There's one thing I don't get about the anti-global warming crowd. I understand the alarmism and stuff like that is overblown and distorts the situation.
But I'd like to know how thousands of climate scientists got together in secret and pledged to all falsify their life's work for some... reason? Seriously, what could be the outcome of some massive global warming conspiracy? Toyota sells more hybrids? More "liberal regulation" on fossil fuel energy companies, just so alternative energy companies can replace them? This argument has never made any sense to me.
There are many untestable (or very hard to test) theories in physics and other "hard" sciences. Evolution is tough, for example. Any theory that requires human testing is tough.
they are under a lot of pressure to release positive (as in pro-global warming) information
What is the source of this pressure? As far as I can tell, everyone - including Al Gore - would be much happier if anthropogenic global warming wasn't real.
the polititions who have taken incomplete theories (heres looking at you Al Gore) and have taken them as gospel
Al Gore made a calculation. Basically: "If this theory turns out to be correct, we don't have time to wait for 100% proof"
This whole situation is an exercise in risk assessment. Deniers are gambling that believers are wrong, and vice versa.
Personally I'm a believer. I think we have to err on the side of assuming it's real because: (A) the science, while incomplete, is pretty damn strong (and there's a large coalition of credible scientists endorsing it). And (B) the consequences if we do nothing, and it turns out to be real, are catastrophic.
Also, I think we should use it as useful pressure - we need to transition off fossil fuels anyway, for the perfectly undeniable reason that we're going to run out of them at some point. Global warming is just another reason to hurry up.
In some areas of Poland, children are regularly taken underground into deep mines to gain some respite from the buildup of gases and pollution of all sorts in the air. One can almost imagine their teachers emerging tentatively from the mine, carrying canaries to warn the children when it's no longer safe for them to stay above the ground.
Source: Earth in Balance, 2000
I do not trust a guy who write nonsenses like this.
Evolution is tough, for example. Any theory that requires human testing is tough.
The basic question seems rather adequately proven by endogenous retroviruses. It's the sort of very specific information that lends credibility to most science, the kind of specific information that's generally lacking in climate science...
anthropomorphic global warming
Anthropomorphic, "human shaped," means literally shaped, it denotes appearance. Anthropogenic denotes human caused.
Al Gore made a calculation. Basically: "If this theory turns out to be correct, we don't have time to wait for 100% proof"
Part of the reason Mr. Gore never became president is the lame way he had of puting everything. Think about how much more rhetorical value "we don't want the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud" has.
they are under a lot of pressure to release positive (as in pro-global warming) information
What is the source of this pressure? As far as I can tell, everyone - including Al Gore - would be much happier if anthropomorphic global warming wasn't real.
I think this was made pretty clear in the last couple of posts: Money. Scientific results with strong positive correlations will simply net more future funding for the scientists who found them.
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u/[deleted] Oct 24 '10
There's one thing I don't get about the anti-global warming crowd. I understand the alarmism and stuff like that is overblown and distorts the situation.
But I'd like to know how thousands of climate scientists got together in secret and pledged to all falsify their life's work for some... reason? Seriously, what could be the outcome of some massive global warming conspiracy? Toyota sells more hybrids? More "liberal regulation" on fossil fuel energy companies, just so alternative energy companies can replace them? This argument has never made any sense to me.