Serious Question for Climate Change Skeptics: Why?

Dana1981

2010-03-09 10:30:20 UTC

You're asking for logical explanations from illogical people.

2010-03-02 00:44:43 UTC

Okay, imagine you were a budding scientist and were asking us all sixty years ago (so not on the internet, obviously) about eugenics - "I'm interested in it, but some people say it's wrong - but i can't see any evidence it's wrong. Why?"

Because the theory was not susceptible to being wrong. In other words, it was unfalsifiable, and therefore failed the first test of a good scientific theory.

Likewise, climate change is - essentially - unfalsifiable. If you disagree, give me the parameters by which i can judge the validity of the theory. A five degree rise? By when? A 30% decrease in precipitation? When and where?

~ your reply to this would likely be that although you can't say for sure exactly by how much and when and where changes occur, the science is sound enough to say that changes WILL occur. MY reply to you will be that i can come up with plenty of theories if we allow this kind of vague non-evidential view of "science"

Eugenics was never disproven as such, it was discarded when it was seen as the vague, politically-driven pseudo-science that it was. No paper or citation could have disproved it because it was unfalsifiable. It was not susceptible to the normal strictures and methods of science.

And - remember this - neither is climate change. You will tell me i am wrong now, but please remember this in twenty years time when things look very different.

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Pseudoscience

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EDIT -

Sorry, I should of made my position clearer:

I believe that Co2 is a greenhouse gas as we understand that term, and that the laws of physics tell us that releasing more of it has the *ability* to warm the planet. However, I follow Dr Lindzen of MIT and others who believe that the climate is not nearly as sensitive as is claimed and that there are natural processes (e.g. increased precipitation) that work to equalise the temperature.

I also think that obsessing about a rise of a fraction of one degree in temperature over a century is probably not healthy when so many millions still live in poverty and squalor. For what we have spent of climate change we could of given everyone in the world clean water and sanitation and eradicated malaria - tens of millions of lives saved in the here and now . Sorry, but i think it is a tragic diversion from real problems.

.

dbrutus

2010-03-01 20:31:50 UTC

The global warming issue would be an obscure scientific debate except that advocates are arguing for huge public policy changes that go far beyond the science and look suspiciously like power grabbing retread ideas from the era of commissars.

Another problem is that the available data is far short of what it should be with certain alarmist scientists having just managed to escape trouble with the law in their efforts to withhold data. The data sharing problem has gotten so bad that the UK's Met is proposing going back and doing it all over again. Do I reject studies with secret methods, secret data, whose authors just say "trust me" because the results support the consensus? How could I not? Science that cannot be replicated is simply not science.

A NASA data stonewall has just crumbled this past month and we've just learned that NASA somehow manipulated temperature scores to shift the difference between 1934 and 1998 by 0.5C. When we have a total warming of 0.8C in the 20th century, a 0.5C magnitude of shift, generally unexplained, throws the whole temperature record in doubt. What else has been shifted? How much of the evidence that you have reviewed is real, honest?

We've had no statistically significant global warming since 1995. That's not me but Phil Jones head of the CRU (until he stepped down while he's investigated) saying that. That's half of a WMO normal period.

Go take a look at the sad state of surface temperature stations at surfacestations.org and tell me that this poorly maintained network is reliable enough to measure what's been claimed.

?

2016-09-26 07:17:51 UTC

Personally Trevor I discover NASA's internet site has the exceptional web page for uncertainities (i.e. skeptical arguments that might be positioned forth). However because the NASA web site feedback "there is a excellent deal that we do not realize approximately the way forward for Earth's local weather and the way local weather difference will have an impact on men and women" ... consequently the exceptional skeptical argument for artifical local weather difference is the UNKNOWN. That is to skeptical argue artifical local weather difference I could argue that there's expertise that we do not realize approximately Earth's local weather (and the universe), consequently you might finish that there's a few unknown variable that's replacing the local weather (even might stretch so far as that this is a ordinary cycle that we're ignorant of). However this does not disregard the idea of artifical local weather difference. One of the ones unknowns could ought to be found out to be inflicting the difference to disregard the idea.

2010-03-01 20:05:52 UTC

First of all I do believe this is the first time I've seen a question here where the term skeptic rather than denier has been used so kudos to you. My point is that most people don't deny that the climate is changing as this is something that has been going on since the birth of the planet. What skeptics doubt is that humans are responsible for these changes. Too many questions remain to be answered. Computer models are not the most accurate method to obtain a snapshot of what "might" be in 20, 40 , or 100 years from now as there are too many variables at play.

As far as peer reviewed material is concerned the studies are being reviewed by the same community that supports the AGW theory...bias there, possibility and more than likely. Think about how much of their funding would dry up once the proverbial cat is out of the bag. I have yet to be convinced of AGW, it's just too wishy washy of a theory to swallow.

Noah H

2010-03-01 21:53:39 UTC

'Night', a 'top contributor' hit all of the denier nonsense all at one time. But what can't be smothered by denier catechism is the fact that nature is responding to to even this small degree of accelerated temperature. The tree and brush line is moving north. Tropical pests are moving to higher latitudes. Glaciers and surface artic ice is diminishing, thinning, freezing later and melting earlier. True, the world 'warmed' at other times, but it warmed for other reasons than why it's warming now. A hotter sun? Possible, but no matter how 'hot' all of that heat still has to be radiated away at night. If it's not, then something is retarding the heat loss. In our time it's a a man created acceleration of CO2....burning fossil fuels is the culprit. This industrial CO2 increase can and has been measured by established climate organizations in 100 countries. It's as real as it gets! The earth also has a 'wobble' that changes it's degree of angle moving the direct rays of the sun north and south over a 25,000 year period. Scientifically we know where we stand now and where we stand now simply doesn't add enough energy to begin or sustain the melting of artic ice....so that's out! Volcanic activity, while it does add CO2 to the atmosphere also creates enough dust to to prevent a significant amount of insolation...resulting in cooling...another factor inserted into the the tangled mass of mathematical equations that illustrate the data. Nonsense like 'heat islands' and poorly painted instrument shelters simply do not negate the data as all of the bad data is routinely adjusted or eliminated during peer review. If the data isn't correctly gathered it doesn't get passed the review of method. The 'liberals' want to raise your taxes? The socialists want to destroy capitalism? The democrats want 'power'? A conspiracy that involves 10's of thousands reporting stations...professional, volunteer, military and commercial? That's about as goofy a hypothesis as it gets. Sorry deniers, but we're in an era of man made warming. The data is there. The data doesn't lie and the results of even a few tenths of a degree are observable.

Nightwind

2010-03-01 20:55:49 UTC

The counter arguements are easy.

First of all, you do realize we have good evidence that the Medieval period was warmer than we are now, right ? Even if you refute that, we have gone through an ice age, that's apparent. Water levels have been proven to have been quite high since fossils have been shown in areas which are now elevated above sea water. It all points to a dynamic and changing climate on planet earth. And this was all before man's ability to effect the world with CO2 production, or effect any other part of the planet that might adversely effect climate.

That having been said, what data are you refering to ? The "Hockey stick" graph ? which has been proven a lie due to the temp differences stated above, the graph is relatively too flat through out all of history. Then you have the IPCC and East Anglia that have been inaccurate or lying about thier data.

Just why do you think "Climategate" was an upset for ? This was the king of weather stations, one of the supposed reputable gathering and studying stations...and they lied, they manipulated data and was caught red handed. And if they weren't hacked, we would have never known.

So with that, just were do you think your getting data from that is so accurate without the chance of being manipulated ? Just who are you putting your trust in ?

Even the NOAA had an article that showed how water vapor in the Stratosphere had a magnified effect on heating and cooling...but they still had no clue as to why that amount of water vapor changed.

This is the downfall of todays climate science. We don't know who's data is true and unbiased.

Even the temperature stations have been painted with latex paint rather than white wash. A small change, but this one change has added 1/2 a degree to the temperature readings. 90% of these stations don't even meet the government's standard. They are supposed to be 100 feet from anything but have been found in the jetblast of airplanes, on or near blacktop parking lots, etc. And this was data collected independently from someone who believed in Global Warming and wanted to prove it. Instead this person found the opposite.

So your science, your evidence and your data are all suspect since we only have 130 years of temp data, that data has been shown to be inaccurate, many scientists have lied and ruined thier credibility, and , after all, with all the climate scientists retracting or retreating from thier positions due to a world wide conspiracy to make the data fit thier models....HOW could you blindly believe that your data is true ? Even the scientists that started the GW complaints claim we haven't had warming since 1995 and we are in a cooling trend. So if you believe them that GW is happening, why do you not believe then when they say its not ?

Please don't tell me you've been listening to that political hack Al Gore.

2010-03-01 20:45:00 UTC

The first rule when trying to determine the truth: Follow the money. It may come as a surprise to some, but over the past fifteen years Exxon-Mobil has paid 23 million dollars for research that showed a contrary view. During that same time the US government has taken about 50 billion (with a B) dollars from taxpayers and given it to those "scientists" who endorse the AGW theory.

NASA recently released a new set of temperatures for the past century. Sorry Igore, 1998 is no longer the hottest year on record in the USA. 1934, according to NASA was number one. 1998 did come in number two. Number three was 1921. Five of the top ten were before World War Two.

Chris

2010-03-01 23:37:47 UTC

isn't it possible that global climate change is going to happen no matter how many prius replace suburbans? I feel that any change is a result of earths natural cycle as well as the sun's, and the humans are just a catalysts.

bravozulu

2010-03-01 23:18:38 UTC

Please don't take this personally. It is just something you learn as you grow older. I have been a scientist for a very long time. You probably don't have enough experience to judge the science of climate change. You certainly couldn't have enough years. It was so cold when I grew up in South Dakota. Most people just don't have anything like that in their experience. I used to go ice fishing when it was 30 below and powerful winds. There were months that would go by and the snow wouldn't melt at all. It did get much warmer in the 1980's and 90's. Guess what. It was cold again this year but fortunately I only heard about it. That is just anecdotal evidence and even though it is the most persuasive evidence to those that experience it, it is usually highly biased by normal human nature and experience.

There is no easy answer to your question because the truth is hard to accept. The science is completely bogus and contrived. It was contrived by manipulation of simple logic that is beyond the level of understanding of the vast majority of scientists let alone someone wanting to become a scientist. If you want to see how they manipulated the data, which is the foundation of other scientists, read the emails. It shows the corruption. It isn't a pleasant or easy short read. If you read that, you wouldn't ask for peer reviewed material any more. They completely bastardized the peer review process. That is the worst part of the scandal, that and the way the fudged the numbers to show what they expected or wanted to see.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images…

If you want to see how this all began, read the writing of someone who saw it first hand and was even described by alarmist scientists involved with fudging the data as a "very bright scientist" or something to that effect. He is a professor of atmospheric physics from MIT.

http://www.ecoworld.com/features/2008/10…

When you are young, and we have all been there, you base what you know on what is told you. You don't, unless you are a rare genius, have the ability to tell if what you are being told is credible. In something as complex as climate, you don't even have the ability to ever know for certain that someone doesn't know something you don't no matter how smart you are. You learn by experience and it often has to do with assessing the motives of those that are telling you how something works. If it is too convenient and is just what the person wanted to find, you doubt it. That is an essential requirement of analytical thinking. You don't concentrate on understanding what they are telling you, you have to take it apart. How do you take something as complex as the explanation of the climate appart?

You attack the premises to see if they hold up.

1. Premise one. Mann's hockey stick. He completely revised history with his graph. It was precisely what he needed to show catastrophic human caused warming. If that isn't a huge red flag, then nothing would be. He basically used tree ring data that he figured would match warming. There are many things besides warming that make trees grow. Rainfall, insects, clouds, winds, humidity are just a few examples. He didn't even check if the tree rings matched current data when the temperatures were record. Someone pointed out to him that they didn't match. He had to hide the decline in the tree ring proxy data by just inserting the actual data as if it were part of the tree ring data. He also needed to remove the fluctuation. He used other "cherry picked" (my assumption) data to smooth the fluctuation. Then his poorly written code always showed the spike at the end. He tried to hide his known to be bogus program from normal scientific review. That eventually fell apart as most contrived science does. It doesn't stand up to the real world or simple logic unless you can hide the data. That was the basis for the catastrophic warming predictions.

2. Computer models. Those were designed and funded to prove global warming. They could change several fields and get any value they like. The real world doesn't match the models. The models all require that there be a hot spot in the mid troposphere where the warming is greater than at the surface. That has something to do with how the radiation is needed to be blocked before going into space. The actual warming is from the vastly more significant greenhouse gas water vapor. The models don't accurately predict clouds which are the obviouis main feedback mechanism of the climate. They don't accurately predict ocean currents which are the driver of the periodic oscilations of warming and cooling. There is one in the Pacific having to do with El Ninos and cycles that take longer in the Atlantic where the north south winds shift direction. Both have dramatic impacts on climate. The models don't predict solar activity. They don't predict volcanic activity. They assume that they understand everything when there is considerable doubt about all the possible effects from the solar cycle. I won't mention all of them but there are several besides variations in cosmic rays, luminocity, amount of UV, height of the stratosphere and other things that may have an effect on cloud albedo or feedback mechanism. They don't understand the effect of aerosols which are small particles. They don't even know if they are positive or negative. With all this uncertainty, they proclaim the science settle because of computer models. Red flag anyone.

3. Actual mechanism of CO2 absorbing heat. There is no reflection of heat or accumulated layer that gets thicker. The bands of CO2 are absorbed to extinction in few hundred meters. No extra radiation from the ground gets trapped. Most of the heat is absorbed in the first ten meters. You theoretically get warming directly from CO2 primarily by two mechanisms. One is compressing the distance that the heat is absorbed. The other is trapping more heat before it leaves the atmosphere. You don't get any significant radiation difference from the CO2 at lower levels no mater how much you raise it. It is already absorbed all the heat. You will get some after the heat has risen very high in the atmosphere and the bands aren't blocked anymore. The difference is going to be very small because CO2 is a poor greenhouse gas with a very narrow bandwidth of absorption. It absorbs 8 percent of the thermal. When it transfers the heat to the air around it, and thus causing the warming, the air is free to transfer that heat again and other CO2 will absorb it. There is only 8 percent of the original 8 percent there. The rest went to space or back to the surface. The difference is not significant except that you shortened the distance that the heat is absorbed. Since the distance is so short you have convection acting on it. That spreads the heat and cancels the effect from compressing the distance. CO2 also takes more and more to get the same effect so increasing the CO2 has much less effect than it would have had if it were far lower in concentration than it ever was. The first 100 ppm would have a much more dramatic effect. Even that only accounted for a degree or two of warming. There is 33 degrees of warming from greenhouse gases. 95 percent is from water. Water absorbs about 50 percent of the band rather than the 8 percent that CO2 does so it tranfers the heat better or actually acts as a better insulator since more is prevented from escaping to space. That is how the earth cools. It cools by radiation. There is a balance between the radiation coming in and leaving. If more heat escapes than visible light energy strikes the earth, then the climate cools. That isn't the same thing as the warming effect. That is considering how the air is radiating heat to space. if it decreases, the climate warms. It is a simple heat engine. The problem is that the engine has feedback mechanisms that control the temperature.

4. Water vapor acting as a positive feedback. Now this is the crucial part of the global warming debate. It is required to be true for there to be serious warming. It is very persuasive. More heat means that the air can hold more water. More water means more heat trapped. The reason it is flawed is that you have to consider the air warmed from the CO2 to be somehow different form the air warmed by water vapor. Otherwise you would have a positive feedback and the temperature would keep rising. That doesn't happen so the theory is essentially rendered illogical before you plug it in. That doesn't stop them though. Why would it, they just plug it in and get the warming they want and need to keep being funded.

Another great source of understanding the mechanisms involved in changing the temperature. It is something you need to get a grasp of the complexities of what they are trying to model.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/14/th…

Here is a great source on the lack of the signature of global warming.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckt…

If you call that lack of data, then you didn't read the links.

?

2010-03-01 20:02:09 UTC

I personally think climate change is real. I also think that much of it has to do with these things: animals raised for food, the bleaching of underwater corals, the destruction of the forests, and CO2 from burning all fossil fuels.

That said, it is always possible that the sun could be producing more heat as well at this particular time. I don't know because I haven't researched that. I do know that solar flares are very strong, though to me that would mean they would be increasing and staying the same for an extended period of time. For how long has the earth been heating up?

To answer your question of why people don't agree with it, I would say that it is misinformation by the ones doing the warming. If enough people publicly speak out about it then others feel more comfortable doing it and so on.

I believe it is occuring and probably for the before mentioned reasons. Of course, I have been wrong about plenty of things so I am open to logical and reasonable arguments against.

Meanwhile we seem to slowly cook...

New Deal Democrat

2010-03-01 22:16:22 UTC

First of all, I should like to point out that so-called "climatologists" and the like are not scientists in any meaningful sense; for the most part, they're charlatans for the Malthusian cult and/or incompetents. They do nothing which is actually scientific - their "work" does nothing to discover universal physical principles, and apply those principles for the material benefit of mankind. In fact, most are actually deeply anti-scientific in their outlook and philosophy. Consider, for example, the case of Obama's Nazi Anti-Science Czar, John Holdren:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/07/15/science_fiction_czar_97465.html

http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-science-advisor-called-for-planetary-regime-to-enforce-totalitarian-population-control-measures.html

As for the data, we know for a fact that it's fraudulent:

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2010/GW_data_manipulation.pdf

So, basically all you're left with are empty appeals to authority: "but but but, the EXPERTS [or 'peer-reviewed journals'] say global warming blah blah blah." You really have nothing. Want to be a scientist? Great - try nuclear physics, or something else which is at least marginally useful.

Bill A

2010-03-01 19:40:30 UTC

Please explain to me why the people who supposedly believe this the most and are crying the loudest that the world is doomed . . . have the biggest carbon footprint?

You are convinced that the data supports this or that - I'd challenge whether you have seen the raw data, how it was captured, and then understand how the computer models have been programmed, etc - the bottom line is you and I don't know this data from that data.

So I go back to something I do know and that is people.

I know Mr. Gore has made incredible money selling this soap so he's got a huge investment in it. GE sells a lot of "green" products so NBC has a reason to be on board.

And a couple of months ago when the world met in Copenhagen to discuss this crisis for the planet - they couldn't have put more carbon into the air per person attending if they had tried.

So here's my rule - when these people start ACTING like the planet is in crisis - I'll start paying attention and try to cut my tiny carbon footprint a little more.

Marcia

2010-03-01 22:45:04 UTC

I believe in global climate change; certainly it is changing in my back yard! Even so, I think a bunch of the problem is culturally based. Going back to the 1960's we began an anti-establishment culture in a time that most engineers and scientists were part of either the corporate or government establishments. Some where between the 1970's and 1980's we began a culture that identified and lamblasted "square", "educated", "nerds". The 1980's brought us folksy wisdom contrasted to smart nerds; folksy wisdom certainly felt more comfortable than awkward nerds or listening to complex arguments. The 1990's brought us the beginning of the divisions between socioeconomic groups and education tended to be the dividing factor; these changes brought with it a growing reverence and idolization of some sub-cultures with minimal formal education but a high "street" education and income level while the middle class was beginning to contract. Between the late 1990's and much of the 2000 'otts, many sub-cultures actively sought to limit their own and others access to offending, differing, and objectionable information, data, theories, and research. Much of it was scientific; in contrast to the historically honorable handling of scientific controversy with heated debate, this time it was simply suppressed as reminiscent of other historic times of scientific disagreement. Further, much of this suppression was tied to the pulpit, family values, and then to the culture at large. The 2000 'otts then gave way to our leaders in and out of the pulpit decrying, and generally suppressing as invalid, most scientific data related to geological sampling, past data, and even current data indicating any type of global climatic change. This after 30 some years of an increasing devaluation of math and science education, appearing to be nerdy or studious, and in many cases a complete lack of education in scientific principles.

Now, if you go back and talk to the old school academics - Many of them will say that years ago we stopped educating students in favor of training them. An education teaches more about how to think and provides exposure to a number of differing perspectives and subjects. Training is more about teaching one job skills, concentrating on things specific about ones major, and skipping past all of those things you don't need.

I also think that many of us are fear, market, and employer driven. It seems as if "most employers" are more about continued, quick profits and less about sustainability in terms of corporate goals and professed top down culture; cost cutting, labor reductions, process time reductions, and materials cost reductions for the purpose of immediate or short term returns are the primary objectives. Until the most recent down turn in the economy, both media based marketing and our leadership promoted additional, quantity, and volume of material goods acquisition over any type of conservation with respect to improving the economy, personal finances, purchasing decisions, and/or purchase selection and criteria. Culturally, this requires a world view and perspective 180 degrees opposite to that of conservation; the conservation, considered acquisition, or sustainability of any type of resource including the environment.

BranFlan

2010-03-01 21:28:17 UTC

People want to make climate change a political issue instead of getting off their asses and actually changing things about their lives. They care more about themselves then about their what their future grandchildren are going to have to deal with.

Its not about evidence, it's about laziness. Skeptics are probably only going to write articles so they can maintain their status quo and not feel guilty about sitting in drive-thru in their SUVs on the way home from work, eating their grease burgers, then burning the styrofoam containers.

2010-03-01 20:28:10 UTC

The data is altered by a massive global conspiracy of climatologists, and the only people who know the truth are uneducated right wing ideologues and their followers, even big oil has been drawn into the conspiracy. It's the new world order.

Yes,the Skeptics are drinking there own brand of Kool Aid

2010-03-01 20:43:51 UTC

lolz you're actually getting pretty long responses. Well done!

Aonghas Shrugged

2010-03-01 19:39:42 UTC

Silence.

But as to "peer-reviewed", very very few peer-reviewed articles in what are considered respected climate science journals are likely to be cited in response to your excellent question. Why? Because so few of them exist.