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The Forum > Article Comments > How to save us from climate-change doomsayers > Comments

How to save us from climate-change doomsayers : Comments

By Crispin Hull, published 3/12/2012

The change in public opinion is evidence that the world's scientists are failing us – badly. They are being far too cautious in their evidentiary requirements.

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I lost confidence in the author's objectivity at:
"A few maverick scientists and commentators have seen their chance to be noted as brave and healthily sceptical people willing to buck the conventional view."
Posted by Coges, Monday, 3 December 2012 12:05:00 PM
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stevenlmeyer

At least this time you are not linking marketing material, as I pointed out earlier, but the scientific institutes you list are essentially acting as trade unions lobbying on behalf of their members, and they are all echoing the orthodoxy. (I think you'll find that one of the few holdouts is the Russian body, but no matter.) That orthodoxy is that part of the climatically warm temperatures we are now experiencing are due to human activity, and its garnered millions if not billions of dollars worth of research funds for scientists. No wonder their organisations are enthusiastic about it.

But because something is held as correct by scientists at one point, does not necessarily make it true. Climate forecasting has no track record to speak of, and until it does all of endorsements you so diligently point to are so much hot air.The theory needs a few runs on the board - runs that it is obviously lacking (and Australia could use more of). At the moment it is something like economics where it has to infer trends from past results, and the results are likely to be just as bad.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Monday, 3 December 2012 12:21:08 PM
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Peak civilisation = peak denial!

And this is why civilisations collapse.
Posted by leckos, Monday, 3 December 2012 12:43:12 PM
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Many people still deny global warming, human induced or natural. Global warming is an outcome of changes in the basic chemistry and physics of the atmosphere. If you don’t believe the science, how do you think the internal combustion in your car works?

Physics doesn't care.

Lawrence Livermore climate scientists and colleagues from 16 other organisations have found that tropospheric and stratospheric temperature changes are clearly related to human activities.

The team looked at geographical patterns of atmospheric temperature change over the period of satellite observations. The team's goal of the study was to determine whether previous findings of a "discernible human influence" on tropospheric and stratospheric temperature were sensitive to current uncertainties in climate models and satellite data.

The satellite temperature data sets were produced by three different research groups, and rely on measurements of the microwave emissions of oxygen molecules. Each group made different choices in processing these raw measurements and in accounting for such complex effects as drifts in satellite orbits and in instrument calibrations.

In both satellite observations and the computer model simulations of historical climate change, the lower stratosphere cools markedly over the past 33 years. This cooling is primarily a response to the human-caused depletion of stratospheric ozone. The observations and model simulations also show a common pattern of large-scale warming of the lower troposphere, with largest warming over the Arctic, and muted warming (or even cooling) over Antarctica.

Tropospheric warming is mainly driven by human-caused increases in well-mixed greenhouse gases.

"It's very unlikely that natural causes can explain these distinctive patterns of temperature change," said Laboratory atmospheric scientist Benjamin Santer, who is lead author of the paper which was published on the 29th of November 2012 online edition of the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"No known mode of natural climate variability can cause sustained, global-scale warming of the troposphere and cooling of the lower stratosphere."

There you go, another bit of conclusive science that will in most cases be ignored.

Given our business as usual mantra, it just doesn't matter, or does it?
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Monday, 3 December 2012 1:02:01 PM
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I dont think we should be gambling with our future.

The business as usual argument seems a bit neanderthal to me, despite science being unlikley to ever offer exact predictions.

I feel there is enough evidence out there to suggest that humanity is doing real damage to the environment.

That is my gut feeling. I have done my bit to reduce my own emissions; perhaps that is all i can do (solar panels, public transort or walking more).

Sure there will be economic decline if all reduce our ecological footprint, but i hope more and more do so.

As for Labor, they can keep spinnng their bs while they export more and more fuel to boost internaitonal growth. BS is what politicians do.
Posted by Chris Lewis, Monday, 3 December 2012 1:31:03 PM
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Ah, the good old Precautionary Principle! Or, as I like to think of it,

"When in danger or in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout!"

Or better still, spend vast quantities of other people's money for no discernible benefit. I note that the IPCC has not been invited to Doha this year, and the US has said in so many words that they are not going to cripple their tottering economy for the sake of a hypothetical climate disaster at some unspecified date in the future.

Others have already competently punctured the AGW nonsense in this article, so all that's left for me to point out that is there has been no global warming for seventeen years, during which CO2 levels have been going gangbusters. You alarmists are never going to win unless you can get the climate back on your side. Good luck with that!
Posted by Jon J, Monday, 3 December 2012 1:39:14 PM
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