"Lomborg denies he has performed a volte face, pointing out that even in his first book he accepted the existence of man-made global warming. "The point I've always been making is it's not the end of the world," he told the Guardian. "That's why we should be measuring up to what everybody else says, which is we should be spending our money well." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 09-15-10 07:06 AM http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...3716526782.html After years of being accused of believing something I didn't believeâor, more accurately, not believing something I really didâI made headlines last month for changing my mind even though I hadn't. Confused? Imagine how I feel. It's worth explaining what happened to me because it tells us something important about why the global warming debate has produced so little in the way of results. First, a little background. Ever since 2001, when I published "The Skeptical Environmentalist"âa book in which I argued that the world's environmental problems were getting betterâI've been wrongly accused of being a global warming denier. The fact that I've always asserted the reality of man-made climate change never seemed to make an impression on my critics. What mattered was that I had the temerity to question two key tenets of the received wisdom about global warming: I was skeptical of the idea that we were facing the apocalypse, and I didn't accept that the only solution was to mandate drastic cuts in carbon emissions. That's the way it is with heresyâthere is no middle ground. Either you believe global warming is the worst problem mankind has ever faced and that cutting carbon is the only solution, or you are an antiscientific ignoramus who probably thinks the Earth is flat."
Uhh, because in the distant past other factors were initially causative, but now there's a new primary causative factor? It's a fucking feedback loop, should we be amplifying it? It's a circle, does it matter where we start on it? "In the past mercury was released into the environment by volcanoes, therefore it's ok for Man to release mercury into the environment."
This conversation proves my point. It's still a debate... The answer isn't conclusive, even amongst the scientific community. Humans are often uncomfortable admitting that they simply don't have the answers.
Yes, but unfortunately, too many smarts in science are stooges for religion, politics, and superstition. Being an A+ in math and biology isn't enough. They must think independently if they want to call themselves true scientists.
And here's a headline in my local newspaper: "Women Kills Two, Eats Self in Hack/Slash Bloodfest." I'm not sure how that makes a difference, but I will repeat it for you: global average temperatures have never been higher. There was a high in the Holocene period, but it was limited to certain regions. Because higher temperatures cause a greater release of CO2 from mossy, artic land masses. Guess what that CO2 causes? Higher temperatures!
1. Now you are playing games... You have already admitted temperatures were higher in the past. Are you now denying it? 2. We are trying to isolate the variable here. If warming precedes CO@ accumulation in past earth cycles... how do you know that anything man is doing matters? Even if Richter is right and its a feedback loop... so what... the earth is in a warming trend and will accumulate CO2... does it matter if man helps nature accumulate the CO2. How would you know? You can't know. For all you know getting to the max CO2 level more quickly could be a good or bad thing.
You're very confused. Of course temperatures were higher in the past (eg. when Earth was a flaming ball of lava, for example) but they have not been higher in recorded history. "Recorded history" has a definition that is different than the entire past. Well, apart from the obvious circumstantial evidence (such as a car putting out tons of CO2 over it's lifetime) there's also the proof that the excess CO2 is coming from man-made sources. The indisputable proof was produced when scientists studied the ratio of man-made carbon isotopes in the atmosphere and discovered the ratio of man-made CO2. We can know, and we do know. There are worldwide measurements that the Earth is heating up, and we know that there will be consequences from this. Since we already know that CO2 absorbs solar energy in two different ways (and you can do an experiment to verify this, if you wanted) we KNOW how much heat is captured in the atmosphere. It isn't projection or estimation that CO2 molecules absorb heat, this is verified fact. Many CO2 molecules absorb that much more heat.
Let me feed this to you slowly.... The ice cores show that temperatures cycle. The ice cores show the earth warms and cools. The ice cores show the earth warms and then C02 accumulates. That is what we know... that is the science. You are now arguing we are contributing to CO2 accumulation. Ok. contributing to CO2 accumulation is not the same as saying man caused global warming. Like I said you do not even know if what we do matters. The CO2 accumulated in the past without man.
Recorded history. Let me pin this down so we can see if you are bullshitting us or not. When you say temperatures were never higher... how far back in time does your statement extend.