# Has the world actually been cooling since 2002? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 19, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728 "2014-02-19T19:32:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/161 "2014-02-22T13:07:35Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > So why should we assume that “dumping as much CO[sub]2[/sub] into the atmosphere as we possibly can” is a good thing for humans? It’s a hedge, the human condition will be better in a hundred years no matter what the climate does. You didn’t answer my question, where did the 300 ppm come from? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/162 "2014-02-22T15:04:54Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > So you truly are aware of how that works. So it follows that then you agree with me and many others that you are wrong when trying to point at specific areas and limited time data to “demonstrate” that the whole earth is not warming. It’s painfully obvious that you just can’t understand what is written, right here on the page. Of course it would be wrong to say "the entire world is cooling because it is cold “in this one place”. It’s as wrong as trying to use Australia to claim the entire world is getting hotter right now. (it is cooling, the data shows this with no doubt) The real question is, what does it mean? If the “world is cooling” means “some places are getting much much hotter, but the larger areas are cooling, so the global mean is actually going down, but in reality summers in large areas are getting bad.”, that means something. Same for “most of the year it’s warmer, but the NH winters are so fucking cold of late they are making the global mean negative”. Or “the Pacific is cooling things so much, the waerming from the greenhouse effect isn’t showing up anymore”. Or, “the dueling influences of a solar minimum, an enhanced greenhouse effect, increasing air pollution, ocean cycles and organic responses to climate change from microbes, is making it really hard to do science, and attribute cause, much less get a good idea of how it all works”. What is completely unhelpful, is anyone crowing and claiming victory, saying “I was right”. And obviously the critics, deniers, and greedy fuckholes who don’t want a single penny taken from their record profits from selling fuels, are going to use any and all means to cause doubt, and throw chaff into the mix. This counters the alarmist and fear tactics of the rabid greens, and the easily fooled. But it makes it a goddamn war, instead of science. And that’s war where nobody wins. ---
**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:** [February 22, 2014, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/163 "2014-02-22T15:06:14Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > I debunk GIGO, xkcd and climate central, all in one post. Nope, once again you are trying to do this with scientists, if you think you are so clever, then you need to publish. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > [Here is the full “report”,](http://www.climatecentral.org/wgts/warming-winters/WarmingWinters.pdf) which is not a scientific paper. It is what Wikipedia calls “original research”, it’s not considered a valid source of scientific information. Any more than a debunking of it is. And your failure is complete now, as you are not even aware of who made that report. [http://www.climatecentral.org/what-we-do/people/claudia\_tebaldi](http://www.climatecentral.org/what-we-do/people/claudia_tebaldi) > [@](#): > > Dr. Tebaldi is a climate statistician at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and collaborates with the Climate Science and Impacts groups at Climate Central. Her research interests include the analysis of observations and climate model output in order to characterize observed and projected climatic changes and their uncertainties. She has published papers on detection and attribution of these changes, on extreme value analysis, future projections at regional levels, and impacts of climate change on agriculture and human health and she is currently a lead author for the IPCC Assessment Report, within Working Group 1. She has a Ph.D. in statistics from Duke University. The points made before stand, you were already debunked on the use of solar spot charts that you used to counter the sun irradiation, they are not the same thing. You still insist that there is a conspiracy (debunked many times already) so scientists should not be consulted, the evidence remains that you are wrong about CO2 not warming the earth, and then you are insisting the comic was wrong when you can not produce any data to counter what \*\*Kimstu \*\*reported. Once again, they only pointed at real data (that you can not deny) to show that even a city \*\*can \*\*be an example of an overall trend, **only _if_** we had originally used just the city to claim that global warming was happening, then your silly accusation of cherry picking would hold water. After the state of Mississippi the whole USA and then the world are warming, for all you did you only confirmed to others that you \*\*do \*\*know why cherry picking should not be done to service sweeping statements like “has the world has cooled” it has not. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/164 "2014-02-22T15:09:12Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I agree with your last sentence. And you know what – I see your point and empathize with your logic, but here’s the problem. It appeals to the notion of “truth is always in the middle” which is sometimes a vastly misleading generalization. The truth isn’t “in the middle” – the truth is wherever it is found. The generalization confuses science with politics. It might be true if we had environmental activists on one side and anti-environmental activists on the other, and both had equivalent self-interest. In actual fact we have no such thing; we have climate scientists doing science on one side, and something like a $12 trillion global fossil fuel industry threatened by climate science on the other side – along with all its allies in business and industry. In short, we have science on one side and pretty much the entire global business empire on the other, with most governments, worried about their local economies, tending to line up with the industrialists. It doesn’t appeal to the golden middle. It appeals to staying away from the fringe of our society that is in any political debate for the money. Both active deniers and active alarmists are doing this, and it’s mostly businesses that like money. As for your exaggeration - the “global fossil fuel industry” isn’t using 12 T a year to “fight” global warming legislation. A lot of “fossil fuel” companies are on the front lines investing in technology that they can sell. Why? Because oil isn’t nearly cheap enough to produce anymore, and it’s cutting into their profits. They are looking for the next big thing they can patent and use to drive huge shareholder gains. Additionally, the study that used the entire operating budgets as a basis for how much the “denier” organizations make, it was 900 m across 70 or 80 organizations. Actual US denier lobby group spending when tracking contributions for a cause seems to be in the 40-50 million dollar range. US Fed spending? roughly 15-20 billion. Take away the 2-3B spent on all kinds of research attached to climate change and that’s 12 B just for technology, loans, and that sort of thing. Getting some of that tasty federal money is what companies dream of. Also note that global fossil fuel industry member, Shell, has long advocated for [CO2 restrictions](http://www.shell.com/global/environment-society/environment/climate-change.html). Heck, Presidents of Shell served as heads of the WWF. And once we start looking into places like the WWF and other alarmist sources, we start to see a much larger source of funding. The WWF averages 500M a year in operating fund contributions. Greenpeace? Another 500M a year. Both ardent supporters of CO2 cap and trade. (I also read somewhere that WWF got a huge starter grant in the 60s from Shell.) And, you’ll notice, that they don’t spend nearly as much time on PR as denier organizations do. Their money is going elsewhere, campaign contributions, separate research, alarmist-branded “studies” (like the aforementioned 900m figure), and so forth. Now, I don’t ascribe to a Golden Middle as you and Gigo seem to love to claim. But I don’t operate under the illusion that climate scientists are embattled on one side and the befuddled who are lead by the Kochs and the Fossil Fuel industry are on the other just harassing those poor climate scientists and it’s some sort of terrible calamity that if we could just, you know, convince the people of their error, it’ll all get better! The truth is much, much more complex with multiple levels of political bullshit in the way. My “golden middle” is the actual science. What it says and, just as important, what it doesn’t say. ---
**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:** [February 22, 2014, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/165 "2014-02-22T15:24:19Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Most people will not do the work to see if [climate central is fooling them](http://www.climatecentral.org/news/winters-are-warming-all-across-the-us-15590). I already had, so I knew it was bogus when I saw it. Which is why I knew the xkcd comic was wrong, he was fooled by climate central. > > Lots of people are. Lots of very educated scientists, nah, Occam’s razor tells me that FX has trouble with evidence and confuses (many) basic things like solar spots with total irridiance. It is not the scientists who are wrong. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > It’s an entire nother debate, so if you really care that much, start a topic, I will show you exactly how and why they are wrong, and how you can confirm it yourself. We only confirmed that when cornered you are willing to claim finally that cherry picking was a very bad thing to do as it can only mislead yourself. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > Speaking of, Tamino attempted to debunk the Cohen et al (2012) paper using the NCDC data set, which was interesting, for several reasons. He failed of course, but his work was honest, but not his conclusions. As Kimstu showed you are not using the NCDC data properly, once again a cherry pick is not looking at false data is to just concentrate on a short trend to claim the opposite of what the longer trend and the experts report. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > The reason that Climate central uses 1970 I already explained several times now. It is obvious in [their St Louis graphic](http://www.climatecentral.org/images/sized/images/sized/remote/assets-climatecentral-org-images-uploads-news-1_7_14_Andrew_FrigidNights2014_stlouis-550x310.jpg). > > [Warming Winters: U.S. Temperature Trends | Climate Central](http://www.climatecentral.org/news/winters-are-warming-all-across-the-us-15590) > > They start with the coldest start point possible unless you go back to 1890, but that has a set of problems for them, so they don’t. > > If they showed you all the data, you wouldn’t believe their story. Not one bit. [/quote] Wrong again, they do not start with the coldest point. They are, once again talking about the number of below zero days. And when they show you all the data the conclusion is that: > [@](#): > > An analysis of data from the U.S. Historical Climatology Network of weather stations shows that the coldest states are warming the fastest, and across the country winter warming since 1970 has been more than four-and-a-half times faster per decade than over the past 100 years. Winter nights across the country have warmed about 30 percent faster than nights over the whole year. Some states cooled or failed to join the warming trend over the past 100 years, but since 1970, every state has shown winter-warming. As pointed before, if you think your cherry picks are the beesnees, then you should publish, what the evidence shows is that people making policy will listen to the science and the scientists to deal with the problem, and not people that confuse the number of sun spots that can reduce total solar irradiance, with the solar irradiance on graphs. ---
**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:** [February 22, 2014, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/166 "2014-02-22T15:44:53Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > It doesn’t appeal to the golden middle. It appeals to staying away from the fringe of our society that is in any political debate for the money. Both active deniers and active alarmists are doing this, and it’s mostly businesses that like money. > > [snip] > > Now, I don’t ascribe to a Golden Middle as you and Gigo seem to love to claim. But I don’t operate under the illusion that climate scientists are embattled on one side and the befuddled who are lead by the Kochs and the Fossil Fuel industry are on the other just harassing those poor climate scientists and it’s some sort of terrible calamity that if we could just, you know, convince the people of their error, it’ll all get better! The truth is much, much more complex with multiple levels of political bullshit in the way. > > My “golden middle” is the actual science. What it says and, just as important, what it doesn’t say. And once again the actual scientists, even republican ones, are not recommending that we should not control our emissions. What the fossil fuel groups are doing with environmental orgs is standard operation coming from the tobacco companies that also contribute a lot to health groups. Even today they claim that tobacco is a good force in the social environment. And while millions of dollars are used by the tobacco companies to health research and other good causes, that remains on the front. In the back they continue to fund politicians, astroturf organizations and think thanks that oppose legislation to control tobacco. It has to be pointed out that many times the same groups and politicians that support the tobacco industry are also involved in climate change denial, like the Heartland Institute. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/167 "2014-02-22T16:52:52Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And once again the actual scientists, even republican ones, are not recommending that we should not control our emissions. > > What the fossil fuel groups are doing with environmental orgs is standard operation coming from the tobacco companies that also contribute a lot to health groups. Even today they claim that tobacco is a good force in the social environment. > > And while millions of dollars are used by the tobacco companies to health research and other good causes, that remains on the front. In the back they continue to fund politicians, astroturf organizations and think thanks that oppose legislation to control tobacco. > > It has to be pointed out that many times the same groups and politicians that support the tobacco industry are also involved in climate change denial, like the Heartland Institute. So, it’s down to conspiracy theories, again? Goody. So I can disregard all of Michael Mann’s work because he took a grant from Al Jazeera (based in Qatar so all of it’s money comes from Oil)? So I can disregard all of the CRU’s work at East Anglia because both Shell and BP have given them funds? Shell, Exxon, and BP have all also given funds over to policy projects of both Republican and Democrat administrations over the years. Obviously NOAA, NASA, and all other US Government agencies are perpetuating this FRAUD at the behest of Big Oil. Thanks, man. I didn’t realize that climate change was a complete fraud until just this minute. You have opened my eyes. Logic dictates that A + B = C. If you don’t have A and B, you don’t get to assume C just because you feel like it. Can you prove that a single company, and not “the industry,” has given money to Heartland or similar foundations while at the same time giving money to pro think tanks so that they can muddy the waters to their benefit? ---
**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:** [February 22, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/168 "2014-02-22T17:05:02Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > So, it’s down to conspiracy theories, again? Goody. Once again, they are not theories, there is plenty of evidence documented. > **[Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway | Book review](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/08/merchants-of-doubt-oreskes-conway)** > > This exposé of the coterie of rightwing scientists hell-bent on destroying the cause of environmentalism is outstanding, says Robin McKie > [@](#): > > At least that is the common appreciation of Carson. However, a brief search of her name on the internet today produces an unexpected response. According to many websites, Carson – by all accounts a pleasant, amiable woman – was a mass murderer who killed more people than the Nazis. This dramatic claim is based on her campaign against DDT, which, it is alleged, has led to the deaths of countless Africans from malaria. > > “Millions of people around the world suffer the painful and often deadly effects of malaria because one person sounded a false alarm,” states one site set up by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “That person is Rachel Carson.” Another site goes further: “Fifty million dead,” while a third claims: “More deaths likely.” Others compare Carson to Hitler or Stalin. > > As an appraisal of Carson’s achievements, this is a fairly shocking piece of revisionism and, as the authors of Merchants of Doubt make clear, it also is a false one. DDT was banned not just because it was accumulating in the food chain but because mosquitoes were developing resistance to it. The pesticide was losing its usefulness long before it was taken out of commercial production. > > So why this hysterical vilification? Why these sudden denunciations of Carson? The answer – provided by Oreskes and Conway in this painstakingly assembled but nevertheless riveting piece of investigative reporting – is simple. The far right in America, in its quest to ensure the perpetuation of the free market, is now hell-bent on destroying the cause of environmentalism. > [@](#): > > Hence the monstering of Carson’s reputation, an act of deliberate misinformation, say Oreskes and Conway, that has become the hallmark of a group of far-right institutions that are funded by businesses and conservative foundations and supported by a coterie of rightwing scientists who believe ecological threats are made up by lefty researchers as part of a grand plan to expand government control over our lives. These are the villains of Merchants of Doubt, and the same names pop up throughout its pages: scientists such as Fred Seitz, Robert Jastrow and Bill Nierenberg, along with the institutes through which they, and their kind, have lent their services to a range of rightwing, free-market foundations and institutions including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the source of that anti-Carson diatribe that I quoted earlier. When not funded by the tobacco industry, many of these outfits often receive backing from fossil-fuel companies such as Exxon. > > In these campaigns, a common strategy is evident: discredit the science, spread confusion and promote doubt, tactics that were introduced in the 70s to combat plans to limit smoking – whose links to cancer were by then becoming unambiguous – and which have been refined and used in battles to combat acid rain, ozone-layer depletion and greenhouse gas emissions. > > Real science is dismissed as “junk” while misrepresentations are offered in its place What you miss about the fossil fuel companies seemingly schizophrenic contributions is that it is similar to what cable companies are doing, invest a lot on how they are to the community, invest also a lot in representatives of either party, the end result is clear: monopolies or duopolies that are increasing rates and demand their congress critters to now kill any “net neutrality” rules. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/169 "2014-02-22T17:26:58Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Once again, they are not theories, there is plenty of evidence documented. > > [Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway | Science and nature books | The Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/08/merchants-of-doubt-oreskes-conway) > > What you miss about the fossil fuel companies seemingly schizophrenic contributions is that it is similar to what cable companies are doing, invest a lot on how they are to the community, invest also a lot in representatives of either party, the end result is clear: monopolies or duopolies that are increasing rates and demand their congress critters to now kill any “net neutrality” rules. Wow. People and organizations talk trash about people they don’t agree with. Good proof of what I asked for. You still have provided only opinion. At some point, you have to have proof for a conspiracy theory to be considered reality. Good day, sir. I’ll leave you to your tin foil hattery. ---
**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:** [February 22, 2014, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/170 "2014-02-22T18:29:13Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Wow. People and organizations talk trash about people they don’t agree with. Good proof of what I asked for. You still have provided only opinion. At some point, you have to have proof for a conspiracy theory to be considered reality. > > Good day, sir. I’ll leave you to your tin foil hattery. :rolleyes: That was not just my opinion, Naomi Oreskes historical research and publications can not be ignored. [http://history.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/oreskes-naomi.html](http://history.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/oreskes-naomi.html) > [@](#): > > Naomi Oreskes is Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego, Adjunct Professor of Geosciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and an internationally renowned historian of science and author. Having started her career as a geologist, received her B.S. (1st class Honours) from the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College London, and then worked for three years as an exploration geologist in the Australian outback. She returned to the United States to receive an inter-disciplinary Ph.D. in geological research and history of science from Stanford University, in 1990. Professor Oreskes has lectured widely in diverse venues ranging from the Madison, Wisconsin Civics Club to the Air Force Research Laboratory, and has won numerous prizes, including, most recently the 2011 Climate Change Communicator of the Year. > > Professor Oreskes has a long-standing interest in understanding the establishment of scientific consensus and the role and character of scientific dissent. Her early work examined the 20th century transformation of earth science, in The Rejection Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science (Oxford, 1999) and Plate Tectonics: An Insider’s History of the Modern Theory of the Earth (Westview, 2001). She has also written on the under-acknowledged role of women in science, discussed in the prize-winning paper “Objectivity or heroism? On the invisibility of women in science” (OSIRIS 11 (1996): 87-113); and on the role of numerical simulation models in establishing knowledge about inaccessible natural phenomena (Verification, validation, and confirmation of numerical models in the earth sciences," Science 263 (1994): 641-646). > > For the past decade, Professor Oreskes has primarily been interested in the problem of anthropogenic climate change. Her 2004 essay “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change” (Science 306: 1686) has been widely cited, both in the United States and abroad, including in the Royal Society’s publication, “A Guide to Facts and Fictions about Climate Change,” in the Academy-award winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, and in Ian McEwan’s novel, Solar. Her opinion pieces have appeared in The Times (London), The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Nature, Science, The New Statesman, Frankfuter Allegemeine, and elsewhere. Her 2010 book, Merchants of Doubt, How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco to Global Warming, co-authored with Erik M. Conway, was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Time Book Prize. > **[What does Naomi Oreskes' study on consensus show?](https://skepticalscience.com/naomi-oreskes-consensus-on-global-warming.htm)** > > \An examination of the papers that critics claim refute the consensus are found to actually endorse the consensus or are review papers (eg - they don't offer any new research but merely review other papers). This led the original critic Benny... > [@](#): > > In 2004, Naomi Oreskes performed a survey of all peer reviewed abstracts on the subject “global climate change” published between 1993 and 2003. She surveyed the ISI Web of Science database, looking only at peer reviewed, scientific articles. The survey failed to find a single paper that rejected the consensus position that global warming over the past 50 years is predominantly anthropogenic. 75% of the papers agreed with the consensus position while 25% made no comment either way (eg - focused on methods or paleoclimate analysis). But for what she found about the point you are trying to avoid, one has to check Oreskes presentation on what she has found. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/2T4UF_Rmlio/hqdefault.jpg "The American Denial of Global Warming - Perspectives on Ocean Science") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio) > [@](#): > > Polls show that between one-third and one-half of Americans still believe that there is “no solid” evidence of global warming, or that if warming is happening it can be attributed to natural variability. Others believe that scientists are still debating the point. Join scientist and renowned historian Naomi Oreskes as she describes her investigation into the reasons for such widespread mistrust and misunderstanding of scientific consensus and probes the history of organized campaigns designed to create public doubt and confusion about science. ---
**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:** [February 22, 2014, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/171 "2014-02-22T18:37:28Z")
Another point that you miss is that fossil fuel corporations, like tobacco and cable companies, do know how the game is played. Giving money to both sides is important so even if the candidate they less like is elected they will have still plenty of good will to show and use when pressuring the congress critter to water down any new regulations coming. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/172 "2014-02-22T18:41:31Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > As for your exaggeration - the “global fossil fuel industry” isn’t using 12 T a year to “fight” global warming legislation. A lot of “fossil fuel” companies are on the front lines investing in technology that they can sell. Why? Because oil isn’t nearly cheap enough to produce anymore, and it’s cutting into their profits. They are looking for the next big thing they can patent and use to drive huge shareholder gains. > > My “golden middle” is the actual science. What it says and, just as important, what it doesn’t say. I’m not “exaggerating” that point – I’m making the point that the global fossil fuel industry is staggeringly huge, and that as makers of the products primarily responsible for climate change they have a huge financial stake in this “debate”, much greater than the interest the tobacco companies had in fake “health research” about the harmlessness of tobacco. And I don’t see any of the “investments” you’re talking about – I don’t see oil companies investing heavily in solar, or in fuel cells or electric cars. I mostly just see them defending their turf. As to your last sentence, I agree, of course. And I hope you recognize that the science is very forthright about what it does and doesn’t know, and indeed very conservative in that regard. As I keep having to repeat, Greenpeace activists and the like are not “science”, and I couldn’t care less what they have to say. OK, look, you can continue to believe that Al Gore and a ragtag bunch of activists is the political equivalent of the sum total of the world’s industry. Frankly, that isn’t even the issue; the issue is that about half of the general population is so profoundly misinformed about climate science that they either believe that climate change is not happening or that human activities are not a significant factor, or that it isn’t a problem, and/or that climate scientists are engaged in a secret conspiracy for personal gain. What I was trying to address – and what that paper was addressing – is the question of why. The answer to me seems self-evident. There is a concerted PR campaign on many different fronts to undermine the science, most of them astroturfed to look like dedicated independent seekers of truth with lofty names like “Science and Public Policy Institute” or rolled in to conservative lobby organizations like Heartland or CEI. It’s exactly what the tobacco industry was doing a generation ago, but on a vastly greater scale. Indeed some lobbyists and occasional corrupt scientists have been involved in both. And they are successful because, as Bill Maher once said, there is a large segment of the population whose acquaintance with science is limited to wondering where the sun goes at night. [He probably thought he was kidding](http://newsfeed.time.com/2014/02/16/1-in-4-americans-thinks-sun-orbits-earth/). More seriously, there is truly a large segment of the population that is disinterested in science and is easy prey to campaigns that establish this false equivalency between opposing “sides” that are supposedly engaged in a huge debate. If you have a chance, look for an excellent article called “Phaeton’s Reins” by climate scientist Kerry Emanuel that eloquently discusses some of the factors that brought this about. I am unimpressed by your Shell link. It perfectly illustrates a classic PR tactic that Wendell Potter – a former PR tactician himself – talks about: turn the argument around and declare that “we are not the problem, we are part of the solution!”. It conveys that message nicely without actually saying anything of substance. If you want something of substance, you might consider the corpulent former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond (who recently retired with a $450 million package, not that there’s any money in the oil industry) who was instrumental in divesting Exxon of some of its forward-looking alternate-energy projects while at the same time funding one of the most reprehensible underhanded campaigns of climate change denial that has ever been seen even in that sordid industry. ---
**Author:** ![Esco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9de053/32.png) [@Esco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esco)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/173 "2014-02-22T20:00:42Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > If you think that an unusually cold winter somehow discredits the hypothesis of a long-term anthropogenic global warming trend, you really don’t understand climate science at all Oh, and I suppose you _do_ understand it?? Climate is extremely complicated, we cant even predict the weather right half the time, how are we gonna predict what the climate will be like 50 years from now?? And global warming has paused last 15 years, even the biggest alarmists have been forced to admit this. And I’m not buying their official explanation why it has paused: [Study explains global warming ‘pause’](http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/02/10/study_explains_global_warming_pause.html) Add Climategate to the whole mix and you got broken science. You have to be a complete moron to still believe global warming is as bad as the “experts” say it is ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/174 "2014-02-22T20:07:22Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > This is relevant to the idea of dumping as much CO2 into the atmosphere as we possibly can … to warm the Earth … as something that would be good for humans … allowing them to thrive better. > [@Kimstu](#): > > […] the human species seems to have been most successful and made the greatest progress in securing its survival within the past several thousand years, when CO2 levels were significantly lower than they are now. > > So why should we assume that “dumping as much CO2 into the atmosphere as we possibly can” is a good thing for humans? > [@watchwolf49](#): > > It’s a hedge, the human condition will be better in a hundred years no matter what the climate does. In other words, you can’t defend your unsupported assertion that “dumping as much CO2 into the atmosphere as we possibly can” **is** in fact “something that would be good for humans”. You’re just dodging it with the irrelevant (and also unsupported) assertion that life is going to get better for humans anyway irrespective of whether increased CO2 is advantageous or disadvantageous. [QUOTE=watchwolf49] You didn’t answer my question, where did the 300 ppm come from? [/QUOTE] :dubious: You don’t seem to be all that great at answering questions yourself. Anyway, atmospheric CO2 is produced mostly by organic decay and respiration, release of CO2 from the oceans, volcanic and forest-fire emissions, and human-specific activities (primarily combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation). Climate records indicate that for the past several hundred thousand years before the industrial era, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been cycling between about 180 and about 300 ppm. The sudden sharp increase in CO2 concentration in the past century or so, combined with the change in proportion of different kinds of carbon isotopes reflecting a higher proportion of fossil carbon, tells us that the additional 100+ ppm is due to human activity. ---
**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:** [February 22, 2014, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/175 "2014-02-22T20:09:39Z")
> [@Esco](#): > > Oh, and I suppose you _do_ understand it?? Climate is extremely complicated, we cant even predict the weather right half the time, how are we gonna predict what the climate will be like 50 years from now?? > > And global warming has paused last 15 years, even the biggest alarmists have been forced to admit this. > And I’m not buying their official explanation why it has paused: [Study explains global warming ‘pause’](http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/02/10/study_explains_global_warming_pause.html) > > Add Climategate to the whole mix and you got broken science. > You have to be a complete moron to still believe global warming is as bad as the “experts” say it is No. Your standards of skepticism are broken, you need to be even more skeptic about the ones pushing for that conspiracy theory about “climategate” > **[Debunking Misinformation About Stolen Climate Emails in the "Climategate"...](https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/debunking-misinformation-about-stolen-climate-emails)** > > The international controversy over emails stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit has generated a lot of heat. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/N8E6Z9t74QY/hqdefault.jpg "Potholer54: "22 -- Climategate mark 2 -- the quotes and the context"") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8E6Z9t74QY) Science Writer Peter Hadfield reporting how climate gate actually convinced him how the deniers and the conspiracy theorists do not deserve any attention because the merchants of doubt got it wrong or they willfully omitted the context. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/176 "2014-02-22T20:17:12Z")
(Reply to **Kimstu** ): Just to add to that, blanket statements like “more CO2 may be good for us” reflect a profound misunderstanding of how rapid forcings affect the climate and the ecosystem. It’s not the end-point – which takes thousands of years to stabilize – that is the issue. It’s the rate of change. That can’t be emphasized enough, and there is plenty of evidence about [how the climate reacts to strong carbon forcing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum). The ecosystem is very vulnerable as well to rates of change that exceed the adaptive capabilities of key species. You end up with multiple global disruptions at once – destabilization of global climate, rapid temperature changes globally, extreme changes in temperature and precipitation regionally due to long-term changes in circulation systems, changes in ocean chemistry, and other disruptions that potentially lead to biological tipping points and – eventually – to mass extinctions. The [best current estimates](http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/publications/AR4/index.html) are that a temperature rise of less than 2°C at the current trajectory would put 30% of species at risk of extinction, and double that temperature at the equivalent trajectory would likely be a significant threat to the entire global ecosystem. BTW, nice point about the isotopic signature of anthropogenic CO2. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/177 "2014-02-22T20:28:37Z")
> [@Esco](#): > > Oh, and I suppose you _do_ understand it?? Climate is extremely complicated, we cant even predict the weather right half the time, how are we gonna predict what the climate will be like 50 years from now?? Weather and climate are different things, and short-term weather prediction is different from long-term climate prediction. For instance, I personally can’t predict at all what the weather will be next week, but I can predict with very high confidence that the average temperature next week will be lower than the average weekly temperature five months from now. As I pointed out earlier, climate science is indeed very complicated and a lot of its estimates and projections are extremely uncertain. Every mainstream climate scientist acknowledges that (and as for me personally, I certainly understand much less about the subject than professional climate science researchers do). _ **But that doesn’t mean that nobody knows anything at all about climate or that any guess is as good as any other** _. > [@Esco](#): > > And global warming has paused last 15 years, even the biggest alarmists have been forced to admit this. Like the OP, you’re mixing up the concept of a _recent short-term decrease in some temperature indicators_ with the idea of _the whole long-term process of global warming somehow stopping or “pausing”_. The two are not the same thing. Just because some temperature indicators are currently not increasing doesn’t mean that our continual pumping up of greenhouse-gas concentrations isn’t still adding to the total energy budget of the planet. > [@Esco](#): > > And I’m not buying their official explanation why it has paused: [Study explains global warming ‘pause’](http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/02/10/study_explains_global_warming_pause.html) That’s not an argument against its validity. Plenty of people “aren’t buying” various scientific theories about, e.g., evolution or geology, but that doesn’t mean the science is wrong. Do you have an actual scientific argument that you consider refutes the scientific explanation you mentioned, or are you just “not buying” it because you’ve decided you don’t like it? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/178 "2014-02-22T20:43:39Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > I debunked the comic the day it came out[…] > > the xkcd came up as a sidetrack, and it is not talking about just St Louis, which is obvious from the content. Even so, I used St Louis to prove it is wrong. […] > > the actual city of St Louis still is enoughto debunk this nonsense What you are doing now, **FXMastermind** , is not so much debating as delusional raving in desperate defense of ignorance and error. Once again, _you did not prove that the **xkcd** comic is wrong. On the contrary, the data from St. Louis confirms it is right._ Let’s recap: The xkcd comic in question makes the point that the severity of minimum winter temperatures in St. Louis has been sharply decreasing in recent decades. And the data I cited for St. Louis from the National Weather Service forecast archive confirms that point, as follows: **Number of Subzero F Daily Low Temperatures (Annually) in St. Louis:** **1960-1969:** 2, 4, 4, 13, 1, 3, 3, 1, 3, 0 **1970-1979:** 5, 0, 4, 2, 2, 1, 4, 13, 7, 8 **1980-1989:** 2, 4, 10, 9, 4, 3, 1, 0, 1, 5 **1990-1999:** 2, 0, 0, 1, 4, 0, 4, 6, 0, 2 **2000-2009:** 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2 **2010-2013:** 1, 1, 0, 0 I.e., the severity of minimum winter temperatures in St. Louis **has** been sharply decreasing in recent decades. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/179 "2014-02-22T20:58:56Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Like the OP, you’re mixing up the concept of a _recent short-term decrease in some temperature indicators_ with the idea of _the whole long-term process of global warming somehow stopping or “pausing”_. Nonsense, the OP is clear, and says nothing of the sort. The explanation being objected to is based on [the paper I linked to in the OP](http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/02/10/study_explains_global_warming_pause.html). ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/180 "2014-02-22T21:01:07Z")
Okay, now _this_ is funny. _ **FXMastermind** when he thinks he has a valid argument:_ > [@FXMastermind](#): > > I don’t just pull facts out of my ass, everything is based on evidence, on research and data, everything. […] > If you can show anything I post is wrong, then do it. I welcome learning something new. […] > No, I was right, and I still am. […] > I debunked the evidence […] > […] which I debunked in a matter of seconds when I first saw it. […] And I can prove it of course. > Of course I can prove it […] > I know this because I simply checked. […] if you are too lazy to check, I will bet you any amount of money. […] > If I look at the records, and I have of course, […] then I know climate central and xkcd are wrong. […] > I debunked the comic the day it came out, which was really easy […] > I seem to be the only one who is laughing over this […] > I debunk GIGO, xkcd and climate central, all in one post […] > I knew it was bogus when I saw it […] > I will show you exactly how and why they are wrong […] > It’s painfully obvious that you just can’t understand what is written […] _ **FXMastermind** when his argument has been conclusively shown to be wrong:_ > [@FXMastermind](#): > > What is completely unhelpful, is anyone crowing and claiming victory, saying “I was right”. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728.md?page=10)