Am I the only one who has the opinion that AGW is probably happening, but that the more important threat facing the world is the current recession. Until we improve the economy I don’t see how we can address AGW.
Your opinion is irrelevant in the context of whether global warming is actually happening. What’s really weird about the OP’s Pew link is that Pew attributes to drop in AGW believers to the foundering economy.
Now, if the economy is sucking, you can bet the number of people willing to give up X amount of economic growth in exchange for cleaner air will drop. In this case, however, it appears that because the economy is sucking, less people believe in global warming- as though they’re trying to wish away the science.
Oh, now I see how intention is playing it. Clever. Clintonesque even.
:rolleyes:
To be more honest, one would have to say that there really was not much warming in the last few years, but also that there was no cooling in reality.
Now who is fantasizing again?
The reality is that when the earth keeps virtually the same levels of heat it is silly to mention cooling. This is why among serious researchers only a steady cooling that reaches the levels of the 70’s or the 80’s could be considered to be a failure of the theory.
This graph shows the current state of the predictions and the real data:
Ed Hawkins and Rowan Sutton, NCAS-Climate & Walker Institute, University of Reading
http://ncas-climate.nerc.ac.uk/research/uncertainty/exFig1.jpg
The reality is still within the uncertainty levels of the predictions.
I don’t necessarily think it’s a scam, because I believe that most of the people who are convinced of man-made global warming are being sincere and honest in that belief, although I also think there is an element of scammishness in some of the hysteria that gets bandied about by certain GW proponents.
The problem many of us on the right have with the idea of man-made global warming and its concurrent threat to the planet is that it’s coming from the left – the Chicken Littles of the world who seem always to be crying that the sky is falling and that more government and more government regulations and regulatory agencies are needed to put a stop to it. Forty years ago we were harvesting all the trees and the world was doomed to suffocation from oxyzen depletion. Thirty years ago the planet was running out of oil and we’ll all die if we don’t stop driving CARS. Many people with leftie sympathies are now so hysterical about smoking (a truly bad and dangerous thing…EVENTUALLY!) that they think any exposure to cigarette smoke anywhere is going to kill them (one drive-through window dingbat at a fast food store reported here at the Dope felt so threatened by a few seconds of exposure to cigarette smoke that she was trying to refuse service to a guy who was smoking in his car! I view her as something of an allegory for global warming hystericalists.
The left is always trying for more government control – and to me, especially in light of so much contradictory evidence and opinion from global warming deniers – much of the hysteria and concern over global warming is just another attempt to create more government control over the nation’s industry and citizens. Lefties feel safe and secure in the warm loving arms of government, where they feel protected and shielded from the evil machinations of people and companies trying to make a…dare I say it…profit, and they feel exposed and in danger wherever government isn’t running things. So, the more things they can find to put government in control of, the safer they feel. And to many of us on the right – especially in light of so much contradictory evidence and differing expert opinion – this is just one more expression of that leftist desire for more government control.
Dick Cheney was reputed to control the energy industry, to the extent of helping them to destroy the planet. You would think Big Al could of at least did something to help the cause.
The contradictory evidence you talk about is at the creationist level.
But to be clear, not all right wingers follow the anti-science agenda, John McCain and others do take the science into account, I do think that right wingers do have a point regarding **how **and **what ** to do in dealing with this issue. What is clear to me is that trying to keep this as just a Right vs Left position is silly.
No one is trying to keep it that way, it’s just how things of this sort naturally fall.
Forgot about this bit, please check the history on how scientists found the evidence that global warming was an issue, the idea of global warming was not arrived by faith. It was not a matter of belief.
*
The Discovery of Global Warming*
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
*
The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect*
I would say that for guys like Hannity and Beck, **unnatural **is the word that comes to mind.
Where was Hannity when the right was poo-pooing the notion we were running out of trees? Or when we were denying that the world was running out of oil?
Really Not All That Bright, thank you for the (partial) vote of confidence. I agree that sea levels are rising. They are doing so at the same rate as during the last century. However, I seem to have missed the headlines about how rising sea levels were one of the biggest problems of the 20th century. War, yes, and famine, and droughts, and a host of things were “very bad things” in the 20th century, they killed millions and millions of people, the headlines were full of them … but sea level?
If rising sea levels are a “very bad thing”, where are the reports of immense damage and the huge loss of life from the rise in the 20th century? Yes, rising sea levels will likely continue to cause problems in the 21st century, just as they did in the 20th century … but that doesn’t fill me with dread. We’ve dealt with it in the past, we’ll deal with it in the future in the same way.
Finally, the idea that coral atolls are threatened by rising sea levels is a joke. Google “charles darwin coral atoll” to see why. There are reasons why coral atolls are having problems, reasons having nothing to do with sea levels … but that’s another thread.
SUVs and American Idol cause sunspots, don’t you know?
I for one welcome my new Dolphin overlords.
Running out of trees? Is this a whoosh? According to the UN FAO, the forested area in the US has increased every year since 1990.
Year, Forested area (hectares)
1990, 298648
1991, 299013
1992, 299377
1993, 299742
1994, 300106
1995, 300471
1996, 300836
1997, 301200
1998, 301565
1999, 301929
2000, 302294
2001, 302453
2002, 302612
2003, 302771
2004, 302930
2005, 303089
2006, 303248
2007, 303407
But you can’t rule it out… especially if you know people have been playing with matches nearby.
The problem is, people say, “But it’s a natural cycle” as if it means we can’t possibly have caused it this time… when all it means is that it’s happened before.
So, uh… how’s the rest of the world doing? Specifically, South America?
Actually the statistic that he is referring to is based on a **very **selective end of the graph.
What deniers do not show people is that the correlation fails when the graph is plotted beyond the 80’s
More on the deception of that graph in this video at 7:10:
that “The Big Swindle Movie” clip shows yet again many examples of deception coming from the “not so skeptical” side.
Nice laundry list of fallacies. It’s like you can go through the Fallacy Files and find an example of every one in this one fucking post. Name calling - check. Historical fallacy - check. Strawman argument - check. Poisoning the well - check.
Now try actually making an argument, oh ignorance fighter.
You’re right, that was one fucked up post.
I misspelled oxygen (where the hell did that z come from, anyway?) and left out a paren. :smack:
And besides, it wasn’t an argument; it was an explanation. 