global warming
Back on Sociological Imagination, I made the claim that global warming being the result of the pollution is a fringe belief amongst scientist. I claimed that it's popular in politics and the media, portrayed as a huge disaster and impending doom, but that the majority of scientists do not agree. Charles challenged this belief, saying that while it's certainly not 98% of the scientific community, it's not fringe. He wanted sources, articles, etc. While I can't prove it's "fringe", I think the sources I've listed below help to show that a large percentage of the scientific community is entirely opposed to the theory.
1.) This article from the Boston Globe is killer. It cites primarily a petition signed by 17,000 scientists in the United States outright declaring "the greenhouse effect" to be a farce and the Kyoto accords a complete waste. These sentiments are echoed in the Leipzig petition signed by 100 prominent and internationally recognized experts on climatology. I want to copy and paste this entire article here, because it makes my case perfectly. As a follow up, here's another good article from the Washington Times on the same petition that explains some of how bad ecology became a political fad, and how this sort of thing has happened before, like in the 70's when scientists predicted pollution was putting us on the verge of our next ice age.
2.) This article by two professors at MIT clearly explains the scientific reasoning behind the greenhouse effect, and why they think it's garbage.
3.) NewScientist.com 's entire climate change section, specifically this article which cites recent research proving that while global warming is occurring, it has nothing to do with greenhouse gases. Some of this research was done in Boulder, Colorado, which is interesting giving the high density of granola-eco nuts in that region.
4.) This article defines how global warning and the green house effect was made a popular issue not by scientists or scientific studies, but by the green parties that dominated European politics until quite recently.
I found these by googling "scientists oppose global warming". There were many, many other pages written by less credible scientists working for other research centers that I found, but they didn't seem professional enough to list as I'm sure we could easily find a similar collection of greenhouse-obsessed "scientists". I'd love to dig more, but I have a meeting and have already worked on this post for too long.
posted by RJ @ 9:14 AM
20 comments
20 Comments:
Good work. I think that is speaks badly of the scientific community when unproven theories are adopted for their political consequence and the only proof offered is "All the scientists believe it, except for the wingnuts."
corn?
wait, so there's no convincing scientific evidence that more carbon dioxide, methane and CFCs in the atmosphere are bad for humans? (that's an honest question i'll be researching i guess)
the good news is the US rejected the Kyoto treaty anyway - but therin lies the problem. we certainly didn't reject it for scientific reasons... i'm sure if we didn't have someone so deeply tied to the oil industry in the white house it would have been different.
if the whole argument is that science shouldn't be pushed by politics, it should definitely read the other way as well...
as unscientific as i'm being, if the kyoto treaty would save me from staring at a brown cloud to and from work every day - all the better. (and if that means the H2 driving soccer mom yuppies have to trade in their new hummer for a hybrid, even better :D) i didn't realise i was so opinionated...gees.
and sorry, i referred to the 97 kyoto protocol when i was really talking about the latest one that i will have to research on what it was called..
i guess i am talking about the same protocol... and since it was rejected by clinton i'll just take my foot out of my mouth now... i thought we had another chance to ratify it though and it was rejected by our current administration too? okay i'll stop now.
Apparently, this is a pretty reputable site: http://www.realclimate.org/
Here is the deal (as I understand it):
The claim that warming is happening is more or less undisputed.
The claim – often made in media pieces – that this warming is due exclusively to human activity is unfounded.
The claim – often made by “Conservatives” – that this warming is due exclusively to predictable, non-human processes is unfounded.
What seems to be widely accepted is that a) the Earth’s surface is warming at an unusually rapid rate, b) the amount of temperature change is fairly impressive when compared to historical climate shifts, and c) this is the result of some combination of normal processes and human activity.
The controversy in mainstream climatology seems to surround a) how much of this change can be attributed to human activity, and b) whether this trend will self-correct as systems return to equilibrium or will continue because of the rapidity and extent of climate change.
Now, as Bret pointed out, so what? In terms of policy decisions – even if the “Conservatives” were 100% right – why does that matter? Shouldn’t we be substantially reducing emissions, consumption, and waste even if it doesn’t unhinge climates?
your wayyyy better at making my point than i am ;) but yeah, that was what i was attempting to say in a nutshell.
people argue that the kyoto protocol would decrease the quality of life for some reason (by technological restrictions etc)? if anything i think it would force us to live better, more exact and perhaps healthier?
I agree with you both. I am for reducing emissions. I'm for cleaner cars and less waste. I don't think kyoto was the right way to go about it.
my real beef here is with people like Katie Couric and Matt Louer attributing the hurricanes to soccer moms. If I could afford a hybrid, I'd definitely buy one.
Bret: I've heard people say our brown cloud has more to do with dirt and dust than smog, but I'm not sure. It has to do with the fact that our climate is so dry and it doesn't rain enough to clear it out regularly.
i do agree the the greenhouse effect has been an easy out for the media and politicians.
and your comment about the hybrid is rather odd, don't you think? If you could afford one - why would our government (or any government) not provide more incentives for both the car manufacturers and the consumer to obtain such a friendly vehicle? (A. there's too much money in oil... not a crack at our current administration, it's just a fact of life).
the thing about changing the public view is that nothing will be done unless people think it's an urgent problem. the "greenhouse scare" was enough to prompt plenty of RnD into the question and obviously raise the attention that the public gives to it's every day consumption.
aren't the goals of the kyoto protocol the important issue here? if emissions and pollution are a problem, how do we go about solving them, if not with a world-wide restriction on production and consumtion?
brown cloud: so are we just kicking up dirt? i have relatives who claim to remember days without the cloud.
there's a brown cloud surrounding every large city in america... it is definitely worse when the city butts up against mountains but is all that just dust? who's to say that we aren't getting rain because of our own impacts on our eco system? In any case, i don't know enough about the cloud to argue a point - but what about all the crap that we literally see coming out of exhausts? stand behind a semi barfing out crap and tell me that those gases aren't bad for humans. do i sound like a tree-hugging hippy or what? i guess i have the long hair and the beard ;)
i guess the real problem is how do we know what the earth's cycles are? we can see large climate changes in logged in the earth's surface, but on what scale do they apply? RedHurt, i completely agree with your beef with the media - and there's a reason that natural distasters are so called... but do you really think we can live in this world and take so much out of it and produce so much more of something that wasn't there before and not change the world itself and it's own natural cycles?
A couple of things-
Hybrids: From what I've seen and read, hybrid cars often do not get anywhere near the advertised mileage. Also, it seems to me that quite a few people who drive a smaller, more efficient gas-only car right now would just drive a larger hybrid. Are these 24 mpg van driving soccer moms still going to drive vans if a hybrid Suburban now gets 24 mpg? I doubt it...
Kyoto: The Kyoto Accord is stupid, not because it is poorly intentioned, but because it is unrealistic. The Kyoto accord exempts non-industrialized nations such as those in the Third World. Does it really matter if America uses less fossil fuels if Brazil is going to keep clearcutting the rainforest? You lose eventually... Besides, cutting back on fuel and gas will only make them cheaper on the global market, where they will be gobbled up by emerging industrial nations like India and China. It only has a chance if there is some kind of global initiative, and you know, since the UN does such a good job of ending genocide and human rights violations while maintaining peace, surely making another one to regulate our economy will turn out just as wonderful...
By the way, I'm totally for the environment. Yay Earth!
corn?
well that's how we got in the prediciment in the first place:
"what does it matter if we do ____ since ___ _ will just continue to occur".
it has to start somewhere... if we don't do ANYTHING because it's all just so overwhelming at this point to change then we might as well just throw up our hands in the air and say "everyone will do whatever they want anyway, so why should i bother try changing anything"...
My point isn't to do nothing, I'm saying that real problems require real solutions, not some hasty legislation that will penalize American business while letting the problem expand elsewhere.
I'm totally for government incentives and/or legislation (provided it's good legislation, not some political knee jerk like setting gas prices) for clean energy, transportation, etc.. and other ideas that would help without making the US subservient to the interests of other nations, especially European ones who dislike us because our system works so much better...
I don't know about incentives, but I think the auto companies could do more to make hybrids cheaper too. Why the heck is the hybrid accord 12k more than the standard? It'd take a huge government incentive - one I don't want them giving - to get me to pay that much more for a cleaner car.
Bret, saying "it has to start somewhere" implies that kyoto would actually get the ball rolling, and Jack's point is that it wouldn't. It's not like the US could "take the hit" and have the rest of the world follow. That's not an argument against environmentalism - it's an argument against environmentalism as dictated by the 3rd world.
The lack of rain here in Colorado isn't the result of human interference with the weather. It's just a dry state. We're high desert out here because the moutains steal most of the water. Maybe we could do more about the brown cloud, but right now I think it's biggest detriment to our lives is asthetic.
Just for reference, all of that crap coming off of commerce city is steam.
costs are that high to recoupe costs for R and D. my point being, if the government put up some of that money, the cost would go down on the manufacturer's part, therefor going down on the consumer's part. plus larger tax breaks would be nice. the gov't could even provide tax breaks for corporations investing in cleaner technology (or incentives that would make the cost worth it to the manufacturer).
i guess i see the problem being that ANY change will be too much of an effort for the american population...
ps - i wasn't mentioning commerce city - i was more referring to diesel byproducts and exhaust and all that. i realise that auto polution is a very small percent of the pollution in the air, but it was just my example..
I dunno - I have problems with requiring the government to back anyone's R&D, even if it's for technology that benefits the environment. They're making a commercial product in a commercial industry. It's their responsibility to make it profitable. I guess that's the problem though - not enough people care to buy hybrid's to make it THAT profitable, which is again your point.
Yeah, I knew you weren't talking about commerce city, but I just threw it in there as an "FYI". I used to get disgusted at it thinking that all the vapor coming off of it was exhaust and pollution, but it turns out it's just water.
Maybe all the steam is superheating the Colorado air, maybe even scalding some wayward birds...
i always thought they were 'cloud machines' growing up :) now i'm older and wiser and realise theyare in fact alien producing factories.
hybrids specifically are a catch22.. it is new technology, and you have to pay for it, so the only companies that can afford to produce it are doing so out of their own concern for the future, and the only people that can afford it, prolly don't care about the future :)
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