UN Scientist Overestimated Problem?

Question

OK, this is an issue with AIDS where the UN scientist overestimated the problem and now have to back track on the extent of the problem.

While overestimating may have seemed like a wise action during uncertainty, the wrong data skewed funding decisions, and obscured lessons on how to slow the progress of the disease.

The UN is being accused of fluffing the numbers to gather financial and political support.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/19/AR2007111900978_pf.html

Could the same thing be happening with global warming? Could the scientist be overestimating the problem as a measure of caution? Could this fudging of the data interfere with finding viable solutions for all sides?

Or is the UN using global warming to gather political and financial support like it did with AIDS?

Shouldn't we just wait until we have a better understanding of the problem?

Answer 1

I wouldn't doubt it. Global warming isn't a very objective science.

The UN scientists said it was "virtually certain" that Man was the main cause of global warming. The US and China insisted that change to "very likely".

The terms "virtually certain" and "very likely" are subjective, meaning different things to different people. They have no meaning in objective science, they are just a guess.

Guessing kills people, and should never be accepted as fact.

Answer 2

Bob: I love your trust in IPCC I wish I could feel the same and I really do. I find it hard to know exactly what a government appointed agency filled with scientists and politicians actually have going on in their huge brains. I just know from past experiences when we as a country or anybody in the world for that matter acted to promptly on any situation that it usually turns out to be *** backwards from what they originally thought. That's why I don't feel it is a bad idea to wait until there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that man is the cause. I don't want taxes and taxes to kick the middle classes *** cause like we all know thats who gets hit the hardest and that is probably 75% of the worlds population and the class that keeps the world running.

Bob: As I've stated in many other YA!!
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AkIGIhXl7niD6uDf2CjwEB7ty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071119123912AASZOdN&show=7#profile-info-AA11002500
I will gladly be apart of reducing our dependency on oil and other nonrenewable resources as well as cleaning up the environment. Your right it is not a bad idea at all. I just want it done right without an extra strain on the people.

Answer 3

What a great question because you are absolutely right. The environment has been a big boom and companies are capitalizing without even understanding the science. i.e. we have a new development here called the Conservatory. The project required ripping out orchards, scraping the ground of anything living, digging the foundation and putting up dead absorbent material.

UV is causing buildings and development to generate extreme heat on the surface of the planet where we assumed the opposite was happening. Go to http://www.thermoguy.com/globalwarming-heatgain.html and see accurate pictures of temperature we don't see with our vision. We are reacting to the symptoms with ozone depleting refrigerants, huge electrical waste and GHG emissions.

Weather is the result of the interaction of 3 things, air, water vapor and heat. Climate professionals assume and are taught the earth is absorbing the sun's rays because we couldn't see the impact of the same UV that burns us.

Every state, province and country regardless of objectives are generating extreme heat. What happens to the weather formula when you incorporate buildings, development and urban sprawl generating heat close to boiling temperature.

The whole world knows we have a problem and we are reacting to symptoms at the UN level. The Co2 theory is missing critical data and that isn't to say the toxic emissions are good.

We are doing exactly what we did with AIDS. Here is some examples. Al Gore has said he will donate his Nobel Prize money to climate change work and the media has reported Al Gore's groups will spend 200 million on the biggest advertising campaign in the world.

They will tout the reduction of greenhouse gases and global warming. At the same time, all cities are generating heat close to boiling temperature. If you reduce Co2 and emissions while we superheat the atmosphere, have we achieved anything?

California's governor travelled to Europe and had discussions with Tony Blair, Richard Branson, etc all about reducing emissions without affecting economy. At the same time, California is getting knocked off the power grid and producing massive emission treating the symptoms of heat waves. California's emissions are 100% avoidable and are not producing economy, they are reacting to symptoms.

Look up the Western Climate Initiatives where western provinces and states have agreed to reduce emissions. We are challenging that because every partner is producing massive green house gas emissions treating the symptom of building performance while the building are generating extreme heat.

Atmospheric heat contributions close to boiling is changing weather. Georgia is out of water because of changes in weather and climate.

Global warming is simply elevated atmospheric temperatures, go to the link above to see where we are generating the heat and every new building is a heat sink when it doesn't have to be.

Very good question, we are wasting billions and treating symptoms.

Answer 4

Most scientists think that, if anything, the IPCC underestimates problems.

"The drafting of reports by the world’s pre-eminent group of climate scientists is an odd process. For many months scientists contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tussle over the evidence. Nothing gets published unless it achieves consensus. This means that the panel’s reports are extremely conservative – even timid. It also means that they are as trustworthy as a scientific document can be."

George Monbiot

"Of course, being a consensus document, a lot of the material that I think is reasonably well-supported also gets weeded out through that process. If the IPCC says it you better believe it and then leave room to think it is actually a lot worse than they have said."

Tim Flannery

It's particularly true of the summaries. Political edits to them make the IPCC sound even more conservative about global warming. For example, the scientists said it was "virtually certain" that Man was the main cause of global warming. The US and China insisted that change to "very likely". Not much of a change, but it went to making the report more conservative.

Jello - They're not subjective, they're defined precisely in terms of statistical confidence levels. The IPCC doesn't do subjective.

Thegubmint - Here's one very precise data source proving the IPCC statements about sea level rise. There are many sources like this, and they give consistent results. A lot of people measure this stuff. As the statements above say, the IPCC stuff is always backed by a mountain of data.

http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

jim z - To say that an unknown person is naive and uneducated in politics and science is understandable (but wrong in my case). To say that Monbiot and Flannery are naive and uneducated in those areas is not credible.

Mark G - Could you support a massive effort to reduce the use of fossil fuels, partly by building nuclear power plants? If global warming is real, we've made a great start. In any event reducing our complete economic dependence on expensive and unstable imported oil just can't be a bad idea.

Answer 5

One stat in their report I found pretty suspicious was an average rise in the oceans of .07 inches per year since 1963. That calculates out to 3 inches, which I believe would have resulted into some pretty significant intrusion into shorelines. I haven't read anything about that though, so I have to suspect that their "facts" are perhaps embellished just a bit to make them more spectacular.

Edit:

I've seen a bunch of the data and stuff that is supposed to back up their numbers, but common sense would lead one to believe that a 3 inch rise in ocean levels would cause some fairly spectacular flooding events. Yet there seems to be a paucity of such newsworthy events. That could lead one to believe that the numbers might not necessarily be completely correct. There also seems to be some issues with things like satellite calibration and interpretation of the data that means there is probably some sort of fudge factor involved. And anytime you throw in fudge factors, you throw in bias. That is what keeps skeptics from climbing fully on board, there has been too much fudging in the past for this to be truly convincing.

There may be a problem, but throwing crap like that out just gives reason to doubt the veracity of the claims made in the name of GW.

Answer 6

You would have to be about the most naive person on the planet to think the UN underestimated the problem or to assume that the "scientists" weren't political appointees with predetermined agendas. The lack of education in politics and science is certainly illuminated here.

Answer 7

some human beings have self assurance the ends justify the means. making use of deception and propaganda to attain those ends is misguided. yet once you have ever been to la, you recognize that air toxins is extremely very actual.

Answer 8

yep, money=power=control=one world govt. has nothing to do with the temp. of the earth