Global Warming is a hoax.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1305394692' post='2241396']
I prefer Quenya to Klingon.

Si man i yulma enquantuva?
[/quote]
Whoa.. Tough call but I'd be happy to have fluency in either one.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1305408561' post='2241536']
Why do you object to stock ownership? Aren't those investors exposing themselves to financial risk by their partial ownership?
[/quote]


Not unless they are actually involved with the actual running of the buisness. I do not object to the term stock used as a method of keeping track of shares of ownership of those actually involved in the buisness, be it management or worker. I object to ownership being absracted to the point that ithe owner has no relation to the property owned. this is for a lot of reasons, but 2 simple ones... the "owner" is not responsable for the actions of the corportation, and fundementally I reject the notionthat you can own what you have no part in creating, moving, selling, etc.

That is very simple andpoorly explained, I would have to write you much longer explination totruely explain my position, but that will haveto wait.

[MithLuin]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1305413079' post='2241549']
Whoa.. Tough call but I'd be happy to have fluency in either one.
[/quote]

You can achieve greater fluency in Klingon because a more complete dictionary has been published. But Quenya sounds beautiful and expresses more interesting ideas

Aiya Earendil elenion ancalima!

[Socrates]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1305326791' post='2241055']
No need to read all that into it. The main idea was this: "I have no tolerance for anti-science activists marketing themselves and their agendas in Catholic terms." You feel differently about it, fine. But I wasn't making a sweeping statement about individuals who have worked with think tanks advocating the free market. I don't give a rat's a[s]ss about that stuff. I hate that most of the conservative Catholics I know seem to think that global warming denial and THE Catholic position, otherwise you're a liberal, and I believe magazines like [i]First Things[/i] contribute to this impression. Is it deliberate? I don't know. I don't care. I was just venting.[/quote]
Seems like you just hate Catholics disagreeing with you.

Most liberal Catholics seem to think that support for the global warming hysteria and for any and all dubious government programs proposed in the name of "fighting global warming" is THE Catholic position. Note how many liberal Catholics tout "the environment" as a "life issue" morally on par with abortion and euthanasia, and state or imply that not supporting the political environmentalist agenda (such as "cap-and-trade," etc.) is morally equivalent to voting pro-abortion. (this is, imo, usually a thinly disguised justification for supporting liberal pro-abortion candidates.)

Since, by your own admission, you don't read magazines like [i]First Things[/i], perhaps it's better that you don't pass judgment on them.

While you may not give a rat's a[s]ss about economic issues and the free market, some of us do, and believe that many environmentalist policies will be economically disastrous.

I have yet to see a convincing case that policies such as the Kyoto protocol, cap-and-trade, or bans on oil drilling, will have any effect on the environment which will justify their considerable economic costs. Even scientists convinced of the reality of man-made global warming say the actual effects of such policies on the climate will be close to nothing. The economic costs, on the other hand, are very real.



[quote]Whatever. I'll rip you a new one some time if you make me pist. Fair?[/quote]
This issue will only be resolved by a no-holds-barred cage fight.

Bring it on, space hippie.


[quote]The main point of that link-heavy post was to provide a collection of resources for people actually interesting in learning about climate science and not just learning talking points for "debunking" global warming. Because of scientific illiteracy many people are preyed upon by peddlers of misinformation. I'm pist about this.

I also added this snide remark:

"If you are unfamiliar with these journals, or unable to follow their contents, you really don't know anything about climate science. Sorry. You're still free to talk about of course, but please, have a little respect for those who have acquired the education and are doing the research."

I stand by this. I'm sick and tired of randos presuming to "critique" and "refute" a scientific consensus with a few canned factoids. This isn't directed at you, so no need to get pist, but this thread is full of it.[/quote]
Your face is full of it.

[Amppax]

You don't have to agree with how environmental issues are dealt with to agree that there is a problem, i think that is more of the issue. It seems a lot of people here equate the scientific theory with the political solutions offered, and thus reject both. It's a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1305568409' post='2242366']
Seems like you just hate Catholics disagreeing with you.

Most liberal Catholics seem to think that support for the global warming hysteria and for any and all dubious government programs proposed in the name of "fighting global warming" is THE Catholic position. Note how many liberal Catholics tout "the environment" as a "life issue" morally on par with abortion and euthanasia, and state or imply that not supporting the political environmentalist agenda (such as "cap-and-trade," etc.) is morally equivalent to voting pro-abortion. (this is, imo, usually a thinly disguised justification for supporting liberal pro-abortion candidates.)

Since, by your own admission, you don't read magazines like [i]First Things[/i], perhaps it's better that you don't pass judgment on them.

While you may not give a rat's a[s]ss about economic issues and the free market, some of us do, and believe that many environmentalist policies will be economically disastrous.

I have yet to see a convincing case that policies such as the Kyoto protocol, cap-and-trade, or bans on oil drilling, will have any effect on the environment which will justify their considerable economic costs. Even scientists convinced of the reality of man-made global warming say the actual effects of such policies on the climate will be close to nothing. The economic costs, on the other hand, are very real.




This issue will only be resolved by a no-holds-barred cage fight.

Bring it on, space hippie.



Your face is full of it.
[/quote]
That's too bad. Post something remotely relevant and substantive and I'll grace you with a response.

P.S. This thread is about the assertion that global warming is a hoax; that's what I've been talking about.

edit: for P.S.

Edited May 16, 2011 by Laudate_Dominum

[Winchester]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1305575911' post='2242458']
That's too bad. Post something remotely relevant and substantive and I'll grace you with a response.

P.S. This thread is about the assertion that global warming is a hoax; that's what I've been talking about.

edit: for P.S.
[/quote]
Your face is remotely.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1305575992' post='2242459']
Your face is remotely.
[/quote]
I wish you knew how hurtful your words can be...

[Groo the Wanderer]

[img]http://www.lolsaints.com/sites/lolsaints.com/files/imagecache/main-saint-image/saint-story-images/santa.jpg[/img]

[Socrates]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1305576136' post='2242463']
I wish you knew how hurtful your words can be...
[/quote]
They especially sting when coming from as attractive a woman as Winchester.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1305589015' post='2242557']
They especially sting when coming from as attractive a woman as Winchester.
[/quote]
Dude, refresh and checkout my new avatar. You've converted me.

[Groo the Wanderer]

[img]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tpMcww_5qlA/TUiLpp3j_TI/AAAAAAAACEo/rxXShmA3zmA/s1600/4129122989_547ff198b0.jpg[/img]

[Socrates]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1305591647' post='2242581']
Dude, refresh and checkout my new avatar. You've converted me.
[/quote]
amesome!

This oughtta confuse the hell out of everybody.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

[quote name='ironmonk' timestamp='1138675407' post='870478']
There is no such thing as "global warming" in the sense that it will send us into an ice age or just keep getting hotter.

Why do I say this? Because when we look back in history we see that the earth's temperature cycles vary from 100 to 250 years. Much longer than any of us will live. The earth cools and warms in cycles. We are living in a warming phase and it will start to cool back down within the next ten years, possibly five years.

The world is so many millions of years old, one volcano puts out more pollutants than we do in 10,000 years... more CFC's and more "green house gases" than we could ever do. 30 volcanoes erupt every year. So, for humans to do as much "damage" as one year of "damage" that volcanoes do it will take us 300,000 years... Now, what we do is a drop in the bucket when looking at the big picture.

What happens in our atmosphere to the bad gases? When the sun's UV rays hit oxygen they create ozone which is a bond between 3 oxygen atoms. Ozone is highly reactive and seeks out various gases, reacts with them, and turns them into somthing harmless - it's also a great way to kill germs. That is why if you put a UV light near the litter box it will help destroy foul odors. It is also why many safety glasses cabinets in chemistry classes have uv lights in them.

It's all a cycle.

Just look at the temperatures throughout history... grab a farmers almanac.

The media are a bunch of chicken littles and are very selective in what they show you. The "Sky is falling" gets more ratings than "We have nothing to worry about.".

As Public Enemy said "Don't believe the hype".

God Bless,
ironmonk
[url="http://www.CatholicSwag.com"]http://www.CatholicSwag.com[/url] <- Media zombie free
[/quote]

I like everything that you have said, but in that it can't hurt to be more ecologicaly sound, hoax or not we need to be better stewards of the earth we are starting to awakin to this fact, hoax or not. Aye vatican search blessed john paul the seconds opinion on it, i saw a homily of his on ecological conversion too.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Don't believe the global warming, Hoax or not? Vatican search ecological,ecology,enivironment,stewardship... any of these words, even if global warming is mis-interpreted(hoax is intentional) than listen/read to john paul the seconds homily on ecological conversion, and any how i only need to of read that, you all may have to search the entire collection of the vatican on these matters to believe, no?
God Bless
NAUGHTY NAUGHTY SLOTHFUL GAS GLUTTONS
Why you not walk to your local shops? Why you not catch a bus to the city and a taxi home?Why you not car pool? Why you not commit a saving spree for a petrol/eletric car? Why you not have water tanks on your garages/sheds collecting rain to water your gardens? Why you not get solar panels that work in cloud cover too on your roof,and sell it to the grid and give the money to the poor or even better purchase them a swag to sleep in at night and a drizabone coat, a beanie and fingerless gloves.(i only say fingerless because possibly many or some homeless smoke tobacco,can't roll your own with proper gloves)? WHY WHY WHY? Sorry this is not a vicious attack just some food for thought and prayer GOD bless you all.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Tab'le Du'Bah-Rye' timestamp='1306365365' post='2245985']
Don't believe the global warming, Hoax or not? Vatican search ecological,ecology,enivironment,stewardship... any of these words, even if global warming is mis-interpreted(hoax is intentional) than listen/read to john paul the seconds homily on ecological conversion, and any how i only need to of read that, you all may have to search the entire collection of the vatican on these matters to believe, no?
God Bless
NAUGHTY NAUGHTY SLOTHFUL GAS GLUTTONS
Why you not walk to your local shops? Why you not catch a bus to the city and a taxi home?Why you not car pool? Why you not commit a saving spree for a petrol/eletric car? Why you not have water tanks on your garages/sheds collecting rain to water your gardens? Why you not get solar panels that work in cloud cover too on your roof,and sell it to the grid and give the money to the poor or even better purchase them a swag to sleep in at night and a drizabone coat, a beanie and fingerless gloves.(i only say fingerless because possibly many or some homeless smoke tobacco,can't roll your own with proper gloves)? WHY WHY WHY? Sorry this is not a vicious attack just some food for thought and prayer GOD bless you all.
[/quote]


Well the USA is very very big. Someplaces people can and do walk or take public transportation. In other places, it is not so easy, FOr example if the nearist "local" grocery stor is 5 miles away and there is no public trasportation, you have to drive if youwant to carry any significaant food home, many people live farther than that and have no choice but to drive.

[Lil Red]

[img]http://static.images.memegenerator.net/Instances400/7/7782/7969313.jpg[/img]

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1306394112' post='2246142']
Well the USA is very very big. Someplaces people can and do walk or take public transportation. In other places, it is not so easy, FOr example if the nearist "local" grocery stor is 5 miles away and there is no public trasportation, you have to drive if youwant to carry any significaant food home, many people live farther than that and have no choice but to drive.
[/quote]


i live in a large state, and even though i live in an 'urban' area, unfortunately we've succumbed to 'urban sprawl' and it keeps getting worse. add in a poorly run public transportation system (no service on sundays, no 24 hour service, etc.), and it's not like it's easy to get around.

[Amppax]

[quote name='Lil Red' timestamp='1306395391' post='2246147']


i live in a large state, and even though i live in an 'urban' area, unfortunately we've succumbed to 'urban sprawl' and it keeps getting worse. add in a poorly run public transportation system (no service on sundays, no 24 hour service, etc.), and it's not like it's easy to get around.
[/quote]

wimps, build up your endurance

[Amppax]

I don't normally doc dump but I want to share the love in case anyone out there might be interested to read peer-reviewed research rather than random blogs, opinions, polemics, punditry, and the like. I don't feel motivated to discuss or debate any of this here, just throwing it out there. Anyway, here are some of the resources that I'm alluding to above (abstracts in the spoilers):

Scientia

Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change (PDF) (via Nature)[spoiler]Significant changes in physical and biological systems are occurring on all continents and in most oceans, with a concentration of available data in Europe and North America. Most of these changes are in the direction expected with warming temperature. Here we show that these changes in natural systems since at least 1970 are occurring in regions of observed temperature increases, and that these temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by natural climate variations alone. Given the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely to be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, and furthermore that it is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica, we conclude that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on physical and biological systems globally and in some continents.[/spoiler]

Climate change: Attributing cause and effect (related to the above)[spoiler]The climate is changing, and so are aspects of the world's physical and biological systems. It is no easy matter to link cause and effect — the latest attack on the problem brings the power of meta-analysis to bear.[/spoiler]

Anthropogenic carbon and ocean pH (PDF)[spoiler]Most carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of the burning of fossil fuels will eventually be absorbed by the ocean, with potentially adverse consequences for marine biota. Here we quantify the changes in ocean pH that may result from this continued release of CO2 and compare these with pH changes estimated from geological and historical records. We find that oceanic absorption of CO2 from fossil fuels may result in larger pH changes over the next several centuries than any inferred from the geological record of the past 300 million years, with the possible exception of those resulting from rare, extreme events such as bolide impacts or catastrophic methane hydrate degassing[/spoiler]

Methane hydrate stability and anthropogenic climate change [spoiler]Methane frozen into hydrate makes up a large reservoir of potentially volatile carbon below the sea floor and associated with permafrost soils. This reservoir intuitively seems precarious, because hydrate ice floats in water, and melts at Earth surface conditions. The hydrate reservoir is so large that if 10% of the methane were released to the atmosphere within a few years, it would have an impact on the Earth's radiation budget equivalent to a factor of 10 increase in atmospheric CO2.

Hydrates are releasing methane to the atmosphere today in response to anthropogenic warming, for example along the Arctic coastline of Siberia. However most of the hydrates are located at depths in soils and ocean sediments where anthropogenic warming and any possible methane release will take place over time scales of millennia. Individual catastrophic releases like landslides and pockmark explosions are too small to reach a sizable fraction of the hydrates. The carbon isotopic excursion at the end of the Paleocene has been interpreted as the release of thousands of Gton C, possibly from hydrates, but the time scale of the release appears to have been thousands of years, chronic rather than catastrophic.[/spoiler]

Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants (PDF)[spoiler]Over the past 100 years, the global average temperature has increased by approximately 0.6 °C and is projected to continue to rise at a rapid rate1. Although species have responded to climatic changes throughout their evolutionary history2, a primary concern for wild species and their ecosystems is this rapid rate of change3. We gathered information on species and global warming from 143 studies for our meta-analyses. These analyses reveal a consistent temperature-related shift, or 'fingerprint', in species ranging from molluscs to mammals and from grasses to trees. Indeed, more than 80% of the species that show changes are shifting in the direction expected on the basis of known physiological constraints of species. Consequently, the balance of evidence from these studies strongly suggests that a significant impact of global warming is already discernible in animal and plant populations. The synergism of rapid temperature rise and other stresses, in particular habitat destruction, could easily disrupt the connectedness among species and lead to a reformulation of species communities, reflecting differential changes in species, and to numerous extirpations and possibly extinctions.[/spoiler]

Detection of Anthropogenic Climate Change in the World's Oceans (Full PDF here)[spoiler]Large-scale increases in the heat content of the world's oceans have been observed to occur over the last 45 years. The horizontal and temporal character of these changes has been closely replicated by the state-of-the-art Parallel Climate Model (PCM) forced by observed and estimated anthropogenic gases. Application of optimal detection methodology shows that the model-produced signals are indistinguishable from the observations at the 0.05 confidence level. Further, the chances of either the anthropogenic or observed signals being produced by the PCM as a result of natural, internal forcing alone are less than 5%. This suggests that the observed ocean heat-content changes are consistent with those expected from anthropogenic forcing, which broadens the basis for claims that an anthropogenic signal has been detected in the global climate system. Additionally, the requirement that modeled ocean heat uptakes match observations puts a strong, new constraint on anthropogenically forced climate models. It is unknown if the current generation of climate models, other than the PCM, meet this constraint.[/spoiler]

A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems (PDF)[spoiler]Causal attribution of recent biological trends to climate change is complicated because non-climatic influences dominate local, short-term biological changes. Any underlying signal from climate change is likely to be revealed by analyses that seek systematic trends across diverse species and geographic regions; however, debates within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reveal several definitions of a 'systematic trend'. Here, we explore these differences, apply diverse analyses to more than 1,700 species, and show that recent biological trends match climate change predictions. Global meta-analyses documented significant range shifts averaging 6.1 km per decade towards the poles (or metres per decade upward), and significant mean advancement of spring events by 2.3 days per decade. We define a diagnostic fingerprint of temporal and spatial 'sign-switching' responses uniquely predicted by twentieth century climate trends. Among appropriate long-term/large-scale/multi-species data sets, this diagnostic fingerprint was found for 279 species. This suite of analyses generates 'very high confidence' (as laid down by the IPCC) that climate change is already affecting living systems.[/spoiler]

Acceleration of global warming due to carbon-cycle feedbacks in a coupled climate model (PDF)[spoiler]The continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide due to anthropogenic emissions is predicted to lead to significant changes in climate1. About half of the current emissions are being absorbed by the ocean and by land ecosystems2, but this absorption is sensitive to climate3, 4 as well as to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations5, creating a feedback loop. General circulation models have generally excluded the feedback between climate and the biosphere, using static vegetation distributions and CO2 concentrations from simple carbon-cycle models that do not include climate change6. Here we present results from a fully coupled, three-dimensional carbon–climate model, indicating that carbon-cycle feedbacks could significantly accelerate climate change over the twenty-first century. We find that under a 'business as usual' scenario, the terrestrial biosphere acts as an overall carbon sink until about 2050, but turns into a source thereafter. By 2100, the ocean uptake rate of 5 Gt C yr-1 is balanced by the terrestrial carbon source, and atmospheric CO2 concentrations are 250 p.p.m.v. higher in our fully coupled simulation than in uncoupled carbon models2, resulting in a global-mean warming of 5.5 K, as compared to 4 K without the carbon-cycle feedback.[/spoiler]

Quantifying the uncertainty in forecasts of anthropogenic climate change (PDF)[spoiler]Forecasts of climate change are inevitably uncertain. It is therefore essential to quantify the risk of significant departures from the predicted response to a given emission scenario. Previous analyses of this risk have been based either on expert opinion1, perturbation analysis of simplified climate models2, 3, 4, 5 or the comparison of predictions from general circulation models6. Recent observed changes that appear to be attributable to human influence7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 provide a powerful constraint on the uncertainties in multi-decadal forecasts. Here we assess the range of warming rates over the coming 50 years that are consistent with the observed near-surface temperature record as well as with the overall patterns of response predicted by several general circulation models. We expect global mean temperatures in the decade 2036–46 to be 1–2.5 K warmer than in pre-industrial times under a 'business as usual' emission scenario. This range is relatively robust to errors in the models' climate sensitivity, rate of oceanic heat uptake or global response to sulphate aerosols as long as these errors are persistent over time. Substantial changes in the current balance of greenhouse warming and sulphate aerosol cooling would, however, increase the uncertainty. Unlike 50-year warming rates, the final equilibrium warming after the atmospheric composition stabilizes remains very uncertain, despite the evidence provided by the emerging signal.[/spoiler]

Natural and anthropogenic climate change: incorporating historical land cover change, vegetation dynamics and the global carbon cycle (PDF)[spoiler]This study explores natural and anthropogenic influences on the climate system, with an emphasis on the biogeophysical and biogeochemical effects of historical land cover change. The biogeophysical effect of land cover change is first subjected to a detailed sensitivity analysis in the context of the UVic Earth System Climate Model, a global climate model of intermediate complexity. Results show a global cooling in the range of –0.06 to –0.22 °C, though this effect is not found to be detectable in observed temperature trends. We then include the effects of natural forcings (volcanic aerosols, solar insolation variability and orbital changes) and other anthropogenic forcings (greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols). Transient model runs from the year 1700 to 2000 are presented for each forcing individually as well as for combinations of forcings. We find that the UVic Model reproduces well the global temperature data when all forcings are included. These transient experiments are repeated using a dynamic vegetation model coupled interactively to the UVic Model. We find that dynamic vegetation acts as a positive feedback in the climate system for both the all-forcings and land cover change only model runs. Finally, the biogeochemical effect of land cover change is explored using a dynamically coupled inorganic ocean and terrestrial carbon cycle model. The carbon emissions from land cover change are found to enhance global temperatures by an amount that exceeds the biogeophysical cooling. The net effect of historical land cover change over this period is to increase global temperature by 0.15 °C.[/spoiler]

Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997[spoiler]The evolution of the Earth's climate has been extensively studied1, 2, and a strong link between increases in surface temperatures and greenhouse gases has been established3, 4. But this relationship is complicated by several feedback processes—most importantly the hydrological cycle—that are not well understood5, 6, 7. Changes in the Earth's greenhouse effect can be detected from variations in the spectrum of outgoing longwave radiation8, 9, 10, which is a measure of how the Earth cools to space and carries the imprint of the gases that are responsible for the greenhouse effect11, 12, 13. Here we analyse the difference between the spectra of the outgoing longwave radiation of the Earth as measured by orbiting spacecraft in 1970 and 1997. We find differences in the spectra that point to long-term changes in atmospheric CH4, CO2 and O3 as well as CFC-11 and CFC-12. Our results provide direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth's greenhouse effect that is consistent with concerns over radiative forcing of climate.[/spoiler]

Radiative forcing - measured at Earth’s surface - corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect (PDF)[spoiler]The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases and radiative forcing to increase as a result of human activities. Nevertheless, changes in radiative forcing related to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations could not be experimentally detected at Earth's surface so far. Here we show that atmospheric longwave downward radiation significantly increased (+5.2(2.2) Wm−2) partly due to increased cloud amount (+1.0(2.8) Wm−2) over eight years of measurements at eight radiation stations distributed over the central Alps. Model calculations show the cloud-free longwave flux increase (+4.2(1.9) Wm−2) to be in due proportion with temperature (+0.82(0.41) °C) and absolute humidity (+0.21(0.10) g m−3) increases, but three times larger than expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gases. However, after subtracting for two thirds of temperature and humidity rises, the increase of cloud-free longwave downward radiation (+1.8(0.8) Wm−2) remains statistically significant and demonstrates radiative forcing due to an enhanced greenhouse effect.[/spoiler]


Sociological

Expert credibility in climate change[spoiler]Although preliminary estimates from published literature and expert surveys suggest striking agreement among climate scientists on the tenets of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), the American public expresses substantial doubt about both the anthropogenic cause and the level of scientific agreement underpinning ACC. A broad analysis of the climate scientist community itself, the distribution of credibility of dissenting researchers relative to agreeing researchers, and the level of agreement among top climate experts has not been conducted and would inform future ACC discussions. Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field surveyed here support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers[/spoiler]

The organisation of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental scepticism (PDF)[spoiler]Environmental scepticism denies the seriousness of environmental problems, and self-professed ‘sceptics’ claim to be unbiased analysts combating ‘junk science’. This study quantitatively analyses 141 English-language environmentally sceptical books published between 1972 and 2005. We find that over 92 per cent of these books, most published in the US since 1992, are linked to conservative think tanks (CTTs). Further, we analyse CTTs involved with environmental issues and find that 90 per cent of them espouse environmental scepticism. We conclude that scepticism is a tactic of an elite-driven counter-movement designed to combat environmentalism, and that the successful use of this tactic has contributed to the weakening of US commitment to environmental protection[/spoiler]

Balance as bias: global warming andthe US prestige press (PDF)[spoiler]This paper demonstrates that US prestige-press coverage of global warming from 1988 to 2002 has contributed to a significant divergence of popular discourse from scientific discourse. This failed discursive translation results from an accumulation of tactical media responses and practices guided by widely accepted journalistic norms. Through content analysis of US prestige press— meaning the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, andthe Wall Street Journal this paper focuses on the norm of balanced reporting, and shows that the prestige press’s adherence to balance actually leads to biased coverage of both anthropogenic contributions to global warming andresultant action.[/spoiler]

How much should the public know about climate science? (PDF)[spoiler]The article in this issue of Climatic Change, by Shepardson et al., “Student Conceptions about the Greenhouse Effect, Global Warming, and Climate Change,” is more than a science education assessment study. This article confirms and adds to our understanding of what the broad public does and does not know about the science of climate change, and it raises several important questions. The subset of the public sampled in this research consists of 51 students, 39 in junior high school and 12 in high school, all of whom attend schools in small rural communities in the mi -western United States. We are told only a few other facts about these 51 students, such as that they completed the assessment study, “prior to any classroom instruction on the greenhouse effect, global warming, and climate change.”[/spoiler]

The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change[spoiler]Policy-makers and the public who are not members of the relevant research community have had to form opinions about the reality of global climate change on the basis of often conflicting descriptions provided by the media regarding the level of scientific certainty attached to studies of climate. In this Essay, Oreskes analyzes the existing scientific literature to show that there is a robust consensus that anthropogenic global climate change is occurring. Thus, despite claims sometimes made by some groups that there is not good evidence that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities, the scientific community is in overwhelming agreement that such evidence is clear and persuasive.[/spoiler]

Testing Time for Climate Science[spoiler]On 31 March 2010, a British parliamentary committee exonerated Philip D. Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, of personal wrongdoing in his conduct and management of research. Climate science fared less well. The Science and Technology Committee concluded in its report that the focus on a single individual had been misplaced: “we consider that Professor Jones's actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community” (1). Those practices included routine refusals to share raw data and computer codes. The committee judged that this had to change and that all future raw data and methodological work should be publicly disclosed.[/spoiler]

A slippery slope: How much global warming constitutes "dangerous anthropogenic interference"? (PDF)[spoiler]Are we on a slippery slope now? Can human-made global warming cause ice sheet melting measured in meters of sea level rise, not centimeters, and can this occur in centuries, not millennia? Can the very inertia of the ice sheets, which protects us from rapid sea level change now, become our bêete noire as portions of the ice sheet begin to accelerate, making it practically impossible to avoid disaster for coastal regions?[/spoiler]

American Risk Perceptions: Is Climate Change Dangerous? (PDF)[spoiler]Public risk perceptions can fundamentally compel or constrain political, economic, and social action to address particular risks. Public support or opposition to climate policies (e.g., treaties, regulations, taxes, subsidies) will be greatly influenced by public perceptions of the risks and dangers posed by global climate change. This article describes results from a national study (2003) that examined the risk perceptions and connotative meanings of global warming in the American mind and found that Americans perceived climate change as a moderate risk that will predominantly impact geographically and temporally distant people and places. This research also identified several distinct interpretive communities, including naysayers and alarmists, with widely divergent perceptions of climate change risks. Thus, “dangerous” climate change is a concept contested not only among scientists and policymakers, but among the American public as well.[/spoiler]

Managing the risks of climate thresholds: uncertainties and information needs (PDF)[spoiler]Human activities are driving atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations beyond levels experienced by previous civilizations. The uncertainty surrounding our understanding of the resulting climate change poses nontrivial challenges for the design and implementation of strategies to manage the associated risks. One challenge stems from the fact that the climate system can react abruptly and with only subtle warning signs before climate thresholds have been crossed (Stocker 1999; Alley et al. 2003). Model predictions suggest that anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions increase the likelihood of crossing these thresholds (Cubasch and Meehl 2001; Yohe et al. 2006). Coping with deep uncertainty in our understanding of the mechanisms, locations, and impacts of climate thresholds presents another challenge. Deep uncertainty presents itself when the relevant range of systems models and the associated probability density functions for their parameterizations are unknown and/or when decision-makers strongly disagree on their formulations (Lempert 2002). Furthermore, the requirements for creating feasible observation and modeling systems that could deliver confident and timely prediction of impending threshold crossings are mostly unknown. These challenges put a new emphasis on the analysis, design, and implementation of Earth observation systems and strategies to manage the risks of potential climate threshold responses.[/spoiler]


Fun Stuff:

IPCC Assessment Reports
How we know the extra CO2 is man-made and other carbon isotope fun
UCS "Human Fingerprints" Fact Sheet
Skeptical Science: Common Arguments
The heat is on: The impacts of climate change on species distributions (PDF)
Climate Change: How do we know? (NASA)

 

This was a fun thread. In light of Pope Francis' upcoming encyclical (and the already beginning dissent) here's a docudump from L_D. 

 

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