So much for Global Warming

Discussion in 'Economics' started by jficquette, Dec 10, 2008.

  1. Read some United Nations documents, there are a whole bunch. There are long term ideas on where this whole movement will lead.
     
    #51     Dec 11, 2008
  2. Ohh boy, don't comment on science when you apparently know nothing about it.

    Scientists CANNOT produce whatever "FACTS" they want. As I have stated before, THERE ARE NO FACTS in science, only EVIDENCE. DO you know why they can't do that? Because there are things called journals, where you have to publish your findings/theories. Everything you show is analyzed by others. If others cannot reproduce your findings, guess what happens?

    If there is sufficient evidence for something and has been reproduced by others, than it becomes an accepted theory. THEORY, NOT FACT. Theories change ALL THE TIME and many are shown to be inaccurate.

    Science in not like religion. In religion, everything is absolute fact and truth. In science, nothing is absolute truth and fact because theories are constantly revised based on new evidence. I know this goes against everything 90% of people believe, which is a shame and a disgrace.

    There is nothing more exciting for a scientist to run an experiment and get completely opposite results than what they expected.
     
    #52     Dec 11, 2008
  3. what's up with the secrecy? please enlighten us already about the real cause of global warming. i am not going to read some UN documents unless i have some reason to. i wont laugh, promise!
     
    #53     Dec 11, 2008
  4. Cal-Berkeley physicist and Noble Prize Winner (1997), Steven Chu just became the Secretary of Energy under President elect Obama.

    Should be a much more interesting Department given Professor Chu's background.
     
    #54     Dec 11, 2008
  5. piezoe

    piezoe

    As a former scientist, though not a meteorologist, in yet another life, i have followed with great interest the global warming controversy for years, have read some of the peer reviewed papers, particularly Linzer's controversial ones from MIT. My own conclusions so far are:

    1. There is quite convincing evidence that we are in warming period with respect to certain regions of the Earth, and at present ocean temperature provides the the most precise data to support the global warming hypothesis.

    2. The mechanism by which CO2 and other greenhouse gases convert shorter wavelength light to longer wavelength infrared which appears as heat when absorbed is well understood.

    3. Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, and when both abundance and absorption are taken into account, is about 3 times more important than CO2. However water vapor content of air is more variable than CO2, and this variance causes difficulty when attempting to model the Earths atmosphere.

    4. There are, so far, no models of the Earth's atmosphere that can be relied on, as they all have so many adjustable parameters of uncertain value that they may be manipulated to agree with past observation, but can not be relied on to give accurate predictions of future observations. An additional complication that makes accurate modeling of the Earths atmosphere difficult is interaction of the Earths flora with CO2.

    5. Anthropomorphic CO2 may be an important factor in determining the Earths temperature, but it is not yet known how important it is in comparison with other factors.

    6. The CO2 content of the Atmosphere has varied widely over the past ten thousand years and accurate values for CO2 content during this time period are available from ice core samples. The current CO2 content is about as high or a somewhat higher than it has been for at least ten thousand years.

    7. According to some credible sources, atmospheric and ocean temperatures are at least as well, and perhaps better, correlated with solar activity as they are with CO2 content.

    8. While it seems to be true that the vast majority of scientists believe that Anthropomorphic CO2 is causing global warming, the experts in atmospheric science are divided on the issue. They fall into three camps: those convinced one way or the other and those that are uncertain. Some even believe that it is possible for Anthropomorphic CO2 to cause global cooling by yet another mechanism.

    9. While it is accepted by all that the Earths atmosphere is responsible for trapping heat in the troposphere, it could, so far as is now known, be true that the present warming is due to several factors and anthropomorphic CO2 is not a very important factor, or possibly has even an opposite effect; yet it might be a very good idea to curb CO2 emissions anyway. So even if the present hypothesis linking anthropomorphic CO2 with warming turns out to be wrong, cutting CO2 emissions may be worthwhile, and economically justifiable, for other reasons.

    10. The global warming controversy is of questionable origin and arose from what was apparently a misunderstanding of testimony years ago before a congressional committee. Nevertheless, and in spite of this, the scientific inquiry that resulted appears to be justified.

    It seems to me that the jury is still out, but that it is better to be safe than sorry. I accept the argument that even if the anthropomorphic CO2 global warming connection turns out to be false or insignificant, there are sound arguments favoring curtailing of CO2 emissions, and also i might add that these same arguments can be used to explain why, from a human perspective, deforestation and general despoiling of the Earths ecosystem is a very bad idea. Regardless, wouldn't it be best to let our actions be determined by science rather than sensationalized media reports and politics?
     
    #55     Dec 11, 2008
  6. Gee whiz guys, everything you need to know about global warming can be found by googling "Lehman global warming".

    Fuld is a Democrat, Reps don't want any part of global warming, bad for business, Paulson left a wide open money opp open here with the failure of Lehman, of course this is just a lameass theory.
     
    #56     Dec 11, 2008
  7. The good thing is that Obama has also plans of changing the way USA relates with the nature, it is he’s green. He is pushing for the automakers to start developing fuel-efficient vehicles so that says a lot about the position of the nation on front of the global warming situation, at least part.
     
    #57     Dec 11, 2008
  8. the only conclusive facts right now are that human activity has caused co2 levels to rise and that global mean temperature is higher than 70 years ago. from that it is erroneous to conclude that human activity is a significant cause of global warming.

    hell, scientists don't know enough about the earth's atmosphere to even reliably predict the weather 3 days from now. and they think they can theorize the cause of something as complex as global warming? it's laughable.
     
    #58     Dec 11, 2008
  9. dalengo

    dalengo

    From Giaver's Nobel lecture: "The concept that a particle
    can go through a barrier seemed sort of strange to me, just struggling with quantum mechanics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, where I took formal courses in Physics. For an engineer it sounds rather strange that if you throw a tennis ball against a wall enough times it will eventually go through
    without damaging either the wall or itself. That must be the hard way to a Nobel Prize!" http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1973/giaever-lecture.pdf

    As is evident from his quote above, Mr Giaver did not understand the effect (electron tunneling) that he scored the Nobel prize for. I think that one can safely ignore his opinions about other subjects he has no idea about, like global warming, Immunology, Tissue Culture, Manipulating Single Molecules, etc.
     
    #59     Dec 11, 2008
  10. Correlation != Causation
     
    #60     Dec 11, 2008