Will the deniers take the time to read this? #2?

Question

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

(I posted this question earlier, but thanks to Mr Jello I realized I linked to a sequence far down on the site. Since it's very important to read the story from the beginning I post this new question instead.)

The above link tells the history of the science of CO2 as a greenhouse gas and its contribution to global warming.

This is a must read for everyone that claims that

- Man made global warming is a conspiracy
- the computer models aren't reliable
- CO2 doesn't drive climate
- The theory is invented by Al Gore
- other silly arguments

Yes, it's a long read but if you can't take the time to read stories that debunk your arguments then you are just irresponsible deniers and your counter arguments don't deserve to be taken seriously.

Thanks for many good and/or interesting answers.

Mr Jello: I see you're trying to provoke me when you say I show "contempt of man" and mentioning National Socialists. Earlier I've been called a communist as well. Well, that's your tactics...

amancalledchuda: You gave a good answer. This answer is a perfect example of the difference between a skeptic and a denier.

"As I’ve said many times, there is no dispute that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising. Nor is their any dispute that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so we should expect the temperature to rise a bit as a result."

You also say no one is disputing that CO2 does have an effect, but that's exactly what some of the deniers does!

Larry: Great answer! I agree you're not a denier. You took the time to read it. You even looked at the proposed solutions and gave your own constructive ideas of what to do instead. You've earned my respect!

EnragedParrot: Great links!

The Voice of Reason: A skeptic and a denier is not the same.

Answer 1

I'm not a denier, more of a skeptic. I did read it and I found it very interesting. While I do believe CO2 is responsible for some warming, I'm not convinced that it is the main climate driver. I also read the notes at the end on what he thinks should be done and I totally disagree with him about adding carbon / gasoline taxes. I prefer they better utilize the taxes that they already take and give tax incentives to companies that would develop better technologies to reduce emissions. I think we can all agree that the government is very bloated and inefficient. I prefer tax incentives and private investment to a big fat ineffective government.
It would make more sense to me for all the people who would like to reduce emissions to invest in companies that are developing hydrogen fuel cell technologies rather than to try and limit the CO2 emissions by taxation. My logic is based on finding a solution rather than supporting government bureaucracy and restricting the economy.

Answer 2

Wow! I see how heart felt essays can stir up emotions in people.

This is why science sticks with facts.

Dr. Hansen is not objective when it comes to global warming. Information from him is tainted as Exxon-Mobile data. Once a person gets paid to endorse political candidates and a political point of view, he trades in his objectivity.

CO2 does indeed lag temps as the data in the Vostok ice core samples prove. To say that CO2 doesn't lag temps is denial of reality.

I don't think anyone is saying the Earth isn't warming, it is. The Earth is either warming or cooling as the climate can never be static. The cause is natural. Man is just too insignificant to influence the climate.

You believe that man is the cause of the problem. Your past post show your contempt of man and your altruistic views. This is expected. That's why we need to stick with objective data that can be verified by anyone, not just climatologist.

To call people "deniers" is an intimidation tactic. It's what people do when they don't have the strength of the data on their side. A variant of this is to call someone a racist. The goal of the accuser is to trip you up proving that you really aren't a "denier" or "racist". It's rather cheezy, but it's all they have in their limited world.....

Name calling and insults just prove they have no interest in objectivity.

I never stated co2 doesn't cause warming. I have stated that there is no proof that man is the cause. You have a lower standard of proof. While you believe, you still can't tell me 2 years from now will be warmer or cooler, and show your work for how you came to your conclusion. You can only make a claim for what you believe, and faith isn't science.

I believe the Sun is the biggest source of heat. This is only my opinion, I have no proof. I suspect that in 2 years the Earth will start to enter a long cooler period. Again, my opinion.

The Vostok ice cores clearly show that temps do decrease while co2 continues to increase. This happens for 800 years until co2 starts to decline. There is no reason to expect this can't happen again in the future. Co2 is linked to temps, not the other way around.

Added:- Americans are always perplexed how Europe could elect leaders like the National Socialist elected some years ago who are fueled by hate and rage. After reading your post, I see why those attributes would appeal to people like you.

Answer 3

co2 traces are not reliable. we've been using them for a few decades, and to trace back hundreds of years. before you can jump to conclusions and bypass the traces as accurate enough, you would have to wait hundreds of years and see if you get the same result.

chemists really only have guesses on how different elements act over long periods of time, because chemistry is a fairly new field of science.

Answer 4

Either way people think of global warming, in my mind, not just mine but knowledge, the world is going through a change as it has since time began on this Earth. Polar and ice caps melting, Islands and coastlines disappearing, the lands drying up ( eg. Australia, water catchments for cities and towns around the country have either dryed up or very close to it ) it's natural. The warming which was caused by volcanic and alike gases, also which there is a lot of eruptions and quakes happening every minute arond the world today. There are many causes, man has not helped but we must look in perspective of world & climate change.

Answer 5

Both Mr Jello (directly) and Tomcat (indirectly, in his cite) bring up the historical fact that, in past warmings, CO2 lagged temperature by hundreds of years.

This is actually an argument that proves global warming is (mostly) caused by CO2.

EDIT - amancalledchuda - I agree that it is not sufficient proof by itself. But in the context of the other data, it is.

Historically warming was started by something else, generally the Sun. As oceans warmed, they could not hold as much CO2 and released it. This process takes hundreds of years.

But this time CO2 and temperature are going up simultaneously.

It's one of many proofs that, this time, CO2 is the main thing driving temperature. More here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13

Answer 6

Actually, I found the entire article fascinating and to the point. What makes it more interesting is the infighting of today's scientists and politicians who keep trying to deny everything. If they lived in a box and burned a perpetual candle and had some process at the bottom of the box that only absorbed 10% of the residual toxic gases in the box as they lay on the bottom of the box dying from lack of breathable air, they would still deny that their was any change for the worse. In my opinion.

Answer 7

It's an excellent read. Spencer Weart is my favorite writer on climate science. I also recommend everyone check out his excellent essay on the history of climate modeling (the entire site is great):

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm

And his guest essay on the RealClimate Blog on how the greenhouse effect actually works:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/

Answer 8

IngelaD: I read through your, rather long, webpage and, while it was an informative read (I can’t say it was actually that interesting), it didn’t tell me anything relevant that I didn’t already know. That is: it taught me some stuff that was new to me about the early research in the area, but how important is that stuff to today’s debate?

However, essentially all it says is that Co2 has an effect on temperature and, as far as I know, no one is disputing that.

With reference to the claims that you seem to think it refutes…

“Man made global warming is a conspiracy”: That man-made CO2 is warming the planet is largely accepted. *How much* it is warming the planet is still open to debate. The suggestion that it will cause a catastrophe is *highly* debatable. The fact that certain scientists (Michael Mann, for example) are prepared to falsify evidence and others (James Hansen springs to mind) are colouring their public statements with their personal opinions, combined with the biased way in which some of the media are reporting the issue (at least here in the U.K.), I feel that the possibility of a conspiracy is not as far fetched as you might imagine.

ITN, for example, did a whole week of programs on global warming this year, presented from Antarctica. Every report showed live pictures of ice falling from the glaciers where they met the sea as “positive proof of global warming”. The date of these programs? Last winter – i.e. *summer* in Antarctica. Did they once mention that minor detail? Not a chance.

In another example, the U.K. government has told every school in the country that they must teach their pupils about global warming – and how have they been instructed to do so? They are being forced to show them all Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Attempts are currently being made to challenge this command in the high courts. (See…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/20/nlaw120.xml )

Does this constitute a conspiracy? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It certainly comes across as propaganda, though.

“the computer models aren't reliable”: Well, given that the forecasting experts at www.forecastingprinciples.com say of the IPCC’s latest report: “We have been unable to identify any scientific forecasts of global warming. Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder.” I would argue that they may well be unreliable. (See… http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Public_Policy/WarmAudit31.pdf )

“CO2 doesn't drive climate”: Well your own link reports the evidence on the several centuries of lag between changes in temperature and CO2. That suggests it never did in the past.

Yet again, Bob, above, uses spectacularly flawed logic when he suggests that this lag in the past “proves” that the current warming is caused by CO2, because CO2 is rising at the same time. It does nothing of the kind, of course; it merely suggests that the rise in CO2 is not natural. The rise in temperature could be entirely coincidental (Note: I’m not suggesting that it is, just that Bob’s logic doesn’t prove otherwise.)

“The theory is invented by Al Gore”: I wasn’t aware that anyone seriously believes that – I certainly don’t.

“other silly arguments”: Many of these other silly arguments are made by scientists who are just as competent and deserving of respect as any other. Who are you to dismiss them?

As I’ve said many times, there is no dispute that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising. Nor is their any dispute that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so we should expect the temperature to rise a bit as a result.

The dispute, for me at least, is regarding the following questions:

- Exactly how much has temperature risen as a result of man-made GHGs as opposed to natural phenomenon?
- How much will GHGs rise in the future?
- How much will temperature rise as a result?
- How will that rise effect climate?
- How will that change in climate effect mankind?

Mankind’s technology is changing all the time, and the rate if that change is accelerating. It is ridiculous to try and project today’s society into the future and then make assumptions based on how you think we’ll be living.

Michael Crichton put is very well in his speech “Aliens Cause Global Warming” (I highly recommend it. See… http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html ) He says...

“Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900.”

Earlier in the speech he talks about the Drake equation which attempted to predict the likelihood of receiving a communication from aliens. Here’s what he says…

“In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation:

N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL

Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live.

This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.”

And the problem is, the same is true of climate science. The best example is clouds. A warmer world will be a wetter world, so there will likely be more clouds around, but nobody is sure what effect clouds will have on temperature. So, if you’re making a climate model, how do you deal with clouds? You guess, that’s what you do and guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. If you want your climate model to show warming, you simply guess that clouds will cause warming and, bingo! Your model predicts warming.

As I pointed out above, forecasting experts think the IPCC’s climate predictions are worthless.

If we’re lucky, in the future we’ll look back on all these scare stories around global warming and we’ll remember how badly we were mislead and manipulated. If we’re unlucky, we’ll forget what happened today and we’ll fall for new scare stories in the future, as we’d always done in the past. Sadly, I suspect it’s simply human nature to gullibly fall for the “myths” of our time, so we are doomed to repeat the cycle ad infinitum

As ever with global warming - don't believe the hype.

:::EDIT:::

No Bob, you’re wrong, plain and simple. The fact that CO2 is rising at the same time as temperature offers no proof whatsoever that it is the cause. As I said, you’re logic is flawed.

Let me give you an example…

Let us suppose we notice that, historically, approximately 8 minutes after the temperature goes up, my sweat levels begin to rise. 8 minutes after temperatures start dropping again, my sweat levels go back down.

If one day I do some exercise, which raises my sweat levels and, coincidentally, the temperature happens to rise at the same time, would this, in any way, suggest that it is my sweat levels that are causing the temperature rise? Of course not, the idea is ridiculous.

Now, it’s slightly different with CO2, because we know that CO2 *is* a GHG, so it *can* affect temperature (which sweat clearly can’t, of course), but you are deceitfully suggesting that the unnatural timing of it’s rise is proof that it is causing the temperature to increase.

It *sounds* plausible and you are using that fact to fool the unwary.

It’s this dishonest behaviour that is the main reason I’m a sceptic. If the statement “AGW is going to be a catastrophe” is such an undeniable *fact*, then why do so many GWAs feel the need to lie about it?

Because it’s *not* an undeniable fact, which is why you need to use little con tricks such as this to fool people into believing the hype.

Shame on you.

Answer 9

You would probably have a better chance of engaging people in meaningful conversation if you would drop the language of religion (e.g. denier) and start using the language of scientific discussion (e.g. skeptic).

Answer 10

I'm in favor of MORE global warming. I have property a quarter mile from the beach, and I'd like it to be a little closer to the water.