# Global warming: Should we build the Earth a sunhat? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 31, 2004, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524 "2004-03-31T14:33:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/21 "2004-04-04T15:15:48Z")
> [@Steel Rat](#): > > We’re still recovering from an ice age, so of course temperature is still rising, of course the glaciers are receding. What do you expect? How about 1000 years ago when the estimated global temp was at least 10 degrees F higher than it is today? Seemed a prosperous time in human history. At least as compared to the Little Ice Age of the 17 and 1800s, when there was large-scale strife. > > CO2 is consumed by plants, and emitted by mammals and other animals. Why would there be a problem? More CO2 means healthier plant life and more plant coverage. The receding glaciers are often cited as a consequence of global warming, but late breaking local news (no cite yet available) concerning the Comox Glacier near Mt Washington on Vancouver Island reports of the discovery of monster size (5x) carnivorous ice worms that feed on the regular size (2 cm long) ice worms. Research is presently underway to evaluate the degree of heat that these animals generate. The speculation now is that the Comox Glacier may disappear in 100 years. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/22 "2004-04-04T15:16:24Z")
**Steel Rat** , your posts here wouldn’t be so ironic if you weren’t also posting in the thread on creationism. There you are defending science against attacks by pseudoscience and here you are posting links to pseudoscience websites that are very analogous to the “creation science” websites! And, furthermore, you are making almost exactly the same sort of arguments that **lekatt** is making in that thread! “Well, I don’t understand how they could possibly know…” and “All these scientists are in cohoots to foist this view on us…” > [@](#): > > I’ve read parts of the IPCC reports. Even after they revised it to downplay their earlier portents of doom, because they were simply wrong and the facts weren’t supporting the assumptions. And even the parts they deleted in the recent revisions in order to make it conform to their agenda. You are basically just making baseless attacks on the IPCC that you no doubt read on one of the pseudoscience websites (like the one you linked to run by the Idso brothers). The IPCC doesn’t have an agenda other than to review the state of the peer-reviewed science. And, what “agenda” does the [NAS](http://lab.nap.edu/nap-cgi/discover.cgi?restric=NAP&term=climate+change&GO.x=18&GO.y=7) have. What agenda does the [American Meteorological Society](http://www.ametsoc.org/POLICY/climatechangeresearch_2003.html) (AMS) have? What agenda does the [American Geophysical Union](http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html) (AGU) have? What agenda does the [Environmental Protection Agency](http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/index.html) (EPA) have? What agenda does [Editor-in-Chief](http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/291/5513/2515) of _Science_ magazine Donald Kennedy have? What agenda does [British Petroleum](http://www.bp.com/subsection.do?categoryId=55&contentId=2000032) have? What agenda does [Shell Oil](http://www.shell.com/home/Framework?siteId=royal-en&FC2=/royal-en/html/iwgen/environment_and_society/key_issues_and_topics/issues/climate_change/zzz_lhn.html&FC3=/royal-en/html/iwgen/environment_and_society/key_issues_and_topics/issues/climate_change/climate_change_guide.html) have? ---
**Author:** ![legion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/838e76/32.png) [@legion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/legion)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/23 "2004-04-04T15:17:48Z")
> [@Steel Rat](#): > > Define “recent”. How do they know it’s anthropogenic? Maybe there’s been an increase in the termite population that’s caused an increase in methane, or the cow population, or the people population. So everyong stop farting!! It would seem that the New Zealand government [blame the cows](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3005740.stm). ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/24 "2004-04-04T23:40:20Z")
> [@Steel Rat](#): > > And here is some more information on the [Medieval Warm Period](http://co2science.org/subject/a/summaries/asiamwp.htm) 1.) Earlier in the thread, we mentioned that the data for the medieval warm period is only local data, so it’s incorrect to assume that it was a worldwide trend. That article only mentions data from parts of western Asia. If you want to prove that the medieval warm period was a global phenomenon, you need global data. 2.) The majority of the articles cited rely on tree-ring data. Tree-ring data is always more strongly correlated to rainfall than to temperature, and I didn’t see any mention of how the researchers verified temperature data in their studies. 3.) The article is biased. Rather than simply reporting scientific data, they tell the reader what political stances to take and launch insults at anyone who believes that man-made global warming is a serious problem. A few clicks will show you that the other articles on that site are all written the same way. Science is about gathering data and making conclusions based on that data, not about descending into juvenile name-calling matches. I have never read any paper by a real scientist that looks like the writing on that website. In short, if you want me to believe that this medieval warming period actually happened, show me global data from an unbiased source, along with an argument for why that data should be considered reliable. ---
**Author:** ![Steel\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/25 "2004-04-05T00:08:19Z")
[QUOTE=ITR champion] 1.) Earlier in the thread, we mentioned that the data for the medieval warm period is only local data, so it’s incorrect to assume that it was a worldwide trend. That article only mentions data from parts of western Asia. If you want to prove that the medieval warm period was a global phenomenon, you need global data. [quote] Ice core sample corroborate the tree-ring data. If you expect data from every point on the globe, well, we don’t eve have that now. > [@](#): > > 2.) The majority of the articles cited rely on tree-ring data. Tree-ring data is always more strongly correlated to rainfall than to temperature, and I didn’t see any mention of how the researchers verified temperature data in their studies. But tree-ring data is ok when PROVING global warming is caused by man, right? ok, whatever. > [@](#): > > 3.) The article is biased. Rather than simply reporting scientific data, they tell the reader what political stances to take and launch insults at anyone who believes that man-made global warming is a serious problem. A few clicks will show you that the other articles on that site are all written the same way. Science is about gathering data and making conclusions based on that data, not about descending into juvenile name-calling matches. I have never read any paper by a real scientist that looks like the writing on that website. > > In short, if you want me to believe that this medieval warming period actually happened, show me global data from an unbiased source, along with an argument for why that data should be considered reliable. Are you serious? Where is the name-calling in the article? The only part of the article which even remotely comes close to name calling is the summary where they mention that as we learn more we find that the IPCC has really jumped the gun. Maybe we interpret english differently, I don’t know. However, this article provided considerably more data than the links you provided, which simply spouted numbers that had no relevance. ---
**Author:** ![Steel\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/26 "2004-04-05T00:20:28Z")
> [@jshore](#): > > **Steel Rat** , your posts here wouldn’t be so ironic if you weren’t also posting in the thread on creationism. There you are defending science against attacks by pseudoscience and here you are posting links to pseudoscience websites that are very analogous to the “creation science” websites! > > And, furthermore, you are making almost exactly the same sort of arguments that **lekatt** is making in that thread! “Well, I don’t understand how they could possibly know…” and “All these scientists are in cohoots to foist this view on us…” That’s quite a stretch. So when scientists question each other one side is automatically preaching pseudoscience? If you think Creation Science is really science then you need to go back to school. > [@](#): > > You are basically just making baseless attacks on the IPCC that you no doubt read on one of the pseudoscience websites (like the one you linked to run by the Idso brothers). The IPCC doesn’t have an agenda other than to review the state of the peer-reviewed science. And, what “agenda” does the [NAS](http://lab.nap.edu/nap-cgi/discover.cgi?restric=NAP&term=climate+change&GO.x=18&GO.y=7) have. What agenda does the [American Meteorological Society](http://www.ametsoc.org/POLICY/climatechangeresearch_2003.html) (AMS) have? What agenda does the [American Geophysical Union](http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html) (AGU) have? What agenda does the [Environmental Protection Agency](http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/index.html) (EPA) have? What agenda does [Editor-in-Chief](http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/291/5513/2515) of _Science_ magazine Donald Kennedy have? What agenda does [British Petroleum](http://www.bp.com/subsection.do?categoryId=55&contentId=2000032) have? What agenda does [Shell Oil](http://www.shell.com/home/Framework?siteId=royal-en&FC2=/royal-en/html/iwgen/environment_and_society/key_issues_and_topics/issues/climate_change/zzz_lhn.html&FC3=/royal-en/html/iwgen/environment_and_society/key_issues_and_topics/issues/climate_change/climate_change_guide.html) have? And you’re making baseless attacks on anyone with an opposing view. So the Idso brothers are evil because they believe the IPCC is wrong? What agenda do Fred Seitz and all the scientists that signed this [petition](http://www.oism.org/pproject/) have? All 2660 of them. What agenda does the [Cato Institute](http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-329es.html) have? What agenda does [NASA](http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd14jul97_1.htm) have? I can keep going, but I really don’t have time. If at some point in the future the evidence definitively shows a human-induced warming trend, then I’ll believe it. And since things aren’t happening at anywhere near the rate the IPCC originally, or even secondarily, said it would, I don’t think we’re in trouble from anything except people who want to take drastic steps without even knowing what they’re fighting. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/27 "2004-04-05T02:28:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Ice core sample corroborate the tree-ring data. If you expect data from every point on the globe, well, we don’t eve have that now. First, cite please? Second, if a good scientist has data on a local phenomenon, do they report it as a global phenomenon, or do they state up front and honestly that they don’t have any evidence that works on a global scale? Because the source that you cited certainly is not honest about it. They claim that their local data should be construed as proof of a global trend. > [@](#): > > But tree-ring data is ok when PROVING global warming is caused by man, right? ok, whatever. Do you have evidence that I’ve tried to use tree-ring data to prove that global warming is caused by man, or this another malicious attempt on your part to smear me with a straw-man argument? > [@](#): > > Are you serious? Yes. > [@](#): > > Where is the name-calling in the article? The only part of the article which even remotely comes close to name calling is the summary where they mention that as we learn more we find that the IPCC has really jumped the gun. Maybe we interpret english differently, I don’t know. You provided a link to a summary of severa articles, with hyperlinks to several pages on that same site. This may shock you, but I actually followed those hyperlinks. Among the highlights: 1.) Anyone who believes that human activity causes global warming is an “alarmist”, and their research is “pathetic”. 2.) The IPCC does not have a “shred of rationality”. 3.) Anyone who believes that human activity causes global warming is part of a super-secret one world government conspiracy. If those don’t count as juvenile insults to you, then we certainly do interpret English differently. No one who wanted to uphold rigorous scientific standards would dish out name-calling or black-helicopter style conspiracy theories in their “scientific” write-ups. > [@](#): > > However, this article provided considerably more data than the links you provided, which simply spouted numbers that had no relevance. I see. Let’s have a brief summary of this portion of the thread: **steel rat** : Methane absorbs more energy than carbon dioxide. **ITR** : That’s a lie. Carbon dioxide absorbs more energy than methane, and here are the data that prove it. **steel rat** : That has no relevance. This raises two fairly obvious questions: 1. In a debate about global warming, how can data about atmospheric levels of gases “have no relevance”? 2. If the amount of energy absorbed by greenhouse gases “has no relevance”, then why did you bring the topic up in the first place? Face the facts. You got caught trying to pass off a blatant lie. Now you’re trying to weasel out of it by saying that the topic has no relevance. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/28 "2004-04-05T03:20:24Z")
> [@Steel Rat](#): > > That’s quite a stretch. So when scientists question each other one side is automatically preaching pseudoscience? When people who have not taken the considerable amount of time (and training) it would take to understand the peer-reviewed science in a field nonetheless believe that they can make pronouncements that they don’t agree with what the peer-reviewed science says and make vague statements about how they don’t understand the evidence for this or that (implying not just that they don’t understand it but that it is therefore not compelling), then yes, I think that is pseudoscience. > [@](#): > > If you think Creation Science is really science then you need to go back to school. I don’t. And, that is exactly my point. > [@](#): > > And you’re making baseless attacks on anyone with an opposing view. So the Idso brothers are evil because they believe the IPCC is wrong? They are not evil but why are to we to believe them when they are just a few scientists, ones who do not have a strong publication in peer-reviewed journals in the field and they are known to have extremely strong biases on this issue. > [@](#): > > What agenda do Fred Seitz and all the scientists that signed this [petition](http://www.oism.org/pproject/) have? All 2660 of them. The Oregon Petition has been debunked in past threads on this subject. It was a petition circulated by a mass mailing to scientists along with a paper full of deception and half-truths. And, it was formatted to make it look like a paper in a National Academy of Sciences journal, which caused the Academy to take the unusual step of disassociating themselves from it…noting that it had not appeared in any of their publications and its conclusions were not in agreement with NAS studies. Almost all of those who signed on to that petition are not qualified to judge the state of the peer-reviewed science in the field. > [@](#): > > What agenda does the [Cato Institute](http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-329es.html) have? Are you serious?!?! Do you know who Cato is? They are a libertarian think tank that argues against most government regulation and presumably receives lots of financial support from lots of corporations, some likely with a direct stake in this issue. Climate change is one of the big issues for most of the libertarian think tanks like Cato and NCPA (National Center for Policy Analysis). > [@](#): > > What agenda does [NASA](http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd14jul97_1.htm) have? Well, what you linked to is one now-over-6-year-old site by one research group at NASA discussing one aspect of the climate change issue over which there has been some contention. It is also worth noting that while the satellite temperature record remains a subject of debate, there is a recent (2003) re-analysis of that record that shows a warming in the troposphere that is actually somewhat larger than the surface observations show…which is in good agreement with the climate models. (The NAS page I linked to before also includes a report from 2000 discussing the issue of the surface vs. satellite observation.) This issue of the trend in the satellite data remains unresolved but the question has now change from “Why does the satellite data show the troposphere as a whole has warmed considerably less than the surface observations show?” to “Does the satellite data show the troposphere as a whole has warmed less than the surface observations show?” By the way, just to note, I am not claiming that everything is known with certainty in this field. It is certainly not…as the considerable range in the IPCC prediction of 21st century warming (2.5 to 10.4 F) shows. However, the climate change naysayers are exaggerating the extent of the uncertainty (except when they make their own predictions which are often with extreme certainty…Patrick Michaels at Cato will tell you the warming will be 2.5 F and because of its geographic distribution will be no big deal) and in general muddying the waters in lots of other ways. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/29 "2004-04-05T03:35:36Z")
[Here](http://www.aps.org/WN/WN03/wn080803.cfm) is a description of the Oregon petition from Robert Park, who is the former director of the American Physical Society’s Public Affairs Department and writes a weekly column called “What’s New” on the goings-on in issues related to science policy: > [@](#): > > We all got a petition card in the mail urging the government to reject the Kyoto accord (WN 13 Mar 98). The cover letter was signed by “Frederick Seitz, Past President, National Academy of Sciences.” Enclosed was what seemed to be a reprint of a journal article, in the style and font of Proceedings of the NAS. But it had not been published in PNAS, or anywhere else. The reprint was a fake. Two of the four authors of this non- article were Soon and Baliunas. The other authors, both named Robinson, were from the tiny Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine in Cave Junction, OR. The article claimed that the environmental effects of increased CO2 are all beneficial. There was also a copy of Wall Street Journal op-ed by the Robinsons (father and son) that described increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere as “a wonderful and unexpected gift of the industrial revolution.” There was no indication of who had paid for the mailing. It was a dark episode in the annals of scientific discourse. [Here](http://www.prwatch.org/improp/oism.html) is a more detailed discussion from an organization called “PR Watch”: > [@](#): > > The Oregon Petition, sponsored by the OISM, was circulated in April 1998 in a bulk mailing to tens of thousands of U.S. scientists. In addition to the petition, the mailing included what appeared to be a reprint of a scientific paper. Authored by OISM’s Arthur B. Robinson and three other people, the paper was titled “Environmental Effects of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” and was printed in the same typeface and format as the official Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A cover note from Frederick Seitz, who had served as president of the NAS in the 1960s, added to the impression that Robinson’s paper was an official publication of the academy’s peer-reviewed journal. > > Robinson’s paper claimed to show that pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is actually a good thing… > > In reality, neither Robinson’s paper nor OISM’s petition drive had anything to do with the National Academy of Sciences, which first heard about the petition when its members began calling to ask if the NAS had taken a stand against the Kyoto treaty. Robinson was not even a climate scientist. He was a biochemist with no published research in the field of climatology, and his paper had never been subjected to peer review by anyone with training in the field. In fact, the paper had never been accepted for publication anywhere, let alone in the NAS Proceedings. It was self-published by Robinson, who did the typesetting himself on his own computer. > > None of the coauthors of “Environmental Effects of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” had any more standing than Robinson himself as a climate change researcher. They included Robinson’s 22-year-old son, Zachary (home-schooled by his dad), along with astrophysicists Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon. Both Baliunas and Soon worked with Frederick Seitz at the George C. Marshall Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank where Seitz served as executive director. Funded by a number of right-wing foundations, including Scaife and Bradley, the George C. Marshall Institute does not conduct any original research. It is a conservative think tank that was initially founded during the years of the Reagan administration to advocate funding for Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative–the “Star Wars” weapons program. Today, the Marshall Institute is still a big fan of high-tech weapons. In 1999, its website gave prominent placement to an essay by Col. Simon P. Worden titled “Why We Need the Air-Borne Laser,” along with an essay titled “Missile Defense for Populations–What Does It Take? Why Are We Not Doing It?” Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the Marshall Institute has adapted to the times by devoting much of its firepower to the war against environmentalism, and in particular against the “scaremongers” who raise warnings about global warming. > > “The mailing is clearly designed to be deceptive by giving people the impression that the article, which is full of half-truths, is a reprint and has passed peer review,” complained Raymond Pierrehumbert, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Chicago. NAS foreign secretary F. Sherwood Rowland, an atmospheric chemist, said researchers “are wondering if someone is trying to hoodwink them.” NAS council member Ralph J. Cicerone, dean of the School of Physical Sciences at the University of California at Irvine, was particularly offended that Seitz described himself in the cover letter as a “past president” of the NAS. Although Seitz had indeed held that title in the 1960s, Cicerone hoped that scientists who received the petition mailing would not be misled into believing that he “still has a role in governing the organization.” > > The NAS issued an unusually blunt formal response to the petition drive. “The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal,” it stated in a news release. “The petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy.” In fact, it pointed out, its own prior published study had shown that “even given the considerable uncertainties in our knowledge of the relevant phenomena, greenhouse warming poses a potential threat sufficient to merit prompt responses. Investment in mitigation measures acts as insurance protection against the great uncertainties and the possibility of dramatic surprises.” > > … > > In addition to the bulk mailing, OISM’s website enables people to add their names to the petition over the Internet, and by June 2000 it claimed to have recruited more than 19,000 scientists. The institute is so lax about screening names, however, that virtually anyone can sign, including for example Al Caruba, a pesticide-industry PR man and conservative ideologue who runs his own website called the “National Anxiety Center.” Caruba has no scientific credentials whatsoever, but in addition to signing the Oregon Petition he has editorialized on his own website against the science of global warming, calling it the “biggest hoax of the decade,” a “genocidal” campaign by environmentalists who believe that “humanity must be destroyed to ‘Save the Earth.’ . . . There is no global warming, but there is a global political agenda, comparable to the failed Soviet Union experiment with Communism, being orchestrated by the United Nations, supported by its many Green NGOs, to impose international treaties of every description that would turn the institution into a global government, superceding the sovereignty of every nation in the world.” ---
**Author:** ![Steel\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/30 "2004-04-05T13:39:12Z")
Ok folks, I don’t have the time to argue this point further. I’m sure you feel I haven’t even made a point, since I’ve now been called a liar, talk about personal attacks. And perhaps the links I posted really aren’t that good, I don’t know. I just know they seem to make more sense than the IPCC and their revisionist reporting, emotionally-driven groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace. Information I had read a couple years ago mentioned that both Methane and Water Vapor both absorb more HEAT (I don’t believe I said energy, but maybe I did) than equal amounts of CO2. I guess only time will tell, and once the major world economies are totally trashed due to a bogus protocol that ultimately will not have one bit of effect on the atmosphere, then we can take up the argument again. So the next time I read that some dying trees in a small portion of Canada is proof of Global Warming, I’ll think of you ITR. Fire away folks, I won’t be responding, though I would love to have the time. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/31 "2004-04-05T14:36:40Z")
> [@Steel Rat](#): > > I just know they seem to make more sense than the IPCC and their revisionist reporting, emotionally-driven groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace. You still haven’t backed up this claim about the IPCC. As for the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, I don’t think we have provided any links to any sort of environmental groups (even though, at least on this issue, their information is closer to what the peer-reviewed science is saying than the information one gets from Cato or other anti-environmental groups). In fact, the closest I have come to links with some likely bias is when I provided links to two major multinational oil companies that both acknowledge the threat of anthropogenic climate change, for heaven’s sake! > [@](#): > > Information I had read a couple years ago mentioned that both Methane and Water Vapor both absorb more HEAT (I don’t believe I said energy, but maybe I did) than equal amounts of CO2. Well, **ITR** has already provided you with information in regards to methane. And, I have noted at any rate that it among those greenhouse gases covered by Kyoto and proposed bills to regulate greenhouse gases here in the U.S. [Heat, by the way, is a form of energy.] In regards to water vapor, I have already explained why the statement that it absorbs a lot of heat is true but not really relevant since humans cannot significantly directly affect its atmospheric concentrations. However, I also explained that water vapor plays an important role in climate change as a feedback by which the warming affect of increasing concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases like CO2 gets magnified. > [@](#): > > I guess only time will tell, and once the major world economies are totally trashed due to a bogus protocol that ultimately will not have one bit of effect on the atmosphere, then we can take up the argument again. I see that while you are unwilling to believe serious science in regards to an environmental danger such as climate change, you are perfectly willing to accept fanciful “sky-is-falling” economics scenarios that are unsupported by most serious economic analyses. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/32 "2004-04-05T15:38:07Z")
Following up on this issue of the economic consequences of Kyoto-type reductions in greenhouse gases, [here](http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/BP-How-Green8dec02.htm) is a story from an NY Times Magazine article about the experience of BP (and its CEO John Browne) in implementing a steeper-than-Kyoto reduction in their greenhouse gas emissions: > [@](#): > > In 1998, Browne publicly committed BP to cutting its carbon-dioxide emissions by 10 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2010, which was a 40 percent cut from business as usual and a target far more ambitious than the Kyoto Protocol itself. > > … > > When Browne stood up at Stanford this past spring, he was there to report hard numbers: BP had not just met its target – to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by 10 percent below 1990 levels – it had exceeded it, done so eight years ahead of schedule and with no net economic cost. In fact, because of energy efficiency measures, the emissions reductions amounted to a net gain of $600 million. ‘‘And we are not,’’ he told me later, ‘‘an inefficient company.’’ > > BP’s achievement complicates matters for Bush, who has pronounced the Kyoto Protocol ‘‘fatally flawed’’ because regulating carbon-dioxide emissions ‘‘does not make economic sense for America.’’ > > That line of argument does not persuade Browne. ‘‘If you say to people, ‘Do you want to develop the world and have a good living standard, or do you want a safer environment?’ people are terrified by the choice,’’ Browne said to me last spring. ‘‘That is a failure of leadership.’’ Speaking of leadership, I asked, what did he think about Bush’s position on the issue – that caps on emissions would be too costly for American businesses? Browne paused, then answered, careful not to mention any names in particular: ‘‘Well, it’s unfair to the world to say that none of this is possible when it is.’’ ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/33 "2004-04-09T15:32:09Z")
[Here](http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-warm0408,0,4690764.story?coll=ny-health-big-pix) and [here](http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994864) are a couple of stories about an article published this week in the journal _Nature_ discussing the possibility of the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet over the next thousand years or so…raising sea levels by something like 7 meters which is enough to put large populated lowland areas under water. Of course, this carries the caveats that one must associate with any one scientific study, even if published in a very prestigious journal such as _Nature_. Nonetheless, it clearly illustrates some of the potential dangers that scientists believe we might face due to anthropogenic warming. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2004, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/34 "2004-04-09T15:44:04Z")
Just out of curiosity, do you guys recognize the caveats of that study? Identifiable from the 2 articles **jshore** linked? ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2004, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/35 "2004-04-09T16:26:01Z")
Yes…And, by the way, I purposely linked to two reports of the study that explicitly mentioned some of the caveats and uncertainties. By contrast, [here](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=6&u=/nm/20040407/sc_nm/environment_climate_dc) is the first (or maybe second?) story that I found on this (from Yahoo) but that I avoided linking to because I didn’t think it did a good enough job in explaining the uncertainties. (I should note, however, that I haven’t been able to get hold of the _Nature_ paper itself yet so I am not basing this on any comparison to the paper itself). ---
**Author:** ![dal\_timgar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@dal\_timgar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dal_timgar)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2004, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524/36 "2004-04-10T17:29:31Z")
There is too much money to be made encouraging people to be stupid. Try getting an economist to calculate how much mericans loose on depreciation of automobiles. Dal Timgar > [@legion](#): > > “Big ideas for reducing the impacts of climate change are being evaluated by an international line-up of leading scientists from the US, mainland Europe and the UK at a symposium in Cambridge this week. The scientists are coming together to evaluate which large-scale bio-engineering, geo-engineering and chemical engineering ideas to combat global warming are worthy of further investigation, and which are best left on the drawing board. The meeting is being jointly hosted by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the Cambridge-MIT Institute.” [Link](http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/environment_sciences/report-24465.html) > > Question: Will it ever come to stage where we give up on tackling the root causes of global warming and concentrate more of our efforts into helping the planet cope with the effects of global warming? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-should-we-build-the-earth-a-sunhat/237524.md?page=1)