What do you think about this article on Al Gore and Global Warming?

Question

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1852182/posts
In the article, Mr. Bryson seems to be a very ligitimate scientist, and what he says makes sense. I don't know what to believe about global warming now. What do you think about it?

Answer 1

Bryson is an 87 year old professor emeritus who probably hasn't done real research in years. He has no evidence, just his opinion. In the 1970s he said we were heading for an ice age, also without evidence. He was wrong then and he's wrong now.

Global warming is real, and mostly caused by us. In the past natural things like the sun were the most important. But now our production of greenhouse gases has overwhelmed the natural causes. It's still not 100% us, but it is mostly.

Forget Al Gore. Here's a good website for information (real data, not opinion):

http://profend.com/global-warming/

Answer 2

I'll answer the statement in the order that I see in the article.
Money: There is far more money being made in not changingwhat we have been doing -selling oil - then in receiving funding for research, or possibly carbon credits. So when I look at the money I see oil profits.

No link between man made CO2 emissions and rising temperature: Historically, CO2 has acted as a strong amplifire to global warming. It has been a part of the natural cycle and it has strengthened the other variables, such as the Sun, that effects the climate. However, since man started emitting CO2 it has not needed to wait for an initial rise in temperature to be released. There hasn't been a steady rise (in temperature) for 300 years -there has been an accelerating increase which has been matched by the CO2 levels. *"Global mean surface temperatures have risen by 0.74C +/- 0.18C when estimated by a linear trend over the last 100 years (1906 - 2005). The rate of warming over the last 50 years is almost double that over the last 100 years."
* From http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Pub_Ch03.pdf p.237.
This shows that the rate is increasing.

CO2 (man-made) in the atmosphere is not enough to change the climate: Rather: none of the other variables are enough to cause GW of this scale (in this amount of time)
First when CO2 is added to GW nodels can a prediction that matches the actual developement be acheived.

Consensus doesn't prove anything: Of course not. However, the consensus is there because of all the scientists that have looked at the data and agrees of what the causes, consequences are.

One scientists (Dr Bryson) has not been a critic of MGW because any payment by oil companies. He has not, since he retired, been "paid" at all. Therefore, he has the right to say that everyone that is being paid for their research can't say anything about scientists that are being payed of by oil companies so they can keep selling their products. What a hypocrit, and a new way of meeting scientific research.
You can't get grants unless you say: "Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide." There are many examples of scientists researching global warming in other areas then CO2 -clouds, Sun, etc. - and even if you research CO2 there is no pressure to have a certain preference for results. On the contrary, if you say that you want your research to show a certain thing, by picking evidence, it will most likely cause you to loose your grant. It will also make the research susceptible for critisism and cast a bad shadow on you, and scientists as a whole. There is no win situation for those giving grants to do that. Much of the research is aimed at CO2. The fact that it has been extensively researched lends credibility to the findings.

Media: Has nothing to do with scientific research so I will not respond to those issues.

Religion: Dr. Bryson statement that supporters of MGW says: anyone who doesn't believe in the religion of MGW is nuts, is a very false one. I am not aiming at the content but at the statement. Saying that people have religious beleifs in MGW and that anyone who doesn't support them are nuts is there to give a bad image of those who has another view on the scientific findings than he. Yet again, a poor way of meeting scientific theories, evidence.

The cities are the cause of warming: Yes, we sure have lots of cities in the water too, which have risen in temperature as well.

Dr Bryson didn't see Al Gores movie: "Don't make me throw up," he said. "It is not science. It is not true." Well, I hope he had a review ofit to make such a statement. Hopefully he will have a bettterlook at other evidence before determining whether they are true or not.

Answer 3

For starters, notice that Bryson says he hasn't seen Al Gore's movie and then concludes

"Don't make me throw up...It is not science. It is not true."

This man is supposed to be a scientist and yet he's drawing a conclusion about a film he never saw. That disturbs me. A good scientist will never draw a conclusion without first examining the evidence.

Regarding global warming, it is true that Bryson provides zero evidence to back up his opinion that it's not caused by humans. Nobody disputes that we're coming out of an Ice Age, but that doesn't account for the acceleration of the warming since the Industrial Revolution and in particular over the past few decades:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

Bryson doesn't even attempt to account for this global warming acceleration.

"Humans are polluting the air and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but the effect is tiny, Bryson said."

On what does Bryson base this conclusion? The article never says. Considering the rapid rise of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere due to human activities:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png

The fact that CO2 is a known greenhouse gas, and the fact that global warming models don't fit the measured temperature increase unless greenhouse gases play a major role:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

It's hard to figure out how he came to this conclusion, especially since he provides no evidence for it.

Your Free Republic article appears to have come from this article in The Capital Times, except that it omits the second half of the article which interviews several climate scientists who provide evidence to support their belief that the current global warming is primarily caused by humans.

http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories/197613

Interesting omission by the Free Republic.

Answer 4

The real problem is global cooling. Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth.

Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy Canadian food crops.

Answer 5

What he is relating is a fairly accurate picture of what is going on.

Just take a look at Bob's post (a non-scientist, heavily biased towards man-made global warming)
He says Bryson has no evidence - false
He downplays his ability to do research - while Bob has done exactly ZERO research.
He makes claims about Bryson's research into global cooling in the seventies. He was never proven wrong - he changed his mind because of his research, well before the media, government, and other scientists generated this mini-scare.

If anything, Bryson is an expert on this phenomenon. He watched as his own work was distorted to produce a panic - long after he found that those claims were not scientifically sound.

It is happening today, and in the end, the big loser will be the environment. All of those who are on the fence between doing better for the environment and looking after their own material needs will take a look at the distortion, the misinformation, and the scare tactics - they will not trust ANY environmentalists.

Let's not kid ourselves. The environment has many problems caused by humans, problems that we can solve. Global warming is not one of them.

Answer 6

I am old too and Gore just missed it. look at the CO2 problem or is it.U don't need to be a scientist to under stand some of Mother natures cycles. The water cycle do u under stand that. Then the big CO2 problem . Mother nature again has a built in recycle for our air that is performed by plants and photosynthesis. While the environmentalist want u to believe that CO2 is very high. There is a problem O is normal 20.9% nitrogrn is 78% that leaves 1.1 % of green house gas. The O is very tight as if it drops below 19.5 u will pass out. O and N is where it should be ,so what is hapening to keep O under control? The plants have done a great job.
Methane anoyher green house gas. They dont tell u that methane is very light and can go over 55 miles up. They have published a lot of numbers as to how much methane is out there. How did they measure it,they did not . There is another problem that methane is not where it should be. Methane is very flamable. Up in the edge of space the sun is so intense that the sunlight may be over 300 deg. F. The methane is being oxidized and then as CO2 ir falls back to earth. Most CO2 is very near the earth surface so the plants can recycle it.

Answer 7

Dr Bryson is an authoritative source on climatology and a much respected scientist. He has never accepted the theory of anthropogenic global warming but despite his expertise has failed to provide reasons for his belief other than the two that he frequently cites. One being that scientists are using global warming as a method of receiving funding and the other being that carbon dioxide levels have't risen significantly. He sometimes cites that the planet is coming out of a period of time known as the Little Ice Age.

When pressed on these issues he is not forthcoming. For example, when asked to provide an explanation as to why the world is warming so much faster now then when we started coming out of the Little Ice Age there is no explanation. Similarly, when it's shown that CO2 levels have risen dramatically there is again, no explanation.

This strikes me as odd. With his expertise he should be able to explain away some of the most basic aspects of global warming but fails to do so.

We've seen this behaviour before and names such as Professor Frederick Sietz and Fred Singer come to mind. Educated global warming skeptics, but when you do a little digging you find substantial investments in the oil industry and a vested interest in disputing global warming.

I'm not aware of any such reasons for Dr Bryson to refute global warming. Here is a man who is completely committed to the science of climatology, there's no obvious reason for him to refute the evidence but yet he's unwilling to provide answers to very basic questions. You get the impression he's avoiding the issue... but why?

Answer 8

It makes alot of sense to me, and seems to go along with alot of what I have been reading on the subject. Global warming may be happening, but not the way people are thinking. It's a pretty normal cycle, and I don't think that we have enough data to start freaking out about all this. Many of the studies I've seen that indicated problems left out key time periods in which there was a shift. If they leave out that kind of data, how can they expect it to be truly accurate?

Answer 9

20 years in the history of the earth means absolutely nothing
god some people are just idiots...
global warming is not real!!!! ugh!!!

Answer 10

Do you remember that big kid in class that couldn't figure out how to tie his shoes? Well that was Gores nephew in my time it was Gore sitting there and he could never figure out how to tie his either. Never listen to a politician about science its completely out of there field . A scientist is a scientist a politician is a politician . But don't feel bad i got duped to into believing to but i guess that's what politicians do well