Most of your post is good and valid, I respect that you are more knowledgeable on this subject than I am.
You took one sentence that was purposely written to be snarky of the poster Quartz out of context of the rest of my post. I did include some decent information unlike Quartz. I find your calling my piece of snark a sound bite or slogan is silly in the extreme and deceptive and misleading.
Should I take one sentence from your well written post and misrepresent it?
Jim
I’m coming on rather late in the game here, I realize, but I’m wondering about This Guy. He posits the sun as a partial cause, and admittedly, I haven’t read this thread with a fine eye, but much of this makes sense to a six-packer like me.
His interview in Discover Magazine lays out the alternative theory a little more simply.
Here’s how I see it;
I’m sure that the globe is experiencing a warming trend.
I’m not sure we’re causing it, at least I’m not sure that we’re the ONLY reason.
I’m not sure that 100 years of climatological data in comparison to the age of the planet is enough data to be conclusive.
I’m sure that conservation of resources is a Good Damned Idea and always has been, and that we should be leading the charge, and, I also believe we are, at least to the extent we’re able politically and realistically at this point in time.
I’m sure that looking for more oil in Alaska is a bad thing no matter how safely it’s done.
I’m sure that alternative fuels will hardly be, in this decade, and in fact likely into the next two decades, enough to drive the American economic engine. I can’t imagine a hybrid combine to farm the corn to make the ethanol.
That said, I think that Hydrogen fuel cells are going to be a boon to the automotive industry and are the biggest threat to the oil companies. That said, when the first car powered by hydrogen explodes after an accident like a fuel-air bomb, we’ll be right back to square one.
I think that Joseph Longo may have a machine that works for electric energy, but what happens when we finally recycle as much or more than we throw away?
In the end, I think that every country on the face of the planet has to do five things to reduce and ultimately prevent whatever hand we have in the warming process.
Everyone needs to agree on, AND stick to a single standard for air pollution and cleaning. Even, hell, especially developing countries. failing this, a protocol such as Kyoto is damn near meaningless.
Without punishment for failing to follow the standard, also, any standard would be meaningless.
We need to get over our fear of nuclear power. It’s clean, safe and efficient and produces very little in the way of by-products. Also, we need to get more done and faster on Generation IV reactors. Fusion reactors would be nice, but a decent one is 40 years off (give or take).
The folks who are wringing their hands about global warming to the aforementioned Mr. six-pack need to find a way to put a face and a reason on global warming, and moderate the tone of the debate. Screaming and hollering and being generally alarmist isn’t going to motivate people who can’t be bothered to recycle in the first place.
Attaching this to No. 4, both the Pubbies AND the Dems need to get off the stick and talk to their constituencies for real, instead of in bits and bytes and bullshit. So far, they haven’t won hearts and minds, and without them, won’t win wallets.
Just one guys’ opinion
You definitely get the unintentional irony award for this statement. See, that’s the essence of the scientific method. Hypothesize, predict, test, observe.
If you aren’t making predictions that can be tested (and which might falsify your hypothesis) then you are at serious risk of slipping from science into pseudoscience.
Someone else doesn’t believe in models: http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/avery072407.htm
Of course, being from what looks like a right-wing institute, it’ll get instantly dismissed.
Probably they are “known frauds” in the pay of the oil companies.
:rolleyes:
See, we know that AGW has been proven because there is “consensus” among scientists. Therefore, anyone who disagrees must be either ignorant, a fraud, or in the pay of the oil companies. Therefore any dissenting opinions are not worthy of consideration. It follows that there is a “consensus” that the AGW hypothesis is correct. And therefore it has been proven.
Jim, my apologies if I have offended you or misrepresented what you said. I’m just very, very tired of people saying things on the order of “CO2 will warm the earth, it’s basic physics, the debate is over” and the like, with the clear implication that if someone doesn’t agree with such plain, obvious science, they’re either
a) stupid,
b) in the pay of Exxon, or
c) in denial.
It is not simple physics. It is not basic science. Climate is the most complex system we have ever tried to model, but the idea that it is “simple” persists. We cannot forecast the weather a month from now, yet folks persist in believing that we can forecast the climate a century from now.
Again, apologies for my sins of omission or commission. Sometimes my blood just boils over.
w.
I understand, it is a two way street. I was simplifying that which cannot be simplified. But, it was for a specific audience. I understand your frustration.
While you are on the other side of this issue, your answers are well cited and thought out. I might not agree with your conclusions and opinions, but I respect them. Too many on either side of the debate, do try to rely on slogans and nitpicks, rather than debate and science.
Jim
I would put it more under wishful thinking, an article that relies on many “may’s” and that shoehorns a possible connection with rainfall and sunspots with temperature change, (I still wonder where the article creator got the temperature data from the rain experts, this looks more to me like tap dancing) does not much for the idea that this artivle is a good show of evidence.
Have you read the underlying journal article he cites, which apparently appears in the June 2007 issue of the Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering?
The point here is that those “may’s” in that article did not come out of thin air, as the linked study on the sun activity showed, the creator of the Canada free press article is aware that the research he mentions is not as reliable as he infers. Or I should say, relevant to the point.
I guess that means no.
Besides, if the author is aware that the article is unreliable, then he’s not engaged in wishful thinking.
The source you cite is suspect itself. You know anything about the folks at realclimate.org?
Just a little research tells me they’re the FoxNews of the Climate World.
We don’t need a enviro-pac (RC is affiliated with Fenton Communications who orchestrated some of the largest public panics to date, look here, warning pdf ) telling anyone about the environment. Nobody can doubt the truth that the globe is warming, conversely, no one can prove that humans are directly (or completely) to blame.
I guess you did not notice the final quote was direct from the study, not from realclimate.org.
Of course, he is then just being misleading.
Right, so he’s a fraud and probably in the pay of the oil industry.
