New Batch of Leaked Climate Emails 585
New submitter kenboldt writes "Someone going by the alias 'foia' has dropped a link to a zip file containing thousands more emails similar to those released in 2009. There are apparently many more which are locked behind a password, presumably waiting to be released at some time in the future."
The University of East Anglia has released a brief statement indicating that the emails were probably obtained during the 2009 breach and held back until now as "a carefully-timed attempt to reignite controversy."
But there was no controversy (Score:4, Insightful)
The previous leaked e-mails had two results:
Sham news reporting like Fox News cherry-picked out-of-context blurbs that made it sound like the scientists couldn't agree on anything.
Real news reporting actually read all the conversations and saw the conclusion was that the scientists were unanimous in agreeing that climate change is real.
That they'd do a second leak proves that the leakers are morons who think this offensive sound-bites Fox reports will have some kind of impact, whereas the actual content of the e-mail will reaffirm what everybody already knows. Climate change is real and these upcoming leaked emails won't change anything.
Also I love that Fox sympathizers have to commit a crime (hacking into an institution) just to get ammo which they mistakenly think will bolster their "cause". If they had the brains to actually read the emails themselves, they'd see it hurts them.
Of course it is real (Score:4, Insightful)
Problem is we've been able to accurately measure the minuscule changes in climate for about 50 of 14 billion years. Second problem is we have absolutely no idea what climate changes the earth can sustain and which ones the earth cannot sustain.
Still no definite answers here. Some of this junk research "confirming" that climate change exists adds confusion to those not smart enough to understand this.
Re:Of course it is real (Score:5, Interesting)
There are never definite answers, the lack of a definite answer isn't sufficient to prevent taking meaningful action to combat climate change. If you're wanting a perfect model, it's not going to happen ever.
In this case the record goes back many thousands of years. Sugesting that it's only 50 years is ignorant. But more than that the Earth isn't 14 billion years old, it's only about 4.5bn years old. The climate record itself via ice cores and tree rings goes far further back than just 50 years.
On top of that it's pretty well understood that climate changes tend to happen rather slowly under normal conditions. I'm not aware of any other period where the composition of the atmosphere changed this much this quickly naturally. There have been some substantial eruptions and impacts, but the resulting changes don't last as long as the ones we've been causing.
Re: (Score:3)
The climate record itself via ice cores and tree rings goes far further back than just 50 years.
Of course it does. The problem is then accurately correlating that data to a temperature model. There's still considerable debate about how to go about matching the ice core and tree ring to the climate of the time period. Even a small error in these calculations can result in data that's off significantly.
Re: (Score:3)
A lot of deniers think the world was created exactly as it is now about 6000 years ago. The idea that climate has changed is heretical.
You are talking about the Hockey Stick crew, I presume?
Re:But there was no controversy (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really.
I spent about 3 hours reading through the raw emails.
What I saw (and I'll at the very front-end say that my bias is I'm a "denier") was:
- lots and lots of crap, like you'd see in anyone's emails.
- some very smart guys discussing nuances of details in their particular field, so the discussions were very narrow and detailed.
- the predictable 'scorn' for the unwashed masses (ie anyone outside their field) who didn't "get it"
- a distinct defensiveness in any case where the data was being questioned, and a tendency to reach for the tinfoil hat about some sort of conspiracy of people working to discredit them
In short, I didn't see any 'smoking gun' of collusion or hiding anything. I doubt these will have that either.
What I saw was people very firmly convinced not simply that they were RIGHT, but that what they were doing was righteous and anyone who dared question it was either evil or a complete fool...which isn't precisely the mindset one would expect of a scientist for whom the data (alone) drives their decisions - or should.
Generally, they sounded very much like Slashdotters.
Re:But there was no controversy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:But there was no controversy (Score:4, Funny)
What's funny about Fox is that this is also the network that is currently showing a very big-budget sci-fi show that depicts the Earth's climate becoming totally inhospitable to human life in about 100 years, and people trying to escape by going back in time to the days of the dinosaurs.
Timing (Score:5, Interesting)
If they are so infuriated about the timing they could publish the emails themselves in less sensible times, thus evading some of the shitstorm and gaining back a bit of reliability.
Re: (Score:3)
Less sensible times?
How can things be less sensible than at present? But of course,
In the new release a 173MB zip file called "FOIA2011" containing more than 5,000 new emails, was made available to download on a Russian server called Sinwt.ru today. An anonymous entity calling themselves "FOIA" then posted a link to the file on at least four blogs popular with climate sceptics –
I'm going to just rush right over and download a 173 MB zip file from some random Russian server.
Talk about sensible....
Re: (Score:3)
You haven't dealt much with Russian servers and the botnets that run them, do you?
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe if they had good reason to believe that more emails were obtained but not yet released.
But it's also a very understandable reaction. Would you want to release your organization's private emails when the only people interested in them are people trying to discredit you?
Also note that even if these emails are work related they are still private, consider any time you've sent an email without CC'ing someone, now consider your worst enemies combing through those emails.
Re: (Score:3)
Interesting. So, privacy is the biggest, most important thing to a slashdotter (witness: any number of stories on here about it), yet your solution is to tell them to totally give theirs up voluntarily?
Re: (Score:3)
They should publish all of their emails?
Why don't you do that? Because you're not a fool doing your job like a dancing clown on a stage, but rather to get the work done with your colleagues?
Anyone who thinks climate scientists aren't reliable as a result of the shitstorm over the totally non-issue emails isn't going to start thinking they're reliable for any reason whatsoever. They're going to keep seeing Fox Lies tell them they're unreliable, and repeat that to their friends.
FOIA? (Score:3)
FOIA = Freedom Of Information Act
That other study (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because transparent research has found the same we shouldn't give credit to data forgers. They caused more harm in the public view.
Re: (Score:3)
Confirmed what? BEST did not at all look into causes of the warming we've seen since the Little Ice Age.
Berkeley Earth has not addressed issues of the tree ring and proxy data, climate model accuracy, or human attribution.
Also:
Continued global warming "skepticism" is a proper and a necessary part of the scientific process. The Wall St. Journal Op-Ed by one of us (Muller) seemed to take the opposite view with its title and subtitle: "The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism -- There were good reasons for
Re: (Score:3)
No, they really are, that's the problem.
Despite such independent studies there are still a lot of crazies out there who genuinely still believe global warming isn't happening.
See this post from just yesterday for one example:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2534148&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=38107720 [slashdot.org]
The fact is there are still a large number of people out there who haven't even got past the first part of the argument yet, and as this comment was +5 insightful yesterday we'r
Re:That other study (Score:4, Interesting)
There's plenty to question even if you agree with the basic scientific premise (as most do, I think).
As long as the basic scientific premise is that the climate change we're seeing is largely driven by human activity, we can have a reasonable conversation. Pretending that we had nothing to do with it leads directly to the assertion that there's nothing we can do about it, except adapt. But that adaptation cannot include reducing CO2 output, because human industrial activity had nothing to do with it.
You're right that any reasonably intelligent person does not dispute the basic facts of climate change. I'm absolutely certain that, even in the oil company boardrooms and think tanks where this campaign of Doubt is being orchestrated, people don't seriously doubt that the climate is changing and that human activity is a large contributor to the effect.
Oil companies and other industries who stand to benefit from the status quo are simply playing for time.
Back in days gone by when scientists first discovered the ozone hole over the Antarctic continent and determined that CFCs caused significant ozone depletion, Dupont fought tooth and nail to discredit them. When they were finally dragged kicking and screaming into the courtroom, they settled into a legal war of attrition that lasted years. Within weeks of the court's decision to ban the use of CFCs, they began producing HCFCs in significant quantities.
They'd been sitting on a product that causes orders of magnitude less damage to the ozone layer for years, but needed to play for time to get their manufacturing processes ramped up, and to maximise the return on their investment in CFCs.
Likewise, the fame for oil companies and their ilk is to delay the political and regulatory process for as long as possible in order first to squeeze as much value as possible out of their existing assets and second to buy time to reposition themselves so that they remain dominant in an economy that is much less reliant on burning fossil fuels.
Casting aspersions on the leading lights of the debate, pandering to the ignorance of the uneducated and buying off politicians, pseudo-scientists and lobbyists are all just tactics in this larger strategy.
And they're incredibly effective. As long as objections are being raised, they can plead that more time is needed, that there''s no consensus yet, and therefore no political mandate, and in doing so stall the entire policy debate before it can take even baby steps.
If we were smart, society would simply move ahead with the debate and ignore these intrusions. That's ultimately what happened with tobacco, the bought scientists continued to deny deny deny, but society at large just scoffed at them and went ahead with its efforts to reduce the impact of the drug on people's lives.
We're very close to that point with climate change. Australia has already passed a carbon tax, countries are already investing in alternatives (whether wisely or not is a secondary issue) and beginning to promote policies that move us away from undue dependence on burning hydrocarbons for fuel.
Re:That other study (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, we need to get China and India in on these as well. But guess what- climate change affects them too. Get a decent global solution and they'd probably be pretty happy. After all, it's way easier to take X Gton of crap out of the air when you are starting from a base of nothing, so companies in the US would probably happily buy credits off of the poorer countries. Less carbon in the air, poor countries get a boost financially, rich world countries get years to experiment with solutions before implementing them in higher cost areas. You can even go the Australia route and simply give back the money to the people affected by higher energy prices.
Re: (Score:3)
That's because no one country contributes the overwhelming majority. Just over 55% is produced by China + US + EU; the bare minority is produced by everyone else. US + EU = about 1/3 of the global total. Most of China's emissions are outsourced pollution for production consumed by US + EU.
Stupid Motive (Score:5, Insightful)
Following some bullet-pointed quotes such as "Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day" and, "Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels," the message states:
"Today's decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on hiding the decline. This archive contains some 5.000 emails picked from keyword searches. A few remarks and redactions are marked with triple brackets. The rest, some 220.000, are encrypted for various reasons. We are not planning to publicly release the passphrase. We could not read every one, but tried to cover the most relevant topics."
Listen, I'm all for the publication of the data and methods these scientists are using. But what exactly is releasing internal e-mails supposed to accomplish? Acting all righteous about "hiding the decline" and then you turn around and censor what you release?! That's pretty funny to me. Who do you think climate change is going to hurt the most anyway? My fat American ass shoving honey coated whole wheat pretzels into my gaping maw while surfing the internet? Or the truly poor people [wbur.org]? You know that subsistence farmer in Africa or China where a drought, famine or conflict could wipe him out at the drop of a hat? When times get tough, I'll have to give up my XBox Live Gold Account ... what the hell is someone living on less than $2 a day going to do?
It'll probably turn out like the UN anyway where the US pays $362 million and China pays $29 million [un.org] so that's some pretty flimsy motivation there when the wealthiest nations will most likely be footing the bill.
Re: (Score:3)
Just to clarify the UN budget argument:
"Each State's contribution is calculated on the basis of its share of the world economy."
"The primary criterion applied by Member States, through the General Assembly, is a country's capacity to pay. This is based on estimates of their gross national product (GNP) and a number of adjustments, including for external debt and low per capita incomes. The percentage shares of each Member State in the budget are decided by the General Assembly based on this methodology and
Re: (Score:3)
My fat American ass shoving honey coated whole wheat pretzels into my gaping maw while surfing the internet?
This imagery reminds me of the humor style of the guy who does The Oatmeal [theoatmeal.com].
*oh my god, a girl is trying to talk to me on Slashdot, quick, reply with something that will impress her!*
I also snort.
I just snorted milk out my nose [slashdot.org]!
tough to be unbiased (Score:3, Insightful)
This event helps highlight the difficulty in approaching any non-trivial problem in an unbiased way. The problem is less about the science than it is that the researches were clearly biased and pursuing specific results. The fact that others have claimed to reproduce the results does not lend credibility as long as they fail to acknowledge their bias and operate in a fully transparent way.
Whether you agree or disagree with the question of human affected climate change you really can't deny the fact that these folks are heavily biased toward a specific outcome for their research.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, climate scientists are overwhelmingly biased in favour of a theory of Anthropogenic Global Climate Change. I'll give you that.
However, I'll point out that historians are overwhelmingly biased in favour of the theory that some 10 million civilians were systematically murdered by the Nazis during World War II, the largest group for no better reason than who they were born to.
And biologists are overwhelmingly biased in favour of the theory that complex life evolved from less complex lifeforms over a perio
Re: (Score:3)
"Whether you agree or disagree with the question of human affected climate change you really can't deny the fact that these folks are heavily biased toward a specific outcome for their research."
Bullshit. That isn't how the science is done. And you would know that if you actually read any of the research that has been done over the past century.
Global warming isn't some new science that someone concocted over the past decade or two to get more money. It's origins date back to the 19th century. Climate chang
Mostly more of the same (Score:3)
I read through all of the highlighted quotes, 90-95% of it is more of the same stuff, climate denialists trying to find hanging material in the lines of innocent men. But there are a few quotes that were worth leaking, particularly under the "religion" and "the cause" sections. It's worrying that so many climate scientists have a professed personal interest in the outcome of their experiments turning out to support the theory of global warming. If any outcome should make them happier, they should be happier to prove themselves wrong, both because that's where the really interesting results (and Nobel prizes) come from, and in this case it would be good news for the human race which is mostly still hemming and hawing over whether to take this carbon emissions thing seriously.
Again? (Score:3)
Bad Astronomer [discovermagazine.com]: Climategate 2: More ado about nothing. Again.
At a time when TV starts to edit-out AGW shows: (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/frozen_planet_freezes_out_clim.php?page=all [cjr.org]
They are acting like its because of everyday scheduling concerns, but notice that ALL of the networks which chose to remove an episode singled out THAT particular one. BBC refuses to name the other countries that won't be seeing the AGW episode, but we know that Discovery Channel (e.g. the USA) won't be broadcasting it... surely it would upset advertisers (e.g. US Chamber of Commerce, who have become active denialists) to show that episode.
This and the emails are part of an effort to keep AGW from becoming a major election issue at a time when it is tangibly starting to hurt Americans.
Re:At a time when TV starts to edit-out AGW shows: (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair it could be because it makes all the denialists (remember that 24% of *Slashdotters* are denialists, and 9% are "skeptical" - and that's a technical/science-oriented community) change the channel and reduces the likelihood of them changing back (because they'll get a reputation as a "warmist" channel).
It's like showing a movie with a topless scene to an audience containing ~50% uptight puritans. They'll run away and label you a smut peddler.
Axes to grind... (Score:3)
I'm tired of the distraction, the ridiculous ploys on all sides to muddle and obfuscate.
To the people doing research, I say stop "believing in" what you do or attaching any "moral justifications or superiority" to your work. The instant you shift your perspective from objective investigator to champion of justice, you lose any ability to have a clear and objective conversation about what's actually happening. Now, more than ever, detached, clear, investigation is essential. No matter how bad the truth is, you'll only make it worse by trying to scare people or force outcomes. Be transparent, publish everything (including the stuff that doesn't fit you expectation) because we live in a powerful and chaotic environment and our theories are incomplete and anything you hide to protect your intellectual fiefdom, will prevent us from resolving the real situation and give the silly gits ammunition to justifiably counter you.
Now, to the silly gits... I am sick to nauseous of those who blindly follow indefensible belief systems including most organized religions, political systems and social orthodoxies. Wealthy and powerful people have spent billions to ply the nation with pure propaganda as news. These folks are so addicted to their wealth and power, that they will gladly see the world burn down, or the middle class vanish from the earth in a mindless attempt to wrest that last final milligram of worth from the naked earth. Sadly there are vast seas of silly people dancing to the music played by these despots because it agrees with their belief system, no matter that the very air and sky around them screams they are fools. I say to you "WAKE UP" that smell of roasting pork is your ass on fire. Get a clue, hell get two, they're small. Put your beliefs aside. Bother to look for the unadulterated, unvarnished truth. You don't even have to go very far. Look outside and notice that your garden will begin blooming nearly a month earlier than 50 years ago, weeks earlier than even 20 years ago. You think your garden is in on the scientific conspiracy??? Damned garden!
Last year humanity put more greenhouse gas into the environment that ever before in history. Period. You can't argue with that, Its like trying to argue the sun hasn't risen, you just look stupid trying. I get it, really, you're just sticking to your ideological guns. Its just this whole "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up" thing doesn't impress the rest of the folks who actually have their eyes open while they're driving, in fact you're scaring us just a little. Loosen up that grip on the shotgun Willy, take a deep cleansing breath, then sit down with a cup of hot tea and talk with one of those whipper snappers with the weather vanes and the Doppler Radar about why he thinks the world is warming up. He'll probably mention all kinds of science stuff like physics, meteorology, biology, ecology, chemistry and archeology. Just be quite for a moment. Let it sink in. Now if you still think the world is flat, go out play, at least you gave reality a fair shot.
By the way. we used to think that humanity couldn't possible impact anything as large as the oceans either. There are now places in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans (and I mean big place, like country big) that you can almost walk on the plastic junk and pollution. This is complicated stuff people, but if you just do the simple math, and have a talk with someone who vaguely understands how the planet works (or at least our best approximation at the moment) you'll understand why the folks who do the research are saying what they're saying. We are in trouble. We also have ways to solve the problem. It means we'll need to take responsibility for what we do. You know, take appropriate actions immediately, come up with inventive new technologies and economies, all around cool stuff. It also demands that we tell the people who are fighting so hard to keep their wealth and power that they should invest in the future instead. That way they'll get to keep their wealth and power and we all won't have to ride the earth into hell like Slim Pickens on the A-Bomb in Dr. Strangelove. [youtube.com]
Re:Yeah, sure. (Score:5, Informative)
Right, because last time around, it turned out that there was a big conspiracy and lots of people got fired and no one believes in global warming any more.
oh, wait, that's exactly what didn't happen.
Re:Yeah, sure. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Yeah, sure. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes it is! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes it is! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yes it is! (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no need to falsify info proving global warming if it would be easier to produce evidence DISproving it. Certainly not for financial reasons.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes it is! (Score:4, Insightful)
There's just as much, if not more, grant money for people who prove climate change ISN'T man made.
Where?
You don't think the oil companies aren't at the head of a VERY long line of corporations that would pay handsomely to any scientific group that could actually prove that?
Oil companies grew to love 'Global Warmnig' when they realised it makes oil more attractive than coal.
After all, that's why Margaret Thatcher pushed it in the first place; it was another stick to beat the coal mining unions with.
Re:Yes it is! (Score:4, Informative)
Start to inquire with the following:
1. Coal plant operators
2. Coal plant builders
3. Coal mining corps
I can vouch that #2 will give you the money if you can convince them that you're not a fraud, for a reason of having observed one do everything to win favor of crappy populist organizations like Greenpeace through buying their local activists dinners to attend their seminars on how less polluting the new coal plants are. Insider info here.
Fact is, big corporations want to make money in the future in addition to now, and that means cleaning the dirty image that is in the people's (and politicians' who decide on new building permits) minds right now. So if you can do a reliable study that global warming isn't man made, then coal industry will be able to reliably shrink it to a small fraction of the current one, and still make the same profits.
We're talking pretty damn big figures here, all up for grabs. Perhaps the fact that no one has yet succeeded in taking that money is one of the best capitalist-style pieces of proof that it really is likely man-made. Because greed really does motivate people.
Exxon's Funding of Denialism (Score:5, Informative)
ExxonMobil continuing to fund climate sceptic groups, records show [guardian.co.uk] "ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of pounds to lobby groups that have published 'misleading and inaccurate information' about climate change."
And that article is just the tip of the iceberg. There's also Exxon's funding of the infamous Heartland Institute [wikipedia.org], a "libertarian" anti-science denial shop. Heartland used to deny smoking caused cancer but unsurprisingly switched to denying global warming when their sponsorship changed. Exxon used to fund Heartland directly, but now funds them indirectly through conservative groups like the Scaife and Olin foundations.
It's hard for me to imagine how an educated person in 2011 could have ever been ignorant of how oil companies fund global warming denialism, but now there's no excuse.
Re:Yes it is! (Score:5, Insightful)
Where?
Are your really that naive? The oil industry has acted so brazenly in its disinformation campaign, and funding of astroturf and denialist "research". The paper trail is there for everyone to see. "Merchants of Doubt" is a recent history book the chronicles just how perfectly the wool has been pulled over your eyes -- in plain sight!
There's something interesting about the human condition there -- and you are being played by people who understand you better then you know yourself. Of course, this just makes you mad, and you want to say that *I* am the one who doesn't understand. This is called projection.
There is something interesting about the human condition there.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"The oil companies" have been sponsoring AGW research for many years. Don't fall for popular myths, verify facts yourself.
This list is not fully exhaustive, but we would like to acknowledge the support of the following funders (in alphabetical order):
British Petroleum, Department of Energy, National Power, Shell, Sultanate of Oman, United States Department of Energy
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/ [uea.ac.uk]
Re:Yes it is! (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Feel free to support your claims.
James Hansen, Shell Oil UK ($10,000), London, 2009
(from a link posted elsewhere in this thread on the millions of dollars Hansen apparently made from his activism while on the public payroll)
Re: (Score:3)
Why do you think Oil Companies would care?
There literally is no way to reduce the amount of hydrocarbons fuels we burn for the foreseeable future; at best we can slow the rate of increase by bringing things like nuclear power online.
In fact, don't many of the "oil" companies own Solar companies?
http://www.laprogressive.com/the-environment/big-oil-controlled-photovoltaic-industry/ [laprogressive.com]
Even T Boone Pickens is a big advocate of Wind energy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens [wikipedia.org]
With these guys, its not about
Re: (Score:3)
Look moron, there's no grant money for disproving gravity yet there's plenty enough for the other way around. And you gravity believers try to equate us to nazi sympathizers by calling us gravity deniers. We're gravity skeptics, and we're just waiting for conclusive proof to make a decision. Most gravitymongering hype is bullshit and it's all just being pushed by media profiting off fear and politicians profiting off pro-gravity legislation. So until we hear from neutral sources unanimously coming to a consensus, we will rationally remain in doubt.
Wait, now I'm confused - you are still using 'gravity' as a replacement for 'climate change', right?
Given that there are morons that don't believe in relativity [conservapedia.com] it's not impossible that a thread about climate change has attracted actual gravity deniers.
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Informative)
Climate scientists don't make much money.
Lying climate change deniers like the Koch brothers and many thousands of their other petrofuel and polluter cronies do make millions.
You are a lying fool.
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Hint: Climate scientists are aware of past environmental changes. This is not new information. You are not unusually well-informed. You are not the lone voice of sanity in the wilderness, you are just a loudmouth idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about, repeating nonsense spewed by other, more cynical loudmouth idiots. Your post shows such fundamental misunderstandings of the data and issues involved that it would be best to leave
Re:Yes it is! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm doing A but fantasizing about B because I'm tired of the enviro-extremists telling me that the science is settled and denying, or even questioning, their (sometimes) ridiculous assertions is tantamount to being a Nazi.
Re: (Score:3)
The mentality of people who pounce on these emails as proof that "global warming" isn't real are the same ones that used snow storms as proof. They totally miss the overall picture.
There are idiots asserting that the random weather of the week proves their point on BOTH sides. Look at the people that think that recent hurricanes are caused by global warming. I've even seen accusations in the mainstream media that climate change has caused earthquakes.
The last batch of emails did not d
Re: (Score:3)
To the degree that scientists actually aren't open, it's explainable by a few non-paranoid things:
1. Climate change deniers intimidate scientists. Most scientists aren't very brave, and aren't interested in conflict, especially with the kind of morons they watched punch nerds in high school.
2. Until they publish, scientists don't want to start rumors or make unsupported conclusions.
3. Scientists want credit for their best work, when they release it.
#2 and 3 are common to all science. Science is a balance be
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
.
Jones and his fellow geography lecturers are on thin ice (sic) and they know it.
Re:Yes it is! (Score:5, Informative)
How many thousands of years have whole forests burned due to natural causes? My guess would be enough to release way more greenhouse gas than our burning of fossil fuels.
Your guess would be wrong. The difference being that the carbon is forests is carbon that is already in the carbon cycle. If forests don't burn they eventually decay and release the carbon back into the atmosphere anyway. The carbon from fossil fuels is carbon that has been sequestered from the carbon cycle for in most cases 100's of millions of years or more. So it is carbon that was not in the carbon cycle until we added it back in. The proof of the fact that your guess is wrong is that the CO2 level in the atmosphere has never been above around 300 ppmv for millions of years but since the advent of human burning of fossil fuels it has risen to 390 ppmv in a bit over 200 years. That is unprecedented in the existence of the genus homo.
Re:Yes it is! (Score:5, Informative)
Carbon cycle, carbon shmycle. (Score:4, Interesting)
If the carbon cycle was worth the paper it takes to write two words, we wouldn't have coal deposits or limestone cliffs. It's too slow. Until we started digging the stuff out of the ground, every carbon based life-form on this planet was carbon negative, and even then, we're still carbon negative in the grand scheme of things. While we might be able to put a large chunk of the carbon back into the atmosphere, we'll never get it all (not that we'd want to, anyway: things might get a little stuffy).
Photosynthetic life has been committing slow suicide by depleting its primary "food" source, and then dumping its results "on the ground" to rot. Sure, that releases some carbon into the atmosphere, but methane isn't particularly useful to most life, and the rest winds up turning into coal.
Similar story for those life-forms that use carbon dioxide as building material (crustaceans). They dump their used product on the sea floor and it becomes limestone.
Here's something to consider. Some billion years ago (I don't know the exact numbers, might be just hundreds of millions), the entire world was desert (mostly barren rock, maybe some sand), but plants spread out and converted the world to lichen covered rocks, grassy plains and forests. Now, we have spreading deserts. Why? Sure, we may have started some (maybe even all) of them by cutting down too many trees (and other agricultural practices), but considering what plants did in the past, that should not be the case. For some reason, the plants are unable to overtake the deserts. There are two major differences that hamper plant growth: there's a lot more sand now (shifting sand can bury plants), and there's a lot less carbon dioxide in the air. The plants can't get enough food to grow quickly enough to encroach on the deserts.
We are part of the carbon cycle. Originally, we were on the same "side" as everything else, sucking carbon out of the atmosphere (net, otherwise we wouldn't grow), but now we are on the other "side", pushing it back in.
If carbon dioxide causes (or contributes) to global warming (and that's still an "if") and causes sea levels to rise, so be it (and my butt is maybe 4m above sea level). Sure, rising sea levels will mean less arable land, but higher carbon dioxide levels will mean better growing conditions, so the net might be more arable land.
If the carbon was worth anything, we wouldn't have this discussion because humans wouldn't be able to find enough carbon to put into the atmosphere for anyone to notice. Probably wouldn't have the Internet, either.
Re:Carbon cycle, carbon shmycle. (Score:5, Informative)
Coal and limestone are a part of the overall carbon cycle but they are not particularly active in it on human time scales. The active parts of the carbon cycle are the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. The active part of the carbon cycle has been in relative balance for over a million years, cycling between around 190 ppmv and 300 ppmv. The last time CO2 was as high as it is now (390 ppmv) was over 15 million years ago.
Crustaceans don't use carbon dioxide directly to build their shells. They do use it indirectly though by eating other organism's that got it directly. CO2 dissolved in water becomes carbonic acid which is detrimental to shell forming organisms so it doesn't help.
The colonization of the land occurred around 550 million years ago, once atmospheric oxygen levels got high enough for the ozone layer to form and block ultraviolet light from the Sun.
Deserts are there because they lack of water. It has nothing to do with low CO2. I doubt there is any condition the Earth has been in since life colonized the land where there weren't deserts (or at least areas of low precipitation) on the planet. It's built into the physics of the atmosphere.
I don't get this assumption that increasing CO2 automatically means more plant growth. Do you have any science behind that? I know excess CO2 helps some plants to grow but not others. CO2 is not the only thing that affects plant growth. Water, nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus as well as a number of others are all necessary. The current plant life has evolved under the current CO2 levels and I don't think you can definitively say that increased levels means an explosion in plant growth.
In some ways carbon is priceless (and I'm not talking about diamonds). It is the basis of all life as we know it. Without carbon we wouldn't be here. But it needs to be in its place.
Re: (Score:3)
What dirt? Link to some real dirt.
There is none. You are not only a brainwashed ideological climate change denier, you are a denial projector, calling other people exactly what you yourself are.
No, they aren't (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they aren't, and no, they haven't.
And no, I'm not wasting my time with this because like most intelligent adults I already understand that having doubts is what people who are right do. Having doubts is scientifically valid. It's how science gets done, not religion.
Having no doubts and exuding false confidence is what people who are wrong do all the time.
In other words, shove those fucking emails up your ass. They do not mean what y
Re:No, they aren't (Score:5, Informative)
Global warming is a done discussion. Governments and corporations are already moving to adapt -- except for a few parasites like the Koch brothers (who are funding much of the anti-science "research" that you are lapping up so eagerly), who simply need to be pried off our nation's neck and burned like the blood-ticks that they are.
Except the Koch brothers latest efforts were less than fruitful: http://www.berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Berkeley_Earth_Averaging_Process [berkeleyearth.org]
Re:No, they aren't (Score:5, Informative)
Not all scientists have the integrity of the BEST researchers
I agree.
Continued global warming "skepticism" is a proper and a necessary part of the scientific process. The Wall St. Journal Op-Ed by one of us (Muller) seemed to take the opposite view with its title and subtitle: "The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism -- There were good reasons for doubt, until now." But those words were not written by Muller. The title and the subtitle of the submitted Op-Ed were "Cooling the Warming Debate - Are you a global warming skeptic? If not, perhaps you should be. Let me explain why." The title and subtitle were changed by the editors without consulting or seeking permission from the author. Readers are encouraged to ignore the title and read the content of the Op-Ed.
http://berkeleyearth.org/FAQ.php#disagreement [berkeleyearth.org]
Berkeley Earth has not addressed issues of the tree ring and proxy data, climate model accuracy, or human attribution.
http://berkeleyearth.org/FAQ.php#skepticism [berkeleyearth.org]
Re:No, they aren't (Score:5, Insightful)
"Having doubts is scientifically valid"
Except that this is not the content of the emails. The emails show gross unprofessional conduct. They should adults, acting, consistently and frequently, like out of control children. The show people whom we entrust; thinking uncritically and aggressively shouting down anyone who has the temerity to stray from the party line. They show that the institution is fundamentally and hopelessly broken and the rhetoric, including your own, has strayed significantly away from what any objective observer would characterise as sound scientific inquiry.
Your post, with its aggressive and unnecessary invective and school-yard tone is at least consistent with the tone of language revealed in the emails and around this discussion in general. But keep on carrying on like delinquent know-it-all child if you must. It only serves to reinforce doubts that the institutions that we as a civilization have commissioned to explore the CAGW hypothesis are actually up to the task.
Re:No, they aren't (Score:5, Insightful)
That you are trying to disparage their work by highlighting their character makes me thing it their science is good. Otherwise we'd all be arguing the merit of their science and public discussion of their character on /. would amount to secondary gossip. Email etiquette is not something nerds get riled up over.
Re: (Score:3)
You admit climate science is on the defensive,
I admit no such thing. I merely point out that this is a popular opinion out there. The fact that I acknowledge it does not mean I accept it. In fact I expressly repudiate it in my above comment.
say, multiple mass email hackings?
There is no evidence to support the external hack hypothesis. An insider disgruntled with how their institution is behaving is also a possibility. This is the one I provisionally subscribe too; but I do not have a strong belief either way; insufficient evidence.
how to deal with constant criticism (presumably of the non-factual, science kind, because otherwise it would be handled!).
And here's me thinking that most scientists bought in
Re:No, they aren't (Score:4, Informative)
The emails don't show what you said. You just want them to show that.
The emails show competitive professionals who have the same kinds of human flaws in any line of work. Yet they do have the integrity to produce science that is reliable.
Even if what you said were true about their conduct, it would only show that the scientific method, the scientific community and science are exactly the opposite of what you said about the institution: the reliable science is fundamentally strong.
You and the deniers, though, are extremely counterproductive.
Re:Yeah, sure. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Real Climate = Mann's spin control website (Score:5, Insightful)
Your source proving the fraud accusation?
Last I checked, Mann had been cleared by not one, not two, at least t-h-r-e-e different boards of inquiry.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Yeah, sure. (Score:5, Funny)
No, it's just more confirmation that these guys don't know why things are but are far more concerned that the number deliver the right message.
Mister Limbaugh, could you please restate that in English?
Re: Richard Muller (Score:5, Informative)
And every time there is evidence that it is just a political con game
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/13830/ [technologyreview.com]
As the hockey stick was, as the emails demonstrating knowledge of the fraud that was ongoing did you just get the greens closing ranks and hoping if they keep a united front up, the ludites hatred of all things tech, and the political class's willingness to profit from crisis will carry their position forward.
That's a nice article you linked there. Richard Muller? Maybe you bothered to follow up with what he actually found? The rest of Slashdot did [slashdot.org] and I think you might be interested in it.
You Brought Up Richard Muller, Not Me (Score:4, Informative)
This is what your climate skeptic had to say
I don't understand, that's not my climate skeptic, you linked to an article from 2004 written by Richard Muller. I merely provided you the results of his research, I didn't even indicate whether or not I sided with him!
So lets just ignore the part that the greens were pushing about the climate skeptic who had a come to god moment.
What the fuck are you talking about? You brought Richard Muller into this conversation -- are you "the greens"? Furthermore, you used an article he wrote seven years ago to summarily discredit everything apparently even somehow validating "the emails demonstrating knowledge of the fraud that was ongoing." What the hell, man?
Lets look at what one his team members had to say about his come to god paper.
"But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped. Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html#ixzz1eTMUgUpc [dailymail.co.uk]"
When you identify me as a "green" that you "can't talk to" I don't know why I continue to help you but here's another article [judithcurry.com] you might find informative that follows your Daily Mail article by a matter of hours. It's a little more valuable because instead of it being some news organization (WSJ, Daily Mail, whoever) hell bent on making a story and cherry picking comments to make them sound the most inflammatory, it's actually Judith Curry actually telling you how she actually feels. She has reservations and that's good but she opens with:
I had a 90 minute meeting with Richard Muller this evening. I have to say that there isn’t much that we disagree on.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But don't let little things like facts and observable reality get in the way of your diatribe of made up facts and fabrications.
Re:Climate change ceased to be a scientific issue (Score:5, Insightful)
What we get is every 10 years a new set of predictions and models explaining why the last 20 years models and predictions weren't correct but we are still doomed anyway
In the words of Issac Asimov [tufts.edu]
The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong. The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. "If I am the wisest man," said Socrates, "it is because I alone know that I know nothing." the implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.
My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:4, Insightful)
The saddest part about the whole climate debate is that neither side behaves rationally anymore. The debate has become so politically polarized that I feel it is difficult to trust nearly any evidence presented by either side, although the recent Koch-funded study looked like good science. Add in the fact that climate is so vastly complex it is impossible, without intensely studying it, for even the generally scientifically inclined to make judgments given the facts, and you have an issue that it becomes nearly pointless to even talk about anymore. Every time it comes up on Slashdot it inevitably comes down to a flamewar. And that flame comes from both sides.
And you aren't helping.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't pretend that his language or his attitude are appropriate or helpful to situation but I can understand the frustration. How long can most of us talk about evolution with a creationist before we start to show how exasperating the whole argument is? How long can we talk about vaccines and autism without losing our cool a little bit? Or about the moon landings being a hoax? Or that electric fans can cause deaths in enclosed spaces.
On the one side there is a body of evidence supporting the theory that doubles every time you look at it, on the other there is... what exactly? Either the doubters chose to believe that tens of thousands of scientists are grossly incompetent or that tens of thousands of scientists are conspiring against the rest of the world.
So yeah, his language is inappropriate, but his message is spot on.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And it doubles to what end?
So they keep accumulating more and more and more and then what? They want a carbon tax? Sure, that will solve it all.
The best thing AGW folks could do is to start press hard for Nuclear energy. It's here, and it's non-CO2. If they stopped trying to tax people and enforce austerity measures and instead said, hey let's go nuclear, then they would get what they want (low CO2 emissions) and the other side would get what they want (no higher taxes or energy cutbacks). Further, the West
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:4, Interesting)
short term energy storage is a way easier challenge to solve than hundreds of years of guarding dangerous nuclear material. Shit, I can store all the energy needed to heat or cool a house for a day in a tank of water that would easily fit in most homes. have excess energy, charge up your store.
electric cars will have these things called "batteries" that happen to store energy.
smart meters exist now. the internet exists now. energy management software exists... wait for it... now.
and, solar just reached parity with grid power in the northeast. woot! before incentives, even.
repeat after me: by the time you finished building a fancy reactor, you'd be able to utilize renewables more cheaply. good luck finding non-guaranteed private capital getting that reactor built too.
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably. But I'm honestly growing a bit ambivalent as to how one should approach people about climate change. Normally, I would say civil discussion is the most effective way to reach someone, but considering the seriousness of the matter, when nothing happens at some point you ought to start getting angry.
If somebody were pouring gasoline onto my house, and were about to set fire to it while insisting that I have nothing to worry about because surely nothing is going to happen, I wouldn't be very civil with them. We more or less have the same situation right now, only at a much slower pace.
By refusing to accept facts and take responsibility for the situation we have created, millions will be forced from their homes around the world, people will die from starvation and floods, species will become extinct, etc. etc.. How can we in good conscience stand by and be civil about it as others spread lies and misinformation for their own personal gain?
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:5, Funny)
When I go back there now, it is totally fucking unambiguous to me that on a global scale the temperature is rising. Look up from your feet at some previously snow-capped mountains -- it's not that damn hard.
I would, but a) I don't live near any mountains, and b) it's way to cold to go outside right now.
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but #1, you had about 20 years to educate yourself on this issue. #2, there are plenty of rational discussions around this that are polite, fact-based and available online. IPCC reports are one. The NOAA studies are another. Those are just two samples out of a good dozen. There's a huge host of information available if you want to learn.
If you are still complaining that you don't understand the topic at at least a basic level, it's because you haven't been trying. And quite frankly, I'm tired of lazy people complaining that they don't know what's going on, and then voting based on sound bites they heard on CBS. You don't know what's going on? STFU and look it up.
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:5, Informative)
Like the way lots of movie dramas are "based on actual events", probably.
Re:The saddest thing is that there are not two sid (Score:4, Insightful)
Disagree.
I don't see what one's credibility has to do with the language one uses. Credibility comes from having data that backs one's position, and there's lots of it for climate change, including multiple groups that came up with the same conclusion.
But it is a black and white issue: it either happens or it doesn't. I don't understand what would constitute an acceptable way of putting it in your view.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:5, Insightful)
Believe models that have never predicted anything correctly.
You mean like the models that predict ocean currents, pacific oscillation, jet stream, gulf stream, and whose decadal temperature predictions are, if anything, a bit on the conservative side?
Trust data that is manually manipulated, incomplete, inaccurate, disparate, and only goes back a blink of the eye in terms of the planet's history.
Yes, every data set has been manipulated. Weird that no one seems to come up with a data set that is clean, or without statistical error. I mean, they'd get their names into the annales of science pretty much immediately. I'm sure Exxon has a few billion lying around with which to sponsor such a study. Weird that they don't... they must know something we don't. Wait, they just know something you don't. And how much data do you need? Are you going to be happy when climate data goes back to when the earth was a loose amalgam of space dust?
Trust politicians whose only concerns are money and power, and whose only "solutions" involve shifting money and power, and not reducing consumption or pollution, or building things that are actually green, like nuclear and hydroelectric power plants.
Al Gore might be a convenient whipping boy, but no climate scientist is quoting Al Gore. Not to mention that you'd crucify him if he weren't putting his money where his mouth is. Nice straw man, but no win.
Believe that man is the cause of the current trend, and that man can do something to stop it.
There's no need to believe when you have a physical model for how man influences the current trend, data that supports the existence of the physical model and data that disproves the assumption that CO2 emitted by man does not influence the global temperature.
Believe that the Earth will be doomed if temperatures rise closer to points in Earth's past, despite the fact that throughout all of Earth's history, higher temperatures are when life flourished.
One straw man, one lie through omission and one lie through commission in one sentence. Nice going.
1) No one is arguing that the earth is doomed, outside of people like you. Climate scientists are arguing that life is going to get mighty uncomfortable for a large swath of humanity, costing everyone on earth a nice chunk of change to adapt to.
2) Humans weren't around when temperatures and CO2 concentrations were much higher than now.
3) Mass extinctions are tied to high temperatures and high CO2 contents. Look up PETM extinction event.
Man, whatever it takes to continue living your own life, and screw whoever comes after you, right? Nice going. The last guy who made this his official motto caused massive international bloodshed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course CO2 emitted by man affects global climate. CO2 emitted by every creature does the same. There is no living being on this planet that does not affect the climate around it.
Problem is we have so little understanding of how the earth reacts to these changes over time. The earth has sustained itself through *much* more drastic chang
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:4, Interesting)
You think climate scientists appreciate that person not speaking for them? I'd say they wouldn't appreciate you speaking for them.
Only a very few people have rejected the IPCC assessment. They're practically all not climate scientists. There's over 97% agreement with the IPCC report. The report is detailed, in which climate scientists have a pretty damn good idea of how the Earth reacts to these changes over time.
If you did more than 10 minutes googling you might know what you're talking about. Instead it's obvious that you don't care to know. You just want to post anonymous lies about climate science.
No the models they mean are like these... (Score:3, Informative)
http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001317verification_of_1990.html [colorado.edu]
Those are the IPCC predictions from 1990 out to now. Gee for some reason we are well under the temperature they predicted.
Or Hansen's 1988 model
here
http://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/hansen20.gif [wordpress.com]
Oops
Re:No the models they mean are like these... (Score:4, Insightful)
Their hypocrisy would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.
Re:No the models they mean are like these... (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? You're calling a model from 1988 a failure where the only major deviations are the 1998 outlier and 2008-2009? Where the median estimate has gotten the overall trend and magnitude right? For a model that is 23 years old, I'd call that pretty damn good.
As for the IPCC prediction, the 1.5 and 4.5 degree of climate sensitivity are the generally accepted boundaries for climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing. The data collected so far seems to run in and out of those boundaries, with major differences traceable to exceptional events that are outside the climate model.
This is the best you have? That one of the very first global climate models isn't 100% accurate, and that a somewhat more recent model doesn't account properly for events that are outside its modeling parameters? Seems that these people might know what they're doing after all.
By the way, where's your model that calculates future temperatures more accurately?
Re:No the models they mean are like these... (Score:4, Insightful)
But that's the thing - even the models they point at as wrong really aren't. At worst, they don't march in lock-step with every yearly average - which would be an absurdly, and quite frankly, suspiciously good model.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe in global warming, I believe mankind causes it, I believe it is a serious threat to human civilization even.
The thing is, nothing will be done until trillions have been spent building sea walls to protect the rich nation's coastal cities, irrigating the rapidly drying areas, building drainage in the rapidly flooding areas, killing mosquitoes in the new swamp lands, and any number of other band aids that you can think of.
There is simply no social or political will to cut CO2 emissions because there is simply no way to do it without reducing the perceived future quality of life for billions of people around the world (even if actual quality of life might be better than the worst case scenarios for global warming). Hell, even if we started reducing emissions today, which isn't going to happen, it would take decades to hit a point of stability where CO2 going into the atmosphere is equal to CO2 coming out, and even that may not be enough to avoid some of the worst effects.
It's simply not going to happen. If you're worried about the long term effects of global warming you'd be better spending your money on researching and developing Geo-engineering mega-projects because that is the only cost effective way you are going to prevent the worst effects. Yeah, the risks are large and the costs are non-trivial, but they are tiny compared to the costs of moving away from a fossil fuel economy at the rate that averting global warming would take.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Prove to me that you really believe the theory and go live in a fucking hit in Kenya. Until then, you are %100 pure bullshit.
Ah yes, the argument that either you're hypocrite and I don't have to listen to you, or you want to destroy the American way of life and I don't have to listen to you. It's nice to create a rhetorical structure where no matter what the reality of the situation, you are allowed to ignore it. Not to mention that you get to either have your lifestyle subsidized by the other person, or you are actually entitled to shoot them. Nice work.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:5, Interesting)
Believe models that have never predicted anything correctly.
Never say never [slashdot.org].
Trust data that is manually manipulated ...
As opposed to what? Automatically manipulated? Do you think that baseball stats just magically turn from huge sets of numbers into RBIs and Hall of Fame records?
Trust politicians whose only concerns are money and power, and whose only "solutions" involve shifting money and power, and not reducing consumption or pollution, or building things that are actually green, like nuclear and hydroelectric power plants.
Actually I'm just asking you to trust scientists and admit that it's happening ... I don't think any of these peer reviewed journals conclude with "Now let's talk solution and my stock portfolio!" They're just telling you what's happening, man.
Believe that man is the cause of the current trend, and that man can do something to stop it.
I'm confused, are you acknowledging that there's a current trend upward? Downward? You just totally ripped all that data to shreds, what exactly are you saying when you say "current trend."
Believe that the Earth will be doomed if temperatures rise closer to points in Earth's past, despite the fact that throughout all of Earth's history, higher temperatures are when life flourished.
The fear isn't that the temperature is going to get 'hotter than anything in history of the Earth.' The fear is that the rate of change accelerates to a point where a lot of the food chain starts to falter and entire species go extinct that we depend on for functions known or unknown. If you think I'm worried about life, I'm not. I'm worried about humans. You and me. And how much unnecessary death will result from this. This Earth has seen some hard times and life's still around. I just want to be sure that in thousands of years man is still around because the dinosaurs are completely gone. I'm not worried that we're going to magically ruin Earth so that no life can exist on it. I am a little worried that we knock evolution back down to something stupid like prokaryotes and cockroaches, though.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:5, Informative)
The amount of incoming solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation is approximately in balance at all times. In the absence of a greenhouse effect, the Earth would need to be about 255K to produce enough outgoing longwave radiation to remain in balance. Due to the greenhouse effect, not all of the outgoing radiation makes it to space. To maintain the balance, the Earth must be warmer than 255K so that enough outgoing longwave radiation makes it through the atmosphere and into space. That's why average temperature on Earth is actually around 288K. All other things equal, if the greenhouse effect is increased, the Earth must warm to reach a new balance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation. This is as close to fact as science can get, and isn't really up for debate.
The only legitimate argument against warming caused by increased greenhouse gases is that negative feedbacks will decrease the incoming solar radiation. That can primarily be accomplished by clouds and aerosols, neither of which are well understood or predicted by models. However, even with the uncertainty about negative feedbacks, it is very likely that increasing greenhouse gases is resulting in a warming of the Earth.
Just because there is poor agreement on the regional impacts of a warmer Earth does not mean the Earth isn't warming. The increase in greenhouse gas concentrations is largely due to human activities. It's a fact that the model human lifestyle produces large amounts of carbon dioxide. The increase in greenhouse gases is very highly correlated to industrialization.
This is an environmental issue. The preponderance of evidence is very strongly favors that humans are mostly responsible for the warming of the Earth that has already occurred in the past decades and that the Earth will warm at a faster pace in the future if current trends continue.
We should be very concerned. The regional climate changes will likely place greater strain in some areas on the availability of essential resources to support the human population. It is not out of the question that the overall impacts of such a warming could place enough strain on resources that the Earth would be unable to support a human population of seven billion people and growing. Nobody really knows what the impacts would be, but those concerns are hardly unfounded.
Re:When you're out of rational arguments... (Score:4, Interesting)
Believe that man is the cause of the current trend, and that man can do something to stop it.
Showing that the amount of CO2 we pump out into the air should have an impact on the climate is pretty easy: Recipe for Climate Change in Two Easy Steps [ucsd.edu]. It's the global warming deniers that need the help of the data models that you say are all wrong to find enough negative feedback loops to compensate.
It's also all those who claim that solving the issue is just a matter of sequestering some CO2 that have to prove that their plans can actually work on a global scale: Putting the Genie Back in the Toothpaste Tube [ucsd.edu]. That said I agree with you that there's no way we will stop global warming: as a species / society we are too lazy to fight the entrenched interests or change our way of life.
As the saying goes: Indifference will certainly be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Re:Dogs To Vomit (Score:4, Funny)
Could've been worse. Could've been Climategate II: Electric Boogaloo.
Re: (Score:3)
It's easy: we need to know if our megacorporations are responsible or not. If not, they shouldn't be forced to pay for it, everyone else will. If they are, they need to know so they can declare bankruptcy and turn the planet into a superfund site so they won't pay for it, everyone else will.