The evidence for human induced climate change seems to be getting stronger with each passing week, yet many folk seem to flatly deny that such a thing is even possible, regardless of how much evidence is presented. Could it be that, rather than being concerned with the facts of the issue, these people are simply holding to an irrational belief that “God would never allow such a thing to happen” ?
Stupid questions make baby jesus cry.
Few question that humans change the climate, they question how much we change the climate. Whats stupid about the question though is the way it attacks people who don’t believe in global warming and says they are religious, paah.
Stupid replies make baby Jesus cry too.
Your “explanation” that many people simply question how much we change the climate doesn’t hold water. If it were generally true, then there would be a body of evidence that at least some members of the faction could knowingly cite that would support their position.
Yet that data never seems to appear, nor do the people who see Global warming as small potatoes seem knowledgeable on the subject when confronted with experimental evidence that suggests warming is a major concern.
Since this invalidates your explanation, something else must be operating here.
From the vehemence of your response, it appears that I may have hit the nail on the head so to speak. The global warming debate seems to be nothing but the evolution/creation debate all over again.
Besides which, since when is an inquiry in to motive an attack, or do you maintain that religious beliefs have a sound logical/scientific/rational basis ?
There is no global warming - it is a liberal plot to scare people and get more tax money.
Baby Jesus sucks. There is no god either. Christians should love global warming - like their religion, it is a bunch of fairytale nonsense.
Global warming is something a lot of people have ‘faith’ in (including you, apparently), so of course when someone says something that contradicts your faith it will look like they don’t know what they are talking about.
There is no solid evidence that human activity has long-term effects on the climate. Yes, we create greenhouse gasses, which can raise the temperature if they are produced in a large enough amount - but one medium-sized volcanic eruption produces more greenhouse gasses than mankind has in the last 10,000 years. The Earth spits out a lot of greenhouse gasses, and the ocean’s algae (and to a much smaller extent, land plants) converts it all back to oxygen.
The Earth’s climate changes, and it has always changed. We orbit a variable star which is currently not shining it’s brightest. Through most of the Earth’s history, there were no permanent ice caps at the poles. We have those now, but they may go away when the Earth warms up again. This will have nothing to do with the piddling amounts of CO2 and methane we are releasing into the air.
Wow, a conservative conspiracy theorist with a major case of fulminating atheism !
Having bagged that rare bird, It’d still be interesting to hear about the thought processes that lead the most people to dismiss global warming.
Asmodean, sorry, I used the word “irrational” in my first post, when I meant nonrational. I did not intend to imply all the extra derogatory garbage that “irrational” carries around with it in this the age of “reason”.
You know, 10,000 or so years ago when the last one began to decline? They happen because of pertubations(sp?) in the earth’s orbit and the amount of solar radiation put off by the sun. The mean temperature of the planet used to be MUCH greater than it is today, long before there were mammals, nuch less human beings.
…mmmmmmmmmmnahhhhhhhhhh.
Restraint. The flaw should be apparent already.
As to the OP:
How about even simpler:
“I PERSONALLY don’t want to concern myself with the implications of such proportions–nevermind whether or not God is involved!”
The assertion that ‘many folks’ deny the event, and the subsequent offering that ‘these people,’ the same folks, ignorantly look to God for their escape from the reality of the evidence of said event, seems to allude to an unwarranted conclusion that 'folks who deny global warming = folks who ignorantly hold to a belief that God would never allow bad things to happen."
Is this accurate, or did you mean something else?
Because at this point, I don’t think even the non-Christian observer would have a problem pointing out that the generalization is somewhat unfair…
Am I wrong in what I glean from this? Y’know…obstinate?
You know, technically we are still in an ice age, which is defined as a time when there are permanent ice caps at both poles.
For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen much evidence to debunk the possibility that current climate increases may be the result of natural shifts. What I DO know is that the air in America is generally cleaner than it was thirty or forty years ago (or, at least, it is here in So-Cal).
Don’t believe me? Try comparing the number of “Smog Alert” days we had last year, and compare them with the number we had in the '60s.
Are pollutants bad? Yup. But I think there are other things that we should worry about.
An addendum…
Squink, one would think you’d learn to be a bit less rude if you want a positive reaction.
And ignore Kalt… he’s… odd.
Yeah, we are putting out less pollution and there are more trees than in the first half of the century…so why should people be so alarmed?
I’m all for clean air. When pollution gets to the point where it’s causing wide-spread health problems, then something needs to be done about it. I just don’t think pollution is going to cause any changes in the Earth’s climate, and pollution is far less of a problem than it used to be.
Ahem, I believe some people may need to update:
First, we need to dispel a bit of confusion and distinguish between “pollution” and greenhouse gases, which are two * different * concepts not of necessity related. Reduction in point pollution may have little to do with greenhouse gas release, depending on local practices, etc. They are, therefore, seperate issues. I might add that since climate is a global system, North American reductions in pollution (generally a local or regional issue) and/or greenhouse gases (seperate issue, global in scale) are not necessarily fully relevant. Rather, global aggregates are.
Second, we should refer to recent research, which more or less points toward significance of human generated greenhouse gases. I direct your attention towards the following:
Most recently, from Nature confirming greenhouse gas scenarios:
Harries et al: “Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997” Nature 410 (355-357) 15 March 2001
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0_fs.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/289/5477/217e
Reporting study of Andronova and Schlesinger, indicating:
“They find that anthropogenic greenhouse forcing has become the dominant external factor, but a residual factor, presumably associated with the internal dynamics of the climate system, has influenced the global climate, too…”
Further, we can refer to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
http://www.ipcc.ch/
And in particular the Working Group report
http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/spm22-01.pdf
which contains a great deal of data and discussion. Again, balance of data points to important human role in change, with caveats. Although this is a policy oriented publication, you will find references at the end to direct you towards substantive research.
Further, a cautionary article from PNAS
Hansen, J., Oinas, V. “Global warming in the twenty-first century: An alternative scenario” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, v. 97, 18, 9875-9880, Aug 29, 2000
Stresses variability but clearly accepts important human component to global warming. Issue re which gases and possible variable effects.
Further, there is
Stott, Peter 1* et al. “External Control of 20th Century Temperature by Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings” Science Science 2000 290: 2133-2137.
Which observes again that “comparison of observations with simulations of a coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model shows that both natural and anthropogenic factors have contributed significantly to 20th century temperature changes” and adds that more “than 80% of observed multidecadal-scale global mean temperature variations and more than 60% of 10- to 50-year land temperature variations are due to changes in external forcings.” Somewhat complicated view, but nonetheless supports meaningful human contribution to global warming.
In addition I should mention the commentary at
Zwiers and Weaver, “CLIMATE CHANGE: The Causes of 20th Century Warming.” Science 2000 290: 2081-2083.
Wherein the authors opine: “The agreement between observed and simulated temperature variations strongly suggests that forcing from anthropogenic activities, moderated by variations in solar and volcanic forcing, has been the main driver of climate change during the past century.”
My reading of the body of the evidence is that there is no longer a basis to deny significant human contribution towards recent global warming. Of course, climate is a complex system and any mono-causal explanation will be false, however that being said I do not believe the evidence supports Badtz assertion in re no significant evidence nor Spoofe. We should also not confuse the issue of pollution/clean air with global warming, for they are seperate not necessarily connected issues.
In short, I believe the concensus position is
(a) Human contribution to global warming is real and significant, although non-human sources of change are also significant.
(b) Unclear however to what extent policy can effect this, nor which gases are best addressed nor how.
(c) Kyoto style addressing of the issue is at this stage possibly inappropriate on both scientific and economic grounds(*).
(*: e.g. Toman, Morgenstern, and Anderson “THE ECONOMICS OF “WHEN” FLEXIBILITY IN THE DESIGN OF GREENHOUSE GAS ABATEMENT POLICIES” Annu. Rev. Energy Environ (1999) 24:431-460.)
However, I can’t say that I have a complete grasp of the literature nor am I necessarily fully up to date. With that caveat, I hope this is useful.
I think I see where the O.P. is going… to paraphraze: Why are people ignoring that the earth is heating up, especially since many scientists believe that we’re the ones making it happen?
If my interpretation of the O.P.'s question is correct, then there are nearly too many possibilities to consider. If you mean globally, many folks are more worried about the fact that they didn’t eat yesterday, don’t have anything to eat today, and probably won’t eat tomorrow: they’ve more immediate concerns and probably don’t know much about the climate, anyway.
If you mean the U.S. and other high CO2 producing countries, that narrows down the geography somewhat but not the reasons why people aren’t universally concerned with the possibility that global warming is largely human-induced. Among these are folks who have tired of the mainstream environmental “chicken little” and “help, Wolf!” approaches to some of these issues. In the 1960s the theory was that smog, etc. would lead to global cooling and we’d all freeze. The Club of Rome study from MIT indicated that if we didn’t shape-up we’d all starve before the year 2000. Ditto Paul Erlich’s work. You can think up other examples of this type. The end result: environmentalists and many climatologists might be right this time, but folks aren’t listening.
Another possibility is that policy action that is likely to make people pay a little bit right NOW to avert a condition that might happen much later (politically speaking), and which might not be tied as closely to human activity as some might think, and which might happen anyway despite corrective action from the human side is just too sketchy a proposition for many policy makers to take action about (Collunsbury’s citations considered, of course; but many other scientists don’t interpret these data the same way and don’t publish their opinions). Of course, we’ve our own share of folks who are too worried about other, immediate concerns and/or have no idea that we even have a climate to get too concerned about it. And yes, there are probably some who think that no matter what we do, God won’t let it happen (Sodom and Gomorrah’s examples aside, of course, since, well, those folks deserved it, right?)
So, if you want more focused debate on this topic, revise the O.P. so that we can hone in, otherwise we’re speculating.
A correction:
This is a silly observation. If you review the citations you will find (a) that there is a multiplicity of interpretations – I always do try to be an honest citer, and in citing to scientific literature one can find citations to the body of the science done, ergo one can critique-- (b) if one follows the evolution of what is being published in peer-reviewed journals, the trend over time is toward confirmation of human effects © if you don’t publish your opinions in a scientific field, you’re not actually doing research in it, ergo your opinion is largely irrelevant. I am annoyed by such “silent majority” theories, which are baseless and unfounded.
In re lack of action on global warming, there are two main influences
(a) Denial, based on whatever suppositions.
(b) Lack of clarity on what would be the appropriate action to take.
In regards to the two, (a) is unsupportable and ignorant --at least at the policy-maker level. However,(b) is supportable because we are unclear as to how to grapple with this and inappropriate and expensive early action may do more harm than good, e.g. the poorly concieved Kyoto style targets on CO2, per the literature cited above re other gases etc. Also see the final cite in my prior posting.
Only a few decades ago, the diaster du jour was a worldwide fall in temperature, which would be caused by above-ground nuclear tests.
I’m not an atmospheric scientist, so I can’t judge the global warming debate on its scientific merits. What bothers me is that many ecologists are using the threat of global warming to promote a pre-selected remedy. Someone who was truly concerned about global warming would be looking beyond greenhouse gasses for solutions. When environmentalists start advocating more above-ground nuclear explosions, then I’ll know that they’re sincerely worried about global warming.
Relevance? Nuclear winter was in the case of full scale nuclear war, not above-ground tests, where were opposed for other reasons, like radiation poisoning.
Well, to the extent you see big, peer reviewed science journals publishing serious articles on the issue, you can assure yourself this is not an instance of ‘enrivonrmental radicals’ squawking.
Depending on who you are actually talking about I might agree. Do you mean Greenpeace? Sure, Kyoto is being pushed when it is in fact staggeringly misconcieved. However, if this is a broad brush to paint all concern about Global Warming…
Why the fuck would anyone want to induce nuclear winter? What fucking madman would think this was a solution! Good lord, exchanging radition poisoning for global warming? This is just nutty.
Thanks, C, for personalizing the argument and for staying with the O.P. parts of the thread. I’d think that you’d be secure enough in your reputation on this board as a person who engages in scientific and thoughtful debate that you’d take the chip off your shoulder.
My experience, as a scientist who publishes my work in peer reviewed journals, is (1) I don’t do research on all my ideas. Not enough money or time. I have an educated opinion about many environmental issues however, but no research to publish. Does that mean I cannot speak on the topic? (2) I wasn’t referring to “silent majority” theories, just commenting that scientists who have an educated opinion on global warming don’t interpret the data the same way as did the folks you cited. (3) Hi Opal!
My experience in the environmental policy arena (where I work, BTW) is that very few politicians are willing to take a fiscally unpopular, but environmentally sound, policy stance where the payoff is hard to measure and likely extends beyond the next election cycle. Ditto the current politics of global warming.
Now, you’re welcome to jump back and nit-pick this post all you will. It’s irrelevant to the O.P. at this point, IMHO.
Eh, to address the OP:
There are lots of people who don’t believe that global warming is really happening, who don’t necessarily chalk it all up to a benevolent God who wouldn’t allow such a Bad Thing to happen to us.
Er, um, wha’–huh? Who HAVE you been talking to, dear child? 
There are atheists and Special Creationists on both sides.
Er, um, it’s a “thought process” insofar as one uses one’s thought processes to process scientific information that comes across one’s desk, and to decide whether this particular scientific information has merit, or whether its purveyor is simply another researcher with an ax to grind, looking for a sound bite.
It’s not a “faith” thing. It’s a “science” thing. Again, who HAVE you been talking to?
Eh, C-bury, what he’s talking about is Cold War nuclear testing in general, not the 1980s “nuclear winter” thing. Yes, people really did think that nuclear testing was changing the weather. (I was there. 
)
http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/IceAgeBook/IceAgeTheories.html
I’m with December: First it was “A New Ice Age!” Then it was “Global Warming!” then it was “A New Ice Age!” again, and now it’s “Global Warming!” again. Every couple of years, there’s a new factoid in the media, a new press release from some researcher. “Global Warming!” “Global Cooling!” “Global Warming!” “Global Cooling!” I’ve stopped paying attention.
Anyone following the Puff Daddy trial? Have they called J-Lo yet?
Fair enough, I mis-read your point. Rebuke accepted (although I don’t think saying something is a silly observation is personalizing per se, I was commenting on a specific point.) and I apologize.
Again, fair enough, I read you as going with the silent majority thing – one does encounter this rather often-- and it gets on my nerves. A mis-reading, for which I apologize.
That being said, I do believe that of greatest relevance to the issue at hand is the folks who are concentrated on the issue and publishing in it. As such, insofar as the concesus seems to be evolving in a certain direction, I find that to be more significant than non-published opinion. I think we can agree on that.
Agreed, I think I was saying the same thing. And I think this is a valid to an extent, insofar as my reading of the issue is that Kyoto was a mistake.
Is it? The OP was about understanding global warming and responses to it. How can we comment w/o this background?
Or perhaps I am an obsessive. Or both?