View Full Version : An Inconvenient Truth
KC//CRIMSON
6/23/2006, 10:16 PM
Hmmmmm. I'm still deciding if I want to drop my hard earned coin down and see this flick. Has anyone here seen it?:cool:
http://www.climatecrisis.net/
Hoosier Dynasty
6/23/2006, 11:31 PM
Yawn
Let's crank up the propaganda machine a notch.
My take is it's probably a compelling documentary, meaning entertaining to watch. However, the message itself may or may not be worthwhile. I've been tossing the idea around myself...
Sure. Make a statement by riding a bicycle to the theatre, because every politician out there that advocates less human freedom in the name of 'global warming' is still flying around in a jet or being chouffered by a limo. You can show them how it's done.
Okla-homey
6/24/2006, 07:33 AM
Sure. Make a statement by riding a bicycle to the theatre, because every politician out there that advocates less human freedom in the name of 'global warming' is still flying around in a jet or being chouffered by a limo. You can show them how it's done.
And be sure to wear "croc's" to the theater.
OklahomaTuba
6/24/2006, 11:23 AM
I'm still waiting for the video game to come out
Hoosier Dynasty
6/24/2006, 11:56 AM
Sure. Make a statement by riding a bicycle to the theatre, because every politician out there that advocates less human freedom in the name of 'global warming' is still flying around in a jet or being chouffered by a limo. You can show them how it's done.
Good call . . . Hummer and Tahoe limos, no less.
OklahomaTuba
6/24/2006, 12:10 PM
Well, if only Al Gore could get elected to a high power position within the government, maybe he could do something about this climate crisis.
Oh wait...
...and right on cue, the hoi-polloi chimes in...
I've been thinking I should go so I can find out how much closer I'll be to beachfront property in the coming years.
Plus, I like documentaries.
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 12:57 PM
The title is misleading, therefore I tend think the producers are full of crap. Plus, if Al gore can single handedly invent the internet and prevent Bill Clinton from being removed from office after he was impeached. Why can't he just save the planet?
OCUDad
6/24/2006, 01:03 PM
Rumor has it Ann Coulter is about to release her own documentary on Global Cooling, titled "It's Getting Colder, You Wussy Liberal Wine-Swilling, Brie-Eating Idiots. Put on A Sweater."
Makes for a great double feature.
BudSooner
6/24/2006, 01:08 PM
This coming from the former senator from Tennessee.:D
XingTheRubicon
6/24/2006, 01:37 PM
The gall of the idiot "dims" creating "facts" out of thin air like the temperature of the Gulf and increasing category 4 and 5 storms....
oh wait...
The gall of the idiot "dims" creating "facts" out of thin air like the temperature of the Gulf and increasing category 4 and 5 storms....
oh wait...
Got news for you...
Hurricanes are not a recent event. In fact, they've been around for a long time.
Are you going to blame Bush on the next earthquake, too?
OklahomaTuba
6/24/2006, 02:00 PM
Are you going to blame Bush on the next earthquake, too?
So thats what that evil bastard Bu****ler and his neoKKKon cronies @ halliburton have up there sleaves next.
I guess they didn't kill enough brown people in their wars for oil in Afganistan & Iraq, or when they spawned the hurricanes and blewup the levees in Occupied New Orleans.
OklahomaTuba
6/24/2006, 02:05 PM
Found a great movie review of this movie...
Movie Review; An Inconvenient Truth
Automobiles. Electricity. Indoor plumbing. Private ownership of property. Steady employment. Food. Americans have selfishly enjoyed such extravagances for decades, and the environment has suffered for it. Now, Mother Nature is beginning to strike back. Powerful hurricanes descend on the tranquil Gulf Coast region every year, so numerous that we have run out of names for them. The glaciers have retreated from Mount Kilauea, backing over scores of poor, inner city Blacks on the way out. Drought sweep across the land, and entire crops of glaucoma medication vanish from my porch overnight. We are facing what could very well be the end of civilization in our lifetime, and the blame belongs to America’s selfish insistence on remaining an industrialized nation.
That’s the “inconvenient truth” that Al Gore tries to awaken us to in his monumental new film. A triumph at Cannes even without any gay sex scenes, An Inconvenient Truth features a colorful ensemble of A-list climatologists and environmental experts, their weighty words and elaborate costumes lending credibility to what would otherwise be blown off as just another bearded lady in the circus sideshow of Al Gore’s mind. However, it is Al Gore himself who steals the show as the reluctant hero who would save humanity from its own greedy excesses, even as he fights his own personal demons. Fitted with a pair of recycled aluminum claws, Gore slashes his way through the veil of right-wing lies and exposes the world to the hard, inconvenient truth they’ve ignored for far too long. Where was this Al Gore during the 2000 presidential debates? Where was he during the entire election? No matter. The same Al Gore whose rugged outdoorsy machismo and pressed flannel shirts won the hearts of butch lesbians everywhere has returned…and with a vengeance.
The inconvenient truth of Gore’s film is also an undeniable one. If we are to save the planet for future generations, we must sacrifice a few of the guilty pleasures we’ve grown so accustomed to over the years - such as eating regularly and crapping indoors. Most importantly, we must end once and for all our unhealthy obsession with the internal combustion engine. It’s high time for we as a society to squeeze our obese behinds out of our gas-guzzling, smog-belching SUVs and learn to use other alternatives, such as those funny things on the ends of our legs. By “we”, Gore of course means “YOU”, for we simply can’t have the once and future President walking around to all his lucrative speaking engagements like a common peasant.
Enlightened nations like China and France have already become signatories to the Kyoto Protocol, but the United States has yet to answer to the UN for the unforgivable sin of prosperity. To prevent an environmental apocalypse, Al Gore inists that we must. But it won’t happen as long as there is a Republican in the White House, waging endless wars and handing out tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. Unless we surrender ourselves completely to our benevolent progressive leaders and reject the right-wing's use of fear as a means to control us, civilization as we know it will cease to exist.
King Crimson
6/24/2006, 02:11 PM
where?
link?
to paraphrase (one of) Bill Favor's Ann Coulter threads....just like Ann, seems old Al is living in your heads and whatnot. that seemed to be proof of something back then....but now, i doubt it.
King Crimson, Independent.
OklahomaTuba
6/24/2006, 02:18 PM
Speaking of Ann...
http://blamebush.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/godless.jpg
King Crimson
6/24/2006, 02:21 PM
that's a fairly irrelevant response.
Gandalf_The_Grey
6/24/2006, 02:32 PM
That Photo of Ann Coulter is more truthful than the Inconvenient Truth ;)
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 02:54 PM
Thanks to President Bush's handling of international terrorism, good ol Al can go back to his favorite hobby...insulting middle class intelligence.
Octavian
6/24/2006, 02:56 PM
I haven't seen the movie so I dunno.
Global warming being a contested political issue still amazes me...You'd think everyone that breathes air would want to see our home planet protected from harm as much as possible.
Why does the Party of Creationism seem to care so little about the Creation?
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 03:07 PM
Just because the "southern strategy" of converting southern Democrats (AKA religious right) into Republicans to win presidential elections worked, doesn't make us, "the party of creationism."
As to your point, the debate is to whether or not global warming is even real and if so, why does it mean we (humans) are responsible.
More polutants are released from one volcanic erruption than a thousand years of automobile exhaust.
A serious question to global warming skeptics. What evidence would you need to accept global warming? Additionally, what evidence would you need to attribute it (or a significant portion of it) to human activity?
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 04:38 PM
A serious question to global warming skeptics. What evidence would you need to accept global warming? Additionally, what evidence would you need to attribute it (or a significant portion of it) to human activity?Some scientific evidence which can be reproduced by multiple disciplines to the point of the creation of a new formula, would be nice.
Some scientific evidence which can be reproduced by multiple disciplines to the point of the creation of a new formula, would be nice.
Is this a start?
http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/Surface_Temps_final.pdf
slickdawg
6/24/2006, 05:14 PM
My secretary's methane emissions are a huge contributor to global warming.
My secretary's methane emissions are a huge contributor to global warming.
According to the EPA:
Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period and is emitted from a variety of natural and human-influenced sources. Human-influenced sources include landfills, natural gas and petroleum systems, agricultural activities, coal mining, stationary and mobile combustion, wastewater treatment, and certain industrial process.
She may need to be regulated.
Gandalf_The_Grey
6/24/2006, 05:24 PM
Now...see my question is how do they know that. Did they release Methane and then follow this invisible gas for 9 to 15 years? Plus we don't know how the ocean works on some level but we somehow know what Co2 and Methane do in the atmosphere?
Of course, Gandalf, you're right. One of the seminars that I took in grad school was "How to make stuff up so you can get a federal grant.";)
Gandalf_The_Grey
6/24/2006, 05:50 PM
I guess so but still I am serious...I wonder how they figure this stuff out?
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 06:05 PM
Is this a start?
http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/Surface_Temps_final.pdf Eh, start of what. I mean I read it an there's a whopping .4 degree difference since 900ish? What does that tell you? How much stock do we put into these other ways of looking at surface temperature? What happens if we have another "Dark ages," where a volcano blocks the sun for oh, five, ten, fifteen years. What will the core samples look like then? Will the data look different? Have things like this happened in the past How many CFC's will result from such an event?
What if the sun gets hotter? What if the moon moves off of its orbit?
There are too many variables to pin it on cars and hairspray. Sorry, call me when the scientific community agrees on the same scale as they do with evolution.
Without being a smartass, this knowledge is produced by applying the rules and procedures that are called 'science.' In general, the day to day activities of scientists are generally mundane and tedious. It involves lots of observing, lots of measuring, and lots of model development to account for those observations and measurements. I don't have any specific knowledge about the exact procedures that led to knowing that methane is 20X more effective at trapping heat than CO2, but it came from extensive testing.
OklahomaTuba
6/24/2006, 06:08 PM
Global warming being a contested political issue still amazes me...You'd think everyone that breathes air would want to see our home planet protected from harm as much as possible.
Why does the Party of Creationism seem to care so little about the Creation?
Just say no to clean air and water!
http://www.glennbeck.com/2004ads/05-19-04-clean-ad.gif
http://www.evilconservatives.com
uh oh, here we go with the scientist card again. Scientists are immune from critics and skeptics, right?
Let's take a look at what the 'scientists' said 30 years ago:
There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production -- with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now.
The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas -- parts ofIndia,Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia -- where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree -- a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. "A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale," warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, "because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century."
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth's average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras -- and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average.
Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the "little ice age" conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 -- years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. "Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data," concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. "Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions."
Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases -- all of which have a direct impact on food supplies. "The world's food-producing system," warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA's Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, "is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago." Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.
Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.
"The Cooling World": From Newsweek, April 28, 1975. 1975 Newsweek Inc.
So, anyone who refuted these scientists back in 1975 would have been wrong, because THESE ARE SCIENTISTS!
You're going to need a little more compelling evidence before we have MORE GOVERNMENT and LESS INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM because that is what this is all about.
Gandalf_The_Grey
6/24/2006, 06:11 PM
Well just call me skeptical of anything that comes from a "model" You can't create a model of anything on this planet because this planet is so complex and changing we could never capture all of the things. For all the scientest know, the atmosphere could have been worse in Jesus's time..I can't wait to see that data ;)
Ron, first would be to understand what an increase in global average tempurature means to the climate, whatever that increase may be. That you think it is too small to be important doesn't mean it isn't important. Find out why scientists think it is important. Second, a volcano eruption that blocked the sun for five, ten, or fifteen years would likely end all life on earth. So yes the cores would look different. Climatologists are aware of the effects of those kind of natural phenomena and take them into consideration. By the way, CFCs have nothing to do with global warming. CFCs have to do with ozone depletion.
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
6/24/2006, 06:18 PM
YOU GO, Algore! Mr. Internet for POTUS, dims '08!!!
YOU GO, Algore! Mr. Internet for POTUS, dims '08!!!
I just hope they run a good campaign:
1) We want to raise your taxes
2) We want to make gay marriage legal in all 50 states
3) We want to take your guns
It's a winning platform....
(In California and Massachussettes)
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 06:27 PM
Ron, first would be to understand what an increase in global average tempurature means to the climate, whatever that increase may be. That you think it is too small to be important doesn't mean it isn't important. Find out why scientists think it is important. Second, a volcano eruption that blocked the sun for five, ten, or fifteen years would likely end all life on earth. So yes the cores would look different. Climatologists are aware of the effects of those kind of natural phenomena and take them into consideration. By the way, CFCs have nothing to do with global warming. CFCs have to do with ozone depletion.Man, the kool aid is strong with you. If you believe in their "model" for determining surface temperature is perfect. There is still only a neglegable difference. The sun has been blocked by volcanic activity as I described hundreds, if not thousands of times. Some very severe examples were recorded in Europe and Asia during the coldest recorded temperatures on that study graph.
What if Earth is supposed to be warmer and the anomolies are the ice ages created by atmospheric changes brought on by natural disaster?
Gandalf_The_Grey
6/24/2006, 06:28 PM
IF the left wanted people to take global warming seriously, they could have maybe told the Biggest Pud(Al Gore) not to put out a movie ;)
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 06:30 PM
IF the left wanted people to take global warming seriously, they could have maybe told the Biggest Pud(Al Gore) not to put out a movie ;)Political Scientist?;)
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 06:36 PM
Lefty,
In short, if the gloves don't fit. You must acquit! :D
Gandalf_The_Grey
6/24/2006, 06:37 PM
It would be like Michael Moore putting out a documentary on healthy eating... He doesn't have a clue about that and Al doesn't know anything about the environment.
usmc-sooner
6/24/2006, 06:38 PM
hell weatherman can't even predict the weather from day to day, not quite sure I can rely on them to predict the future of "global warming" since they can't even prove that the Earth is warming, some places are cooling. Even if the world was warming they can't prove the change isn't cyclical.
Climates have been changing since time began. Now if it's changing again we're supposed to believe that were going to stop it.
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 06:39 PM
Maybe like John Kerry making a movie about winning a Presidetial election. :D
So many non-sequiturs, so little time. No particular order.
1. I don't like kool-aid, it's too darn sweet.
2. I have no particular position on global warming. It's either getting warmer or it isn't. The data are pointing in that direction. The evidence is pointing to human activity as a major contribution. I hope they're wrong because I like my SUV. Unfortunately, the evidence continues to grow that they're not wrong.
3. Al Gore knows his stuff but comes off at times like Chicken Little. I'm not sure is his warnings won't backfire on what he wants to accomplish.
4. I don't quite understand how global warming is related to gay marriage and gun control. Perhaps I'm too ignorant to get it.
5. Because of science and scientists, we get to sit in front of a computer, in our air conditioned houses and pontificate about a whole lot of stuff of which we know little.
6. Weather and climate, while related, are different "things." Sometimes you get snow in Florida, but that doesn't change the climate.
7. Climate change is cyclical. Please read the link and you will see that all of those natural occurances are acknowledged and taken into account. The graph in that article shows data that confirms that things were cooler once and stuff changes.
8. Science tends to be very conservative (read my signature).
9. The global cooling hypothesis never realized much of a scientific consensus even though it got a bunch of hype in the media. The media is not a particularly good place to get scientific information. They tend to publish what appears to be sexy, not what appears to be sound.
Gandalf_The_Grey
6/24/2006, 08:07 PM
Any listed reasons that starts with "Al Gore knows his stuff" is crazy talk in my book. Al Gore knows what he has been told and this about it. As for giving "Scientist" credit for computers, air conditioning and are ability to pontificate seems absurd. Most of those inventions have come from gentlemen that wouldn't ever call themselves scientist. Do you think George Washington Carver considered himself a scientist?
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 08:12 PM
a. The evidence is pointing to human activity as a major contribution.
b. Al Gore knows his stuff a. I missed those links.
b. Okay, nevermind.
Any listed reasons that starts with "Al Gore knows his stuff" is crazy talk in my book. Al Gore knows what he has been told and this about it. As for giving "Scientist" credit for computers, air conditioning and are ability to pontificate seems absurd. Most of those inventions have come from gentlemen that wouldn't ever call themselves scientist. Do you think George Washington Carver considered himself a scientist?
Absolutely George Washington Carver considered himself a scientist. No question, no debate. Read about Dr. Carver and see if you can come to a different conclustion. What do you think a scientist is?
usmc-sooner
6/24/2006, 08:23 PM
in the 70's wasn't it these same guys who thought it was global cooling. I always like it when the evidence is pointing to something, yet I've never seen the evidence that points to Al Gore knowing his stuff.
Unless Al Gore has gone to school for climatology and weather then he knows as much as anyone else who didn't go to school for it. Those who did go to school for can't predict whether it's going to rain tommorrow or not. 30 years ago its global cooling now it's global warming. Yeah gives me a lot of confidence in this bunch.
in the 70's wasn't it these same guys who thought it was global cooling. I always like it when the evidence is pointing to something, yet I've never seen the evidence that points to Al Gore knowing his stuff.
Unless Al Gore has gone to school for climatology and weather then he knows as much as anyone else who didn't go to school for it. Those who did go to school for can't predict whether it's going to rain tommorrow or not. 30 years ago its global cooling now it's global warming. Yeah gives me a lot of confidence in this bunch.
Even better example is actor Ted Danson...in the 80's said the ocean was warming and we'd all be dead in 10 years.
Global Warming is nothing but a tool for a socialist big government agenda. More power for them, less freedom for you.
Once more, no there was no scientific consensus in the 70's concerning global cooling.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/
In science, evidence is always pointing. That is one of the issues that laypersons don't quite understand. Certainty never exists in science, only preponderance of evidence. When the evidence is extremely strong, one speaks of it as "truth." When new evidence comes forth, it is taken into consideration. How do you think progress occurs? You're correct that Al Gore is not a credentialed climatologist. Neither are you. So why are your positions more valid than his? How many things that you believe to be true have you ever tested in a controlled environment. I suspect that the stuff you learned in school, even though you didn't directly create that knowledge have proven to be, more or less correct. You don't have to be directly involved in knowledge creation to understand good evidence from bad evidence.
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 08:47 PM
Once more, no there was no scientific consensus in the 70's concerning global cooling.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/
In science, evidence is always pointing. That is one of the issues that laypersons don't quite understand. Certainty never exists in science, only preponderance of evidence. When the evidence is extremely strong, one speaks of it as "truth." When new evidence comes forth, it is taken into consideration. How do you think progress occurs? You're correct that Al Gore is not a credentialed climatologist. Neither are you. So why are your positions more valid than his? How many things that you believe to be true have you ever tested in a controlled environment. I suspect that the stuff you learned in school, even though you didn't directly create that knowledge have proven to be, more or less correct. You don't have to be directly involved in knowledge creation to understand good evidence from bad evidence.Stay in school and some day you'll find a cogent argument.
"Certainty never exists in science."
This may be the dumbest thing ever uttered by a wanna be scientific expert.
What happens when an electric charge is introduced to water? Answer. A CERTAINTY
What happens when you split an atom? Certainty.
what is 1748 x 4853? Certainty...
:D A layperson...you're killing me. OMG :D
slickdawg
6/24/2006, 09:04 PM
I'm insulted by anyone that claims to be an expert in the earth's
climatology. We have 100 years worth of accurate records at best.
For a planet that is millions of years old, you're either silly or ignorant
to try and say that what has happened in the last century is a tell
tale sign of things to come.
We know there have been ice ages, we know there have been major
heat-ups. That's just part of it. Mother Earth takes pretty good care of
herself.
Have we damaged her? YES. But not to this point of "chicken little" that
some cling to.
The climate changes, that's just part of it. Remember the dust bowl?
Oh yeah.
We go through cycles of increased tropical Atlantic hurricane activity,
usually on a 20 year cycle. We started one in 1995. There's been a
significant increase in tropical activity in the Atlantic Basin since 1995.
However, from 1970-1994, the tropical Atlantic was practically dead.
Show me hundreds of years of data that supports this "global warming".
Until then, accept that the majority of what is going on is normal climate
change.
Gandalf_The_Grey
6/24/2006, 09:12 PM
Once more, no there was no scientific consensus in the 70's concerning global cooling.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/
In science, evidence is always pointing. That is one of the issues that laypersons don't quite understand. Certainty never exists in science, only preponderance of evidence. When the evidence is extremely strong, one speaks of it as "truth." When new evidence comes forth, it is taken into consideration. How do you think progress occurs? You're correct that Al Gore is not a credentialed climatologist. Neither are you. So why are your positions more valid than his? How many things that you believe to be true have you ever tested in a controlled environment. I suspect that the stuff you learned in school, even though you didn't directly create that knowledge have proven to be, more or less correct. You don't have to be directly involved in knowledge creation to understand good evidence from bad evidence.
This Al Gorean type response is why no one respects the left in this country. You talk to 90% of the population like they are morons and can't possibly comprehend the intricate levels of your brain. You sprinkle long words in to your sentences and it gives you a "hard on" of percieved excellence over us inferior commen folk. None of us put out a movie called "An Inconvenient Truth" when a more accurate title would have been "An Inconvenient Maybe" An even more accurate title would have been "Another Chance to Remind Us That Al Gore is Still Alive" IF you think AL Gore cares about the environment, I got you some ocean front property in Kansas and if Al is right, it will be in about 10 years anyway.
Stay in school and some day you'll find a cogent argument.
"Certainty never exists in science."
This may be the dumbest thing ever uttered by a wanna be scientific expert.
What happens when an electric charge is introduced to water? Answer. A CERTAINTY
What happens when you split an atom? Certainty.
what is 1748 x 4853? Certainty...
:D A layperson...you're killing me. OMG :D
In fact, the effect of an electrical charge introduced into water is affected by the salinity of said water, hence not certain.
Mathmatics is not science. Math is certainly used in science, but it is not, in and of itself, science.
Does this statement sound like "certainty?"
And so our reactors are always made to run on fissile material. The term "fissile" describes a nucleus that will undergo fission when hit by a suitable neutron. In the nuclear reactor, a fissile nucleus is struck by a lone neutron of the right energy, which is then absorbed. The new heavy nucleus then fissions into two (very occasionally three) daughter nuclei called fission products. It will also release two or three more high energy neutrons. Plus of course, there will be a large energy release in the form of movement of the fission products and gamma radiation, which will be absorbed in the reactor as heat in the coolant.
Like I said, when these people start walking and riding bicycles everywhere they go, then I'll start to worry. The fact is, all of these do-gooders are flying in the back of leerjets, riding in limos, driving nice cars, etc.
I mean, really...
You think Hillary Clinton is going to give up her VIP convoy and start using mass transit? Is she going to start using airline service instead of a private jet? Are any of the big time libs doing any of this? Probably not. Maybe they should provide an example, instead of living the life they claim that is destroying us
Gandalf_The_Grey
6/24/2006, 09:22 PM
The only reason the left cares about this is because the right absolutely refuses to acknowledge it and it isn't something you can really argue about. The Left says we need to cut back and not pollute so much. Well no **** sherlock...now just get China, Russia, and the rest of the free world on it and guess what we will still be sucking at emission levels.
See that big monstrosity that I use as my avator? It is used for hauling cement powder to the ready mix plants in OKC. I'm sure it is a polluting machine. Should I park it, and help save the planet? DO YOU WANT A DIRT FLOOR IN YOUR NEW HOME?
The Left says we need to cut back and not pollute so much. Well no **** sherlock...now just get China, Russia, and the rest of the free world on it and guess what we will still be sucking at emission levels.
Yes, Kyoto- punish the US and Europe and let everyone else pollute us into oblivion.
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 09:28 PM
In fact, the effect of an electrical charge introduced into water is affected by the salinity of said water, hence not certain.
Mathmatics is not science. Math is certainly used in science, but it is not, in and of itself, science.
Does this statement sound like "certainty?"
You are so predictable and honestly not very bright. Math isn't a science. Take that one up with Stephen Hawkings.
You nitpick and play word games when you were pwn3d. Just like a liberal. Chemistry, math, biology, zoology, etc... all have certainties and you're apparently not aware of them.:twinkies:
Like I said, when these people start walking and riding bicycles everywhere they go, then I'll start to worry. The fact is, all of these do-gooders are flying in the back of leerjets, riding in limos, driving nice cars, etc.
I agree. I don't think that the modifications to our existence will necessarily lead us back to the 19th century. What we may need to consider is the development of technologies that reduce the amount of hydrocarbons that we emit from everyday activities. For example, the development of the fuel cell will reduce carbon emissions and reduce our reliance on foreign resources. I also hope that we can learn from the French and use nuclear power and replace our reliance on coal fired power stations. I think there is alot that can be done without significantly altering the lifestyles that we know and love. In my estimation, we can't always trust the advice of those that have a vested interest in us continuing to do things in the fashion that we are now doing those things. We are a clever people and most of us have the same general goals in mind. We may disagree about how best to acheive those goals, but usually come to the correct solutions.
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 09:30 PM
I mean, really...
You think Hillary Clinton is going to give up her VIP convoy and start using mass transit? Is she going to start using airline service instead of a private jet? Are any of the big time libs doing any of this? Probably not. Maybe they should provide an example, instead of living the life they claim that is destroying usYeah, we should car pool but they should have private jets.
I agree. I don't think that the modifications to our existence will necessarily lead us back to the 19th century. What we may need to consider is the development of technologies that reduce the amount of hydrocarbons that we emit from everyday activities. For example, the development of the fuel cell will reduce carbon emissions and reduce our reliance on foreign resources. I also hope that we can learn from the French and use nuclear power and replace our reliance on coal fired power stations. I think there is alot that can be done without significantly altering the lifestyles that we know and love. In my estimation, we can't always trust the advice of those that have a vested interest in us continuing to do things in the fashion that we are now doing those things. We are a clever people and most of us have the same general goals in mind. We may disagree about how best to acheive those goals, but usually come to the correct solutions.
Okay, you're sounding like a true believer, now. I honestly believe, however, that there are many politicians using this whole issue as a means to get power by fear, and many of them don't advocate nuclear technology like you do or even progress, cuz I don't think they want to lose their global warming card. I wouldn't worry too much about the Earth, though...it is many many years old and has been through alot more than we have ever put it through. Sure, I like green hills, clean water, fresh air, I just don't want us to be turned into a bunch of slaves of the state over this whole warming issue.
Ron,
Why the personal attacks? I've simply been trying to add to the discussion about issues such as global warming and the way in which science operates to try to answer the question. Are there questions regarding the evidence? Yes. There are always questions. We go with the best knowledge we have and if something else comes up it is taken into account. I can't speak for Stephen Hawking (neither can you) but within science, nothing is taken as certain. For example, consider the following:
"Early theorists believed that in science lay the promise of certainty. Built on a foundation of fact and constructed with objective and trustworthy tools, science produced knowledge. But science has also shown us that this knowledge will always be fundamentally incomplete and that a true understanding of the world is ultimately beyond our grasp.
In this thoughtful and compelling book, physicist F. David Peat examines the basic philosophic difference between the certainty that characterized the thinking of humankind through the nineteenth century and contrasts it with the startling fall of certainty in the twentieth. The nineteenth century was marked by a boundless optimism and confidence in the power of progress and technology. Science and philosophy were on firm ground. Newtonian physics showed that the universe was a gigantic clockwork mechanism that functioned according to rigid laws that its course could be predicted with total confidence far into the future. Indeed, in 1900, the President of the Royal Society in Britain went so far as to proclaim that everything of importance had already been discovered by science.
But it was not long before the seeds of a scientific revolution began to take root. Quantum Theory and the General Theory of Relativity exploded the clockwork universe, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that our knowledge was, at best, incomplete and would probably remain that way forever. There were places in the universe, such as black holes, from which no information at all could ever be obtained. Chaos Theory also demonstrated our inherent limits to knowing, predicting, and controlling the world around us and showed the way that chaos can often be found at the heart of natural and social systems.
Although we may not always recognize it, this new world view has had a profound effect not only on science, but on art, literature, philosophy, and societal relations. The twenty-first century now begins with a humble acceptance of uncertainty.
From Certainty to Uncertainty traces the rise and fall of the deterministic universe and shows the evolving influences that such disparate disciplines now have on one another. Drawing on the lessons we can learn from history, Peat also speculates on how we will manage our lives into the future."
This is a review of a book of the state of science in the 21st Century. The link is provided.
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10248.html#description
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 09:57 PM
Hey, you're the one that said there are no certainties in science and instead of simply admitting to a mistake you argue as if you still have a pot to **** in.
Ron, I didn't argue anything. If there is a truism in science, it is that there is no such thing as certainty. Read the quote I posted, link to the website from where that quote came, and find me a scientist that will state that science is certain. I can't and won't find all of the statements that will verify that position, there are too many to find.
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 10:16 PM
Ron, I didn't argue anything. If there is a truism in science, it is that there is no such thing as certainty. Read the quote I posted, link to the website from where that quote came, and find me a scientist that will state that science is certain. I can't and won't find all of the statements that will verify that position, there are too many to find.It's like I'm speaking to a wall here. Science exists and depends on certainties. Without certainties there is no "science." Comprende? You must be speaking of scientific theorists not all science. See, at some point a theory becomes a fact. Ya know, like gravity, photosynthisis, osmosis, etc...
Sorry Ron, I see we've been talking past one another, my fault.
Big Red Ron
6/24/2006, 10:24 PM
Sorry Ron, I see we've been talking past one another, my fault.:D
That wasn't so hard was it?
Some things aren't worth pursuing.:D
OklahomaTuba
6/24/2006, 11:17 PM
http://www.thepeoplescube.com/images/Brain_Socialist_550.gif
So true.
slickdawg
6/24/2006, 11:21 PM
Chillinz, relax.
This argument wan't made in one day, and will never be settled.
Kinda like Jimmy Hoffa's death.
RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!
6/25/2006, 12:16 AM
Chillinz, relax.
This argument wan't made in one day, and will never be settled.
Kinda like Jimmy Hoffa's death.Now, don't you go killin' a perfectly good thread.
It's like I'm speaking to a wall here. Science exists and depends on certainties. Without certainties there is no "science." Comprende? You must be speaking of scientific theorists not all science. See, at some point a theory becomes a fact. Ya know, like gravity, photosynthisis, osmosis, etc...
I haven't read much of this thread, and I don't really intend to read much farther. The misunderstanding and misuse of science here is so bad that to read farther might make my head explode, or cause me to cause physical harm to my laptop, which I recently invested a bit of my time into repairing.
But I will address this point. "certainties" in science are RARELY, if ever 100% certain. Since you bring it up, lets take gravity. In the not so distant past, we had a theory of gravity regarded as "fact" that worked pretty damn well, but had just a few problems with it. Newtons theory of gravity could not correctly calculate the orbit of mercury, nor did it predict gravitational lensing. It was not until Einstien that these these problems were solved by general relativity. But STILL we have a problem with gravity. When we try to go down to the single, elementary particle level, we can't explain how the hell gravity works. Of the four fundamental forces (that we know of), its the one we have known about for the longest time, but also the only one for which we cannot yet come up with a suitable theoretical framework to describe it that is experimentally verifiable....yet. In other words, we are "certain" about some things regarding gravity, but very very uncertain about others. But wait, it gets better than that. Even the "certainties" we have in science, which are the well observed processes that have been measured and studied to death, STILL have uncertainties about them. We quantify those uncertainties, and generally, they are very small with respect to the scale of things being measured by now, but they still exist. And, bringing up our old friend gravity again, of all the "fundamental" constants we know about, the fundamental gravitational constant is the one with the largest uncertainties in its measurement. we know the electron mass, a tiny tiny thing, to a much greater precision (we're talking orders of magnitude) than we know the gravitational constant. Yet we've known about gravity for far longer than we've known about electrons.
What am I getting at? Sometimes the things we, even as scientists, think are certain turn out to be wildly different than we thought they were. The observations are 'certain', but only to the degree with which we can measure them. And even then, sometimes a more accurate measurement might tell us that we were pretty far off in the first place. (this is not as uncommon as you might think)
I agree. I don't think that the modifications to our existence will necessarily lead us back to the 19th century. What we may need to consider is the development of technologies that reduce the amount of hydrocarbons that we emit from everyday activities. For example, the development of the fuel cell will reduce carbon emissions and reduce our reliance on foreign resources. I also hope that we can learn from the French and use nuclear power and replace our reliance on coal fired power stations. I think there is alot that can be done without significantly altering the lifestyles that we know and love. In my estimation, we can't always trust the advice of those that have a vested interest in us continuing to do things in the fashion that we are now doing those things. We are a clever people and most of us have the same general goals in mind. We may disagree about how best to acheive those goals, but usually come to the correct solutions.
You do everything to advance the cause of NObody-Caring.
Gandalf_The_Grey
6/25/2006, 03:40 AM
I just went dancing with my girlfriend and guess what, We releases tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, I was sweating like a piggy. I now plan on going to my bedroom and attempt to perform a certainty on my girlfriend...hopefully i can convince her that we need to release more CO2 through some strenous acts!
StoopTroup
6/25/2006, 08:44 AM
Pics?
OCUDad
6/25/2006, 10:45 AM
In the interest of "fair and balanced" observation:
http://f5.putfile.com/6/17511420482.jpg (http://www.putfile.com)
THere's no question the earth is warming up, the question is why is everybody so worked up about it. The earth has been alternately cooling down and warming up since it first formed.
sitzpinkler
6/25/2006, 11:27 AM
Got news for you...
Hurricanes are not a recent event. In fact, they've been around for a long time.
Are you going to blame Bush on the next earthquake, too?
I fail to see where he blamed Bush for global warming.
Big Red Ron
6/25/2006, 11:32 AM
I ...What if Earth is supposed to be warmer and the anomolies are the ice ages created by atmospheric changes brought on by natural disaster?
OCUDad
6/25/2006, 11:37 AM
I fail to see where he blamed Bush for global warming.Nor did he imply hurricanes are a recent event -- only that force 4 and 5 storms are increasing.
Other than that, however, the rebuttal was well thought out and to the point.
Howzit
6/25/2006, 11:56 AM
What am I getting at? Sometimes the things we, even as scientists, think are certain turn out to be wildly different than we thought they were. The observations are 'certain', but only to the degree with which we can measure them. And even then, sometimes a more accurate measurement might tell us that we were pretty far off in the first place. (this is not as uncommon as you might think)
In 1959 one of my dad's EE profs at OU told the class that he felt sorry for them, since all of the major discoveries that would ever be made in physics had already been made.
:D
usmc-sooner
6/25/2006, 12:06 PM
funny how the scientist on here claim there are no certainties in science, yet they are certain global warming is taking place.
Anyone making this claim is losing a lot of credability due to the fact that science is a fact, if not it is a theory. The atomic number of elements don't change. Elements re-act in the same manner under the same conditions.
If things are a crap shoot and everything is always changing, and there are no certainties why the hell should we listen to a scientist or even care about global warming.
Pretty easy to understand. I am willing to put up with a certain amount of pollution so I don't have to walk or ride a horse everywhere I go. If you're not willing to do so by all means sell your house and live in a tent, trade in your car for a bike, horse, or just walk. I've never heard such a hypocritacal argument in my life.
KC//CRIMSON
6/25/2006, 12:11 PM
"Hurricane Bush"
I like it!
OCUDad
6/25/2006, 03:49 PM
funny how the scientist on here claim there are no certainties in science, yet they are certain global warming is taking place.
Anyone making this claim is losing a lot of credability due to the fact that science is a fact, if not it is a theory. The atomic number of elements don't change. Elements re-act in the same manner under the same conditions.
If things are a crap shoot and everything is always changing, and there are no certainties why the hell should we listen to a scientist or even care about global warming.
Pretty easy to understand. I am willing to put up with a certain amount of pollution so I don't have to walk or ride a horse everywhere I go. If you're not willing to do so by all means sell your house and live in a tent, trade in your car for a bike, horse, or just walk. I've never heard such a hypocritacal argument in my life.For God's sake, learn to read. The discussion is not so much whether global warming is taking place (global temperatures have gone through uptick periods and downtick periods forever). The discussion is about whether humans are having a measurable effect on the latest uptick. If we are, is it bad? Is there something we can or should do about it? Mother Earth will survive as she always has; the question is whether humans will.
For God's sake, learn to write. Your logic, sentence structure, grammar, and spelling indicate a formal education that stopped at the second grade; this makes it difficult to take any of your arguments seriously -- or even to understand them at all in some cases. To borrow a statement from Dean, "anybody can be stupid." Please, take an extra moment to look over what you've written and decide whether the average person would find it coherent.
For God's sake, learn to think. Take your head out of Rush's and Ann's poopers long enough to acknowledge there might be differing points of view and that they might be worth considering. The question is not whether you ride a horse or drive an SUV; the question is whether something bad is happening -- and if so, whether humans can do something about. Frankly, I don't know, and I'm willing to admit it and listen to arguments on both sides (not opinionated "certainties" put forth by folks who haven't shown they know a damn thing about the topic).
Scott D
6/25/2006, 03:56 PM
For God's sake, learn to read. The discussion is not so much whether global warming is taking place (global temperatures have gone through uptick periods and downtick periods forever). The discussion is about whether humans are having a measurable effect on the latest uptick. If we are, is it bad? Is there something we can or should do about it? Mother Earth will survive as she always has; the question is whether humans will.
For God's sake, learn to write. Your logic, sentence structure, grammar, and spelling indicate a formal education that stopped at the second grade; this makes it difficult to take any of your arguments seriously -- or even to understand them at all in some cases. To borrow a statement from Dean, "anybody can be stupid." Please, take an extra moment to look over what you've written and decide whether the average person would find it coherent.
For God's sake, learn to think. Take your head out of Rush's and Ann's poopers long enough to acknowledge there might be differing points of view and that they might be worth considering. The question is not whether you ride a horse or drive an SUV; the question is whether something bad is happening -- and if so, whether humans can do something about. Frankly, I don't know, and I'm willing to admit it and listen to arguments on both sides (not opinionated "certainties" put forth by folks who haven't shown they know a damn thing about the topic).
On behalf of all logical sane people, I must ask that you refrain from introducing logic and common sense into any sort of 'hot button' thread on the South Oval. The 'siders' get scared if they think their opinion may not be the obvious ground. :D
Big Red Ron
6/25/2006, 04:30 PM
For God's sake, learn to read. The discussion is not so much whether global warming is taking place (global temperatures have gone through uptick periods and downtick periods forever). The discussion is about whether humans are having a measurable effect on the latest uptick. If we are, is it bad? Is there something we can or should do about it? Mother Earth will survive as she always has; the question is whether humans will.
For God's sake, learn to write. Your logic, sentence structure, grammar, and spelling indicate a formal education that stopped at the second grade; this makes it difficult to take any of your arguments seriously -- or even to understand them at all in some cases. To borrow a statement from Dean, "anybody can be stupid." Please, take an extra moment to look over what you've written and decide whether the average person would find it coherent.
For God's sake, learn to think. Take your head out of Rush's and Ann's poopers long enough to acknowledge there might be differing points of view and that they might be worth considering. The question is not whether you ride a horse or drive an SUV; the question is whether something bad is happening -- and if so, whether humans can do something about. Frankly, I don't know, and I'm willing to admit it and listen to arguments on both sides (not opinionated "certainties" put forth by folks who haven't shown they know a damn thing about the topic).Take your head out of Al Gore an Al Franken's asses. To each his own. Your drivel isn't anymore enlightened than his.
SicEmBaylor
6/25/2006, 04:36 PM
Getting just a little insulting that adds absolutely nothing to any discussion other than to make you look like a jackass eha?
For God's sake, learn to read. The discussion is not so much whether global warming is taking place (global temperatures have gone through uptick periods and downtick periods forever). The discussion is about whether humans are having a measurable effect on the latest uptick.
Not quite, the question is whether the rate of warming is higher than it otherwise would be because of human activity. The answer there is essentially, no. I don't have all the material in front of me but in my latest enviromental sciences class the basic issue is this: The rate of warming increase isn't significantly higher than what is considered normal. However, there is a line of thought that our current warming stage would be BELOW average were it not for human activity. To look at it another way, human activity's net result isn't to raise warming significantly above the norm but to possibly increase it to average when it would otherwise be below.
If we are, is it bad? Is there something we can or should do about it? Mother Earth will survive as she always has; the question is whether humans will.
This is just an absurd tag line that deserves to be the sub-title of some crazy doomsday Hollywood flick which has nothing to do with the reality of the situation. You're employing scare tactics pure and simple, and that is no different than the Bush administration using scare tactics to get evangelical voters and security voters to the polls in November. Both assertions are wrong and equally absurd.
For God's sake, learn to write. Your logic, sentence structure, grammar, and spelling indicate a formal education that stopped at the second grade; this makes it difficult to take any of your arguments seriously -- or even to understand them at all in some cases. To borrow a statement from Dean, "anybody can be stupid." Please, take an extra moment to look over what you've written and decide whether the average person would find it coherent.
The only time ANYONE ever nitpicks someone's writing on an internet message board is when they have little else to criticize. There is nothing more asinine than correcting spelling and grammar on a message board. I'm more than certain we could all comb through your posts and find a fair number of mistakes. If he's writing a thesis and you're his advisor then maybe you're in a position to criticize and judge; otherwise, I would suggest zipping it.
For God's sake, learn to think. Take your head out of Rush's and Ann's poopers long enough to acknowledge there might be differing points of view and that they might be worth considering.
This is another rather absurd notion. Do you know his thought process? Do you know how he reached the conclusions he has? I'm willing to guess that he has considered alternative arguments and rejected them in favor of a differing opinion. Just because someone disagrees with you does NOT mean they have failed to consider your arguments; it simply means they don't find your arguments worth accepting.
The question is not whether you ride a horse or drive an SUV; the question is whether something bad is happening -- and if so, whether humans can do something about.
My only point here is that having an environmental policy is legitimate so long as it conforms to existing constitutional principles, limitations of government power, and state constitutions and statutues. There is very little constitutional grounding for broad Federal legislation on environmental policy. The states, however, are another matter. I have no problem with laws dealing with basic issues of cleanliness so long as they enacted at the appropriate level of government.
Frankly, I don't know, and I'm willing to admit it and listen to arguments on both sides (not opinionated "certainties" put forth by folks who haven't shown they know a damn thing about the topic).
What shows you know a damned thing about what you're talking about? I think before I consider the merits of your next post then I'm going to evaluate your academic pedigree and request to see your transcripts. If you hold anything less than a PhD from a top tier private institution then I'm going to dismiss any nonsense "opinons" you have out of hand. Assuming you do hold adequate qualifications, then I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on environmental issues unless you give an opinion on how those issues should be dealt with in the realm of public policy. If that becomes the case then I'm going to need to see your qualifications for commenting on political and public policy matters. Otherwise, STFU.
(see you're not the only one who can be snotty for no reason ;))
OCUDad
6/25/2006, 04:46 PM
"The discussion is about whether humans are having a measurable effect on the latest uptick."
Not quite, the question is whether the rate of warming is higher than it otherwise would be because of human activity.
"Frankly, I don't know..."
What shows you know a damned thing about what you're talking about?
Sigh...
usmc-sooner
6/25/2006, 05:01 PM
For God's sake, learn to read. The discussion is not so much whether global warming is taking place (global temperatures have gone through uptick periods and downtick periods forever). The discussion is about whether humans are having a measurable effect on the latest uptick. If we are, is it bad? Is there something we can or should do about it? Mother Earth will survive as she always has; the question is whether humans will.
For God's sake, learn to write. Your logic, sentence structure, grammar, and spelling indicate a formal education that stopped at the second grade; this makes it difficult to take any of your arguments seriously -- or even to understand them at all in some cases. To borrow a statement from Dean, "anybody can be stupid." Please, take an extra moment to look over what you've written and decide whether the average person would find it coherent.
For God's sake, learn to think. Take your head out of Rush's and Ann's poopers long enough to acknowledge there might be differing points of view and that they might be worth considering. The question is not whether you ride a horse or drive an SUV; the question is whether something bad is happening -- and if so, whether humans can do something about. Frankly, I don't know, and I'm willing to admit it and listen to arguments on both sides (not opinionated "certainties" put forth by folks who haven't shown they know a damn thing about the topic).
For God's sake, don't get your panties in a bunch. You'll have a heart attack if you let all the little things get to you.
OCUDad
6/25/2006, 05:10 PM
Are you saying you're a "little thing"? :rolleyes:
funny how the scientist on here claim there are no certainties in science, yet they are certain global warming is taking place.
thanks for telling me what I am claiming...even though I have not claimed that I am certain global warming is taking place. nice try.
Anyone making this claim is losing a lot of credability due to the fact that science is a fact, if not it is a theory. This is part of the misunderstanding of science that so agrivates me. the only facts in science are observation (which carry varying degrees of observational uncertainty). Gravity is a theory. The electromagnetic force is a theory. The fact that we can use these theories to do a vast number of things indicates that we are very close to the truth with these theories. But there are still problems with them. As for global warming, its not a theory. Its a predicted effect from the best models climate science has to offer, or so we are told. It's an interpretation of observations currently being made. Sure there are studies that claim its not real, but the fact that the majority of climate scientists still say its happening despite the results of other studies indicate that the other studies do not present compelling enough evidence to abandon the original claim. Science doesn't work like the SO. The winner of the arguments are based upon the evidence.
The atomic number of elements don't change. Elements re-act in the same manner under the same conditions.
The first of these points is only true because that is by definition. However, a single atom can change its atomic number, and become an atom of something different. The second point is not nessecarily true either. In any condition, any element has some probability of reacting in any number of different ways. Macroscopically, we observe only the one or two most probable outcomes, but these are not all of the outcomes that can (and do) occur.
If things are a crap shoot and everything is always changing, and there are no certainties why the hell should we listen to a scientist or even care about global warming.
That there are no true certainties does not mean everything is a crapshoot. As I mentioned in my previous post, we have "degrees of certainty" (also known as degrees of uncertainty) that accompany every measurement and observation, as well as theories. These degrees of certainty are rather easily determined, but they are never 100%. Still, even with all the uncertainty that surrounds some of these big issues, I tend to take scientific consensus in other fields as being "probably true." It's certainly more sensible than to disbelieve them simply because what they say is inconvienent to me. But it is taken with a grain of salt. It happens from time to time that scientific consensus is wrong, and the people that prove it wrong get to go to nice parties in Stockholm with the King of Sweeden.
In 1959 one of my dad's EE profs at OU told the class that he felt sorry for them, since all of the major discoveries that would ever be made in physics had already been made.
:D
It was either Bohr or Heisenberg who's advisor told him the exact same thing.
Howzit
6/25/2006, 06:34 PM
It was either Bohr or Heisenberg who's advisor told him the exact same thing.
Seems like we've had this exchange before, and you're too polite to point that out...
;)
Seems like we've had this exchange before, and you're too polite to point that out...
;)
too polite? I think you are confusing a lack of memory with politeness :)
usmc-sooner
6/25/2006, 08:50 PM
thanks for telling me what I am claiming...even though I have not claimed that I am certain global warming is taking place. nice try.
Ike I respect you and your opinion, and that wasn't directed towards you.
but if you wan't we can take it outside:D
Vaevictis
6/25/2006, 11:36 PM
You are so predictable and honestly not very bright. Math isn't a science. Take that one up with Stephen Hawkings.
Suggesting that mathematics is a science suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of what exactly science and/or math are.
For something to be called a "science", it must employ the scientific method in order to provide evidence for theories.
Mathematics does not employ the scientific method to provide evidence for theories, mathematics uses proofs to flat out prove theories.
They're two totally separate disciplines. The fact that scientists, as a rule, use mathematics as a tool in science should not be taken to mean that mathematics itself is a science.
----
With respect to science and certainties, all scientific "certainties" are subject to refinement or being discarded upon further evidence. As a rule, science relies on approximations in the vast majority of its "certainties", and thus they are not "certainties" at all. They're just more or less in the ballpark. A certain physicist friend of mine refers to the discipline of physics as "crack based fitting of equations to experimental data."
The most obvious example of what I'm talking about is Newtonian physics versus the physics introduced by Einstein. For centuries, people were just "certain" that Newton's laws of motion were correct.
F=ma
Several centuries later, Einestein found that Newton's laws were incomplete; they were approximately correct, especially under certain conditions (ie, when observed by an object moving at similar speeds to the object observed). A more complete version of the equation followed:
F = γ m (1 + γ^2 v v^t) a
with γ=(1 - v^2)^-1/2
So, what happened? Newton took some data, took a hit of heroin, and made some mathematical equations that fit the data. A few centuries later, Einstein had more data, took a bong hit, and made the equations fit that data. We may very well see a future scientist doing the same.
If you really want to rock your own world, go learn about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle or Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. The first pretty much suggests that all scientists are doomed to perpetual uncertainty, and the latter suggests that even the maths that physicists use to model things are of uncertain consistency. How's that for "certainty"?
Big Red Ron
6/25/2006, 11:48 PM
quantum physics isn't a discipline of mathematics?
OCUDad
6/25/2006, 11:55 PM
Unless I misunderstand your question, no. Quantum physics requires complex math to model the behavior of subatomic particles, but it isn't math or a "discipline of math" per se. It's the science of physics applied to really really small stuff.
Big Red Ron
6/25/2006, 11:58 PM
Unless I misunderstand your question, no. Quantum physics requires complex math to model the behavior of subatomic particles, but it isn't math or a "discipline of math" per se. It's the science of physics applied to really really small stuff.hmmm.. I'll rely on Stephen Hawkings on this one but thanks for your opinion.
OCUDad
6/26/2006, 12:00 AM
Or even Stephen Hawking. :P
Big Red Ron
6/26/2006, 12:01 AM
Actually, Stephen Hawking's opinion on this. :D
Gandalf_The_Grey
6/26/2006, 12:02 AM
Who gives two ****s...lets stick to the point that Al Gore is a pud and doesn't have a clue what he is talking about
Vaevictis
6/26/2006, 12:05 AM
hmmm.. I'll rely on Stephen Hawkings on this one but thanks for your opinion.
I suspect that either a) you're misunderstanding/misremembering exactly what Hawkings said, or b) you read one of Stephen Hawkings' science-for-dummies books wherein he uses imprecise descriptions and terminologies to make them accessable to people outside the field.
Explaining quantum physics and some of the deeper stuff in astrophysics is like trying to explain how a television works to a lemon. Something is bound to be lost in the translation.
Big Red Ron
6/26/2006, 12:10 AM
I suspect that either a) you're misunderstanding/misremembering exactly what Hawkings said, or b) you read one of Stephen Hawkings' science-for-dummies books wherein he uses imprecise descriptions and terminologies to make them accessable to people outside the field.
Explaining quantum physics and some of the deeper stuff in astrophysics is like trying to explain how a television works to a lemon. Something is bound to be lost in the translation.Actually, I attended a conference at Cambridge and completely understand what his thesis was. I'm glad to discuss further with someone so familiar with his "science-fer dummies" books.
OCUDad
6/26/2006, 12:12 AM
Hey, just wanted to be sure you're getting your information from the right guy. ;)
I doubt Hawking would bother with this distinction, but if you have some special pipeline into his thought processes, I'll be happy to back off and cede your point. :D
OCUDad
6/26/2006, 12:18 AM
As a matter of coincidence, by the way, a June 22 article reads, in part:
BEIJING — Stephen Hawking expressed concern about global warming Wednesday even as he charmed and provoked a group of Chinese students.
Before an audience of 500 at a seminar in Beijing, the celebrity cosmologist said, "I like Chinese culture, Chinese food and above all Chinese women. They are beautiful."
The audience of mostly university students and professors and a smattering of journalists laughed and applauded.
Asked about the environment, Hawking, who suffers from a degenerative disease, uses a wheelchair and speaks through a computerized voice synthesizer, said he was "very worried about global warming."
He said he was afraid that Earth "might end up like Venus, at 250 degrees centigrade and raining sulfuric acid."
Vaevictis
6/26/2006, 12:24 AM
Actually, I attended a conference at Cambridge and completely understand what his thesis was. I'm glad to discuss further with someone so familiar with his "science-fer dummies" books or books.
Well, if it's not that you read one of the "science for dummies" books of his and came away with a half-baked understanding, and it's not that you're misremembering/misunderstanding what Hawkings said, then it's that Hawkings actually made an incorrect statement (shock!).
Math is not a science, no matter what you or Hawkings say. In order for something to be considered a science, it must use the scientific method, yes? If not, then hell, English is a science, and so is Art Appreciation. Math doesn't use the scientific method, ergo, math is not a science.
OCUDad
6/26/2006, 12:30 AM
Who gives two ****s...lets stick to the point that Al Gore is a pud and doesn't have a clue what he is talking aboutBack off, Gandalf. I'm here to pad my post count so bri won't call me a n00b any more. Besides, I want to hear more about this crack and heroin stuff. :D
Vaevictis
6/26/2006, 12:32 AM
Back off, Gandalf. I'm here to pad my post count so bri won't call me a n00b any more. Besides, I want to hear more about this crack and heroin stuff. :D
It's simple. You go do some experiments, take a hit of something mind altering, make up equations that fit the data that results from the experiments.
Lather, rinse, repeat. With enough time and a little luck, you might even get a Nobel prize.
OCUDad
6/26/2006, 12:34 AM
Heh. Based on the scientists and engineers I know, I am surprised any of them would be familiar with the terms "lather, rinse, repeat." :D
Vaevictis
6/26/2006, 12:37 AM
Oh, and for what it's worth, since we are apparently taking Stephen Hawkings' word as law on all things scientific and mathematical, here's a quote from him on "certainty" in science:
Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory... Each time new experiments are observed to agree with the predictions the theory survives, and our confidence in it is increased; but if ever a new observation is found to disagree, we have to abandon or modify the theory
Vaevictis
6/26/2006, 12:47 AM
Heh. Based on the scientists and engineers I know, I am surprised any of them would be familiar with the terms "lather, rinse, repeat." :D
Most of them do, in fact, know "lather, rinse, repeat." It's just that they don't know the historical context ;)
quantum physics isn't a discipline of mathematics?
In and of itself, no QM is not a discipline of math. However, there is a process that is routinely done in QM, specifically when we try to merge QM with relativity, that are in somewhat of an uncharted mathmatical territory. This process is known as renormalization, and is nessecary in order to make equations converge (ie, not go to infinity). The mathematical rigor of renormalization is still somewhat questionable, but we keep it only because it happens to give the right answer. somewhat inexplicably.
Frozen Sooner
6/26/2006, 02:29 AM
I haven't had so many good chuckles in weeks. Thanks SO! It's like there's three distinct conversations going on in this thread-one between three or four well-spoken individuals who actually know something about what they're talking, another one between people conversing on the level of monkeys throwing excrement, and another one between erudite people with no idea what they're talking about.
What makes it even more fun is that people keep switching conversations!
Math is not a science. Math is a language with which you can describe the universe and helps to come up with hypotheses, which are then proven through scientific method.
Vaevictis
6/26/2006, 02:40 AM
Math is not a science. Math is a language with which you can describe the universe and helps to come up with hypotheses, which are then proven through scientific method.
Dude! Math is definately a science! Stephen Hawking said so!
Frozen Sooner
6/26/2006, 02:41 AM
Can we ever really know if Stephen Hawking said anything? Maybe someone hijacked his talk-box. Ever think of THAT smart guy?
I'm going to Hell for that.
Vaevictis
6/26/2006, 02:45 AM
Can we ever really know if Stephen Hawking said anything? Maybe someone hijacked his talk-box. Ever think of THAT smart guy?
YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW ABOUT THAT.
Vaevictis
6/26/2006, 02:51 AM
In any case, with regard to the global warming thing:
1. It may be that the globe is warming, it may not be. Recent data is suggestive that the Earth is warming up.
2. It may be that humanity is, in part or whole, responsible. Correlation is not causation, but many of the studies I've seen suggest that the start of the recent (alleged) overall warming trend is correlated with the start of the industrial revolution.
Even if it is possible that warming is not occuring, I think it is prudent to:
1. Study further to determine if it's happening and if we are the cause.
2. Take action to reduce our own impact, in so far as it is reasonable to do so.
3. Study and prepare more drastic measures in case we find that we are the main cause and find that it is important for us to take those more drastic measures.
Playing the ostrich and sticking our heads in the sand is just a bad idea, but playing the part of Chicken Little is also premature at this point, IMO.
Froz drives a car, not a bicycle, because he hates the earf, and wants it to get warmer because he lives in Alaska.
OCUDad thinks he's like, a really smart guy. He can even patronize a Marine over the computer (but probably not face to face).
Are you doing your part by riding a bicycle, DAD?
Shouldn't it be your primary mode of transportation?
You're destroying the Earf every time you fire up that Volkswagen Rabbit of yours. (at least you drive a small car, if'n you don't ride a bicycle, because you're not a hypocrite, right?)
I'm tired of running over them hippie libs in their tiny euro cars....the stains are hard to buff out.
btw- Earf is the way will smith pronounced it after he punched the alien in the face in Independence Day.
usmc-sooner
6/26/2006, 07:44 AM
It must be cool being OCUDad and VAE to know everything about every science, Lord knows I don't have a degree in physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, climatology, meteorology, like them and good ole Al Gore.
That and they know just how to save the Earth, handle the war better than the President, are the be all and end all of political knowledge.
So...
KC//CRIMSON...
Did you go see it?
OCUDad
6/26/2006, 09:18 AM
Actually, OCUDad admitted to not knowing the answers. I did suggest that there might be merit on both sides of the argument. But people with preconceived notions tend to ignore what's written and distort it to fit their next post.
As the learned Professor Jerk suggested, we'll just have to settle this discussion the way scientific discussions have been settled since time began -- take it out back and beat the snot out of each other. Science has always respected physical strength. :)
GhostOfJAS
6/26/2006, 09:57 AM
It must be cool being OCUDad and VAE to know everything about every science, Lord knows I don't have a degree in physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, climatology, meteorology, like them and good ole Al Gore.
Well, I guess we could ignore them and instead listen to the folks arrogant enough to dismiss the work of the vast majority of scientists with degrees in physics, chemistry, climatology, and meteorology. You know, the ones who constantly parrot the tired, long-disproven talking points from Rush and Hannity...hoping they'll somehow become true if they say them often enough.
KC//CRIMSON
6/26/2006, 10:13 AM
So...
KC//CRIMSON...
Did you go see it?
Not yet, but I plan on it. And when I do I won't be giving a review after reading this thread.;)
Scott D
6/26/2006, 10:18 AM
An Inconvenient Truth.....that Politics is bull****, and Republican and Democrat politicians are carbon copies of each other in their attempts to outbull**** each other.
I was disappointed when that wasn't the briefer on the movie.
Gandalf_The_Grey
6/26/2006, 10:47 AM
Are you serious Scott!!! Gore knows his ****!!!
Gandalf_The_Grey
6/26/2006, 10:47 AM
I would get high right now...but there are no certainties in science!!
KC//CRIMSON
6/26/2006, 10:49 AM
Justices to hear global warming case
12 states want Bush administration to regulate carbon dioxide emissions
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13554243/
Not yet, but I plan on it. And when I do I won't be giving a review after reading this thread.;)
That's probably a wise path to take. :)
OklahomaTuba
6/26/2006, 01:10 PM
Justices to hear global warming case
12 states want Bush administration to regulate carbon dioxide emissions
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13554243/
Hooray!
$5.00/Gal Gas HERE WE COME BABY!
That should really help all the poor people of color, of which Al Gore says are "most effected by global warming".
Stoop Dawg
6/26/2006, 04:04 PM
In any case, with regard to the global warming thing:
1. It may be that the globe is warming, it may not be. Recent data is suggestive that the Earth is warming up.
2. It may be that humanity is, in part or whole, responsible. Correlation is not causation, but many of the studies I've seen suggest that the start of the recent (alleged) overall warming trend is correlated with the start of the industrial revolution.
Even if it is possible that warming is not occuring, I think it is prudent to:
1. Study further to determine if it's happening and if we are the cause.
2. Take action to reduce our own impact, in so far as it is reasonable to do so.
3. Study and prepare more drastic measures in case we find that we are the main cause and find that it is important for us to take those more drastic measures.
Playing the ostrich and sticking our heads in the sand is just a bad idea, but playing the part of Chicken Little is also premature at this point, IMO.
I still haven't seen any indication that global warming is BAD. How do we know global warming won't IMPROVE our lives on this planet? Maybe we should be creating MORE global warming?
Vaevictis
6/26/2006, 04:19 PM
I still haven't seen any indication that global warming is BAD. How do we know global warming won't IMPROVE our lives on this planet? Maybe we should be creating MORE global warming?
If global warming is good, we can always spew pollutants into the atmosphere later, in just about any quantity we desire, to effect the climate change that results from doing so.
Removing those pollutants and undoing climate change is not quite so easy.
Personally, if someone presents me with a doorway and says, "There might be a pot of gold other side of the door, but there might also be a pack of rabid dogs", I'm inclined to look to see what it is that's on the other side before I jump through. But maybe that's just me.
Stoop Dawg
6/26/2006, 04:37 PM
Oh, I agree. I'm just not necessarily on board with the "any change is bad" faction.
Runaway greenhouse effect on Venus, for example, is only a theory. It definitely hasn't been proven to be a certainty.
OTOH, who's to say that millions of years ago there weren't a bunch of SUV-driving Venutians saying "I still haven't seen any indication global warming is BAD. How do we know global warming won't IMPROVE our lives on this planet? Maybe we should be creating MORE global warming?"
SoonerInKCMO
6/26/2006, 04:51 PM
I still haven't seen any indication that global warming is BAD. How do we know global warming won't IMPROVE our lives on this planet? Maybe we should be creating MORE global warming?
Flooding coastlines are good? :confused:
Stoop Dawg
6/26/2006, 04:51 PM
Hey, all I know is that those Vikings in Greenland back in the day would have LOVED to have a little global warming.
Damn glaciers!
SoonerInKCMO
6/26/2006, 04:55 PM
Well, yeah, I personally would've liked some global warming back in the winter of '95 when I lived in Minneapolis. Had I lived in New York or Miami or New Orleans... I probably would've felt differently.
SoonerInKCMO
6/26/2006, 04:59 PM
And by 1995, I mean, of course, 1996.
http://home.att.net/~minn_climo/MSP1996.gif
Runaway greenhouse effect on Venus, for example, is only a theory. It definitely hasn't been proven to be a certainty.
OTOH, who's to say that millions of years ago there weren't a bunch of SUV-driving Venutians saying "I still haven't seen any indication global warming is BAD. How do we know global warming won't IMPROVE our lives on this planet? Maybe we should be creating MORE global warming?"
From what I understand (and realize that this is somewhat limited)...on Venus, we can calculate the amount of heat input it takes from the sun...this is simple and straightforward. We can calculate (I'm pretty sure) what the atmospheric temperature should be if the atmosphere were like ours. We can measure the atmospheric temperature of venus in a few ways, and have sent probes to do so in the past. From what I understand, we find that the temperature on venus is much much higher than what would be expected. We also know from these probes that much of the atmosphere does consist of Carbon Dioxide. I believe (meaning I'm not so sure) that when one carries out the calcuations of expected atmospheric temperature on venus taking into account a mostly CO2 atmosphere, that the result matches up fairly well with what we observe.
So while the runaway greenhouse effect may not be complete certainty, there is quite a bit of evidence to support that theory.
OCUDad
6/26/2006, 05:09 PM
I just hate it when you nerdy scientists screw up a perfectly good argument by introducing logic and facts and stuff. :rolleyes:
jeremy885
6/26/2006, 05:14 PM
Hey, all I know is that those Vikings in Greenland back in the day would have LOVED to have a little global warming.
Damn glaciers!
Actually, Greenland was actually green when they originally settled there.
Here's a quick link and the History Channel did a one hour program about it called "The Little Ice Age"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_climate_optimum
TheHumanAlphabet
6/26/2006, 05:39 PM
Hooray!
$5.00/Gal Gas HERE WE COME BABY!
That should really help all the poor people of color, of which Al Gore says are "most effected by global warming".
I'm glad I have been busy lately...
Tub' we'll see $5.00 gas more likely because...
1. North Korea decides to fire off that damn missle
2. Iran decides to continue trying to get the bomb and provokes some type of response from the west
3. China and India decide that a car in front of every house is a good policy for their middle class
4. The whack-job dictator err, el presidente in Venezuela doesn't get offed and continues his nutty ramblings
5. Nigeria goes to a hell in a handbasket.
6. The U.S. doesn't exploit its mineral wealth or use our agri-wealth to change the fuel of ease...
and
7. Ghana wins the World Cup ;)
I actually agreed with vae on his latest post :eek:, we need more research - we don't know everything, Correlation doesn't mean causation - any half wit Ph.D. student should know that, Do what we can energy wise to be self-sufficient - Politically the best move and in some instances, may impact carbon loading and green house gases. Too bad a scientific debate has become politicized...
GhostOfJAS
6/26/2006, 06:36 PM
we need more research - we don't know everything
So enacting policy should wait until we know "everything"? I think we should act when we know enough, and that time has come and passed.
Correlation doesn't mean causation - any half wit Ph.D. student should know that,
Indeed, any high school science student should know it. In the case of global climate change, both correlation AND causation has been established to the vast majority of the scientific community.
Do what we can energy wise to be self-sufficient - Politically the best move and in some instances, may impact carbon loading and green house gases. Too bad a scientific debate has become politicized...
Agree on all accounts.
OCUDad
6/26/2006, 06:53 PM
Name a scientific debate that hasn't been politicized -- since before Galileo's time. Unfortunate, maybe, but unavoidable. Just sayin'...
KABOOKIE
6/26/2006, 09:38 PM
OK, from this thread.....
Al Gore invented global warming.
Math is not a science.
Everything in science is an uncertainty.
Global warming and evolution are 100% certain scientific facts.
Stoop Dawg
6/26/2006, 09:47 PM
Actually, Greenland was actually green when they originally settled there.
Indeed, which is why global warming (instead of encroaching glaciers) would presumably have been desireable to them. :)
Here's a quick link and the History Channel did a one hour program about it called "The Little Ice Age"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_climate_optimum
Interesting link. Thanks.
SicEmBaylor
7/2/2006, 10:05 PM
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597
(In case you don't read all the way to the bottom this is a WSJ piece written by a Professor of Atmospheric Sciecne at MIT)
According to Al Gore's new film "An Inconvenient Truth," we're in for "a planetary emergency": melting ice sheets, huge increases in sea levels, more and stronger hurricanes, and invasions of tropical disease, among other cataclysms--unless we change the way we live now.
Bill Clinton has become the latest evangelist for Mr. Gore's gospel, proclaiming that current weather events show that he and Mr. Gore were right about global warming, and we are all suffering the consequences of President Bush's obtuseness on the matter. And why not? Mr. Gore assures us that "the debate in the scientific community is over."
That statement, which Mr. Gore made in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, ought to have been followed by an asterisk. What exactly is this debate that Mr. Gore is referring to? Is there really a scientific community that is debating all these issues and then somehow agreeing in unison? Far from such a thing being over, it has never been clear to me what this "debate" actually is in the first place.
The media rarely help, of course. When Newsweek featured global warming in a 1988 issue, it was claimed that all scientists agreed. Periodically thereafter it was revealed that although there had been lingering doubts beforehand, now all scientists did indeed agree. Even Mr. Gore qualified his statement on ABC only a few minutes after he made it, clarifying things in an important way. When Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted Mr. Gore with the fact that the best estimates of rising sea levels are far less dire than he suggests in his movie, Mr. Gore defended his claims by noting that scientists "don't have any models that give them a high level of confidence" one way or the other and went on to claim--in his defense--that scientists "don't know. . . . They just don't know."
So, presumably, those scientists do not belong to the "consensus." Yet their research is forced, whether the evidence supports it or not, into Mr. Gore's preferred global-warming template--namely, shrill alarmism. To believe it requires that one ignore the truly inconvenient facts. To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940; that icebergs have been known since time immemorial; that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. A likely result of all this is increased pressure pushing ice off the coastal perimeter of that country, which is depicted so ominously in Mr. Gore's movie. In the absence of factual context, these images are perhaps dire or alarming.
They are less so otherwise. Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why.
The other elements of the global-warming scare scenario are predicated on similar oversights. Malaria, claimed as a byproduct of warming, was once common in Michigan and Siberia and remains common in Siberia--mosquitoes don't require tropical warmth. Hurricanes, too, vary on multidecadal time scales; sea-surface temperature is likely to be an important factor. This temperature, itself, varies on multidecadal time scales. However, questions concerning the origin of the relevant sea-surface temperatures and the nature of trends in hurricane intensity are being hotly argued within the profession.
Even among those arguing, there is general agreement that we can't attribute any particular hurricane to global warming. To be sure, there is one exception, Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who argues that it must be global warming because he can't think of anything else. While arguments like these, based on lassitude, are becoming rather common in climate assessments, such claims, given the primitive state of weather and climate science, are hardly compelling.
A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse. Regardless, these items are clearly not issues over which debate is ended--at least not in terms of the actual science.
A clearer claim as to what debate has ended is provided by the environmental journalist Gregg Easterbrook. He concludes that the scientific community now agrees that significant warming is occurring, and that there is clear evidence of human influences on the climate system. This is still a most peculiar claim. At some level, it has never been widely contested. Most of the climate community has agreed since 1988 that global mean temperatures have increased on the order of one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, having risen significantly from about 1919 to 1940, decreased between 1940 and the early '70s, increased again until the '90s, and remaining essentially flat since 1998.
There is also little disagreement that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen from about 280 parts per million by volume in the 19th century to about 387 ppmv today. Finally, there has been no question whatever that carbon dioxide is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas--albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in carbon dioxide should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed, assuming that the small observed increase was in fact due to increasing carbon dioxide rather than a natural fluctuation in the climate system. Although no cause for alarm rests on this issue, there has been an intense effort to claim that the theoretically expected contribution from additional carbon dioxide has actually been detected.
Given that we do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change, this task is currently impossible. Nevertheless there has been a persistent effort to suggest otherwise, and with surprising impact. Thus, although the conflicted state of the affair was accurately presented in the 1996 text of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the infamous "summary for policy makers" reported ambiguously that "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." This sufficed as the smoking gun for Kyoto.
The next IPCC report again described the problems surrounding what has become known as the attribution issue: that is, to explain what mechanisms are responsible for observed changes in climate. Some deployed the lassitude argument--e.g., we can't think of an alternative--to support human attribution. But the "summary for policy makers" claimed in a manner largely unrelated to the actual text of the report that "In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."
In a similar vein, the National Academy of Sciences issued a brief (15-page) report responding to questions from the White House. It again enumerated the difficulties with attribution, but again the report was preceded by a front end that ambiguously claimed that "The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability." This was sufficient for CNN's Michelle Mitchell to presciently declare that the report represented a "unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse and is due to man. There is no wiggle room." Well, no.
More recently, a study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy Oreskes claimed that a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge Database for the years 1993 to 2003 under the key words "global climate change" produced 928 articles, all of whose abstracts supported what she referred to as the consensus view. A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure and found that only 913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all, and that only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it.
Even more recently, the Climate Change Science Program, the Bush administration's coordinating agency for global-warming research, declared it had found "clear evidence of human influences on the climate system." This, for Mr. Easterbrook, meant: "Case closed." What exactly was this evidence? The models imply that greenhouse warming should impact atmospheric temperatures more than surface temperatures, and yet satellite data showed no warming in the atmosphere since 1979. The report showed that selective corrections to the atmospheric data could lead to some warming, thus reducing the conflict between observations and models descriptions of what greenhouse warming should look like. That, to me, means the case is still very much open.
So what, then, is one to make of this alleged debate? I would suggest at least three points.
First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists--especially those outside the area of climate dynamics. Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a "moral" crusade.
Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition. An earlier attempt at this was accompanied by tragedy. Perhaps Marx was right. This time around we may have farce--if we're lucky.
Big Red Ron
7/2/2006, 10:43 PM
Even among those arguing, there is general agreement that we can't attribute any particular hurricane to global warming. To be sure, there is one exception, Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who argues that it must be global warming because he can't think of anything else. While arguments like these, based on lassitude, are becoming rather common in climate assessments, such claims, given the primitive state of weather and climate science, are hardly compelling.
A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse. Regardless, these items are clearly not issues over which debate is ended--at least not in terms of the actual science.
picasso
7/3/2006, 12:18 AM
ahem. isn't the year with the most hurricanes ever ecorded in the 1930's?
I realize we've had some mild winters of late but ditto for mild summers.
I'm not watching anything Al Gore is in unless it's a break dancing video.
soonercody
11/23/2006, 08:10 PM
http://www.climatecrisis.net/
Just watched it. I thought it was pretty good.
OUWxGuesser
11/24/2006, 01:41 AM
Heh... I love how the media/politicians etc. jump on the increased hurricane crap. The only reason hurricanes are an issue is because people build crap too close to the shore!
We *potentially* have much greater issues to worry about than stronger hurricanes (which we haven't even seen yet considering year and decade oscillations in ocean temperature are greater than that from global warming). I'd hope that we can at least agree that we impact the global climate. Whether we change it for the better or worse is undetermined (although if you look at our impact on animals it is usually bad). The big thing to understand is global warming will impact REGIONAL climate change. Some areas will bite the big one, while others will become more fertile.
The funny thing is I wouldn't advertise going green to "save the world". Instead, do it to decrease our reliance on foreign oil (and to help transition from fossil fuels to greener energy) and to decrease polution and therefore making our country healthier.
Frozen Sooner
11/24/2006, 01:47 AM
Heh... I love how the media/politicians etc. jump on the increased hurricane crap. The only reason hurricanes are an issue is because people build crap too close to the shore!
We *potentially* have much greater issues to worry about than stronger hurricanes (which we haven't even seen yet considering year and decade oscillations in ocean temperature are greater than that from global warming). I'd hope that we can at least agree that we impact the global climate. Whether we change it for the better or worse is undetermined (although if you look at our impact on animals it is usually bad). The big thing to understand is global warming will impact REGIONAL climate change. Some areas will bite the big one, while others will become more fertile.
The funny thing is I wouldn't advertise going green to "save the world". Instead, do it to decrease our reliance on foreign oil (and to help transition from fossil fuels to greener energy) and to decrease polution and therefore making our country healthier.
Someone's going to argue with you. I don't know who, and I don't know what their argument is going to be, but they're going to explain to you that their extensive reading of an article once means they know way more about climate change than you do.
Rogue
11/25/2006, 11:11 AM
More reasons to go green.
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