# I'm sick of this Global Warming! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 16, 2013, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440 "2013-08-16T18:57:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 26
**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:** [September 13, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/501 "2013-09-13T15:06:41Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Remember, you told us that the NAS is not telling us what theory is the one they are talking about in that summary. [What theory is then if not AGW?](http://news.softpedia.com/news/NAS-Recognizes-Global-Warming-as-Established-Theory-182263.shtml) The only time they even mention climate change and theory together is here. > [@](#): > > “Climate change is a theory as certain as the theory of the Earth’s age (4.5 billion years), the Big Bang Theory, and the theory of evolution,” the highest US science body went on to say. No definition, explanation or link to anything that explains the theory in that link. No surprise there. Google search shows the terms “AGW theory”, “global warming theory”, or “theory of global warming” do not appear anywhere on the NAS website. Neither does “CO2 theory”, “greenhouse theory”, climate theory" “climate change theory” or any combination of those. there is nothing there. Which is exactly why GIGOGalloper won’t link to the site. ---
**Author:** ![sylmar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@sylmar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sylmar)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/502 "2013-09-13T15:09:33Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > I doubt that any of the warmist posters here have a clear idea of exactly what is and is not claimed by their side; what is and is not predicted by their side; or what factual evidence supports those claims and predictions. > > My sense is that they simply repeat the same vague claims again and again so they can pretend to themselves and others that they are morally and intellectually superior. Thus the temper tantrums when presented with questions they cannot answer. Temper tantrum precious? Naw. I just enjoy your antics. With FX strutting about going ,“Nyuk, nyuk nyuk”, TOWP continuing to poke himself in the eye, and Aji challenged with the concept of up and down, I figure I must’ve clicked the wrong thread and got the ," Meet and greet the progeny of the Three Stooges" thread. You must’ve been Shemp’s. He seemed to be the slowest… ---
**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:** [September 13, 2013, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/503 "2013-09-13T15:12:19Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > The only time they even mention climate change and theory together is here. No definition, explanation or link to anything that explains the theory in that link. > > No surprise there. Google search shows the terms “AGW theory”, “global warming theory”, or “theory of global warming” do not appear anywhere on the NAS website. > > Neither does “CO2 theory”, “greenhouse theory”, climate theory" “climate change theory” or any combination of those. > > there is nothing there. Which is exactly why GIGOGalloper won’t link to the site. 100% avoidance and denial detected. Once again you told us that they never tell you what is the theory they are talking about, in a summary that is talking about human made global warming. It is indeed telling that you can not identify then what on earth is the theory that they are talking about. [http://dels.nas.edu/Report/Americas-Climate-Choices/12781](http://dels.nas.edu/Report/Americas-Climate-Choices/12781) > [@](#): > > Climate change is occurring, is very likely caused primarily by the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities, and poses significant risks for a range of human and natural systems. Emissions continue to increase, which will result in further change and greater risks. In the judgment of this report’s authoring committee, the environmental, economic, and humanitarian risks posed by climate change indicate a pressing need for substantial action to limit the magnitude of climate change and to prepare for adapting to its impacts. ---
**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:** [September 13, 2013, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/504 "2013-09-13T15:49:52Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I assume you’ll keep bumping this thread with quotes for another five or six pages, though. It’s turned into a real train ride. Hell, I ain’t even had a chance to talk about all the record cold going on right now, or why global warming sucks so bad. It’s sick I tell ya. ---
**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:** [September 13, 2013, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/505 "2013-09-13T15:51:11Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Once again you told us that they never tell you what is the theory they are talking about, in a summary that is talking about human made global warming. 100% avoidance and denial detected. ---
**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:** [September 13, 2013, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/506 "2013-09-13T15:54:20Z")
Actually the complete thread from Marley was: > [@Marley23](#): > > I think the problem is that you suck at irony. This a common problem with idiots: they can’t tell the difference between irony and the lame sarcasm commonly displayed by 13-year-olds. Anyway, **Finagle** got you. I assume you’ll keep bumping this thread with quotes for another five or six pages, though. Based on your last reply, that verdict is 100% true. ---
**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:** [September 13, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/507 "2013-09-13T16:00:39Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Maybe it is true, I’m ready to be convinced, but reading the literatura the warmists present it’s obvious that gleaning each element of this supremely complex system isn’t that simple and that CO2 can be used as a mildly effective proxy for the -let’s repeat it- waming of the last decades/last century WHICH HAS UNDOUBTEDLY HAPPENED. what’s wrose, is that while there has no doubt been warming, the type of warming does not match what the computer models predicted. Nor has the climate change happened as the consensus declared it would. Looking at the actual records, and they do indeed exist, it’s obvious that while warming has happened, it has not happened in the way the CO2 theory of global warming imagined it would. In fact, and this is the real irony, it happened in a way nobody predicted. And, as current science is proposing, it isn’t CO2 that is the source of the current climate change. This does not mean CO2 isn’t a factor, nor does it mean in the future CO2 is going to be an issue. It just isn’t right now. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/508 "2013-09-13T16:13:39Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Once again, instead of typing out yet another falsehood, why not link to the definition? Or just explain it? It really is fucking strange shit how much effort people put into NOT answering. Once again, it has been defined and ignored. I’m not about to waste my time giving you scholarly sources when you’re just going to ignore them. I’d rather waste my time mocking you for being a stupid crazy person. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > No, I fucking hate oil companies, and coal companies, and all the goddamn pollution they cause, as well as how they fuck up every effort to get free of them. Fuck them all. They suck the cock of Satan. That’s a funny thing to say about your employer who feeds you and gives you oily rags to huff :dubious: > [@FXMastermind](#): > > You really are actually stupid. It’s not an act. Sounds like something a stupid person would say! 😛 The thing that puzzles me the most about all you deniers is this: you know the globe is warming, there is ample evidence to support that, nd you still think its a lie. But what if it was? Oh shit, you mean we’d only end up with cleaner air and water and a more sustainable world to live in?! Fuck that shit! I want some crude oil to dip my McNuggets in! :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![sylmar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@sylmar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sylmar)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/509 "2013-09-13T16:15:56Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > what’s wrose, is that while there has no doubt been warming, the type of warming does not match what the computer models predicted. Nor has the climate change happened as the consensus declared it would. > > Looking at the actual records, and they do indeed exist, it’s obvious that while warming has happened, it has not happened in the way the CO2 theory of global warming imagined it would. > > In fact, and this is the real irony, it happened in a way nobody predicted. And, as current science is proposing, it isn’t CO2 that is the source of the current climate change. > > This does not mean CO2 isn’t a factor, nor does it mean in the future CO2 is going to be an issue. It just isn’t right now. Cool. So you cherry pick a couple select spots/time frames, and presto, the experts are entirely WROSE! You should do stand up. You’re a natural 😉 ---
**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:** [September 13, 2013, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/510 "2013-09-13T16:18:33Z")
And that last post from FX was 100% false. > **[Global Warming’s Missing Heat: Look Back In Anger (and considerable disbelief)…](https://skepticalscience.com/nrc-report-on-ocean-heat.html)** > > Probably the most frustrating argument on climate science in the public discourse is about the hiatus in surface temperature rise, and the failure of the models to predict it. The persistent hyperbole, the seeming logic validated largely by a... No way that then any prediction will overturn such denial by the OP of what was confirmed in the recent past. ---
**Author:** ![sylmar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@sylmar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sylmar)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/511 "2013-09-13T16:27:00Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > The thing that puzzles me the most about all you deniers is this: you know the globe is warming, there is ample evidence to support that, nd you still think its a lie. But what if it was? Oh shit, you mean we’d only end up with cleaner air and water and a more sustainable world to live in?! Fuck that shit! I want some crude oil to dip my McNuggets in! :dubious: Dunno YogSosoth. Sure you can point to the 97% to 98% of the people who study climatology for their livlihood agreeing the worlds warming and man’s activities are responsible. But there’s four slapdicks here with the impressive credential of being interwebz posters who are telling us it just ain’t so. I find the slapdicks convincing even if they can’t present an argument in a coherent, consistent, non-contradictory manner. I’m torn. ☹ ---
**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:** [September 13, 2013, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/512 "2013-09-13T16:40:08Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Once again, it has been defined and ignored. I’m not about to waste my time giving you scholarly sources when you’re just going to ignore them. There’s the line repeated over and over here, by the very people who claim they are not posting for the foolish deniers, but for the other people, who want to learn. Yet they excuse themselves from being bothered with any science, because the fools will deny it. It’s a goddamn religion. A crazy ass one to boot. Even if you want to avoid calling a theory (who knows why?) you can call it CO2 based warming. You can easily explain or link to) what this means, how it works, what will happen, why it’s a serious issue. But instead we see endless boring posts concentrating on insults and claims you already did everything. Priceless. If I was trying to tear your religion apart, I don’t need to actually write anything to make you look bad. You got it covered. The physics of CO2 based warming theory are simple, the signatures to tell it’s happening are simple to explain, and the evidence for each signal are easy to come by. It’s why you don’t do this, that’s the comedy gold. ---
**Author:** ![sylmar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@sylmar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sylmar)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/513 "2013-09-13T16:49:51Z")
[quote=“FXMastermind, post:512, topic:666440”] …But instead we see endless boring posts concentrating on insults and claims you already did everything. Priceless. [QUOTE] Try not to think of them as insults FX, but astute observations on places your pitch could use improvements… (I know it’s everywhere, but I’m trying to put a positive spin on things for ya 😉 ) ---
**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:** [September 13, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/514 "2013-09-13T16:51:31Z")
Since the warmists just won’t do it, I’m tempted to explain (to them, oh the irony) what it is they are avoiding discussing. Water vapor (WV) is the main greenhouse gas. CO2 theory claims any warming caused by changes in atmospheric CO2 leads to an increase in WV. This means temperature is controlled by changes in CO2. WV in the atmosphere is a function of temperature. The Clausius-Clapeyron relation means warmer causes more WV. WV is theorized to amplify CO2 warming, and a doubling of CO2 is theorized to warm the globe around 1°C. WV is theorized to double the amount of CO2 warming. Assumptions about albedo changes due to doubling of CO2 is theorized around 3°C Atmospheric drying observed due to volcanoes is theorized to cause global temperatures to drop, due to lower WV levels. Climate models based on this theory show the increase in CO2 caused by the burning of fossil fuels is the reason for any increase in WV. AGW Theory claims the increase in water vapor is around 6 to 7.5% per degree Celsius warming of the lower atmosphere. And that is a simple explanation of global warming theory, or AGW theory. You know in your heart it is true. ---
**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:** [September 13, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/515 "2013-09-13T16:55:08Z")
The signatures of CO2 theory are just as simple, and anyone with even a casual study of global warming could list them in their next post. These are the things the theory says will occur, and how we can know it is CO2, and no other type of warming. That nobody has listed them yet, that is fucking hilarious. I very much doubt any of the oh-so-concerned parties will ever do this. Just like my last several predictions came true, this one is also a lock. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/516 "2013-09-13T16:58:52Z")
> [@sylmar](#): > > Served? Crap again? I. Have. Been. > > And you’re going to “hold my hand” and explain how this chart that you accept as valid is somehow indicative of “no warming” ? > Ummm …maybe you’re looking at the chart at the wrong angle? > Maybe the lightings poor in your ass? ( Don’t light a match brah, I have a feeling bad things will result). > > You keep studying the chart Aji, and maybe you’ll eventually connect that line going up means"increase in temperature", Line going down means “decrease” and a flat line (not there dumbass) would indicate your ΔT \< 0. > > Invented numbers? Catchy concept… use that often? First: I’ll quote myself. Tell me if there is anything wrong with any of these using the invented data I provided. > [@](#): > > - Temperatures have increased. > - The last 10 years were hotter than the first ten or second ten years of this progression. > - The last year is one of the hottest of the series > - There is a slight downward trend since the peak of 47. > - This trend may not be really significant and it, for sure, doesn’t negate the net upward trend since year 1. Second: Do you accept that I’ve \*\*never \*\*mentioned a downturn (i.e. temperatures going down), even less a prolonged downturn, but a recent flattening (temperatures remaining the same) of average temperatures? Of ocurse, if you mean that the second derivative of the equation graphing the average temperatures in shor time-periods became negative in the recent present and you mean by THAT a prolonged downturn then it could be a problem of nomenclature. Third: Please tell me if anything I say here and that I accept as true, contradicts the [NASA chart](http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/616910main_gisstemp_2011_graph_lrg%5B1%5D.jpg)you mention. (I’ll use the red line of 5-year mean as a base) - Temperatures on average have increased form the 1880s to 2011 about 0.8-0.9°C - \*\*Nowhere in the chart is there a prolongued \*\*(more than a decade) \*\*downturn \*\*(decrease) of temperatues. - There is a decrease of 0.2°C from about 1900 to about 1910 - There is a decrease of 0.2°C from about 1940 to about 1950 - Neither of the provious two qualify as prolongued downturns. - If we trace a line from the the point where the red line meets the uncertainty bar just after 2000 and connect it with the point at the end (called 2011 +0.51), that line would have a slightly negative slope. I’ll accept it’s cherry-picking, but the line, albeit maybe not statistically significant, exists. - This line is not a prolongued downturn. - If you draw a line connecting the lowest point of the line about 1910 and connect it the highest point just after 1940 this line has a slope that is very similar to the one you would get if you traced a line from the lowest point before 1970 and trace it to the point in 2011. - This coincidence of slopes can be a purely mathematical artifact or could be an interesting scientific point. That’s it. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/517 "2013-09-13T17:02:08Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Since the warmists just won’t do it, I’m tempted to explain (to them, oh the irony) what it is they are avoiding discussing. Quite likely if you offer your own definition, you will be accused of setting up a strawman. I have offered the following definition: > [@](#): > > that CO2 emissions will cause temperatures to increase, which will increase levels of water vapor, which will cause further temperature increases, etc. etc., until a point where there are serious negative consequences to mankind. The key point is that the hypothesis depends on water vapor feedback, i.e. that any warming due to CO2 (or for any other reason) will be dramatically amplified by water vapor feedback. However there is very little evidence for the water vapor feedback hypothesis; there is not widespread agreement about it; and there is good reason to believe that it is wrong. ---
**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:** [September 13, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/518 "2013-09-13T17:05:06Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > However there is very little evidence for the water vapor feedback hypothesis; there is not widespread agreement about it; and there is good reason to believe that it is wrong. In several of those long ass science posts I did earlier, I laid out some of the current theory about what is happening with water vapor and albedo, and why the assumptions in the CO2 theory may be completely wrong. Unlike the purely hypothetical assumptions used by the climate models and disastrous warming proponents, they are based on science. It’s physics, bitch. ---
**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:** [September 13, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/519 "2013-09-13T17:05:36Z")
Indeed the NAS document that was linked already shows why this is a serious issue, but we get from FX the lie that it was not done. As for the not a theory/theory it was pointed beofre that there are many lines of inquiry that is telling us that AGW is happening. Each one of them has a basic theory, an attempt at humoring the denier here was done by simplyfying and looking at one of those lines in the form of the basic CO2 properties as a global warming gas, even before Plass the evidence for that line was excellent, but once again to simplify we concentrated on the basic theory that continues to be confirmed today. All that past information and evidence has been denied. So, so much for the simplification method, in the real complex world the pedantic reason why there is no single theory is just like the “tobacco causes cancer and other diseases”, there are many lines of research that showed how deadly it was, not a single one. > **[The Falsifiability Question](https://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2008/05/falsifiability-question.html)** > > OK, the new meme among the denialists is that the tide is with them, that their evidence is overwhelming, that we must be religious zealots ... > [@](#): > > Hypotheses, organizing principles, of this sort emerge from the fabric of a science as a consequence of a search for unifying principles. The organizing principles of climatology come from various threads, but I’d mention the oceanographic sysyntheses of Sverdrup and Stommel, the atmospheric syntheses of Charney and Lorenz, paleoclimatological studies from ice and mud core field work, and computational work starting with no less than Johnny von Neumann. > > The expectation of AGW does not organize this work. It emerges from this work. It’s not a theory, it’s a consequence of the theory. > > Admittedly it’s a pretty important consequence, and that’s why the governments of the world have tried to sort out what the science says with the IPCC and its predecessors. That tends to color which work gets done and which doesn’t, and I think it should. As Andy Revkin pointed out, it may be time to move toward a service-oriented climatology, or what I have called applied climatology. The point is that this amounts to application of a theory that emerged and reached mathematical and conceptual maturity entirely independent of worry about climate change. > > So attacks on climate change as if it were a “theory” make very little sense. Greenhouse gas accumulation is a fact. Radiative properties of greenhouse gases are factual. The climate is not going to stay the same. It can’t stay the same. Staying the same would violate physics; specifically it would violate the law of energy conservation. Something has to change. > > The simplest consequence is that the surface will warm up. That this is indeed most of what happens is validated pretty much in observations, in paleodata, in theory and in simulation. Further, all those lines of evidence converge pretty much about how much warming: about 2.5 C to 3C for each doubling of CO2. (It’s logarithmic in total CO2, not in emitted CO2, guys, by the way.) There’s no single line of reasoning for this. There are multiple lines of evidence. > > If you want to convince me that the sensitivity is less than 2 or more than 4, you will have to provide quite a good deal of evidence, but I don;t think this is what the denialists have in mind when they ask me what would “falsify the hypothesis”. In fact, though, they haven’t defined their terms. If the sensititivity is less than 1, is the supposed hypothesis falsified? What if it is more than 6? If the onset time is a hundred years rather than ten? > > They want to know what it would take to pry my free of my “beliefs”, but they are not beliefs, they are estimates. Estimates of the sensitivity (2.8 C per doubling). Estimates of the built-in delays (about twenty years for full effect of current concentrations). Estimates of the threshold of excessively high social risk (some range here but I go with 2 C ~ 450 ppmv). > > What would it take to change my opinion of the threshhold to 451 ppmv? A nice dinner at Fonda San Miguel, margaritas included, would surely do it. If that constitutes a falsification, bring it on. > > Really, though, I don’t understand the question. If these numbers wobble around a bit that might shift the optimum policy a bit, but we’re so far from the optimum now that it’s not worth putting much thought into it yet. The numbers, however, are never going away. There will always be a sensitivity, a response curve, a risk threshold. If you are asking what evidence could make me believe that there are no such numbers, I can’t actually imagine it. And it has to be observed that this line of attack regarding if there is an specific theory or not is because the professional deniers of AGW are the same as the deniers of the tobacco causes cancer. Same FUD. The theory of AGW is in reality a collection of other ones, no wonder there is a denial point to be made on demanding a definition, in reality deniers are never willing to deal with a single line of inquiry. ---
**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:** [September 13, 2013, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440/520 "2013-09-13T17:10:48Z")
As for the vague arguments about past global changes, the warming before AGW takes over, there is [a set of graphics here](http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models-intermediate.htm) that show what the IPCC thinks happened. The first figure, if you look at (a) you can see the assumptions about “natural” forcings that caused warming. > [@](#): > > (a) represents simulations done with only natural forcings: solar variation and volcanic activity The irony? They are claiming all the warming came from the solar variations. And all the cooling was due to vulcanism. So the warming is from the sun, up until the AGW takes over, clearly visible in (b) There is a wealth of data in those two graphs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440.md?page=25) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-sick-of-this-global-warming/666440.md?page=27)