If I were you, I surely wouldn't listen to me. You should do what I did- read about the topic for a couple hundred hours. I think the late, great Michael Crichton was correct when he compared Global Warming Theory to Eugenics. Mass scientific hysteria is a scary thing. http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html I am also long past debating the subject. I would rather debate the Joseph Smith fraud in a room full of Mormons than engage Global Warming zealots.
The problem with global warming and reporters is that some reporters just love to grab hold of anything that looks vaguely persuasive and blow it out of proportion. For example, back in 2007, i read one article that said, 'Hey, we are currently in a cooling trend for the past 2 years, this completely negates the whole history of global warming, we are saved!' I so wanted to reach through the internet and strangle the person. Climate change needs hundreds and hundreds of years of sampling to really get an accurate measurement, I mean think about it, the Earth is huge and things happen on a ridiculously bigger scale than we humans, ESPECIALLY time-wise, but for some reason some humans think that the Earth behaves in accordance to human time, and so expected results within just 5 or 6 years. this is just a hiccup, unfortunately people like to believe in the convenient, and right now it's a helluva lot more convenient to do nothing about global warming than acting.
I didn't have time for a longer response at that moment. The article in the OP, it does not have anything that says global warming is not real, it only suggests that there might be a possibility that it can temporarily on hold, but if we just think that it is not happening because it is on hold, it will come back and bite us in the arse when that time is over, real hard. It's funny that as part of human nature, we are so short sighted when it comes to the time scale of 10 years or maybe 100 years. One hot summer and everyone goes like "Oh, global warming is here, our planet is becoming a burning hell." Then another cold winter ice storm later "our planet is freezing, just look at the 1 foot snow at my doorway, whoever said it's getting warmer are the biggest frauds in human history." It is a general consensus in the scientific community that by releasing a huge amount of carbon oxide and other green house gases, human activities disrupts the natural balance of the climate system and will have an effect on the global climate, and it most likely results in a global warming. However, as the earth is such a complicated system with numerous positive and negative feedback mechanisms to balance the weather, such as wind pattern, ocean current pattern, cloud pattern, ice cap pattern, plant growth, etc, no one can say with 100% certainty that it is going to get warmer. But the data from the past few centuries surely suggest an increase in temperature that is faster than any other period that we can track, and that human activity is the most probable reason for it. So from the data we have, and the things we know, it is most likely that if we just keep on doing the things we are doing, the global climate will get warmer on a 10 year or 50 year average basis. The earth has seen much dramatic climate changes in its 4 billion year history, we have not. And we don't know how it will affect our civilizations. But if we don't do anything, we will know, and probably we don't really want to know it.
And yet again you are betraying a lack of knowledge of the subject matter. The existence of the Ozone layer has been known for almost a 150 years, that industrial chemicals like CFC's destroy ozone has been known for almost 50 years and that ozone has been thinning since the '70's with discussion of phasing out CFC's since before the hole was discovered. A recurring ozone hole was observed in 1985 but studies of the ozone layer had been ongoing for decades well before that. Now its possible a hole in the ozone layer might be a natural phenomena but doesn't it seem like a strong correlation that ozone thins to the point of having a hole during a period of a higher than ever concentration of CFC's (non naturally occuring chemicals at that) and then once those are phased out we start seeing thinning of the ozone layer slow and even stop? I would say that is a pretty strong correlation.
You say exactly what people keep missing. The earth has seen dramatic climate changes in its history. We have not. That means that there were dramatic changes that we did not create. I believe that we need to change our energy habits because it's the right thing to do. I don't believe that false hysterical claims about whatever is the en vogue environmental crisis of the day should be a motivating factor and they certainly shouldn't be used by politicians for political gain.
Just to be clear I never gave a time frame on knowledge of the existence of the ozone layer nor did I think it relevant. It's a nice theory you present but this hole expands and contracts from the size of Antarctica to closed every year and probably has since the dawn of time. Forty years of data just isn't enough for me. One volcanic explosion creates far more ozone depleting chemicals than man has created since his existence. I'm glad you think you are knowledgeable on the subject but it looks more like gullible to me.
No one is saying that the Earth's climate doesn't change and that it hasn't changed at all. That is a ridiculous strawman. The argument regarding man made climate change is whether human activities are causing, or exacerbating, another change not that humans are solely responsible for that climate change. I'm willing to agree that we don't fully understand climate change and that it is possible that there may be little or no human affect on climate change. One problem though that I often see with the argument regarding global warming is that global warming skeptics often argue that politics is driving it yet their counter arguments are usually politically based themselves. Skeptics argue often "well their are dissenting voices and conflicting evidence and that these should be litsened too rather than the majority." True there are but that doesn't mean that dissenting voices are any more correct and in the end the burden of proof is on the skeptics to build up enough of a body of evidence to counter the majority opinion. The man made global warming theory is one that has a very solid body of evidence built up over decades of research it is far more than politics that drives it. The scientific debate while is important regarding why we should be worried about global warming is that there are some very severe consequences regarding it. We know for a fact that within recorded human history there have been climate swings that have been disastrous. The eruption of the Tambora volcano in 1815 dropped global temperatures and led to famine. Our civilization has developed within a very narrow mean global temperature and even minor changes could have severe repurcussions to human society. Given what the stakes are even with uncertainty it makes sense to address it. Think of this like fire insurance. My house might never catch on fire but given what is at stake it makes sense to have fire insurance. Scientifically yes man made global warming might be bunk but ignoring the risk might be disastrous. Finally even if it is bunk consider what we need to do combat man made global warming: reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, develop renewable energy sources, eliminate emmissions of things like methane and CO2. Consider how many benefits can come from those.
If it does every year since the dawn of time and there is 40 years of data wouldn't they have noticed it the first two years they studied it? Anyway now you are just ignoring the facts regarding that A. We know CFC's reduce Ozone. B. A hole in the Ozone layer was noted at a time of very high concentration of CFC C. While there are other natural sources of ozone depleting chemicals there hasn't been an incident in the time that an ozone hole to account for that formation of a hole. D. CFC's are being phased out. E. The diminishing of the ozone layer appears to be stabilizing, stopping and possibly reversing. I'm willing to conced that yes there may be other explanations but you would have to be willfully dense to ignore the facts and not see a correlation.
My question still stands. Where did you receive the training that allows you to distinguish good science from bad well enough to say that the many people who say global warming is caused by man are wrong and the relatively few who say it is not are right?
So the next question is was it really that bad to make the changes to reduce CFCs? I don't think it hurt us all that much. So if the correlation is in fact causation, then we solved the issue by taking action. If it wasn't, then no harm no foul (or very little harm no foul). To me, that same logic applies to climate change. It will be harder to make the proposed changes to reduce carbon emissions than it was to reduce the use of CFCs, but it won't be devastating. If we do it I'm guessing things won't be that bad after it's done. (I won't even mention the proposed ancillary benefits with making these changes.) So why not go ahead and do it? If the many scientists who believe it will help are right then woo hoo! If they are wrong, then oh well, little harm no foul. Better safe than sorry. In my opinion.
Carbon dioxide emissions is making the seas more acidic. A lot of fishies will start to thin out once coral and plankton stop growing like they used to. Global warming is a blind man's version of environmentalism. Proof of our damage is all around us but the media chooses a topic against a group with the means and money to obscure everything.
The guy in the article says that global warming is on hold 1. some cooling trends are countering it and will continue to do so for a little while. 2. global warming will commence with a vengeance after this period. I don't think he was getting paid from Exxon or anything. In fact, he seems to be a "proponent" of global warming and is merely theorizing about the reasons for the colder 2008 we had.
Did you read the whole article? The Swanson guy goes on to say that warming will be "explosive" and "aggressive" after this short period which might last up to 30 years. I don't think global warming means that temperatures are supposed to go up every single year. It's a general trend that is more important. 7 (or 30) years is a blip. Swanson was merely theorizing reasons for the blip.
You're right about this, unfortunately (I have not checked, but this thread makes it pretty obvious) this article/study will become a cause celebre of the right wing blogosphere and then permeate out into the echo chamber - that's a sure bet. Part of the reason for that is the way it is presented by the non-scientists writing the article. The last global warming thread I posted in I linked to this, I doubt anybody read it but it's worth reading as a case study in the typical tactics of the GW Denier crew. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/warm-reception-to-antarctic-warming-story/
