Defending the Truth

Originally Posted by paradoxymoron

Who cares. Inuit milk is the most toxic in the world. Their diet consists pretty much from whatever they find in the ocean. There are *DEAD SPOTS* in our ocean where nothing lives. The PBC count is insane. There are garbage islands floating around. Toxic clouds emanating from China. Corporations fighting for the right to further damage our environment under "Free trade" laws. These are all facts. Don't believe in global warming? I don't care. I've got enough evidence to show you that we're harming the very thing that sustains us because of ignorance and greed. We have an effect on our environment and it's currently negative. It's not unreasonable to ask that it be positive.

Originally Posted by paradoxymoron

I don't see why there's a big difference Global warming is one negative effect on our environment. It's a big one, yes, but it's not it's the culmination of ALL negative effects we're impinging on (ultimately) ourselves. I guess global warming got a lot of people "thinking green", and that's great, but focusing on whether or not it exists is ultimately harmful to the environmental cause I think.

Originally Posted by gmeyers1944

Your proof is very weak. "Consensus" needs to be of qualified people. Fully 90% of the "scientists" who signed a letter that was frequently cited by the Clinton-Gore administration as evidence of scientific consensus on global warming are not qualified to be called experts on the issue. The letter circulated by the environmental group Ozone Action, ofers the names of some 2,600 alleged experts on climate change, only one of whom is, in fact, a climatologist. Among these so called experts on global warming are a plastic surgeon, two landscape architects, one hotel administrator, a gynecologist, seven linguists, and even one person whose academic background is in traditional Chinese medicine. So much for their consensus.

Originally Posted by baloney_detector

I suppose that you *do* realize that a person, including yourself, doesn't necessarily have to be a "climatologist" in order to parse through scientific articles that deal with Earth's climate in order to evaluate where climatologists stand regarding global warming. In fact, most people who might read up on global warming who are not climatologists, including yourself, tend to do this...even though they may be unaware that they are doing it. But, of course, the strength of one's own evaluation of whatever scientific consensus there might be regarding Earth's climate is going to be limited by what one has read on the subject.

So, with this in mind, have you, yourself, read through articles concerning the Earth's climate in order to see if there is a consensus or not?

Well, these people have:

BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER:

The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

Naomi Oreskes

Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change" (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely????? to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities???????????????, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.

This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.

The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.

Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.





References and Notes

1. A. C. Revkin, K. Q. Seelye, New York Times, 19 June 2003, A1.
2. S. van den Hove, M. Le Menestrel, H.-C. de Bettignies, Climate Policy 2 (1), 3 (2003).
3. See www.ipcc.ch/about/about.htm.
4. J. J. McCarthy et al., Eds., Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2001).
5. National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Science of Climate Change, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions (National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 2001).
6. American Meteorological Society, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 84, 508 (2003).
7. American Geophysical Union, Eos 84 (51), 574 (2003).
8. See AAAS ATLAS OF POPULATION AND ENVIRONMENT.
9. The first year for which the database consistently published abstracts was 1993. Some abstracts were deleted from our analysis because, although the authors had put "climate change" in their key words, the paper was not about climate change.
10. This essay is excerpted from the 2004 George Sarton Memorial Lecture, "Consensus in science: How do we know we're not wrong," presented at the AAAS meeting on 13 February 2004. I am grateful to AAAS and the History of Science Society for their support of this lectureship; to my research assistants S. Luis and G. Law; and to D. C. Agnew, K. Belitz, J. R. Fleming, M. T. Greene, H. Leifert, and R. C. J. Somerville for helpful discussions.

BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change -- Oreskes 306 (5702): 1686 -- Science

Originally Posted by paradoxymoron

I don't see why there's a big difference Global warming is one negative effect on our environment. It's a big one, yes, but it's not it's the culmination of ALL negative effects we're impinging on (ultimately) ourselves.

Originally Posted by baloney_detector

Oh, there is no need to worry too much about global warming...being that the human species is using up resources at a far greater rate than the Earth can possibly replenish and that Earth's biodiversity is plummeting at a rate that the Earth has unlikely seen more than a handful of times in it's four or so billion-year-old history.

Yes, we have met the Earth's current main threat and enemy. And, he is us.

Originally Posted by gmeyers1944

All they all are saying is that 1) this is happening & 2) that is happening.
Looks like the very definition of COINCIDENCE

Originally Posted by gmeyers1944

Your baloney detector isn't working. This is definately BALONEY!