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Quoting David & Alison Webster <dwebster@glinx.com>:
>
> Hi Jim & All, Nov 21, 2006
> I watched that 5th Estate segment & came away with the belief that
> the global warming story is just another case of activists shooting
> themselves in the foot while bringing down harm on everyone else. If
> the case for global warming is so sound then why was so much time
> spent in attempts to discredit those who question it ? I may have
> blinked at the wrong time but I don't recall any evidence that the
> current warming trend is man-made as opposed to being a natural
> fluctuation.
Hi Dave: I didn't see the programme, but I this sounds perversely backwards.
Before any scientific study gets published in a credible journal it has
to pass
by 2-3 reviewers who act variably, but some of whom would be only too happy to
be nasty or find something wrong with it -- if you can't be original at least
you can be critical. By contrast, the folks in the White House who "edited"
the climate
report by scientists (if you saw that recent program too) didn't have
to answer
to anyone outside the Bush back room when they altered a foreboding prediction
"will happen" to read only "may possibly happen". A report some months ago I
think from Britain which doesn't seem to have been challenged seriously in
stuff I've seen, concluded that (from memory) the arctic sea ice will have
completely melted in summer in this century, the only uncertainty being
whether
it will take 45 or take ~60 years to get there (approx range, from
memory). Of
course since it is not 2060 yet, it would be possible to render this entirely
conjectural by amending it to say "possibly may be melted, given certain
debatable assumptions".
> If we assume that global warming, brought about by greenhouse
> gasses (CO2, CH4, etc), will at some future date lead to problems
> then certain changes in lifestyle are indicated. These changes in
> lifestyle, so far as I am aware, all come to a focus at one point; a
> need to decrease per capita energy consumption.
Indeed it might be advisable to reduce consumption, but the focus is not on
the Watts, but the Undesirable Byeproducts per Watt. If the Watts
were generated without greenhouse pollutants, e.g. photoelectrically, there
should be less of a future problem on top of the historical
accumulation, there
already.
>
> But these same changes in lifestyle are also indicated by problems
> that have been around for decades; smog, low-level ozone, acid rain,
> mercury pollution, urban sprawl and the associated degradation of
> watersheds and pollution of waterways to name a few that come to mind.
> Too much emphasis on hypothetical future problems draws attention
> from these current problems and provides a convenient excuse for
> inaction while the problem is 'studied'.
But these aren't independent new variables are they? Aren't 3 of the first 4
partly related to gas and other emissions from powerstations and cars?
>
> It is informative to look back a few years and observe the
> concerns of climatologists in 1975 (H. Lansford, Climate outlook:
> variable and possibly cooler Smithsonian 6(8): 140- 151). In the best
> traditions of Laputa, the future in 1975 also looked bleak but then
> the prospect was cooling of the Northern Hemisphere. "Most
> climatologists agree on one documented fact-- the Northern Hemisphere
> has been cooling off for the last quarter-century or so, especially
> in higher latitudes....This cooling, which began in the 1940s and
> became more pronounced after 1960, followed a warming trend that had
> begun in the 1880s....We feel that the downturn of temperature since
> 1950...represents a trend..." and "...cooler average temperatures in
> the Northern Hemisphere will continue for 20 or 30 years..."
> Based on a chart of global temperature over the last 860,000 years
> included in this 1975 article, on which there are about 10 peak
> temperatures and 11 glacial advances, we are due for a glacial
> advance within the next 20,000 years or so.
> Since this 1975 article was written (I think) these or similar
> fluctuations in temperature have been explained to a major extent by
> periodic astronomical fluctuations (orbital distance, axis tilt and
> (?) sun output). Does anyone know how temperature fluctuations of the
> last several centuries compare with fluctuations that would be
> expected on the basis of this astronomical model ? Is the current
> positive residual exceptional as compared with residuals over the
> last 15,000 years ? Was this astronomical model constructed from
> independently established astronomical constants or were the
> astronomical fluctuations derived by being fitted to the temperature
> curves ?
You have at least identified a real problem these days in knowing what to
believe and how to validate anything personally. Complex problems like
this are
nowadays usually simulated using computer models, the results from
which cannot
be guessed by simple intuition. Most of us don't either have the programs,
computing power, input data, expertise, time or money to check the
findings, so
have to rely (or not) on people who have, or on indirect reports of
their work.
So who would you choose to believe, someone who does this professionally using
government funds that are awarded independent of the result, in a competitive
field, or the major critics who are paid by the oil industry (in at least one
case in the criticism of the hockey stick model of global warming)?
[Would you
believe in the word of the tobacco industry execs given on TV ("not
addictive")
or that of medical analysts not paid by the tobacco industry ("more addictive
than heroin")? -- there are other examples].
I don't think a 1975 article can cut it in this context. For a start
on this,
you could try
http://www.realclimate.org/index/php?p=7
or try Wikipedia -> Michael Mann. Contrarily, if you google <hockey stick
model> you'll get over a million hits including these. According to
the Google
2-line blurb on some of the ones I looked at, many appear to be critical of
that model of global warming model, so there's plenty of counterculture stuff
out there. The thing would be to be careful of who is making the criticism,
and what their credibility and source of funding is if indeed that's revealed,
and to discount anything from the White House.
Maybe it's not yet as one-sided as the HIV debate where finally only one
credible scientist was against the tide that AIDS is caused by a specific type
of virus, but scientific opinion to my reading seems hugely lop-sided in
favour of global warming...
Steve
>
> Yours truly, Dave Webster, Kentville
>
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