What's with the opposition to Science? (Global warming)?

Question

Like global warming. "Man made Global Warming is just a handfull of liberal alarmists." Handfull? Try most of the scientific community, if not the majority of the world. And calling it null and void because liberals supporet it has got to be the worst argument against it. It's one thing to have one's own oppinion. It's another to call names with the arrogance of "knowing" better than people who dedicate their lives to studying. Forget Al Gore.

Look at the facts:
1) We spew out green house gases by the megatons (1 megaton = 2 billion pounds).
2) The Earth is warming up (the 70s are an exception. For those that don't know this yet, the year is 2007)
3) Modern (again, 70s don't count) Mathematical and computer models show that greenhouse gasses do cause more warming (for example, Venus).
4) According to the Gaia theory, Carbon dioxide from trees should have a negligible effect on change in Earth's temperature assuming that ecosystems are in full equilibrium (no comets or loggers)

Even if you don't think there is Global warming, Humans have done, and are doing, extreme amounts of damage to the environment. Something WILL give. Be it warming, cooling, storms, drought, what ever.

And it ain't gonna be pretty.

Zardo, sorry I got it backwards. I meant something else.

Even still, Lovelock's theory is still valid.

Jill C:
The question is the title. And what is the title called in YA? The question. So yes there is the question. If you want me to say it again:

What's the reasoning/rational for the opposition to mainstream science?

Pick up a Discover magazine if you think I'm making this up. Or a Smithsonian (they had a main article pertaining to it) or a Scientific American (just about every magazine).

sfaa: are you serious?

Propaganda? From who? To do what? Nothing. I should think so.

I didn't buy to any propaganda. I may not be a climatoligist, but I spent - and continue to spend - a large chunk of my life in universities and colleges (yes, plural). I have subscriptions to SA, Discover, and Smithsonian. Both my parents are college instructers.

So I think I have a lot more experience with scientific consensus than a 10 minute surf on google.

This year, my county has had the worst drought on record. The rest of NC hasn't been doing to well either. Not to mention to rows of triple digit hi's. This region is based on agriculture. This county's already poor economy is being strained. If this keeps up, all these farms will fail. And I like farms. They look nice. I have one outside my window. I don't want it to go (because then somebody will develope it, thus, eysore). So this isn't some hypothetical situation.

Answer 1

Two short comments, one mathematical and one political.

(1) Weather is a VERY complex and complicated subject. I had a professor many years ago who was disgusted with a class for wanting him to dispense with the complications of the equation he was deriving in physical chemistry. "The trouble with you," said he, "is that you expect science to be simple. You are mistaken. It is not science that is simple, it is scientists." Well, science IS complicated, which means that it must be described in terms of mathematical models, and those models are defined in terms of assumptions. The models are just as good–or just as bad–as those assumptions. I'm not into conspiracy, and I believe in the objectivity of those who create the models, but there is more money to be made investigating a serious problem than in investigating what is only an interesting hypothesis.

(2) Fairly recently, because there are areas of the world in which cooling, rather than heating has been observed, those concerned with global warming have shifted their emphasis from "it's getting hotter" to "there are more weather anomalies." This is a wonderful decision politically, because Bush has opposed the Kyoto Accords, and if a substantiated correlation can be made between greenhouse gases and weather anomalies, the Democrats will be in a position to blame Bush every time there is bad weather! Talk about a winning position!!

Thanks for an interesting discussion!

Answer 2

Science is the opposition to man-made global warming.

1) Not true, nobody on either side uses megatons to weigh green house gases.
2) The Earth has been warming up since the 1600s.
3) Those computer models are inaccurate. Satellite recordings of atmospheric temperature do not show this warming. And without green house gases we would have no atmosphere.
4) Uh...what...and comets and loggers have the same effect? get real. Ok, news flash. Vegetation consumes carbon dioxide and transforms it into oxygen. Actually, more carbon dioxide means more plants. Which is shown throughout Earth's geological history.

Most of the scientific community does not accept man-made global warming. That's simply propaganda. And you're to blame for buying into it. Honestly, 10 minutes searching Google would show that there is no scientific consensus. Nobody says man-made global warming is null and void because liberals support it, the science just does not validate the claims, something that is becoming more and more evident.

And finally, when a so-called scientist gets up and says, with a straight face, that the Sun has no impact on the temperatures of this planet, that is an instant tipoff that you are being fed a line of bull****. The sun is the only source of heat in the solar system, to say it has no impact at all is an obvious lie.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/060913_sun_warming.html

NOTE: Even the LiveScience article says "...warming the Earth has experienced over the past few centuries..." in the first paragraph. How the hell can it be man-made if its been going on for centuries? LiveScience has been notorious for pushing the man-made global warming myth. And yet there's three conflicting story links on the one page I gave you. Yeah, scientific consensus.

/EDIT 2: I would like to point something out: So far, the man-made global warming "skeptics" have given at least some logical input as to why they are "skeptics" and left the debate to global warming only. However, the man-made global warming believers have simply attacked, on a political basis, anyone who disagrees with them.

Answer 3

All of the scientific evidence points to humans as the primary cause of the current global warming. Thus by definition, anyone who denies this must either be ignorant of the evidence, or have some sort of opposition to science.

And indeed the majority of people all around the world have accepted the scientific consensus, as you can see in the link below.

Answer 4

I'm not saying I know the full details of human impact on climate change, but I do think that the earth has undergone massive climate changes throughout its history that were not caused by humans... (read ice ages) and I also know that if you make a linear projection of a very small upward part of a curve you can easily freak out and assume the worst.

As an engineer, I fully appreciate the scientific method, but in this case, I think there are so many lurking variables that no one can say with 100% confidence what's going on with respect to long term climate change. Hell, we can't accurately predict the weather 10 days out, let alone 10 years. My two cents.

Answer 5

Karl Rove cobbled a coalition of big business (won't change "cause of greed), the religious right (anti-women's health issues), the gun lobby (will do ANYTHING to keep the cherished hand guns), Fundi's ( the bible is the ONLY scientific truth), private industries such as drug companies, insurance co. etc. All of the above know they need to support each other for their own private interests, so if big business says smoking ain't bad, the others support that till it's irrefutable which has happened. They are doing that now with the other sciences including climate change.

Answer 6

I have yet to see any listing that proves that "most of the scientific community" believes that Global Warming is man made.

Other planets in the solar system are getting warmer as well.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece

CO2 isn't even considered a gas in our atmosphere, it's considered a trace gas from when our atmosphere was created 100s of millions of years ago because it only makes up 0.032% of the air in any given volume.

http://www.oar.noaa.gov/climate/t_greenhouse.html

http://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_1_1.htm

http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/eae/Atmosphere/Older/Trace_Gases.html

http://rainbow.ldeo.columbia.edu/ees/climate/slides/table_3.htm

Additionally, there have been 9 blatant inaccuracies identified in Gore's BS movie.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/10/09/court-identifies-eleven-inaccuracies-al-gore-s-inconvenient-truth


Bottom line, Global warming is a naturally occuring process. Are we contributing to it? Maybe, but if we are it isn't that significant. Should we take measures to reduce pollution and get ready for the natural changes of our world? Absolutely.

Answer 7

Big business and the GOP are afraid that measures to reduce greenhouse gasses will hurt USA businesses, so they are against doing anything about global warming. Why is it that those who want to reduce greenhouse gasses rarely mention the fact that global overpopulation is a major obstacle to reducing greenhouse gasses and all types of pollution?

The US is adding 3 million people a year to its population through immigration, but I don't see the tree huggers demanding that we reduce immigration.

Answer 8

Didn't we have an ice age 10000 years ago??? Hasn't the earth been warming since then??? Did cavemen starting fires cause global warming???

And when it comes to doing something, let's be honest...

Until they tax the things that cause global warming, people will pay lip service to actually doing something, but we won't... We'll continue to drive cars, and burn coal for electricity because it's cheaper...


But if you ask people if they'd rather cut global warming by paying 20$ a gallon for gasoline, all of a sudden, we aren't as enthusiastic...

Answer 9

Science threatens their religious mythologies. And why worry about global warming when the invisible sky god is going to show up and fix everything anyway.

Answer 10

Let's build really big air-conditioners for the Earth.