Yes, climate change sceptics ARE denialists

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
I have an idea,just get everyone in the world who owns one to crank their cars up and let them run for a few hours,and then lets see if the climate changes. Stupid sounding,isn`t it...?
I mean we are changing the climate,but we kinda need to stop somehow,I mean look at the mountains,they are slowly melting and that is scary in itself... Am I wrong?
 
"They claim they're sceptics – but when any explanation will do as long as it backs their theories, 'climate change deniers' is the only term good enough."


Realists?

Common sense?

Propaganda watchers?

Free thinkers?



*Snowing like crazy down here in Dixie
 
"They claim they're sceptics – but when any explanation will do as long as it backs their theories, 'climate change deniers' is the only term good enough."


Realists?

Common sense?

Propaganda watchers?

Free thinkers?



*Snowing like crazy down here in Dixie

Or perhaps simply questioners.

When I read comments on the Guardian by George Monbiot supporters telling blatant lies (for example, that there are no qualified scientists involved in climate change scepticism), I do wonder.

Monbiot's claim that climate change sceptics draw unwarranted conclusions from short term fluctuations in weather patterns is valid, but it would help if his supporters stopped doing the same thing (e.g., greater frequency of hurricanes in one year are claimed to be evidence of global warming, as widely proclaimed back in 2005)

Also noticed that the above blog post by Monbiot contains not a single piece of scientific evidence. One is almost tempted to think he is working for the denialists, in a cunning attempt to make the other side look unscientific.:hmm:
 
Climate Change: Breaking the "Political Consensus"

The “Science” of Consensus

When addressing the issue of climate change, it is important to understand that climatic change is an important field of study in science. However, it is not an exact science, like all sciences. Our understanding of the climatic sciences is always changing, just as our understanding of all sciences changes. If our understanding of science does not change, we would still think that the Earth was flat and the Sun revolved around our little planet. When these great achievements in science were first discovered, the scientists who discovered them were attacked, denounced, or even imprisoned.

There is an enormous political, social and economic interest in a scientific consensus, because it determines our understanding of our environment and all that is in it, including humanity, itself. A challenge to a perceived consensus is a challenge to all the powers in human society, as it can take a person’s understanding of the world we live in, and flip it upside down. This encourages people to think “outside the box,” fosters creativity and to be critical thinkers. This can ultimately threaten any power structure, as people may come to understand the forces that seek to control our lives. A consensus is an amazing tool in the hands of elites to control and manipulate people. And challenging a consensus is an amazing tool for people to remain free and independent thinkers.

This does not mean that any perceived consensus is inaccurate or completely manipulated. But it is important to understand how such a consensus can be used. It is also vital to understand that without questioning and challenging a scientific consensus, science would never advance. The key to scientific discovery is being able to change your perspective as the science changes. This is why debate on climate change must not be simply reduced to a one-sided debate; those who “know there is a problem,” and those who are “deniers.” All sides must be heard, so that we can come to a better understanding of the issue.

Conclusion

I won’t state exactly what is causing climate change on our planet, as the reality is that there are many answers to that question; the Sun, cosmic rays, ocean currents and other natural phenomena, etc. However, it is safe to say that the wealth of science points to a natural change in our climate, and the entire history of the world and of all humanity supports this hypothesis. Throughout history, as in the earliest African civilizations, it was the ability of different peoples to change and adapt to climate change, which determined their survival as a civilization.

Today, we are trying to fight it. This is a dangerous road to walk, and history will not look kindly upon our scientific ignorance and politically fear-driven society. How will we be viewed in the future? How have we viewed the people of the past who thought the Earth was flat, or the Sun revolved around Earth?

Trying to fight and stop a natural phenomenon is possibly one of the most ignorant and dangerous things humanity has ever engaged in. How would history view a civilization that tried to reverse the spinning of the Earth, or the blowing of wind? It is a recipe for the fall of a civilization.

Much of the people in the world have been riled up with predictions of a catastrophic end to mankind and the world unless we don’t do something about so-called “man-made” climate change. Ironically enough, our refusal to adapt to a changing world, and instead a determination to fight it with our efforts to “go green” and “carbon neutral” may, in fact, cause the catastrophic end of our civilization. And sadly, in this instance, it would undeniably be a man-made disaster.

Looks like someone's planning for a rainy day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault
 
RE: Climate Change: Breaking the "Political Consensus" from AliEnvys post

Er yeah, all the shit we're spewing into the atmosphere isnt "Natural".

Yes, to some degree it happens naturally, but we are MAKING IT WORSE. Im pretty sure the "earliest African civilisations" didnt have cars or factories. :|

This isnt about "ooh society is trying to scare me!" this is about common bloody sense and educating yourself.

If someone honestly looks at the fumes given off cars, power plants, and anything for that matter, and think "oh la de dee, its all natural, the Earth will fix it and we'll all adapt!" then quite frankly, you're an imbecile.

LEARN about these things PLEASE. Don't just dismiss them as society using scare tactics. :doh:
 
Another NASA Defection to the Skeptics’ Camp � Roy Spencer, Ph. D.

Another NASA Defection to the Skeptics’ Camp
January 29th, 2009 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
Something about retirement apparently frees people up to say what they really believe. I retired early from NASA over seven years ago to have more freedom to speak my mind on global warming.

You might recall that after Dr. Joanne Simpson retired from NASA she (trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/3rd_trmm_conf/simpson.doc) admitted to a long-held skepticism regarding the role of mankind in global warming.

And who can forget NASA’s Administrator, Michael Griffin, admitting that he was skeptical of the urgency of the global warming problem? After the outrage that ensued, I suspect he wishes he had never brought it up.

And now my old boss when I was at NASA (as well as James Hansen’s old boss), John Theon, has stated very clearly that he doesn’t believe global warming is manmade…and adding “climate models are useless” for good measure. Even I wouldn’t go quite that far, since I use simple ones in my published research.

I remember the old days at NASA, when even John Theon was singing the same tune as most people at NASA were. Manmade global warming was a potentially serious threat, and NASA wanted Congress to fund new satellites to study the problem. It was a team effort to get that accomplished.

Global warming research was a relatively new field back then. Was Theon always skeptical, and just being a team player at the time? I don’t know. It could be that Dr. Theon, after watching 15 years of climate research go by, decided that he was no longer convinced that mankind was at fault for warming.

After all, there is some precedence for scientists changing their minds. One of today’s leading global warming alarmists is Stephen Schneider, who did a major about-face from the 1970s when global cooling was all the rage. At least Theon didn’t write a book back then about how serious the global warming issue was, as Schneider did on global cooling.

And how many defections have we seen in the other direction — from the skeptics’ camp to the alarmists’ camp? Seems like it’s been a one-way street so far.

Theon now also supports what I have repeatedly said over the years. That NASA’s James Hansen routinely ignored NASA policy, and said whatever he wanted to the press and to Congress without getting approval first. The reason why everyone at NASA looked the other way was that we were trying to get congressional funding for satellite missions to study climate. I personally don’t think we needed Hansen’s extremist views to get that accomplished, but it probably helped to some extent.

I asked NASA managers at the time, how can Hansen get away with saying whatever he wanted to? The answer was, “well…he’s not supposed to”.

You might think it’s OK for the lone scientist to warn everyone of impending planetary doom. But I consider it much closer to someone who makes a habit of yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theatre. Forcing expensive energy on people will lead to death and suffering. These are very real threats, not theoretical like manmade global warming, and they exist today. I personally don’t care where our energy comes from — but I do care that a maximum number of people can afford it.

In truth, it wasn’t Hansen who was muzzled, but it was me in the Clinton-Gore years, who was asked to keep my mouth shut about my skeptical views. That was fine…if a little annoying. At least the flap Hansen caused has managed to force NASA to say that their scientists no longer have to march in lock-step on scientific issues. That’s a good thing.

I have to wonder…how many more scientists will be outing themselves as skeptics? While we may never constitute a majority, and many of us have differing views on the real causes of climate change, it only takes one of us to be right for the global warming house of cards to collapse.

Dr. Joanne Simpson's abstract:

http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/3rd_trmm_conf/simpson.doc

TRMM Data Set Potential in Climate Controversies

By Joanne Simpson, private citizen

Extended Abstract

Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receive any funding, I can speak quite frankly. For more than a decade now “global warming” and its impacts have become the primary interface between our science and society. A large group of earth scientists, voiced in an IPCC statement, have reached what they claim is a consensus that man-released greenhouse gases are causing increasing harm to our planet. They predict that most icepacks including those in the polar regions, also sea ice, will continue melting with disastrous ecological consequences including coastal flooding. There is no doubt that atmospheric greenhouse gases are rising rapidly and little doubt that some warming and bad ecological events are occurring. However, the main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system. We only need to watch the weather forecasts.

However, a vocal minority of scientists so mistrusts the models and the complex fragmentary data, that some claim that global warming is a hoax. They have made public statements accusing other scientists of deliberate fraud in aid of their research funding. Both sides are now hurling personal epithets at each other, a very bad development in Earth sciences.
The claim that hurricanes are being modified by the impacts of rising greenhouse gases is the most inflammatory frontline of this battle and the aspect that journalists enjoy the most. The situation is so bad that the front page of the Wall Street Journal printed an article in which one distinguished scientist said another distinguished scientist has a fossilized brain. He, in turn, refers to his critics as “the Gang of Five. Few of these people seem to have any skeptical self criticism left, although virtually all of the claims are derived from either flawed data sets or imperfect models or both.
The term “global warming” itself is very vague. Where and what scales of response are measurable? One distinguished scientist has shown that many aspects of climate change are regional, some of the most harmful caused by changes in human land use. No one seems to have properly factored in population growth and land use, particularly in tropical and coastal areas.
What should we as a nation do? Decisions have to be made on incomplete information. In this case, we must act on the recommendations of Gore and the IPCC because if we do not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and the climate models are right, the planet as we know it will in this century become unsustainable. But as a scientist I remain skeptical.

I decided to keep quiet in this controversy until I had a positive contribution to make. That point is to be celebrated in the TRMM 10 year anniversary. With a 10-year record the TRMM, users of the data can begin to look for and test for trends. With the TRMM sampling limitations, other data sets, from geosynchronous and other sources are being used now in the group led by Bob Adler. Their products can detect trends in global tropical rain on several scales, including regional. These patterns can be compared over the past ten years with the patterns predicted ten years ago by the climate models.

While the TRMM data set provides no panacea on the volatile hurricane front, useful information for the several ocean basins relating the rainfall to claimed and observed storm structure can be made if dedicated work is committed. I would be most interested to find out how the distribution of hot towers relates to storm intensity and rain production.

The major lack for TRMM data use in testing climate theories is latitude limitation. Global warming impacts appear much more severe in polar latitudes than in tropical regions. The best news is that GPM is on schedule for a 2013 launch. In conclusion I can just pray that GPM scientists and engineers are as smart and as lucky as we TRMM participants have been.

Global Precipitation Measurement

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission is one of the next generation of satellite-based Earth science missions that will study global precipitation (rain, snow, ice).

Why Measure Rainfall from Space?
The comprehensive measurement of precipitation is valuable for a wide range of research areas and related applications with practical benefits for society. However, precipitation is difficult to measure because precipitation systems tend to be somewhat random in character and also evolve very rapidly.

Within a single storm, it is not uncommon for precipitation amounts to vary widely over a very small area. Also, in any given area, the amount of precipitation can vary significantly over a short time span. In the summertime, for instance, a single thunderstorm lasting just 20 minutes will produce 2 inches of rain over a city, but leave the adjacent town just 10 miles away unscathed. During the winter, heavy snows downwind of the U.S. Great Lakes often accumulate to several feet, but along a narrow corridor only a few tens of miles wide.

All of these factors make precipitation difficult to quantify. Reliable ground-based precipitation measurements are difficult to obtain over regional and global scales because most of the world is covered by water and many countries are not equipped with precision rain measuring sensors (i.e., rain gauges and/or radars). It might be possible to study precipitation over a small area using ground-based data, but rarely beyond that. The only practical way to obtain useful regional and global scale precipitation measurements is from the vantage point of a space-based remote sensing instrument.

At least NASA is continuing to study the climate and not relying on the outdated IPCC climate models. Water vapour is the largest greenhouse gas, so it makes sense to study it further.
 
Back
Top Bottom