skeptics vs. deniers?

Question

It seems they are all put in one large group of morons by the people on this internet community. But does anyone realize there is a difference between the people who deny that the earth is warming, and the people who know its warming but dont think its caused by us? I would say there are two different groups of non believers.

I think there are far too many unknowns, no computer model can predict something so complex as the atmosphere. I do NOT believe they can come up with a global temperature average. What do they use to calculate it? Is it done by satellite? If so, then how can they be sure of the global temperature average before the use of satellites? Ice cores only tell you what its like at the location of the ice... so that isnt as reliable as people think. For instance, the global average is up like one degree but its 12 degrees at the arctic. Also, how do they come up with co2 level, shouldnt it vary around the world depending on your proximity to the major sources

Answer 1

Well done. I'd like to commend you on your intelligent research and views on this subject. Instead of jumping on a band wagon, or making judgments based on what you can seen, or getting pulled in to some opinion by the media, you have made observations of all the various attitudes concerned. This is what should be commended. For all the proofs to the problems other people have put to you, you have instead turned those statements in to one or two more questions. There are indeed far too many unknowns in this. And I've seen how the voice of those in the scientific community who you would consider to be skeptics have been suppressed. So I'm asking questions too. There are many aspects of the warming issue that don't fit in with the "blame Americans first" crowd. So keep doing your research, and I will too.

Answer 2

Here's the problem with your position. It's too speculative. Your own questioning about how they calculate a global temperature average, indicates that you haven't researched the topic very much. Without a solid foundation of understanding, you're left to conjecture.



As JS said, the urban island heat objection is without merit. It was a reasonable issue to raise in the past, but the data has been analyzed to death and the effect is negligible (down in the noise). The notion that there's some artificial bias in urban ground based weather stations, doesn't explain the rising temperatures measured by satellites or ocean surface temperatures, it doesn't explain the melting glaciers or any of the other parallel lines of evidence that the planet is definitely warming.



Here's a simple explanation:

http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/warming-due-to-urban-heat-island.html



Your misunderstanding of CO2 measurements also indicates that you haven't done enough basic research to get beyond speculation.

Here's information on some of the CO2 monitoring stations:

http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-keel.htm

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/index.html#global



You writing seems to indicate that you consider scientists idiots who aren't smart enough to deal with less than perfect data. That's simply not the case. And the scientific community is constantly going over and challenging each others work.



You can look at temperature data from the GISS dataset yourself here:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/



You'll see some areas warming and some cooling. If any denier wanted to compute an average and demonstrate the urban heating island effect, without using any urban stations, they could. So where's the evidence for it? It's just bad speculation that's taken on a life of it's own even though the data says it's false.

Answer 3

Trying to address each of your points

I both work in a climate study (Antarctica/atmospherics) area and follow what the media put out. the evidence for manmade global warming is very strong the sheer volume of Co2 we put out dwarfs most other sources, except oceans, the Co2 graph (yes the one Al had) showing co2 rise since the early 1800's is correct (in spite of what blogs say) it shows a rise that links to the start of the industrial revolution. And before someone mentions volcanoes, their Co2 output is ~200-250 million tons a year compared to our 30+ BILLION of tons per year.

On the subject of global average temp, you may not believe in it, but it very easy to do there are a number of systems one of the best is the NOAA satellite it can sample temp in 1.1km blocks/pixels over the entire Earths surface, a high school kid could get an average from this, that millions of data points to average.

On Co2 mixing into the atmosphere the weather is a very dynamic system there are few still days even if there is no wind at the surface a few km's up it may be blowing at 50kph. Co2 or anything else put into the atmosphere is mixed in very quickly, a look a satellite image of a large fire shows this, in 1 day the leading edge of the smoke can be 1000km away and 100's of times wider than the original fire

Additional Detail

On the plant study you suggest was somehow manipulated this was done by Stanford Uni and published in Science, reducing your argument to the 'plants grow in cities' I live in a city the trees and plants are usually stunted if they are near main roads it is also not uncommon for a life giving gas to be bad if the mix changes i.e. humans need oxygen to live a small increase in oxygen is even good to aid healing but to much over a longer time is toxic for us.

Answer 4

Satellites can only measure the Earth's surface temperature at night when there are no clouds and are less accurate than a thermometer. Satellite data varies considerably from one satellite to the next.



Satellites are not a panacea, but provide one more piece in the puzzle of climate science (which we are a long way from understanding yet). Researchers such as James Hanson have used satellite data to prove things which would appear to be a bit rediculous.

Answer 5

There are not two different groups of deniers. You are confused about the difference between skepticism and denial. You are confused about the science.



Skepticism is a normal part of science. But to be skeptical to the point of objection at this point about climate science is denial. But this doesn't apply to you. You are simply ignorant of the subject matter. Therefore, it is not possible for you to form a valid opinion on the subject. But you have formed one anyway because you have been swayed by a deliberate misinformation campaign, designed to play precisely to your existing misconceptions and biases.



I, on the other hand, have completed bachelors level material in basic science and spent 35 years keeping myself current. So when 90+ percent of professional scientists agree, and every bit that I comprehend darn sure makes sense to me, I tend to agree with them and put my skepticism in the background.



And, um, not fly off the handle with completely nonsensical arguments and call it skepticism. It's called denial.

Answer 6

It's not so much the phrasing of the issue as it is the issue it's self. All tho' - Alarmists tendency to label anyone who does not fallow along in their dogmatic discussions, as "deniers", liars, stupid, lazy or dumb. All so has a tendency to shut down any chance of having a reasonable conversation, immediately. Any actual and meaningful thoughts would be ignored and the conversation is left dead. Hmm - my Original "edit", was edited - out, by "someone". Which, in itself, confirms some people react instantaneously, by their emotions - rather than fair logic.

Answer 7

i agree with your first point.

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we do have computer models that can simulate climate, most of them are fairly accurate but they don't just give you a number they give you a range and this is fairly accurate.

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they get the global temp average by taking all the local temps and using a formula to account for the number of whether stations in that area.

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that's why scientists use Greenland and Antarctic core samples, gas levels are also take over many years to account for this variation.

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they work out global CO2 levels at stations, these are normally placed away from cittys. for example there is one is Hawaii and another in Antarctica.

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edit

photosynthesis is helped by EX co2 but the presence of ozone and other compounds in smog also kills the plants.

Answer 8

of course they are different and there are many groups of nonbelievers. the way your second paragraph is, it sounds like you yourself are denying that global warming is happening, but of course i'm not sure of that. Either way, it's a problem, and it doesnt matter how we measure it or whatever, because the consequences are already happening. Ice is melting, and sea levels are rising. People will soon be dying, some already are, and animals will too.

Answer 9

FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL!!!



FEAR FEAR FEAR



fear and money grease the hinges to the gates to heaven.



Fear is being funded by the governments of the world.



Scientists spreading fear are getting RICH!!!



Al Gore owns a carbon credit company while his own house uses more energy than a neighborhood.

He justifies it by buying carbon credits from himself.



Environmentalism is a religion and fear is the glue that binds all religions together.

Sacred Mother EARTH

Lets restore Human sacrifice to stop global warming!!!



Humans are a cancer on the earth and earth needs to be rid of this cancer

Answer 10

The supposed "heat island effect" is a baseless urban legend. Rural stations have recorded the most warming. If that were not true, the deniers would have assembled their own list of rural stations with the alleged heat island efect, to show an alternate slice of the data. They haven't, apparently because they can't. All they can do is attack the results in theory, which is equivalent to name-calling; it does not disprove the results in any way. It does however reveal that the results cannot be disproven or even mildly discredited on any sort of factual basis, even with thousands of temperature stations to potentially cherry pick data from.



That sort of detail in your question illustrates why deniers of warming at all are lumped in with deniers who believe in the warming but think that man is not responsible. You're consuming (and distributing) the same baseless propaganda, and your supporting the people who manufacture it makes you effectively the same, even if the details of your participation differ in some subtle way. There's no "better" or "worse" way to spread misinformation (even unknowingly) or to block human response to a major issue.



I don't mean that in any personal or negative way; you're entitled to your beliefs based upon the data you've researched so far. Anyone can become more educated on a moment's notice, including the scientists working on the various parts of the puzzle, and over time there will probably be developments that will continue to make the situation more clear. We certainly don't have all the answers and we don't have to all believe everything now.



There's another category you didn't mention... people who believe in warming and that it's man-made, but don't believe we can do anything about it. Another group believes it's just too expensive (although that seems like a complete delusional cop out... if someone truly believes it's happening, the resulting financial ruin and possible extinction seem a tiny bit more expensive ). Those veiwpoints remove more people from the discussion of what is to be done.



A true skeptic should be vigilant for overstatements on both sides of the fence. Frankly, from what I've seen on the balance of science vs. clear fraud available seems to favor true skeptics not falling in with denier side of the issue at all.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial

"Modern skepticism," according to Michael Shermer, editor of the scientific skepticism quarterly Skeptic, "is embodied in the scientific method, that involves gathering data to formulate and test naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena. A claim becomes factual when it is confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement."[11] Terms such as "deny global warming" and "climate change denial" have been used since 2000 to describe business opposition to the current scientific consensus.[12] Organizations such as the Global Climate Coalition, according to a leaked 1991 "strategy memo," set out not to gather data and test explanations, but to influence public perception of climate change science and "reposition global warming as theory rather than fact."[13] The strategy was criticized as misrepresenting science in a 2006 Royal Society letter to ExxonMobil expressing disappointment that a recent industry publication "leaves readers with such an inaccurate and misleading impression of the evidence on the causes of climate change ... documented in the scientific literature."[14]



The fact is the vast majority of us aren't in a position to make a truly educated decision. Fortunately in the U.S. we live in a republic, where we elect people to get advice from specialists and make decisions for us. The most important thing we can do to encourage a proper decision is to elect someone who will pursue campaign reform so it's not the ExxonMobils of the world making the decision for the rest of us, at our great expense.



I don't agree at all with the current witch hunt proposals circulating around the UN looking for some small population to blame, but that's not a reason for me to adopt skeptical views about the science that I simply can't rationally justify. About the best I can do is encourage people not to embrace denialism as if it were the only way to avoid the UN's proposals.



Siding with people in complete denial may render many honest skeptics isolated politically from the debate on what to do about the problem, and that would be truly unfortunate.

Answer 11

I agree with your skepticism. A time scale has to be provided to "warming" for it to make sense to me. Clearly we were much warmer in the Mesozoic Era. I think the evidence points to warming in the last 30 years anyway. It has certainly warmed since the last period of glaciation some 10,000 years ago. The majority of the warming since 10,000 years ago obviously wasn't caused by us. Since we emit CO2 and it obviously is a greenhouse gas, we probably have contributed some warming but it is impossible to say how much based on our current knowledge and technology.



I am most skeptical that warming is necessarily harmful overall. Those that deny the benefits of warming are the truly delusional deniers in my opinion.

Answer 12

I believe in global warming since most scientist agree it exist. What I don't believe is it being man-made. We are helping it a bit but not significantly. I think our axis with the sun is suddenly shifting slightly a few miles and it is changing our climate.



I think Gore is blowing it out of porportion and most global warming info by him is very biased anyway. I am the only enviromentalist who hates Gore. I am not saying the people on the opposite side are truthful about it global warming having no influence what so ever about global warming either.



I think we should spend our time recycling and stopping pollution and giving valuable money and resources to an unkown cause.



Also for those that say it can't be the sun, I have evidence that points towards it. Mars, Jupiter and Pluto are going through global warming along with earth right now. Last time I checked no one was driving SUVs on it either. I think the sun has something to do with it but a lot of enviromentalist want to scapegoat big businesses because they have a chip on their shoulder.



I not a denier but I am a skeptic of the true motives of Gore. Global warming is a multibillion dolalr industry so that is a lot of money floating around.

Answer 13

Hardly anyone denies that the planet is warming anymore. It's really hard to deny this:



http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif



which was calculated from compiling data from thousands of temperature stations all around the planet, by the way.



A 'skeptic' will keep an open mind to the science and data. It's virtually impossible to be a skeptic at this point because the fundamental science behind AGW is so solid. We've increased the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases by 37% - we know this will cause warming. Plus no other factor can account for the recent warming.



Someone who is convinced the recent warming is due to the Sun or natural factors - I consider that a denier, because the scientific evidence proves otherwise.



Someone who isn't convinced by the AGW theory for a valid reason (i.e. potential discrepancy between theoretical and satellite-observed warming of the atmosphere) or has a valid reason for thinking there's a plausible alternative (i.e. thinks the galactic cosmic ray theory is plausible) - I would consider that person a skeptic, if they keep an open mind to the possibility they're wrong. Or simply somebody who hasn't studied the science very much but is keeping an open mind - that's a skeptic.



Someone who says humans aren't causing global warming and doesn't have a valid scientific reason for drawing this conclusion is a denier.



For example, videogamer_reborn says "I think this incorrect thing". If somebody explains to him why he's wrong and he accepts it, then at the moment he's a skeptic. If he's convinced he's right and won't accept the scientific evidence he's wrong, then he's a denier.



Based on your additional points, you strike me as having the potential to be a skeptic, because you're simply not informed about the science, but you also appear to be biased toward denial - i.e. saying "you have helped global warming become even less credible to me". The fact that you don't understand something shouldn't cause you to draw conclusions, it should cause you to open-mindedly seek scientific answers. These issues which are causing you find AGW less credible have been long understood by scientific experts.

Answer 14

The result for the environment is the same, so why waste more time on different degrees of...

Answer 15

if you don't think humans have a role in the warming - you are a denier



if you think other factors could possibly have a large role as well, you are a skeptic.



edit



here is some convincing temperature data,



no "heat island effect" here:



http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17800



or here:



http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/greenland_recordhigh.html



none here either:



http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/mar/HQ_06085_arctic_ice.html

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2003/138.cfm

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_set.php?categoryID=4840