State of fear or Inconvenient Truth, whose got it right Mr. Crichton or Mr. Gore?

Question

Is nature just running its course, or should we humans make huge changes because we are destrouing the planet?

Answer 1

I think the questions are, who has the burden of proof, and has it been met? The answer, in a free society, to the first question is that the burden lies with those who want to restrict otherwise free activity, particularly free productive activity. Otherwise there can be no free society in practice, as it is impossible to prove the negative. The answer to the second question is no, man-made global warming remains an un-proven theory. It's not a vote - it's not a matter of "consensus" - there must be a leading candidate idea, that doesn't equate to tangible proof. And the "we can't afford to wait for proof because if they're right the consequences are too terrible" argument also cannot work, for two reasons. First, by that logic, we should do what Pat Robertson wants us to do, because he argues that the consequences of not doing that are fire and brimstone for eternity - far worse than a 24 inch sea level rise and a few droughts in Arizona and Africa. And clearly we should dismiss Robertson. Second, if there is ever a time when that logic is compelling, it will involve a more credible crowd clamoring for the controls. In this case it is the same activists who have attacked the automobile and the power industry for decades on other grounds, and who have been extremely misleading on this issue (e.g., the Hockey Stick is the climatological equivalent of Piltdown Man - if a bush growing more frequently in the Alaskan tundra today than 100 years ago is proof that it's warmer now than then, then fig and olive trees in Germany 1000 years ago is proof that it was warmer then than now, and none of these gloom and doom predictions happened during the MWP).

Since Thomas Jefferson was President, the proportion of the atmosphere that is CO2 has increased by less than 1/11,000th. That has increased the "greenhouse effect."

In the last 10,000 years we've had two multi-century periods during which the climate was warmer than today despite lower CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. One of these periods can to an extent be explained as a function of Milankovich cycles (earth wobbling on its axis). The other, the more recent period, cannot.

Does that prove that we aren't a proximate cause? No. But it certainly precludes the conclusion that "it's gotten warmer over the last 100 years, ergo this increase in CO2 must be the cause."

What I can't get past is the dishonesty. The 1/11,000th is often referred to only in terms of the increase in CO2 relative to prior levels. It reminds me of "cancer clusters" in the 1970s, reported by the Union of Concerned Scientists (then an anti-nuke group, now the leading global warming alarmist group and still also anti-nuke, which means the Brits are really pissing them off). They'd report that the frequency of a rare type of cancer was "fifty percent higher than average" within 25 miles of a nuke plant. Of course they'd fail to mention that the "average" was 4 out of 500,000, that the "cluster" was 6 out of 500,000, and that the standard deviation was 3, or 75% (meaning 1 or 7 without regard to whether there was a nuke plant).

Similarly, Gore blames 'global warming' for the decline of Kilimanjaro snows, but it remains below freezing 24/7/365 at the summit - it just doesn't snow nearly as much as it used to, because of water use and clear-cutting, which reduces the moisture in the air in that part of Africa.

And where did all those hurricanes go?

Lastly, the "Hockey Stick" is just Orwellian. The Medieval Warm Period isn't something some oil lobby cooked up - it was the universally accepted version of the climate history from the time it occurred (yes, it is supported by contemporeneous written observations in addition to physical evidence) until 1998, well after climate had become a political issue. It's a wholesale revision of the climate history. It's ridiculous - the 'handle' is the output from a model which analyzes proxy data and is driven primarily by tree rings from one type of tree (a poor proxy since tree growth is affected by more than just warmth) and the blade is measured surface temperatures. What's more, if you continue the handle from its data sources, it doesn't agree with the blade - the temperature increase since 1980, which is what we're told is "unprecedented" per the proxy data for prior centuries, doesn't show up in the proxy data for 1980-present!

Worst of all with respect to the "hockey stick" is that Mann et al think they've written the MWP out of the climate history without explaining how the countless phenomena that happened that have since been explained as being a function of climate (most of which, in fact, were explained at the time as being a function of climate) happened if not for a change in the climate. You can't farm Greenland now with John Deere tractors. Either 1000 years ago the Vikings did or they set up an elaborate hoax to forge a false climate record ten centuries before climate would become a political issue.

So I guess at this point you'd have to say, Crichton.

They COULD turn out to be right. It might be us. But honestly, I think the lies to date will have a "boy who cried wolf" effect (Mann who cried wolf?) - they've destroyed their credibility so much that few will believe them.

Answer 2

Well, Crichton is a fiction author; Gore is explaining science that is so widely accepted that there hasn't been a single peer-reviewed paper in the last five years that disagrees with it.

Heck, even Bush agrees that global warming is real and that humans are contributing to the problem. And when Al Gore and George Bush both agree on something, clearly it has passed beyond the realm of politics and into the realm of fact.

Let's not confuse a fiction thriller with a very real, but very fixable problem.

Answer 3

I don't know. I don't think anyone REALLY knows. But I do know that it could be disasterous if it turns out that Gore is right but we don't do anything about it. And if Crichton is right and it's just a normal pattern in weather but we do things to lower energy consumption and reduce CO2 emissions we won't be significantly worse off. Given that, I'd prefer to be on the safe side and lean toward the Gore line of thinking. That doesn't mean I think all industry should be shut down, and we should go back to riding horse-drawn carriages, but being responsible about one's own personal energy useage seems prudent.

Answer 4

Mr. Crichton. The data both sides use are twisted to show what they want. Until someone definitively proves that the warming trend is not part of a historical pattern, I will not believe that this is anything else.

Answer 5

Gore is a hypocrite! human beings do no longer have that a lot skill over the ambience to reason international warming - besides it really is no longer a shown actuality -- clone of the "international cooling" on the early Seventies! i'm also so ill of those who nevertheless say Gore gained the election. they ought to study the regulation! individuals do not easily choose the President. we decide the Electoral college. won't be able to the libs get over the very undeniable actuality that GORE lost!

Answer 6

I think crichton's got it, did he mention shifting continents blocking sea currents and creating mini ice ages?