* Global warming will not happen the day after tomorrow
* Global warming will happen if given enough time
* No one will do anything about it other than make empty promises. Gore’s whole campaign about global warming will be forgotten like Stalin and the proleteriat.
* Corrolary: The only people whom do care about global warming are the scientists, trees, and God.
* Models of global warming timeframes are entirely dependant on input data and are chaotic. Thus the wide range of different predictions on global warming.
* We should not propose radical, unnessasary solutions (i.e. shut down the world) nor should we take no action.
* Any solution for countering global warming should not take more than 20 years.
* Kyoto is a load of bullshit. It allows developing nations (which will probably be using the dirtiest technology) to completely bypass Kyoto until after they’ve made the CO2 footprint of a small industrial revolution.

And also, Will, are you _really_ a publishing scientist? And where are you publishing? Postmodern climatology journals dont count.

Speaking of shills, perhaps you should attempt to cloak your roll as one. Using terms like “the greens” and “D-rats” makes it pretty clear how unbiased you are. And by the way – the Republican’s ineptitude at running the Gov’t have generated far more D-Rats than Global Warming ever well. Watched anything but Fox News lately?

It’s impressive how quickly the far-right has mobilized on the blogs around this issue. For each post of someone saying “yeah, we really need to do something about this”, there’s a post like yours, Will, in which someone who claims to have credibility on the issue hand-waves an argument as to why they’re wrong.

If you’re such a scientist, let’s apply Occam’s Razor here. Which scenario is more likely:

1) The 1,000+ scientists who’ve reviewed science data, the journalists for Time, and the people in Alaska who’s houses are sinking because the 100,000 year old permafrost is melting all hate capitalism, technology, and the free world and are banding together to push this thing called Global Warming that they made up

2) As the movie is titled, the reality behind climate change is inconvenient, and while rational people are able to internalize that and say “OK…what’s it going to take to fix it”?, while others prefer to cling to their narrow and comfortable view of the world and will do everything in their power to maintain their current situation, even if that means ruining the planet.

Your pick.

Kyoto was and is a totally ineffectual treaty — even the greens’ own climate models predicted insignificant effect assuming a best-case Kyoto adoption scenario. Furthermore, given our rapid technological progress does it make any sense to make substantial economic sacrifices (that produce negligible effects even under the most optimistic models) when in 40 years our whole energy infrasturcture will be radically altered in any case?

This is a left-wing thing: political, pure and simple. The goal of the current green movement is to generate D-rat voters and harm capitalism. The rabid appeals to “science” by the modern left are laughable (and I say this as a publishing scientist) — the one thing the field of climatology desperately needs is a little humility. They won’t ever find it, though,because in the current situation the funding they recieve is directly proportional to their political usefulness and the amount of fear that can be generated by predictions of eco-disaster.

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Ahh, you mean just like the US Office of Special Plans did to mount their case for Saddam’s supposed WMD. There’s a classic example of a poor outcome.

SO what do we know about climate change?

Firstly, there is little empirical data considering the massive climate system. For example, the oldest recordings of tempreture are from the Paris Observatory and only go back to 1847. Before that there is zip except some rather vague calculations from Ice Cores and Tree Samples.

When we compare the available small amount of data in the context of a system that has, literally, billions of variable and tends to change on a large scale over thousands of years we are only in a position to speculate. I agree with Seth that theory is a legitimate aspect of science but it must be agreed that nothing which comes from theory can be devoid of bias of the author. We must also admit that theory can serve political purposes and in a debate of this nature is very likely to do so.

In regards to global tempretures there is a fact that is not very well known. In the twentieth century can you guess the hottest decade from the available known world-wide data.

It was the 1940’s.

The second hottest decade?

The 1980’s.

It is important to note that the spikes in these decades were in close proximity to large volcanic and geological events. Furthermore, despite the fact these were the hottest decades some glaciers were found to expand, sea tempretures were cooler in the antartic in the 1980’s.

What is the result of this analysis? Firstly, in comparison to natural geological events we humans produce little pollution. I note that the sulfur dioxide released from the Mt St Helen’s eruption is estimated to be between 20 and 35 percent of the worlds sulfur emissions in the 1980’s.

Secondly, there is no clear link between world tempretures and environmental impacts. In fact some scientists are beginning to theorise that the planet has its own climate control system that kick in when tempretures go too far up or down.

I agree there is some connectin between human industry and global weather patterns. I do not see that there is a necesary connection between human industry and chaotic weather patterns. Without evidence of the systems that may be affected and the nature of the effect I do not think that any statements in this regard can be treated as more than speculation which is apt to political jockeying.

On the other hand, I have been to places like rjasthan in India and Milan in Italy and I have seen the effects of industrialisation on the environment, particularily the decrease in standard of living as a result of air pollution. I do not need to be convinced of global warming to believe that industry should be made clean to acocunt for this factor.

The cleaning of pollution causing industries does raise the issue of cost. It is expensive to fit carbon filters or to bury wastes resulting form emissions from industrial sources. This is a factor that should come into consideration (and does to some extent in Kyoto).

A problem I see here is that countries will engage in cheap industry (China and increasingly India) in order to fuel thier economies whereas countries like Australia (home) have gotten rid of almost all manufacturing to focus on more lucrative high tech and management positions in the world economy. Countries like India have little in the way of environmental regulation (except of course Agra where there is no industry in order to prevent damage to the Taj). Coutries like Australia have extremely high levels of environmental regulation (you can’t burn leaves without a permit). And now the rant and rave, the (theory) reason why the monkey of pollution wont get off our backs:- Pollution would not be an issue if it werent for globalisation. There Ive said it and you can all whinge and whine but it is an inescapable conclusion of the economic process.

I am not a right winger. Its just the world government is taking so long to get together!

Neither can the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. Are you going to deny it’s science?

We don’t know everything, but we do know many things.

By concidence, fresh today, here’s yet another link.

http://crookedtimber.org/2006/05/24/the-last-of-the-sceptics/

“As the formal release of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change draws nearer, quite a few skeptics have been going public to say that the evidence is now overwhelming. … There may still be a few more such announcements to come. But it’s clear by now that the evidence is more than enough to convince genuine sceptics. Those who refuse to accept overwhelming evidence are more correctly described as denialists.”

nothwithstanding seth finkelstein’s link certainty, the science seems to be with you Sami Khan. what seth’s links present as “science” cannot be subjected to controlled experiment. observation of the weather is not the same thing as predicting it. it seems to us that the fact of the matter is that we don’t really know and to pretend that we do is not science.

scientists (and CIA agents) are better served by admitting the limits of their knowledge than by feeding pre-conceived political agendas. the risks are too large.

I attended and finally turned to a colleague next to me and asked what year I’d taken the first year-long “Energy Resources” course he TA’s. It was 1973-74.

We later agreed, over beers, that the only problem was that we were much further BEHIND and DEEPER IN SHIT than we were then.

The geophysicist who led that seminar one-third of a century ago !! also led a seminar in “science and government.” He was on the President’s science advisory staff during the Johnson and Nixon years and brought with him considerable skepticism.

HOWEVER, none of us imagined then that corporations would own the president and both houses of Congress and would reverse the directions we took in the ’70s and the progress we made on into the ’80s.

We have pissed away a third of a century while we let the fucking robber barrons enslave us while enriching themselves.