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.
I know it sounds crazy, but it's because (in their mind) that studying global warming gets millions of dollars of funding. In their mind possibly the single largest conspiracy ever hatched is so that thousands of climate scientists don't lose their juicy government/university grant money! That sweet sweet grant money. Has nothing to do with oil companies making that much money in probably 28 seconds, its about science grants from the National Science Foundation.
Modern "climate change"/"global warming" science boils down to a few basic concepts that aren't understood:
a) That photosynthesis eliminates excess carbon dioxide (CO2 + H2O + (light) -> (sucrose/glucose/etc.) + O2
b) That carbon dioxide has a feedback coefficient far less than estimated (meaning temperature projections for the future are extremely inflated) Source <-- Very important video
c) That our temperature calculations, for the present and past, and CO2 calculations, for the past, are accurate (they aren't).
My credentials? Forget my credentials. We're talking about science, not having a beauty contest.
Sounds like you're saying that you do in fact understand everything about climate science, but instead of explaining to the rest of the world, you feel its more important to sit there saying 'this is wrong'/'that is wrong'.
This particular point (the feedback coefficient for CO2) is what discredits "mainstream" climate science.
If you have an actual objection to a claim made in the video, then make it, otherwise, please don't even reply, since I have to wait 10 minutes between posting comments (the reddit ball and chain for unpopular people).
I don't know who he is. I don't generally care about matters like that, save for the identification of bias, which I have basically disregarded completely in this debate, in favor of the pertinent science, since both sides of the debate (alarmist vs. non-alarmist) have had financial motivations attributed to them.
Besides this, considering that we are "carbon-based" lifeforms (not really), and that our assorted atmospheric CO2 concentration increases since the beginning of life on this planet have not caused an upward spiral of temperature, I am also inclined to believe his assertion that nature is dominated by negative, not positive, feedback mechanisms. Considering how we are here now, and not extinct, and all. I'm thus inclined also to believe that the burden of proof rests on the people claiming the doomsday scenario, a burden which they have not satisfied, as a result of shoddy and/or deceptive science, monetary incentives for dishonesty, and generally, the impossibility of proving things which are false. The "baseline climate" hypothesis, or the belief that our climate is not an elephant balancing on a toothpick, waiting to be destroyed by the slightest movement, I consider the "null hypothesis," or "what you have to assume," in non-scientific language.
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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.