Why do you think GW deniers spend time in the Global Warming section?

Question

GW deniers are always out-debated in this section because they never provide a shred of scientific evidence to support their claims. The best they can do is to fall back on the same old debunked myths regarding GW. On the flip side, GW acknowledgers virtually always provide a plethora of scientific evidence to support their claims.

It seems to me like it would be very difficult to maintain one's denial in the face of such lopsided quality of arguments. If I wanted to remain in denial about a subject, I wouldn't expose myself to such strong opposing evidence.

Case and point - Jello asks for a short-term GW prediction:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AixnKvKsUYwN5zCIr6qOVwvty6IX?qid=20070803132054AApPbTJ&show=7#profile-info-sSvPEf97aa

I provide it, and he now has to find a way to maintain his denial:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AohAH2rljXuU7Cf0YRyYph4Fxgt.?qid=20070809144318AAeJMTU

That has to be tough. Perhaps it's a mental exercise?

Kevin S. - 1934 was nowhere near as hot as 1998, or any year in the 2000's for that matter:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

Answer 1

Many skeptics have chosen their position on GW theory ideologically rather than scientifically (see above answer). They decided right off the bat that not only was GW theory false, it was a massive liberal hoax (remember, a lot of people had never heard of the theory before Al Gore made it his platform in 2000). They didn't bother researching the theory before taking a position on it. Now they feel the need to "dispel the myth of GW". Discovering the truth is of no interest to them.

Answer 2

Because it's Yahoo! Answers. You should check out some of the idiots that troll around in the Vegetarian & Vegan section. They make Mr. Jello look like Stephen Hawking.

Some people do post legitimate counter arguments to global warming though, in a non-standoffish/stubborn way. I don't think intelligent debate and questioning on the subject should be discouraged since the exact role of human involvement IS still unknown. All you can do with the trolls is report them and ignore them.

Answer 3

I'm not sure what you mean by GW deniers but you never have any scientific evidence yourself. Just data that is used to mislead. Do you know what a WIKI is? Probably not. You can always find something written on the Internet to support almost anything. Any thinking person knows that Global Warming has been politicized by the liberals. You know who I mean, the people who claim to be for the little guy while they really are just ripping them off. They spend more time and money on getting your money than trying to save the planet themselves by conserving anything. Not that the planet is in any peril anyway. I wonder what you will say when doomsday never comes. Probably take credit for stopping it. What a load.

Answer 4

Wow - OK the predictions were made. Let's see if they are right or if they are off.

I noticed there are no fewer then 8 guesses. I wonder if NASA uses 8 different different calculations to determine how much fuel to use to fill up the Space Shuttle or a consensus to put it in orbit.

Interesting that at lease 6 guesses start at 1950. I wonder why they couldn't go back 500 - 1000 years to test their numbers with known values.

Your numbers aren't any different than a Vegas sports book. Just because the line is Michigan by 7 doesn't mean they don't have to play the game.

Answer 5

To ensure that the *whole* truth gets told on the subject, and not just the subjective statements of faith that people like you make, dana.

You say: “GW deniers are always out-debated in this section” and that’s an unbelievably prejudiced statement to make. I rarely see an answer closed on here where I feel I’d lost the debate. Usually I feel I’ve simply been ignored, and Bob and you are the very worst culprits for this.

The best example was this question from Bob…

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AghCM1aNojjkui25EgvMNiEhBgx.?qid=20070801063241AA7uYn0&show=7#profile-info-7a1a4586cbdfad0a780847164818434aaa

Asking… “Why do people think philosophical views about global warming are more credible than the data?”

He proceeded to choose your answer as the best, despite you making the following statement…

“The potential consequences of not acting are far far worse than the potential consequences of acting when we don't need to.”

But that is nothing but your *philosophical view* on the global warming issue. I could use exactly the same argument regarding the possibility of an Earth-asteroid collision, but no one is screaming that we should be spending billions on preventing that potential catastrophe. Why? Simply because it’s not getting the publicity of AGW.

And actually, your philosophical statement is wrong in my opinion. If we can spare the money to fight the *possibility* of global warming, then we’d actually be far better off spending that spare money on the *actuality* of the problems killing millions of people every year *right now*! Or are you claiming that the people who *may* suffer as a result of AGW are more important than the people who *are* suffering from other problems that you’re not interested in?

As with climate science, the global warming section of Yahoo! Answers is a bit of a cartel. The alarmists tend to stick together and support each other – a quick look at Bob’s questions (sorry to single you out here Bob) shows an alarming number of best answers awarded to crabby_blindguy, Trevor and yourself, even when, as shown above, it’s plainly obvious they didn’t give the best answer. It reminds me of the so called “independent” peer-reviews of the Mann et all “hockey-stick” graph; how amazing that so many scientists managed to somehow completely miss all the errors with their work!

I have far less time to spend on here than I’d like, so a better question might be: “Why do I waste my time answering your, and Bob’s, questions, when I can predict, with almost certainty, that I’ll never get selected as best answer?”

Now there’s a prediction that’s far more likely to be accurate than a Global Warming Alarmist's! LOL

:::EDIT:::

Actually, after rereading the above, I’d like to add to paragraph two…

I also feel that, with the vast majority of the questions on here, I wasn’t out-debated, the question simply ended while the debate was still ongoing. Often an answer is chosen ending the debate prematurely.

A case in point: (sorry, Bob, it’s you again! LOL)

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AowaphakAIRAq8JOV74FY0MgBgx.?qid=20070808113131AAw5Zx5

I replied last night. I arrived home tonight to discover that Bob had responded to my answer, but had since selected his best answer and ended the debate. Was I “out-debated”? Or denied the opportunity to respond? They are not the same thing at all.

Answer 6

This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000. -- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976

If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age. -- Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)

What we've got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy. -- Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator (D-Colorado)

If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS -- Earth First! Newsletter

Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets...Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. -- David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans. -- Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project

If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. -- Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

Cannibalism is a "radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation." -- Lyall Watson, The Financial Times, 15 July 1995

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Answer 7

Last time I checked, this section is about "Global Warming", NOT "Anthropogenic Global Warming". We hang out for the very reason you think we shouldn't be here. We don't believe that the data demonstrate man-made GHG as the primary cause of the current warming trend. We believe that the predicted level of warming has been unrealistic, exaggerated to create fear. The attributed effects, such as sea level rise and extreme weather phenomena, have been similarly exaggerated and not supported fully by the data.

What I see is a bunch of butchered, sloppy, and misinterpreted scientific concepts. Let's take your "case AND point" (the big people like to use the phrase "case IN point")

"The current trend is an increase by about 0.03°C per decade, so in 5 years the average global temperature will be roughly 0.15°C hotter than now. That's roughly 59°F, give or take. Of course yearly variations are bigger than this small variation, which is why global warming predictions are long-term!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/historical_...

James Hansen (NASA climatologist) also predicted the warming from 1988-Present quite accurately nearly 20 years ago:

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/...

So I'll conclude by saying:

James Hansen told you so."

Should we gloss over the order of magnitude error? Why not...I'm in a forgiving mood. If the IPCC can make the same type of error, then why shouldn't you? But, just to clarify, you did mean to say 0.3C per decade? And another point of clarification: what "yearly" temperature variations are you talking about? Here's your chance to educate me: please show me a graph that displays these "yearly" variations of global temperature that exceed 0.15C. Oh, and make sure it is GLOBAL temp, NOT hemispheric, since we already know about seasonal variations in each hemisphere which almost completely cancel eachother out.

Let's move on to your buddy, Hansen.

In the debate you cited, he used this graph - you claim he "accurately" predicted the next 20 years back in 1988:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/00fig1.gif

The debate took place in 1998, almost 10 years ago. Wow!! Look at how his preferred "B" scenario matches the warming! If only we could "extinguish" GHG emissions growth by 2000, then "C" scenario could take over. How'd we do on extinguishing GHG emissions seven years ago?

Fortunately, we can fast forward almost another decade to today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

Hmmm...Hansen's "B" scenario which looked so good back in that El Nino enhanced 1998 prediction, shows that we should be at an anomaly of over +0.8C - that's about double the current +0.4C anomaly we have actually experienced: 100% error. How is that "accurate"? (I'm being generous again, though, since Hansen still predicted a 0.3C increase in the anomaly from 1998, whereas, we have actually experienced a DECREASE of 0.1C, ie -0.1C: 400% error!)

Let's not be too hard on Hansen and pretend that we arrested our GHG emissions back in 2000 and shoot for that "C" scenario. That would put us at just under 0.7C. That's a little better at 75% error - so where is your cutoff for "accurate"? More important to note is that we have apparently bested Hansen's optimistic prediction despite INCREASED CO2 emissions. Did I miss something? Magic elves removing all of that CO2 while we slept?

Or is it that you were simply cherry-picking data in an attempt to influence OPINION?

I believe you are in error, so I am here to offer an alternative answer - since it's a lock that THIS answer will not be chosen as best!

Answer 8

Yeah right Dana all I hear is "bla bla bla your a moron I'm right not matter what you say" By saying this doesn't make you right it only make you ignorant, you have even said that you do work for the green people (you liberal), which means they pay you money $$$$$$$$$$$$, so exactly how much do they pay you $50,000, $100,000, $200,000?????? Well any way us so called deniers don't get paid to speak are minds like myself :) Of course you have sent me emails saying you don't care what I think again the whole bla bla bla.....So you can pick bob to be the right answer and we can all move on I will choose who I want for my answers and we will never get any where...............Its one of those deadlock things of course you will never admit it is :)
Oh and the hottest day ever recorded since well we have been keeping track was in 1922(link below) which was a question here a while back amazing how some answers help others :)

Answer 9

Explain to me the off set of the environmental damage from compact fluorescent bulbs and how this will be better than any possible man made global warming. Man has and never will have dominion over nature.

And Bob what does the war in Iraq have to do with this???

Answer 10

The fact that you use the word deniers instead of skeptics shows that you are not interested in scientific discussion and debate but are instead intent on spreading a gospel belief.

Answer 11

I am here to push you to ask better questions, as most of you are young, and have been given a sub-standard understanding of what statistical science is and is not. As a scientist, I'll always tell everyone who asks that the scientific community is NOT unified in the global warming debate. The data that exists is preliminary and only general in nature,

The point of statistics is not to prove anything except your point, and to prove that, I'll offer anyone a challenge: give me a statistical analysis of anything, and I'll show you another statistical test that contradicts your conclusion.

With that in mind, there is no evidence at this point that doesn't rely overheavily on statistical analysis to show relatedness between human activity and global temperature change. When the existing datasets are more complete, we will be able to rely on simpler and more discerning tests that are less open to question, and on that day, the naysayers who know a little something about atmospheric science will become convinced. At this point, however, words are still wind.