapable of projecting what government revenue will be five years from now. That initial ‘signal’ of higher taxes creates ripple effects, feedback effects, and other changes we can only guess at. Only eight months ago, Obama’s head economic advisor produced an economic model which represented our best understanding of current economic trends. In that model, she predicted that with the stimulus package, unemployment would peak at 7.4%. This at a time when when unemployment was already over 6%. Unemployment today is at 9.4%, and everyone now expects it to go over 10%. That’s a HUGE miss. The economy is unpredictable because it is complex and chaotic and has many feedback mechanisms. This same is true for the long-term climate. In 1990, the [IPCC First Assessment Report](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_First_Assessment_Report) predicted a rise in global temperatures of .3 degrees per decade. This was the report that kicked off the global warming movement. But what’s really surprising about it, looking back, is how small the effect was that they were predicting, and how big the uncertainty was. .3 degrees per decade, +/- .2 to .5 degrees. And that compared to the historical average of .1 to .2 degrees. So they were predicting a rise of .1 to .2 degrees per decade over what would be normal, with error bars between .2 and .5 degrees. So even according to them, it was possible that their model was off by enough that the earth could actually cool over the next 100 years. So, a fairly modest report - lots of uncertainty, and a median prediction that the earth would be about 1 to 2 degrees warmer by 2100 than it otherwise would be without the contribution of manmade CO2 release. So how was the popular media doing for accuracy? This article from the [New York Times in 1988](http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/29/science/temperature-for-world-rises-sharply-in-the-1980-s.html) says that then-current models predicted that the earth’s temperature would increase by 3-9 degrees by 2030. And it quotes James Hansen, the global warming alarmist who has been at the center of the issue for two decades now. So the actual science said maybe a 1-2 degree additional rise in temperature, and yet, the popular media was talking about 3 foot rises in the oceans, 9 degrees warmer temperatures, and global disaster. The actual result since then has been a mean temperature rise of about .2 degrees, or .1 degree per decade. Still within the possible predicted outcomes of the first IPCC report, but nowhere near what the alarmists were claiming. And even that rise is barely measurable and has significant uncertainty about it because of the large amount of temperature fluctuation around the mean. Current predictions for the next ten years is that there may actually be a cooling, due to a weak sunspot cycle and other effects. If that’s the case then in 2030 the earth could be cooler than it was in 1990 when the alarm was first sounded about global warming. That’s a significant problem for the global warming alarmists, even though it still fits within the more reasonable, careful predictions of actual scientists. Which brings me to my last point: The actual science is much more uncertain and the effects predicted generally much smaller than the scare stories you hear from the likes of Al Gore and many other global warming activists. Because once the issue becomes political, the incentives all get skewed towards depicting effects as extreme as you can possibly get away with. Even the IPCC reports have tended to be this way - if you read the actual science of the report (which is generally pretty good), you’ll often get a different overall impression than you’ll get if you just read the summary aimed at politicians and the public. ---
**Author:** ![NoJustice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecb155/32.png) [@NoJustice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoJustice)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/27 "2009-06-28T00:28:42Z")
The number of pascal’s wager type arguments in this thread alone is enough to make me doubt AGW. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/28 "2009-06-28T01:34:45Z")
I didn’t realise that Pascal’s Wager itself was evidence against the existence of God. That does appear to be the logic you are applying here, **NoJustice**. Of course, unlike in Pascals Wager, where there is no way to determine the truth, for AGW all you need is a basic understanding of physics. The earth is a radiating body and CO2 absorbs in the wavelengths that the Earth radiates. We know the molar absorbancy of CO2 precisely, we have a good idea of its concetration in the atmosphere, and we have a good idea how much the Earth radiates. All you can do is quible about the figures and all the reputable figures come down heavy on the AGW side. Without a conspiracy, it is difficult to imagine how climatologists are so wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/29 "2009-06-28T02:04:23Z")
Lefties dubious on AGW need to be as quiet as agnostics in the Church. Expression of doubt is grounds for excommunication, or at least ostracization. For ordinary apolitical skeptics like me, AGW has Great Cause and Hysteria written all over it. The Great Cause part is simply a way of shorthanding the idea that we as humans are wired to pursue great causes; we get behind them without really understanding why we behave thusly. It might be the Crusades; it might be a Race to the Moon; it might be Manifest Destiny; it might be Equality. Doesn’t really matter. We need Great Causes at some atavistic level. The Hysteria part refers to our tendency to extrapolate to the Extreme the potential consequence of a putative problem. So AGW gets extrapolated (See Sam Stone’s post) to the nth degree. We pretend, for instance, that we can predict Climate better than we can predict Weather. Not so far; we need 100 years to see how good the current models are. In the interim we’ll see a lot of observation bias confirming AGW–the Glaciers are Melting–and a lot of reassurance we can’t be wrong about AGW–increase in the WAIS glacial mass is a local phenomenon–based on the underlying hysteria that sees extremes where it benefits the Great Cause. Because AGW has come to be associated with a left-leaning agenda, it’s highly unlikely any leftie would be willing to come out publicly against it. There’s no future in that. And because we can argue climate v weather for any observable event, it’s equally unlikely there will be any refutation any time soon. So the only safe and reasonable course is to keep anti-AGW opinions in the closet if you have a political leaning leftward. I can make a prediction for AGW based on how ingrained it is: If the short-term observation for the next decade is cooler temperatures, that too will be attributed to AGW and increased CO2 production. For the Great Cause here is We Humans Are Affecting the Earth Negatively and We Need to Do Stuff to Fix It. There is nothing that I can see that will shake off AGW as a Great Cause any time soon. It will be as difficult to alter as a Core Belief for its followers as the belief in a personal deity is for the Church to shake off. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/30 "2009-06-28T02:24:58Z")
> [@NoJustice](#): > > The number of pascal’s wager type arguments in this thread alone is enough to make me doubt AGW. Except that analogy doesn’t work. For one thing, there’s actual evidence to argue for it; as opposed to religion which has none. For another, most of what should be done to try to stop AGW needs to be done anyway; as opposed to Christian dogma which could be safely ignored if we collectively wanted to. And there’s also the little detail that it completely conforms to known scientific facts; as opposed to Christianity which denies them. AGW is the prevailing scientific consensus, like it or not. Christianity isn’t. Christianity isn’t even the religious consensus. The two don’t compare at all. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > For ordinary apolitical skeptics like me, AGW has Great Cause and Hysteria written all over it. Since opposition to the scientific consensus that AGW is real IS politically motivated, I don’t think that you qualify as an “ordinary apolitical skeptic”. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > We pretend, for instance, that we can predict Climate better than we can predict Weather. Not so far; we need 100 years to see how good the current models are. In the interim we’ll see a lot of observation bias confirming AGW–the Glaciers are Melting–and a lot of reassurance we can’t be wrong about AGW–increase in the WAIS glacial mass is a local phenomenon–based on the underlying hysteria that sees extremes where it benefits the Great Cause. That simply denies reality; we are already seeing things that haven’t been seen in all of recorded history, such as the ice of Kilimanjaro melting. And simply declaring something “hysteria” doesn’t make it hysteria. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > There is nothing that I can see that will shake off AGW as a Great Cause any time soon. It will be as difficult to alter as a Core Belief for its followers as the belief in a personal deity is for the Church to shake off. That has the situation exactly inverted. The evidence is FOR AGW being true; the scientific consensus is that it’s real. The deniers are the ones engaging in religiouslike denial of reality. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/31 "2009-06-28T02:30:32Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Lefties dubious on AGW need to be as quiet as agnostics in the Church. Expression of doubt is grounds for excommunication, or at least ostracization. > > For ordinary apolitical skeptics like me, AGW has Great Cause and Hysteria written all over it. > > The Great Cause part is simply a way of shorthanding the idea that we as humans are wired to pursue great causes; we get behind them without really understanding why we behave thusly. It might be the Crusades; it might be a Race to the Moon; it might be Manifest Destiny; it might be Equality. Doesn’t really matter. We need Great Causes at some atavistic level. > > The Hysteria part refers to our tendency to extrapolate to the Extreme the potential consequence of a putative problem. So AGW gets extrapolated (See Sam Stone’s post) to the nth degree. We pretend, for instance, that we can predict Climate better than we can predict Weather. Not so far; we need 100 years to see how good the current models are. In the interim we’ll see a lot of observation bias confirming AGW–the Glaciers are Melting–and a lot of reassurance we can’t be wrong about AGW–increase in the WAIS glacial mass is a local phenomenon–based on the underlying hysteria that sees extremes where it benefits the Great Cause. > > Because AGW has come to be associated with a left-leaning agenda, it’s highly unlikely any leftie would be willing to come out publicly against it. There’s no future in that. And because we can argue climate v weather for any observable event, it’s equally unlikely there will be any refutation any time soon. So the only safe and reasonable course is to keep anti-AGW opinions in the closet if you have a political leaning leftward. > > I can make a prediction for AGW based on how ingrained it is: If the short-term observation for the next decade is cooler temperatures, that too will be attributed to AGW and increased CO2 production. For the Great Cause here is We Humans Are Affecting the Earth Negatively and We Need to Do Stuff to Fix It. There is nothing that I can see that will shake off AGW as a Great Cause any time soon. It will be as difficult to alter as a Core Belief for its followers as the belief in a personal deity is for the Church to shake off. Well said, that man! The only dissenting point I have would be on it being a “Lefty” issue, but you lot in the US do seem rather fond of assigning political leanings to every issue (not something done elsewhere), though. The whole thing still reeks of Great Cause and Some Hysteria to me- especially because there are political strings getting attached to it, which tends to raise my eyebrow about any issue. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/32 "2009-06-28T02:40:23Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Lefties dubious on AGW need to be as quiet as agnostics in the Church. Expression of doubt is grounds for excommunication, or at least ostracization. > > For ordinary apolitical skeptics like me, AGW has Great Cause and Hysteria written all over it. > > The Great Cause part is simply a way of shorthanding the idea that we as humans are wired to pursue great causes; we get behind them without really understanding why we behave thusly. It might be the Crusades; it might be a Race to the Moon; it might be Manifest Destiny; it might be Equality. Doesn’t really matter. We need Great Causes at some atavistic level. > > The Hysteria part refers to our tendency to extrapolate to the Extreme the potential consequence of a putative problem. So AGW gets extrapolated (See Sam Stone’s post) to the nth degree. We pretend, for instance, that we can predict Climate better than we can predict Weather. Not so far; we need 100 years to see how good the current models are. Pretend? :dubious: > **['Climate models are unproven'--Actually, GCM's have many confirmed successes...](https://grist.org/article/climate-models-are-unproven/)** > > (Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide) Objection: Why should we trust a bunch of contrived computer models that have never had a prediction confirmed? Talk to me in 100 years. Answer: Given the absence of a few duplicate planets... > [@](#): > > Given the absence of a few duplicate planets and some large time machines, we can’t test a 100-year temperature projection. Does that mean the models can’t be validated without waiting 100 years? No. > > The climate is an extremely complex system. Our observations of it are by no means complete – even with regard to what’s going on today. > > This is a shortcoming we need to work hard to correct, but it is also an opportunity for validating model predictions: Find a measurement we’ve never taken, see how the models say it should turn out, and then go take it and compare. > > Still, there are global temperature predictions that have been validated. We can start with one of the pioneers in climate science. Over 100 years ago, in 1896, Svante Arrhenius predicted that human emissions of CO2 would warm the climate. Obviously he used a much simpler model than current Ocean Atmosphere Coupled Global Climate models, which run on super computers. > > Arrhenius overestimated the climate’s sensitivity to CO2 by a factor of 2. At the same time, he hugely underestimated the degree of warming, assuming CO2 would rise very slowly (who could have predicted the emissions the future held?). Still, it was a pretty impressive early success for models. > > Running the clock forward: in 1988, James Hansen of NASA GISS fame predicted [PDF] that temperature would climb over the next 12 years, with a possible brief episode of cooling in the event of a large volcanic eruption. He made this prediction in a landmark paper and before a Senate hearing, which marked the official “coming out” to the general public of anthropogenic global warming. Twelve years later, he was proven remarkably correct, requiring adjustment only for the timing difference between the simulated future volcanic eruption and the actual eruption of Mount Pinatubo. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > In the interim we’ll see a lot of observation bias confirming AGW–the Glaciers are Melting–and a lot of reassurance we can’t be wrong about AGW–increase in the WAIS glacial mass is a local phenomenon–based on the underlying hysteria that sees extremes where it benefits the Great Cause. > **[Are glaciers growing or retreating?](https://skepticalscience.com/himalayan-glaciers-growing.htm)** > > \While there are isolated cases of growing glaciers, the overwhelming trend in glaciers worldwide is retreat. In fact, the global melt rate has been accelerating since the mid-1970s.\ > [@](#): > > While there is a small percentage of growing glaciers, the overwhelming majority are shrinking. And more importantly, the shrinking trend is increasing (eg - 77% in 2002, 94% in 2003). > Global trends in glacier shrinkage > > Globally, glaciers are shrinking in area and thickness and the melt rate has accelerated dramatically since the mid-1990s. The National Snow and Ice Data Center have calculated global change in glacier volume - their results show glaciers are shrinking at an alarming rate. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Because AGW has come to be associated with a left-leaning agenda, it’s highly unlikely any leftie would be willing to come out publicly against it. There’s no future in that. And because we can argue climate v weather for any observable event, it’s equally unlikely there will be any refutation any time soon. So the only safe and reasonable course is to keep anti-AGW opinions in the closet if you have a political leaning leftward. > > I can make a prediction for AGW based on how ingrained it is: If the short-term observation for the next decade is cooler temperatures, that too will be attributed to AGW and increased CO2 production. For the Great Cause here is We Humans Are Affecting the Earth Negatively and We Need to Do Stuff to Fix It. There is nothing that I can see that will shake off AGW as a Great Cause any time soon. It will be as difficult to alter as a Core Belief for its followers as the belief in a personal deity is for the Church to shake off. It is silly IMHO to assume religiosity from the people doing the science. > [@](#): > > Interviews and e-mail exchanges with half a dozen polar climate and ice experts last week produced a rough consensus: Even with the extensive refreezing of Arctic waters in the deep chill of the sunless boreal winter, the fresh-formed ice remains far thinner than the yards-thick, years-old ice that dominated the region until the 1990s. > > That means the odds of having vast stretches of open water next summer remain high, many Arctic experts said. > > “Climate skeptics typically take a few small pieces of the puzzle to debunk global warming, and ignore the whole picture that the larger science community sees by looking at all the pieces,” said Ignatius G. Rigor, a climate scientist at the Polar Science Center of the University of Washington in Seattle. > > He said the argument for a growing human influence on climate laid out in last year’s reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or I.P.C.C., was supported by evidence from many fields. > > “I will admit that we do not have all the pieces,” Dr. Rigor said, “but as the I.P.C.C. reports, the preponderance of evidence suggests that global warming is real.” As for the Arctic, he said, “Yes, this year’s winter ice extent is higher than last year’s, but it is still lower than the long-term mean.” > > Dr. Rigor said next summer’s ice retreat, despite the regrowth of thin fresh-formed ice now, could still surpass last year’s, when nearly all of the Arctic Ocean between Alaska and Siberia was open water. > > Some scientists who strongly disagree with each other on the extent of warming coming in this century, and on what to do about it, agreed that it was important not to be tempted to overinterpret short-term swings in climate, either hot or cold. > > Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist and commentator with the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, has long chided environmentalists and the media for overstating connections between extreme weather and human-caused warming. (He is on the program at the skeptics’ conference.) > > But Dr. Michaels said that those now trumpeting global cooling should beware of doing the same thing, saying that the “predictable distortion” of extreme weather “goes in both directions.” > > Gavin A. Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan who has spoken out about the need to reduce greenhouse gases, disagrees with Dr. Michaels on many issues, but concurred on this point. > > “When I get called by CNN to comment on a big summer storm or a drought or something, I give the same answer I give a guy who asks about a blizzard,” Dr. Schmidt said. “It’s all in the long-term trends. Weather isn’t going to go away because of climate change. There is this desire to explain everything that we see in terms of something you think you understand, whether that’s the next ice age coming or global warming.” ---
**Author:** ![Oregon\_sunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/50afbb/32.png) [@Oregon\_sunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oregon_sunshine)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/33 "2009-06-28T02:48:19Z")
I’m very left-leaning politically, and not a scientist or anything, but I think the temperature fluctuations of Planet Earth have more to do with solar activity than anything else. Examples include the “little ice age” when solar activity was at a minimum for an awfully long time, and the more recent 20th century global warming trend, which coincided with a more active than usual Sun. It seems pretty obvious. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/34 "2009-06-28T02:56:00Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Well said, that man! If you think baseless assumptions are OK. 🙂 > [@](#): > > The only dissenting point I have would be on it being a “Lefty” issue, but you lot in the US do seem rather fond of assigning political leanings to every issue (not something done elsewhere), though. The whole thing still reeks of Great Cause and Some Hysteria to me- especially because there are political strings getting attached to it, which tends to raise my eyebrow about any issue. On this I agree, there is really no reason why this is supposed to be a “lefty” issue. John MacCain has concluded AGW is a problem. One reason why I have said before that skeptics of AGW are reaching creationism levels is because even accusations of bias against the skeptics of AGW can be demonstrated to be baseless. > **[BBC News - Climate science: Sceptical about bias](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7092614.stm)** > > Is there any evidence that science is biased against the "sceptics"? > [@](#): > > Of all the accusations made by the vociferous community of climate skeptics, surely the most damaging is that science itself is biased against them. > > That was a view I put forward nearly a year ago now in another article for the BBC News website, and nothing has changed my mind since. > [@](#): > > The sum total of evidence obtained through this open invitation, then, is one first-hand claim of bias in scientific journals, not backed up by documentary evidence; and three second-hand claims, two well-known and one that the scientist in question does not consider evidence of anti-sceptic feeling. > > No-one said they had been refused a place on the IPCC, the central global body in climate change, or denied a job or turned down for promotion or sacked or refused access to a conference platform, or indeed anything else. > > If there is an anti-sceptic bias running through the institutions of science, it is evidently keeping itself well hidden. > > Whether this exercise has conclusively disproved a bias is not for me to say - I am sure others will find plenty to say, doubtless in the courteous and gracious language that typifies climate discourse nowadays. > > But I will say this; if someone persistently claims to be a great football player, and yet fails to find the net when you put him in front of an open goal, you cannot do other than doubt his claim. > > Andres Millan, who wrote to me on the subject from Mexico, offered another explanation for why scientific journals, research grants, conference agendas and the IPCC itself are dominated by research that backs or assumes the reality of modern-day greenhouse warming. > > \*\*“Most global warming skeptics have no productive alternatives; they say it is a hoax, or that it will cause severe social problems, or that we should allocate resources elsewhere,” he wrote. > > "Scientifically, they have not put forward a compelling, rich, and variegated theory. > > “And until that happens, to expect the government, or any source of scientific funding, to give as much money, attention, or room within academic journals to the alternatives, seems completely misguided.”\*\* ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/35 "2009-06-28T02:59:58Z")
> [@Oregon\_sunshine](#): > > I’m very left-leaning politically, and not a scientist or anything, but I think the temperature fluctuations of Planet Earth have more to do with solar activity than anything else. Examples include the “little ice age” when solar activity was at a minimum for an awfully long time, and the more recent 20th century global warming trend, which coincided with a more active than usual Sun. It seems pretty obvious. Er, no. Check post #9 ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/36 "2009-06-28T04:26:40Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > So how was the popular media doing for accuracy? This article from the [New York Times in 1988](http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/29/science/temperature-for-world-rises-sharply-in-the-1980-s.html) says that then-current models predicted that the earth’s temperature would increase by 3-9 degrees by 2030. And it quotes James Hansen, the global warming alarmist who has been at the center of the issue for two decades now. As I’ve said in another forum during a recent AWG discussion, you shouldn’t base your conclussions on what the popular media says. There’s too much sensationalism on it to be accurate, see the Large Hadron Collider doomsday headlines for reference. It still didn’t work for me, since after five pages of arguments backed with cites from many climate scientific institutes, peer reviewed articles, moderate projections on the effects of global warming, etc, etc.; the guy I was debating with just posted a couple images of London underwater and New York being swept by a giant wave to prove that AGW arguments are nonesense. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/37 "2009-06-28T04:49:50Z")
OK, ideally it shouldn’t be a “lefty” issue. It only becomes one because of the remarkable number of people who would rather make money than breathe. I cannot pretend to fathom the working of such minds, but I’ve seen their ways too often for my liking. Not surprisingly, these people lend support to and receive support from that political faction most sympathetic to their wishes. That faction has been, historically, Republican. Also, of course, any solution is going to involve lots of change. These people embrace change with all the enthusiasm of painful rectal itch. We of the left, or course, think that change is, over all, a pretty spiffy idea. We recommend it, point of fact. Lots. Oodles and gobs. Should this cease to be a partisan issue, and our tighty-righty brethren attain their Come to Algore moment, we will lose an issue to hector piously about. We’ll get over it. Find something else to do. Take up knitting. Grow old, with more assurance that our grandchildren will as well. ---
**Author:** ![posskb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@posskb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/posskb)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/38 "2009-06-28T05:01:45Z")
I also believe solar influence is being largely ignored by many as a cause of climate change. If you look at a graph of temp over the last 500 million years, [File:Phanerozoic Climate Change.png - Wikimedia Commons](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png) one can see a great deal of change. In particular I notice that about every 150 million years the temp goes from the cold to hot at a rapid rate. The last time this happened was 150 million years ago, then 300,000,000 years, and then 450 mill. years. What caused these great temperature shifts? I don’t know but it sure wasn’t humans. My best guess is that the sun has some very long sun cycles that coincide about every 150 mill. years and we are now due for this to happen again. I have pursued this subject as a hobby over the last 6 months and I believe there is a reason to believe that the last ice age is the last before this occurs again. Looking at this graph showing temp over the last 450,000 years; [File:Ice Age Temperature.png - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png) The previous spikes in temp coming out of ice ages were immediately followed by a plunge directly back into the next ice age. But since coming out of the last ice age the temp has stayed close to even for over 10,000 years and has started to rise recently. Is this due to CO2, a more active sun, something else or some combination? This is a record of sunspots over the last 11,000 years: [File:Sunspots 11000 years.svg - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspots_11000_years.svg) The highest sunspot number over the previous 7,000 years is about 60. This is a record of sunspot numbers over the last 400 years: [File:Sunspot Numbers.svg - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspot_Numbers.svg) The sunspot numbers are much higher over this period which coincides with the recent increase in temp. It was mentioned earlier that the temp increased since 1970 but the solar activity hadn’t which they took as proof of solar activity not being the cause. But if the Earth increases in temp at a given level of solar activity, the level of solar activity does not need to increase for there to be continuing increasing temp. There is also the appearance of a 7000 year sun cycle occurring previous to 300 years ago. If again we are in a 7000 year sun cycle and the sunspot numbers are already so large, how high will they be when this 7000 year sun cycle peaks in 3000 years? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/39 "2009-06-28T05:16:46Z")
> [@posskb](#): > > I also believe solar influence is being largely ignored by many as a cause of climate change. It seems to me that it has not been ignored at all. > **[Sun & climate: moving in opposite directions](https://skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm)** > > \In the last 35 years of global warming, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. Sun and climate have been going in opposite directions.\ > [@](#): > > the evidence that establishes the sun’s close correlation with the Earth’s temperature in the past also establishes it’s blamelessness for global warming today. > > Other studies on solar influence on climate > > This conclusion is confirmed by many studies quantifying the amount of solar influence in recent global warming: > > ``` > * Ammann 2007: "Although solar and volcanic effects appear to dominate most of the slow climate variations within the past thousand years, the impacts of greenhouse gases have dominated since the second half of the last century." > * Lockwood 2007 concludes "the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanism is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified." > * Foukal 2006 concludes "The variations measured from spacecraft since 1978 are too small to have contributed appreciably to accelerated global warming over the past 30 years." > * Scafetta 2006 says "since 1975 global warming has occurred much faster than could be reasonably expected from the sun alone." > * Usoskin 2005 conclude "during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source." > * Solanki 2004 reconstructs 11,400 years of sunspot numbers using radiocarbon concentrations, finding "solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades". > * Haigh 2003 says "Observational data suggest that the Sun has influenced temperatures on decadal, centennial and millennial time-scales, but radiative forcing considerations and the results of energy-balance models and general circulation models suggest that the warming during the latter part of the 20th century cannot be ascribed entirely to solar effects." > * Stott 2003 increased climate model sensitivity to solar forcing and still found "most warming over the last 50 yr is likely to have been caused by increases in greenhouse gases." > * Solanki 2003 concludes "the Sun has contributed less than 30% of the global warming since 1970". > * Lean 1999 concludes "it is unlikely that Sun–climate relationships can account for much of the warming since 1970". > * Waple 1999 finds "little evidence to suggest that changes in irradiance are having a large impact on the current warming trend." > * Frolich 1998 concludes "solar radiative output trends contributed little of the 0.2°C increase in the global mean surface temperature in the past decade" > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156/40 "2009-06-28T05:36:44Z")
OK. so a couple of guys made glancing references. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-other-lefties-dubious-on-agw/501156.md?page=3)