Comments on: Climate Skepticism

By: mary k kelley

mary k kelley — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 19:11:22 +0000

If one studies the evidence of climate change in prehistory, one realizes that the earth’s climate has changed from hotter to colder and back many,many times. Often these changes have happened fairly rapidly.Since this has happened many times over without human influence, why is it necessary to posit humans as the cause now? This seems to me to be where the “religion” aspect of AGW comes in: guilt and punishment.

By: Nestor

Nestor — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:41:43 +0000

“Note, ironically, the rest of the world is not so short-sighted. US know-how is going into solar cell production”

Yes, by way of Govt Spending they are not viable in any market place where competition exists

Look at what happened to Spanish solar projects and the failures of big loans to US solar companies.

Solar is a nice idea and may some day be a viable, but the scale issue is at this time insurmountable in that yes you can power a home (at great cost) but to power say an Aluminum Plant that is needed to make the solar cells etc… not so much. I know reality is a harsh mistress.

By: Nestor

Nestor — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:24:52 +0000

Solar forcing is at least as good a plausibility and has a better record of being in track with the provable records.

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 13:38:24 +0000

Why wouldn’t anyone who believes in AGW celebrate temporary cooling?

By: danake

danake — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 03:35:02 +0000

co2 from humans is causing Global Warming? How could that be if it has been warmer in the past? And co2 is very low by historical standards? It doesn’t make sense. Unless you want to get rich from tax & carbon trading schemes. “Heaven & Earth” is a recent good book to read for some info. There are many others.

By: Decorator Girl

Decorator Girl — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 18:39:15 +0000

Oh boy, I love The President . Anyone see his latest approval ratings?

By: Craig Green

Craig Green — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:26:51 +0000

I am delighted with the mostly reasoned, respectful debate going on here. Though we may have some factual and philosophical differences, it is refreshing to see them presented in an adult and constructive manner.

Thanks to all for your contributions and comments on my previous post.

By: Seth Manapio

Seth Manapio — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:16:02 +0000

“And, I suspect that most climate scientists feel pretty intimidated by the complexity of those systems as well.”

If they don’t, they should. The climate is not merely complex, it is non-computable. That is, we don’t know what all the variables are, we don’t know precisely how they interact, and even if we did, the sensitivity to initial conditions renders the entire equation non-computable. This is a problem, because we also must rely on computational climate models to make strong predictions.

But the overarching hypothesis about the greenhouse effect itself is well supported, as is the note that human civilization responds differently to feedback than prior natural systems. For example, our CO2 emissions increase under every feedback mechanism that alters the local temperature from a point that we find very comfortable. Think about that and compare it to the way that plants respond to extreme discomfort! So basic hypothesis is strong, but precise predictions–as Steven points out–are difficult if not impossible to produce.

However, the current situation is that some important factors, such as rates of ice melt, were drastically underestimated when compared to the reality.

http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/26/nature-dynamic-thinning-of-greenland-and-antarctic-ice-sheets-glacier/

That’s a bad thing. It points to a problem that many Climate Science skeptics seem to miss: the fact that the system is impossible to predict well does not mean that the problem is not as bad as the models show. The problem could in fact be much worse. We don’t–and can’t–know which.

Given that situation, it just makes sense to take reasonable steps to prepare for extreme scenarios and to try to lighten our climate footprint.

By: Seth Manapio

Seth Manapio — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:40:55 +0000

Who expected the current warming? Can you point us to the literature that backs up that claim, that is, a paper or set of papers containing that prediction? What was the mechanism that caused the warming in the 11th century? Where can I find the peer reviewed literature on that?

By: GoneWithTheWind

GoneWithTheWind — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:19:09 +0000

The bottom line is there is zero evidence that man has caused global warming. There is a theory but no evidence. This is the 33rd global warming since the last ice age and man didn’t cause the previous 32 of them either. This particular global warming was expected and is occurring on schedule. It is not as hot as the last global warming in the 11th century but it was caused by the same things. The 33rd global cooling will follow this the 33rd global warming and it will be the gloal cooling that will cause serious harm. It will be impossible to grow enough food to feed our present 6.5 billion world population in a global cooling. Don’t fear global warming it is in fact pretty benign and has allowed humans to flourish. Beware the minimum.