So, I just saw this, and I saw another interview on videosift yesterday with the same guy, John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel.
What I want to know is whether or not this is all just hype or not. Is there really consensus among scientists on global warming or are dissenting voices being locked out? Are those being kept out of the debate making valid points, or are they kooks?
I’ve always had a problem with using global warming as a tool to encourage people to waste less and companies to make less detrimental products. This isn’t so much because I don’t believe it, but because I see it as the least provable aspect of environmental destruction. There are plenty of other reasons to lower your carbon footprint than an apocalyptical climate change theory. The reason using global warming as a tool seems so dangerous to me is that if/once there is a kink in the theory, it might allow companies and general populations to toss the whole idea of greening their production/lives out the window.
I think he has a point. There is a large gap between the science and the propaganda produced by people who are ignorant and frightened, or just see an opportunity to exploit it to advance their agenda.
The man is a liar. The 30k scientists he’s talking about are these guys:
The man who created the list lets any moron on the intarweb sign up and he doesn’t check their credentials. That is to say, I can mail in a piece of paper and say I have a PhD in Women’s studies, sign your name to it and he’ll put it on the list. If you go to sourcewatch you can learn more about the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine:
These people are quacks and fools, like most of the AGW deniers. Yet all they do is argue. Not one of them actually publishes science that refutes AGW, they just go on FOX news and try to sway public opinion because they can’t overturn the evidence. These people are as intellectually bankrupt as Intelligent Design advocates.
There is consensus. No major science body is still against global warming as a valid theory. Dissenting voices are not being locked out - if they do valid dissenting scientific research, it will be published.
A mix of both, but mostly just ignorant. No doubt there are small valid discrepancies that still need to be addressed, but attacking just one of these is not the lock-on GW defeater the kookier faction seems to think. GW is supported on too many legs to be that vulnerable. It helps that all the kooks generally only each have one individual weak attack.
But it has been proved, it’s in action right now, and are you familiar with the Precautionary Principle?
I agree, and we should be emphasising those as well. But they do all tie together. I think underestimating the effects of GW is something that will come back and bite us very hard.
These are people who would use any excuse not to make the changes anyway, because they flat out don’t want to. Why should we pander to them when the truth is on our side?
I think it’s important to specify exactly what is meant by the phrase “global warming.”
For example, does it mean:
(1) The idea that average surface temperatures have increased over the last 50-60 years?
(2) The idea that mankind’s activities will cause measurable warming (or some other effect on climate) in the future – possibly a little, possibly a lot?
(3) The idea that mankind’s CO2 emissions will cause amplified warming in the future, with signifianct negative consequences?
Only if (3) is true does mankind need to seriously consider the sort of aggressive CO2 abatement that many alarmists are pushing. On the other hand, (1) and (2) are much more defensible positions.
So when you see statements about “scientific consensus” and the like, look carefully to see what exactly is the subject of that “consensus.”
Just to add to what MrDibble said, here is a link to a wikipedia page summarizing the scientific opinion on climate change.
As far as dissenting voices being locked out, in fact the scientific community has worked quite hard to include dissenting voices. For example, the NAS panel formed in 2001 to address climate change in response to questions from the Bush White House included Richard Lindzen, who is actually one of the very few scientists with significant standing and publication record who is a dissenter…i.e., they went out of their way to pick the best possible skeptic they could have picked and, in fact, one of the few they could have picked without it being a clear case of “affirmative action” in the most negative connotation in which this word is sometimes used (i.e., picking someone who was clearly not well-qualified to serve on such a committee).
First of all, I don’t know what you mean by being “kept out of the debate”. But, leaving this aside, most of what you see around in terms of “skeptics” of climate change are closer to the kooks end of the spectrum. A few are making valid points, although unfortunately even the most respectable ones like Lindzen seem to have reduced themselves to some pretty kooky arguments of late, as this assessment by the scientists at RealClimate points out:
Oh, and Weather Channel founder, John Coleman? He was the ABC weatherman for years around here and is a notable idiot. I can only assume the Weather Channel’s success is despite him.
Does this guy even have a degree in meteorology, or any scientific field? Anything I can find on him, including Wikipedia and his own page from his TV station gloss over it. There are things that say “I’ve been a TV weatherman ever since I got my degree…” Most meteorologists don’t call themselves “weathermen”.
That sort of deliberate inaction is disgusting and irresponsible, IMHO. If they want to disagree, then that’s their choice, but to refuse to even look at it is unconscionable. I could go on, but I’d need to head to the Pit.
I agree with most of this argument, except that by the time you figure out whether (3) is true or not, you’re well past the point of being able to do anything about it. There are indeed plenty of alarmists who are using climate change to call for all sorts of unreasonable responses, but there are also a lot of very responsible and well-informed people who would prefer not to take the risk of finding out what The End Of The World As We Know It would really look like. I would not at all characterize them all as alarmists. Pretty much any meaningful and large-scale response that is implemented only for the purpose of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is going to take quite a while to put into place, which will let us implement those things that are winners for other reasons and also see if the climate continues to develop as it is now being projected.
I’ve hit the point that I think at least some of the Global Warming Scare advocates are doing it to undermine other conservation issues, which are both proven & urgent, & have been since AGW was still a crackpot theory on the back of a napkin.
WIRED magazine just had a cover story saying, “Screw the spotted owl,” the idea that to be green is only about carbon now. Horsefeathers!
It remains to be seen whether CO[sub]2[/sub] levels over 360 ppm will be brought into equilibrium or not. We’ve got some people with computer models freaking out about it, but the biosphere has weathered worse temperature shifts than this–in recorded history. Acidification of the oceans is a concern, though.
On the other hand: We in the USA really are burning through our great-grandchildren’s great-grandchildren’s stock of petroleum. Our dams are causing extinctions. Our oceanic fisheries are depleted to the point of total extinction in the foreseeable future. And industrial farming is causing drought the old-fashioned way: by diverting streams & aquifers to mass-produce cash crop foodstuffs.
I think Al Gore’s a crazy capitalist genius. He’s managed to co-opt the environmentalist label for a bunch of rich bitches worried about their seaside homes flooding, & shut down almost all discussion of real environmental problems in the national media.
(Yeah, I know there are poor people living at low elevation too. But look at what’s driving this.)
That said, I fully support drastic-but-reasonable measures to decrease atmospheric carbon, & my definition of “reasonable” includes some pretty authoritarian stuff.
A, because I’m that big a prick, & 2, because better safe than sorry.
Incorrect, since ice is melting that’s been frozen for all of recorded history.
And just because the biosphere or even just humanity can survive doesn’t mean it won’t be a huge disaster. There’s a massive, massive gap between “destroys the biosphere” and “not worth worrying about”. Collapsing civilization would be an example of an extreme scenario, but that would still be far short of a threat to the biosphere, which can go on just fine without civilization, or us for that matter.
Leaffan: Well, it may be all well and good to take the long-term geological perspective and note how short this is on the scale of earth’s history. However, I think what is relevant to us is a timescale over which we live. I mean, on a geological perspective, nothing is a big deal. Hell, the fact that things that used to be under water are now in mountain ranges 10,000 feet above sea level (e.g., the Burgess Shale…I hiked there) puts some perspective on things. But, does it do much to re-assure someone that, “What do you care if much of Manhattan ends up under water; after all, the mountains in the Canadian Rockies were once under water too”?
At any rate, the forecasts for temperatures by the end of the 21st century may put us into temperature ranges that the earth has not experienced in a few million years at least.