Global warming: Fact or fiction?

Neither stance can be proved. Impossible to answer definitively.

Global warming is a theory. To ignore the possibility is reckless if the theory come to fruition.

I don't know, but I do believe we are naive is believing we are killing the earth. We will make the earth inhabitable for us and we will die out, but the earth is much bigger than we are at this point.

How many years has the earth been around for???.... Over 4.5 BILLION YEARS!!!

Has the earth gone through a cooling down phase before? YES, many times.

Has the earth gone through a warming phase before? YES, many times.

Where humans on earth when warming trends were higher then they are now? NO, far more times were no humans on earth when it was warmer and could support human life.

Whether we humans are here or not, the overall warming and cooling of the earth will continue REGARDLESS!!!

What we should be dealing with is localized warming due to pollution of industry and transportation as that is REAL! It is not a global problem as not all areas are seeing these weather related problems. Deal with the problems on a local scale where one can actually make a difference instead of trying to change the world's view which will never happen if at the local level people believe it's all a scam.

The question should be whether humans are contributing to it or are responsible for it. Naturally, Earth goes through changes.

Not the greatest question. The world is getting hotter, fact. Why? Hmmm...

The only question and the one for debate is whether human's are responsible for part and all of the global warming. Temperatures have risen and fallen (there was a mini ice age relatively recently) and sea levels have risen and fallen.

There is also no question that temperatures are increasing.

Personally, I believe that there is no doubt that human's are responsible for a large part of these increased temperatures but not all. However we can change our impact which will result in a slower increase in temperatures than we are seeing.

I believe the correct expression is, climate change. Climate change is not a myth! The polar ice caps are melting at an ever increasing rate. The extra CO2 released into the atmosphere is directly related to the warming of the earth. Admittedly, records from the pre-industrialized era are non-existent, however, core samples from the ice caps show much lower levels of CO2 in the atmosphere 500 years ago. Denying the fact that the earth is warming and sea levels are rising is very foolish. Just recently, scientists have found fish species moving further away from the equator due to the oceans warming. This will have disastrous effects on fish populations as native fishes are displaced. I wouldn't recommend buying any waterfront property.

Global warming is widely accepted as a reality by scientist and even by previously doubtful government and industrial leaders. However there is a 90% likelihood that humans are contributing to the change. Studies indicate that climate change scenarios in which greenhouse gases emitted from human activities cause global warming best explain the observed changes in Earth's climate. Climate change models that use only natural variation can't account for the significant warming that has occurred in the last few decades.

The earth is getting warm now and the concentration of green house gases is getting higher. The point scientists are split on is whether it is due to the human activity or not and what the future is like if this is continuing. It is highly likely that the earth continues to get warm. But the earth would have a strong buffering effect or a slight change in the earth trajectory would make the temp lower. Since there are too many factors scientists need to think in order to predict the future, it is difficult to say the global warming is 100% fact or fiction. But I think the possibility is really high.

I believe the world is warming up, but I don't believe Man is the prime cause.

I believe looking at the polar ozone has proven that climate change has been changing at a far faster rate than in the past. I don't deny that Earth is constantly changing and temperatures go up and down, but to actually witness these kinds of changes in your lifetime is not natural. I do believe we have the power to terraform on a large scale and thus we can also destroy the Earth at an ever faster rate. I'm not just walking about global warming, but all the other pollutants we pump into the atmosphere.

This question should be worded to include the ideas that humans are directly to it and that it is harmful to the environment.

That is where the so called debate is occurring although mainly only in the popular media. Scientists are near unanimously in agreement that man made global warming is real and a danger.

the fact that 20% of people out there say fiction even given the broad wording of the question is troubling but given public opinion on the matter in the U.S. it could be far worse I suppose

I believe the correct expression is, climate change.

I agree, I wish we could lose the expression global warming because it gives the wrong impression.

Im not a scientist but theres a couple of proven point that I can share.

The distance between the earth and the sun is getting smaller day by day. Not fast, but a proven fact (Believe its called Space with Sam Neill) that showed it as a fact.

The world is being deforested in a rapid speed. Less trees means less oxygen so the earth is heating up easier because of that.

Loads of charts are showing that the earth is getting warmer every year.

Once again im no scientist but this is all i know for facts.

I believe the world is warming up, but I don't believe Man is the prime cause

So you do believe that man is contributing to this. As well you might - we are releasing greenhouse gases at an alarming rate - CO2 that has been locked away for billions of years is being pumped into the atmosphere. But do we care enough to do anything about it?

Fact, there has been no statistical increase in global warming in 16 years. None.

Fact, arctic and antarctic ice are increasing quickly. Ice in the antarctic is at the highest levels ever recorded. Arctic ice has accumulated at a record pace this year.

Fact, not all scientists agree that global warming is occurring, or exists. The IPCC reports are not pure scientific documents, they are reports made for policy makers (politicians) who have the full authority to edit these reports as they wish, usually with the intent to promote their particular political strategy. Those scientists who do not produce "science" which agrees with the underlying policy risk losing part of the $1 billion spent every day worldwide to "fight climate change".

Fact, not a single IPCC sientist's warming prediction or computer model has proven accurate, not one. All predicted significant warming for the past 15 years. There was absolutely none.

Fact, the current IPCC report, AR-5, of Sept 2013, has downgraded projections of increased warming, and now includes slight cooling within it's margin of error.

Fact, the latest report also hints that CO2 may not be as significant a greenhouse gas as was previously argued in the four previous reports.

Fact, global warming is still a "theory", and cannot be stated as 100% fact, even by the scientists who most fully support it.

Fact, the closest temperature meauring station near my home is located in the part of the neighborhood which gets the most direct sunlight, and is located only 1.5 meters above the black asphalt roadway. The station in the next district is similarly placed. No wonder it seems like the weather is getting hotter.

@papigiulio

The distance between the earth and the sun is getting smaller day by day. Not fast, but a proven fact (Believe its called Space with Sam Neill) that showed it as a fact.

The Earth's orbit is elliptical so "day by day" it can be getting closer or further away. The moon's average distance is slowly increasing, and the sun's output is getting stronger, both of which will have more effect on Earth in the long run, BUT we are talking on a scale of millions/billions of years, not the changes we are seeing over decades as a result of man-made climate change.

"I believe the world is warming up, but I don't believe Man is the prime cause." maybe you should spend about 20 seconds or more ACTUALLY educating yourself about scientific FACTS that have been reported on for more than a DECADE now.

@inakaRob

Save your breath, Bro. Arguing with manmade climate-change deniers is like banging your head against a brick wall. The wall stays there, thick as the bricks it's made of, while you get a headache.

Wast of time.

@davestrousers: Thank you for clearing that up :)

Wast of time.

Tell me, how much warming was predicted to occur by 2013 by the UN and the IPCC? According to the IPCC report AR2 (released in 1995 BTW), the world should have warmed up between 1 and 1.5 degrees Celsius by now.

How much has it really increased?

Zero.

I like how what once were called "skeptics" are now called "deniers". Perhaps eventually those who don't believe in AGW science will be called infidels or heretics?

Before taking sides, why not read the various IPCC reports themselves? The drafts of these reports also make good reading, and are rather eye-opening. It is better to see for yourself than to believe simply what you are told to believe.

I might be dissuaded from being skeptical if the world were actually getting warmer.

@sangetsu03

While Wikipedia might not be the most perfect of sources, here it's merely citing another source:

"...researchers from George Mason University analyzed the results of a survey of 489 American scientists working in academia, government, and industry. Of those surveyed, 97% agreed that that global temperatures have risen over the past century and 84% agreed that "human-induced greenhouse warming" is now occurring, only 5% disagreeing that human activity is a significant cause of global warming.["

Would you seriously have us believe that 474 eminent scientists are so ignorant of the basic facts?

If 474 doctors told you you needed an operation to save your life and fifteen told you it wasn't necessary, would you really decide against it?

10,000 years ago we were in an ice age such that one could walk across separate continents, but obviously now we can't, so of course there's already global warming. Now whether or not that's accelerating and how much human activities are affecting it (the earth itself affects it so that's always a big factor, but is it the only significant factor?), that's why we cannot stop studying this and find out more.

Would you seriously have us believe that 474 eminent scientists are so ignorant of the basic facts?

Absolutely. I know academics who are at the top of their specialities, but who can't figure out how to work an air conditioner, balance their checkbooks, or housetrain their dogs. I am not going to ask a professor of literature about his opinion on AGW, I probably wouldn't trust him to recommend a good coffee shop, let alone a science entirely outside his discipline.

The biggest study of concensus, and the one which most press reports refer to, is the 2009 AGU survey, conducted at rhe University of Illinois, which was sent to 10257 earth scientists asking if they believed in AGW. It was a simple, two-word survey, but only 3000 scientists responded to it. 82% answered "yes". Of these 3000 respondees, only those who had been successful in getting more than half of their work accepted for the peer review process climate were considered qualified to part of the final results. This number amounted to 77 scientists. 75 agreed that AGW was occurring, two didn't, giving us the famous "97% of scientists agree AGW is real". So out of 10257, the final number of 75 somehow equals 97%, but then much of the climate science which goes on today uses similar formulas.

More than 30,000 scientists, 9000 of which have PH.D.s have signed a petition stating that they disagree with the "consensus". But you'll never see that reported.

The problem with this whole debate is the amount of misinformation out there, most of which is half-true, but from which is extrapolated false conclusions. Some examples?

The world goes through natural cycles of heating and cooling, therefore global warming is natural. The first part is definitely true. Unfortunately, natural warming can always be traced back to 4 core natural causes including the earth's tilt and increased solar activity, none of which are present currently, making natural warming unlikely.

Human activity only accounts for 5% of all carbon released each year, with 95% coming from natural causes. It is a fact that the vast bulk of carbon released into the atmosphere is natural. From this, statistics have been drawn up taking into account pollution increases which show just how low our carbon influence is on the atmosphere. Unfortunately this conclusion is false. The natural carbon system not only release carbon, but it reabsorbs it, reabsorbing about the same as it releases. What we add is on top of that and is most not reabsorbed, which means it is cumulative. Each year, we are adding to the total carbon far more than nature is.

The world has in fact been cooling. For a while this was true. 1998 was an unusually warm year, so the following years were cooler. However, when the one exception is removed, there is a clear decade by decade trend upward, and recent years have now surpassed 1998 making this statement not only technically wrong, but completely wrong now.

This just shows how complicated the issue is. Simple slogans (and most "facts") are misleading. This is not an argument that can clearly given in a few words in a newspaper or a few minutes on TV.

I suppose that's why we should rely on the advice of scientists. When scientists told us what CFCs were doing to the ozone layer we acted and that's a success story. Unfortunately fossil fuels are not as easy to phase out and even though the problem is recognised by almost all scientists advising every major government, the will to do anything significant about it and the ability to coordinate globally is not there. Its not even conceivable really. I think an inevitable, extremely dire situation is fully anticipated internally by most governments but its not the done thing to admit that we're not going to do much about it, rather keep the token gesture efforts going (a lot of which are so badly thought out they just antagonise climate change skeptics to take an even harder stance).

The world has in fact been cooling. For a while this was true. 1998 was an unusually warm year, so the following years were cooler. However, when the one exception is removed, there is a clear decade by decade trend upward, and recent years have now surpassed 1998 making this statement not only technically wrong, but completely wrong now.

The problem with the science is that the world is 4.5-odd billion years old, and our ability to meaure simple temperatures goes back less than two centuries, and the accuracy of these early measurements is questionable. Analyzing the fossil record and ice cores provides more information, but with a wide margin of error. The annual cycles of CO2 creation and absorbtion are miniscule parts of a larger cycle which fluctuates not over decades or centuries, but over millenia. It's not unlikely that human beings will no longer exist by the time the next extreme of the cycle occurs.

The main flaw with the UN's IPCC reports is that these reports do their best to ignore natural influences to climate change, and focus mainly on man-made causes. In a world which is billions of years old, but which human beings have been industrialized for only a couple of centuries, there is simply not enough data to make even a shadow of a guess as to what the long-term influences of anthropogenic activity will have. Any scientist who states otherwise is simply lying.

The climate is certainly changing, it always has, it has never throughout the history of the world remained stable. It has been far warmer in the past, and CO2 levels have been far higher in history, all climate scientists know this, yet we here the word "unprecedented". If one looks in the fine print under such declarations, one of course finds a disclaimer such as "in modern history", or in the '"post-Colombian history". It's all garbage. Trying to stop the climate from changing is as possible as trying to stop the sun from shining.

Satellite temperature measurements of the world's sea levels and temperatures have existed since the 1970's, yet only in AR5 is satellite data given a cursory glance. The IPCC still insists on using ground-based thermometers to provide their data. The number of these thermometers has decreased by two-thirds over the last 50 years, others have been moved, so accurate, long-term readings are simply not possible. I mentioned the location of the two thermometers I know of, which for some reason are located in the hottest possible locations in my area. Is this by accident?

I go back to chapter 8 of the UN's 1995 IPPC report on climate change, AR2, which reads as follows: "Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced." It also said, "No study to date has positively attributed all or part of observed climate changes to anthropogenic causes."

Chapter 8 was of course changed to "conform with the wishes of policy makers" without consulting the original group of scientists who performed the peer-review process. The sentences above were removed, and replaced with: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on climate." This sentence was neither written nor approved by the hundreds od scientists who worked on or reviewed the report, it was written by a single man, Dr Ben Santer, and reviewed by his assistants. Certainly there was no "97%" of concensus or certainty. Since then, the IPCC has been far more selective with who is allowed to perform the "science", and policy makers are far more involved with the writing and editing.

Even now the natural variabilty which exists in climate cannot be measured. Since these variables are not known, they are simply guessed, or ignored, and the result is predictions which turn out to be false, and computer models which do not work.

There will be no way for scientists to know how much human activity affects the climate until they understand how nature affects the climate. In either case, it will take centuries to obtain the basic data. Until then, any prediction made by science is nothing more than a wild-ass guess.

Pollution is bad. Living in a city like New York is equivalent in health effects to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

Any part of a comprehensive strategy to combat global warming would involve huge cuts in pollution.

This is good.

So, let's implement the strategy and enjoy cleaner air and less pollution-related diseases. And after 50 years we can measure the health benefits, the temperature, etc. and see if it was a waste of time. Common sense suggests that we'll benefit a lot more than we'll suffer.

Questions?

sangetsu03 shows the complexity of the issue fairly well. I don't fully agree with all of his statements, especially the last... "Until then, any prediction made by science is nothing more than a wild-ass guess". Science is about taking the information we have and using it to make the best estimate of future results. To ignore it is to embrace wild speculation and random guesswork.

The view of sangetsu03 and many other skeptics seems to be that until we prove 100% that something is true, we shouldn't act on it. There is ENOUGH evidence to show that, even if human based actions are not completely responsible for the current climate change, we are at the very least partly responsible for it. It's a little bit like sitting on the deck of the Titanic and saying "hang on, I know the ship is getting lower in the water, but we can't be sure it's sinking. Let's wait until we're under water before taking any further precautions..."

There is no reason why this issue can't spur us on toward developing renewable energy. Even if climate change were 100% natural, we would still face the issue of peak oil and other issues that will lead us down the same path. Recent reports from China have shown that the air is so toxic from pollution that cancer rates have skyrocketed. Yet the same fossil fuel companies that fund anti-climate change propaganda also do all they can to undermine renewable energy research and development. There is enough credibility for man-made climate change, when added to the depletion of fossil fuels and the increasing toxicity of air and water, to justify the development of technologies to solve all of these problems.

But instead we argue about technicalities. In my own country, I see new technologies suppressed because of commercial interests, while in other, freer (but often less democratic) parts of the world, they are leaving us behind in technological development. I can't help but feeling we are closing our eyes to the problem and imagining there is nothing wrong while others are developing the tools that the make the world a better place, and in the future we'll have to pay them a lot of money to use their technology that we could easily develop now. There is a wrongness to all this.

In my own country, I see new technologies suppressed because of commercial interests

Pure science is supposed to be objective and disinterested, but nowadays it is not. With the head if the IPCC, Dr Pauchuri, also controlling companies in India which are developing alternative energy, there is an obvious political conflict of interest. As a large developing country, India would receive a large amount of money to combat global warming, much of which would end up in the pockets of Mr Pauchuri.

Mr Al Gore is one of the founding members of Generation Investment Management, one of the largest carbon credit trading firms. Mr Gore has

sangetsu03, your own argument goes against you. Oil companies funding research institutes that push anti-climate change agendas are so far beyond objective and disinterested that the whole thing has become a joke. Will you condemn them as easily as you condemn Dr. Pauchuri? If not, then you are nothing but a hypocrite. As I've said above, this whole argument being buried in misinformation and deception. It takes effort to look at the science behind it, and when you do, there is very little doubt that human induced climate change is real, regardless of who says what to whom. Muddying the waters only tries to distract away from the logical response.. what should we do to overcome this problem...

The fundamentals behind the climate change phenomena have nothing to do with climate. The entire debate is irrelevant as the basis of the argument revolves not around the weather and it's causes, but around money and power.

The fatal assumption most people have made over the last 20 years since global warming came into vogue was to assume that government and science are disinterested parties who are trying to do something for the benefit of us all. This assumption is completely false. Politicians and scientists love money and power just as much as a pawnbroker, Wall Street banker, or third-world dictator. The policies they create are not designed without a fair amount of self-interest involved. Personally, I don't think self interest is a bad thing, by making our own lives better, we can also improve the lives of other around us. But self interest in politics and science is a different matter, self interest in these fields can be dangerous to us all.

The climate change industry is quite different from the oil companies or other large corporations because it mainly tax-funded. I don't have to buy gas from Exxon, I don't have to eat hamburgers at McDonald's. But I do have to pay for climate change research, whether I believe in it or not. And the scale of spending on climate change is far greater than the amount of money spent by any corporation. Nearly $1,000,000,000 is spent every day to "fight climate change", with most of that money going to special interests, or the politically-connected.

The powers-that-be don't see climate change the way you and I do. They see it as a way to increase their power and incomes, and this of course comes at the expense of us all. They stand to make far more money from regulating greenhouse gases and green subsidies than they could make by the usual process of political favors exchanged for kickbacks or campaign contributions. Climate change has opened up an entire new field to corrupt.

The phrase "green is the new red" is false, policitcians see green policies as green, the green color of dollars. In politics, there is no left or right, only green, the color of money. Science seems to be falling into the same class.

I hope temperatures continue to drop, and that the ice continues to accumulate as it has, and people begin to have second thoughts about climate change, and by doing so, limit the grab for power over all of our lives which is now occurring.

The climate talks in Warsaw failed last week not because of science, but because of money. Developing countries wanted developed countries to give them $100,000,000,000 per year to compensate them for damage from climate change. Brazil wanted the payments made retroactively, going back to the year 1800.

Climate change is all about money folks, the only science which is considered is that which keeps the money flowing.

Frungy. Well said.

Questions?

First question, If we go back to pre-industrial days, when there was no industry, and the air and water were free of pollution, say the year 1600 or so, how long could the average person expect to live?

Answer? The average life expectancy in 1600 was 35 years.

Second question, what exactly do you do yourself to reduce pollution? Are you now sitting in a room which is lit by electricity generated by burning fossil fuels? Are you drinking from pet bottles? Are you commuting by electric trains or fossil-fuel powered buses? Does your company produce goods which are made of non-renewable resources?

Third question, how much of your income are you personally willing to spend to reduce pollution? 10%? 20%? Or are you one of those who believe it is rich companies who should pay the tax? And, if so, do you realize that those taxes are eventually passed down to you?

Fourth question, if your employer has to reduce the number of staff at the company to offset an increase in tax or to pay for carbon credits, will you volunteer to quit? Or will you be a hypocrit and try to keep your job?

If we go back to pre-industrial days, when there was no industry, and the air and water were free of pollution, say the year 1600 or so, how long could the average person expect to live?

Answer? The average life expectancy in 1600 was 35 years.

Because two-thirds of all children died before the age of four, bringing the average way down. Once you reached the age of 21 you could expect to live into your 70s (assuming you weren't a woman about to die in or after childbirth).

Please don't try to fathom that people live longer nowadays because of 'industry'. It's because of better nutrition and more advanced medical care, including better hygiene.

Please don't try to fathom that people live longer nowadays because of 'industry'. It's because of better nutrition and more advanced medical care, including better hygiene.

Utter nonsense. How did nutrition improve? By improving farming methods through the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and machinery. The output of a single acre of farmland is many times improved over what it was two centuries ago.

Hygeine improved when we figured out how to provide clean water and provide sanitation systems, both of which were created, built, run, and maintained by industry.

Advanced medical care would not be possible without improvements in metallurgy, the ability to produce equipment like precision microscopes, or the use of radiological equipment, which were all created during the industrial era. Every single medical treatment or device made today was not grown in a field or picked from a tree. All of these things were invented in laboratories, and produced in factories and chemical plants.

How many lives are saved because of fire engines and ambulances each year? How many hospitals are powered by electricity? Are these not products of industry?

Just when I thought I was becoming familiar with how poorly people understand the world around them, and how it works, once again I have to lower the bar another rung.

Yup: Badly worded survey. It should be “Catastrophic Man-made Global Warming: Fact or Fiction?” The answer to that is very clearly: “Fiction”

The issue consists of three main questions: 1) Is the earth warming? 2) If so, is that warming dangerous? 3) Is human activity responsible for the observed warming?

It looks like @sangetsu03 is the only one here who has actually researched the subject, which is a shame because his posts are stating facts that have been imprudently discounted by uninformed zealots.

Let’s take question 1): No intelligent persona actually denies that the earth has warmed. All the temperature records indicate that it has….by about 0.8C since the late 19th Century at the end of Little Ice Age. But the warming has stalled for at least 15 years now. All four major global temperature data sets show no statistically significant warming for 17 to 23 years: GISS: no significant warming for 17 years HadCRUT: no significant warming for 18 years UAH: no significant warming for 19 years RSS: no significant warming for 23 years This has nothing to do with starting at the unusually warm 1998. That strong El Nino year was followed by a strong La Nina 1999, and removing them does not affect the trend. Those of you who put the data into an excel sheet and plot the trend for yourself, please don’t holler your joyous discovery of a positive trend (usually around +0.1 C) without including the margin of error. If the margin is even close to the value of the trend (to say nothing of exceeding it), your trend value is statistically indistinguishable from zero.

The fact that global warming has stalled for at least 15 years is also not negated by shouting “No! The decade-on-decade temperature is clearly rising!” I’m amazed that people actually think this is a logical argument. If temperatures rise for the first half of the 1990s, but remain flat with no change in the second half, and then remain flat for the decade through 2010 as well, then of course the decade to 2010 is going to be hotter than the preceding 1990s decade, but that does not change the fact that the temperature has stopped rising.

A simpler (but no less accurate example) for those who still don’t get it: In “Decade 1” temperatures start at 1C and rise by 1C annually for the first five years, but stay unchanged for the last five years, like this:

Year 1: Temperature is 1C Year 2: 2C Year 3: 3C Year 4: 4C Year 5: 5C Year 6: 5C Year 7: 5C Year 8: 5C Year 9: 5C Year 10:5C Decade 1’s average temperature is 4C

Then, in the following “Decade 2”, temperatures remain unchanged at 5C for all 10 years: Year 11: Temperature is 5C Year 12: 5C Year 13: 5C Year 14: 5C Year 15: 5C Year 16: 5C Year 17: 5C Year 18: 5C Year 19: 5C Year 20: 5C Decade 2’s average temperature is 5C. Yes! 5 is higher than 4, but that does not change the fact that the temperature has not budged for 15 years! Got it everyone?

Question 2) Is warming of the earth dangerous? The warming of the earth since the industrial revolution, 0.8C, is well below daily temperature variation and is therefore most definitely not dangerous. So, what if the global temperature starts to rise again? Then will it be dangerous? Well, let’s consult the latest declarations of the IPCC (the prophet of truth for loyal believers of the CAGW faith). The IPCC blames temperature rise primarily on rising atmospheric CO2 concentration, which is now around 400ppm (vs. around 290ppm at the start of the industrial revolution). In its latest Fifth Assessment Report it predicts a temperature rise of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C for a doubling of CO2, which, minus the 0.8C rise we’ve already had is 0.7 to 3.7C, still not much (if at all) larger than the daily noon to night temperature variation in most places. Not much to worry about here.

As for the (non-existing since at least 1995) global warming causing an increase in violent weather and natural disasters: No, in the peer-reviewed literature there is no evidence that CO2-induced temperature rise causes more violent weather. The IPCC states in its AR5 that it has “low confidence” in predicting more frequent or more extreme droughts or tropical cyclones. Global records also show historically low levels of hurricanes, devastating tornadoes, floods, or drought.

In fact, cold is far more dangerous than heat. Freezing temperatures cause far more deaths than uncomfortably hot temperatures. Biodiversity also plummets as you move closer to the poles (i.e. cold climates). Cold is the enemy of life. Warmth supports life.

At the very least: There is no evidence that global warming is dangerous.

sangetsu03Nov. 27, 2013 - 03:45PM JST First question, If we go back to pre-industrial days, when there was no industry, and the air and water were free of pollution, say the year 1600 or so, how long could the average person expect to live? Answer? The average life expectancy in 1600 was 35 years.

Answer: This question isn't relevant. At no point was going back to pre-industrial days even suggested. From the outset you're setting the tone for your arguments, namely irrational.

Second question, what exactly do you do yourself to reduce pollution? Are you now sitting in a room which is lit by electricity generated by burning fossil fuels? Are you drinking from pet bottles? Are you commuting by electric trains or fossil-fuel powered buses? Does your company produce goods which are made of non-renewable resources?

I use electronics that are designed to use less power. I turn off and unplug appliances that aren't in use. I put on a coat in the house during the winter rather than turning on the A/C. I don't drink from PET bottles - I make a pot of green tea every morning, pour it into my flask and enjoy it the whole day. At the place where I work we're piloting a new system that stores rainwater in a huge tank on the top of the building and releases it slowly to reduce our power consumption - its still in the pilot phase, but it looks like it'll cut power consumption across the year by about 30%. There are lots of ways to cut power usage with minimal expenditure and effort.

Third question, how much of your income are you personally willing to spend to reduce pollution? 10%? 20%? Or are you one of those who believe it is rich companies who should pay the tax? And, if so, do you realize that those taxes are eventually passed down to you?

How much have I spent to reduce pollution? I calculate that this year it has saved me money. A 500ml PET bottle of green tea is about 150yen. I've saved that much every day. The power-saving monitor I chose for my computer was actually cheaper than the power-hog model - yes, it cost me an hour of doing research, but any sensible consumer does research.

Companies are constantly upgrading their equipment, it is a cost of doing business. What makes more "green" technologies more expensive at the moment is that nobody uses them. If the choice is removed then more will sell, you'll get economies of scale and there will be no net increase in costs. The assumption that "green" = expensive is facile.

Fourth question, if your employer has to reduce the number of staff at the company to offset an increase in tax or to pay for carbon credits, will you volunteer to quit? Or will you be a hypocrit and try to keep your job?

Again this argument is irrelevant and incorrect. You're fear mongering, plain and simple. Were there massive job losses last time the pollution regulations were tightened? No. There weren't. There weren't any job losses, and in fact there was a net increase in employment as new equipment had to be ordered and installed.

You're fear mongering, plain and simple.

How ironic you should say that, as the entire climate change phenomena is primarily based on fear-mongering.

Since 1993 we have been given scenarios of doom and gloom if we don't do something to "Stop Global Warming". We have been told that increasing temperatures would destroy crops and livestock, and that rising sea levels would devastate coastal cities. Were have been told that climate change would cause extreme weather, with larger storms would occur with greater frequency. I used to have a "Stop Global Warming" bumper sticker on my car, but I replaced it with "Stop Manbearpig", as the latter is more likely to exist than the former.

In order to stop global warming, or fight climate change, national and international governments have increased regulations and diverted much of their (our) revenue. In order to further the expansion of these schemes, they are further increasing climate change rhetoric, which is fear-mongering writ large. By creating this great fear among the population of the world, they have created an international, government-controlled industry which consumes nearly $1 billion every day.

This practice isn't new or unique. The cold war of recent memory was another example of fear-mongering by large governments in order to control their populations. National-socialism and fascism also arose as a method of controlling their populations by the use of fear. Before these, it was the church, putting the fear of damnation into the population, and thereby controlling the people by being the sole provider of confession services. See any pattern here?

But nowadays in the information age, using the old methods of control are not as easily done, so the new system spreads pseudo-science through channels which love nothing better than to increase their viewer and readership by prophesizing gloom, doom, and catastrophe. Fear-mongering on such a scale requires that the particular belief being preached is one people fear, but are ignorant about. Climate change is the perfect religion.

Solomon said that "There is nothing new under the sun", and he was truly right.

Climate change is the perfect religion. Spot on, Sangetsu. Climate change, or CAGW, is the ultimate post-modern religion in nearly every way. Fortunately, I put my trust in science not dogma, facts not fantasy, so I'm free to life my life safe in the knowledge that human society and industry is not causing the not catastrophic global warming that is not happening.

Here's the third part of the global warming question: Question 3) Is human activity responsible for the observed warming? Certainly human activity has contributed to temperature rise in some way and to some degree, primarily through change in land use. If we're talking about man-made CO2 emissions, though, the answer is that current scientific knowledge says "no." First of all, yes CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Noone "denies" that. But it's a weak one whose effects are logarithmic (i.e. diminishing returns). So, how sensitive is the climate to CO2? Remember that IPCC prediction of a temperature rise of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C for a doubling of CO2? Well, even the IPCC acknowledges that an increase of that magnitude requires feedbacks to CO2-induced warming, whereas CO2 alone will cause no more than around 1C total temperature rise (don't believe me? Read the IPCC assessment reports (not just the propagandized Summary for Policy Makers)). The CAGW belief argues that "feedbacks" (notably water vapor) will "amplify" the minimal CO2 warming, based on the assumption that such feedbacks will be nearly universally positive. But the science is a long way from making any such definitive conclusion. The jury is well and truly still out on whether feedbacks will be net positive or negative, but they're looking more likely to be negative (see research by Prof. Richard Lindzen among others). Just for the sake of argument, though, let's assume that CO2 actually could cause serious warming. How of the warming so far has been caused by manmade CO2? First of all, the IPCC concludes that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (or "extremely likely" in the AR5) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations." The IPCC also asserts that CO2 added the atmosphere remains there to 100 to 200 years. The "Bern Model" of carbon cycling on which all computer climate models rely, presumes that increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration is exclusively due to manmade CO2 emissions and is aligned to the Keeling Curve showing a steady long-term increase in atmospheric CO2 levels since 1958. The Bern Model also assumes that CO2 has an equilibrium constant of 0.217, implying that more than a fifth CO2 added to the atmosphere will remain there essentially forever. The historical evidence-based Bomb Test Curve, however, when applied to the IPCC's own carbon cycle analysis results in an equilibrium constant of 0.015, implying that only 1.5% of CO2 added to the atmosphere will remain there at all permanently. In fact, added CO2 is shown to nearly entirely disappear from the atmosphere within 50 years, with a residential half-life of just 10 years. The curve further implies that only 20% of manmade CO2 emissions since 1750 have remained airborne, meaning that manmade CO2 emissions are responsible for only half of the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. The already-dead CAGW-caused-by-manmade-CO2 polemic is further eviscerated by facts acknowledged by the IPCC itself. Although the IPCC talks about most the warming "since the mid-20th century", global temperatures were actually falling in the 1950s and didn't start rising again until the late 1970s. Climate science and the IPCC also further acknowledge that fossil fuel burning by human industrial activity in the early 20th century was not pervasive enough to be blamed for the warming observed, meaning only human fossil fuel use, i.e. CO2 emissions, since the mid-1940s could be responsible for any observed warming, and since it was cooling from 1945 to the late 1970s, manmade CO2 emissions could only possibly be responsible (if at all) for the warming since the late 1970s. That warming trend, of course, ended in the mid-1990s. So the consistent increase in CO2, only half of which at most has been manmade, can only possibly have caused around 15 years of warming, which was followed by 15 years of flat temperatures and then the slight cooling we are seeing now even though CO2 has continued to increase.

Meanwhile, of course, CO2 is in essence plant food, and satellite records have shown an increase in vegetation around the world and the greening if deserts.

So you see, unless honest, bonafide research that obeys the principles of the scientific method produces consistent results that prove otherwise, the idea that manmade CO2 emissions are causing catastrophic global warming is patently ludicrous.

Catastrophic Man-made Global Warming? FICTION!

sangetsu03Nov. 27, 2013 - 09:57PM JST

You're fear mongering, plain and simple.

How ironic you should say that, as the entire climate change phenomena is primarily based on fear-mongering.

Hey, I agree with you. The entire tone of the climate change agenda has been entirely too negative. However that's just the latest incarnation of a very, very old debate. Back in the late 1970's there was talk about CFCs and ozone layer damage. As it turned out they were 100% correct. Just because they're being negative doesn't mean they're automatically wrong.

The simple fact is that pollution is bad. We've been struggling with pollution control since the first people built a city. The problems have just magnified with industry. The simple fact is that there's way too much air pollution. Air pollution causes cancer, cystic fibrosis, a wide range of respiratory complaints, and a mass of other diseases.

Cutting down on air pollution is just common sense. From the richest CEO to the poorest floor sweeper, we all breathe the same air... our children all breathe the same air... the animals we eat breathe polluted air... the plants we eat grow in it. If someone cannot see that tighter air pollution standards are a good idea then there's no hope for them, because they're already brain-dead.

The simple fact is that pollution is bad.

The affects of garden-variety air and water pollution are obvious, and easy to classify as bad. We know exactly how most forms of pollution affect the environment, and developed countries have taken most of the steps necessary to reduce or prevent such pollution. The science is clear, easily verified by replication, and can be classified as a fact, and not theory. No consensus is needed, because the causes and effects are 100% understood.

The pollution situations in places like China are being addressed, just as they were in developed countries. The Chinese people are getting tired of the filth in the air, and the resulting illnesses and health problems. It is obvious what is causing the pollution, and the means to reduce it are also obvious.

But climate change is an entirely different matter. The supposed basic component of climate change and global warming are the industrial production of greenhouse gasses. In this case, the science is not so clear, but it is an attractive target for policy and regulation precisely for that reason. No one knows how much or how little greenhouse gases affect the climate, it is not possible to know. Scientists don't understand even the natural, non-anthropogenic variables which affect the climate, and when it comes to combining unknown natural variables and the poorly understood effects of greenhouse gases, how is it possible that there is now a "97%" certainty that human beings are causing climate change? Simply because we are told it is so? Sounds a lot like what I heard in Sunday School classes when I was a kid.

No one knows how much or how little greenhouse gases affect the climate, it is not possible to know.

Sangetsu, by that statement I think you are probably deliberately dumbing down the explanation for the benefit of the uninformed, but I prefer not to let the willfully ignorant CAGW fear-mongers off the hook so easily. These are the zealots who refuse to acknowledge facts, but argue with daggers drawn that CAGW is real based on their "faith" in the prophets of so-called "consensus climate science".

Actually, after all the disproportionate attention given to CO2, the affect of CO2 alone on the climate is actually relatively well known (since you've read the IPCC reports, I assume you already know this and are just being kind to the opposition given their serious disadvantage in the debate). As I related in my post above, all other factors being equal, even a doubling of CO2 will only result in little more than 1 degree C warming. the rest of the doomsday climate change polemic depends entirely on positive feedbacks (water vapor, etc.) to amplify the minimal CO2-induced warming, and this is where the "no one knows" label really applies. The science is light years away from determining whether feedbacks will be positive or negative (e.g. increased cloud formation).

The IPPC's latest "extremely likely" verdict that humans are causing climate change, by their own definition is actually not 97%, but 95% certainty (up from "very likely", or 90% certainty, in the AR4 seven years ago), but as you yourself have pointed out, the science (as stated in the actual main text of the assessment report, not the propaganda-laden Summary for Policy Makers) has actually become less certain. The method the IPCC use to nevertheless claim 95% certainty is little more than a show of hands, what they term "referral to expert opinion." In other words: about as un-scientific as you can get.

"Raise your hand if you want to lie bald faced to the world that science is now more certain than ever that human greenhouse gasses are causing dangerous climate change, guarantee your employment for another seven years, keep the grant money and UN funding flowing in, continue living high on the hog at the taxpayers' expense, and enjoy the adoration of flocks of unquestioning worshipers" Wow! Obtaining a "consensus" is a cinch, isn't it?

"BTW, don't spend that heap of cash all at once. Be smart. Invest it. Especially since one seems to care or even bother to check if we have any conflicts of interest, put that stash in any number of "green" businesses subsidized to the hilt by taxpayer funds and backed by government guarantee. And if anyone does start to get nosy, just call them dirty names like "denier" in public and let your loyal worshippers and the faithful media take care of the rest. It's the easiest money you've ever made!"

"Raise your hand if you want to lie bald faced to the world that science is now more certain than ever that human greenhouse gasses are causing dangerous climate change, guarantee your employment for another seven years, keep the grant money and UN funding flowing in, continue living high on the hog at the taxpayers' expense, and enjoy the adoration of flocks of unquestioning worshipers" Wow! Obtaining a "consensus" is a cinch, isn't it?

lol. Good one.

Perhaps no one here remembers the so-called "Climategate" scandal of couple of years ago? This scandal occurred when a Russian hacker accessed email traffic at the Hadley Climate Research Unit. The content of the emails was quite interesting, with climate scientists discussing with each other how to "hide the decline" in temperatures which was showing up in their research, and discussing ways to prevent skeptics from being able to publish studies critical of global warming. Also discussed were ways to get out of Freedom of Information Act requests for raw data, which was then conveniently "lost". The amount of deceit practiced by these taxpayer-funded "scientists" was astounding.

The articles published by Nature a few years ago linking climate change to the widespread death and extinction of many types of amphibians was widely spread around the world by the media. We now know that it was a virus which caused these deaths, the science is quite clear on the matter. But AGW advocates still try to find a way to blame global warming for these deaths, without mentioning that only in hot climates were there no amphibian deaths.

It goes on and on.

But in the end, time will tell. And so far time has not favored global warming theory. The world has not warmed at all in nearly two decades. There has been no increase in extreme weather. In America, the NOAA yesterday stated that hurricane activity in the Atlantic was at a 30 year low, there was a record lack of tornadoes in North America, and large pacific-ocean cyclones are in fact occurring less frequently than 50 years ago. The only extreme weather we are seeing seems to be cold-weather related.

The nails are slowly being hammered into the coffin of global warming, one at a time. Pretty soon the entire matter will be buried.

I wonder what crisis the fear-mongerers will replace global warming with.

Climategate? You mean the media storm that was debunked as completely unfounded?

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/12/climategate/

etc... etc...

The debunking got a lot less coverage than the initial incident, because people like to hate scientist because... well, to put it simply, scientists make most people feel stupid. This isn't the scientist's fault, even when they put stuff simply there's only so far you can dumb down an issue before you have to make a choice between a simple lie and a complex truth. As a result many regular people go, "I don't understand therefore scientists are liars"... it is even has its own name, "ego defence".

People would rather believe that their high school education makes them equipped to debunk the theories of someone with a doctorate and decades of research than admit that they're not able to understand everything that was said. Sad, but true.

You mean the media storm that was debunked as completely unfounded?

Debunked by who? I don't need or want a third-party to "debunk" or verify information when I can do it myself. Perhaps you should actually read the emails in the order they were sent, and in that context, and judge for yourself. I have. They don't require any interpretation to understand clearly, and they are available online, google is your friend. As Deming said, "In God we trust, all others bring data". Read the data, see what you think afterward.

People would rather believe that their high school education makes them equipped to debunk the theories of someone with a doctorate and decades of research than admit that they're not able to understand everything that was said. Sad, but true.

I used to feel the same way you do, but what we believe does not necessarily agree with reality. The main problem with those who have decades of experience in a particular discipline is that their perspective tends to be restricted within the boundaries of the subjects they have studied. They often miss the forest for the trees. There are many instances of those with high school educations, or lower levels of education, who have found solutions to problems which confounded trained scientists for years. It took an uneducated child to point out that the emperor wore no clothes.

When I was young, I used to be in awe of doctors and professors, and I completely believed anything and everything which they told me. But as got older, I was disappointed to find that these people, despite their high levels of education, are as human as anyone else, and just as prone to making mistakes. Unfortunately, the mistakes made by these more highly-educated people have higher consequences for the rest of us. Many of these people are simply charlatans. Education is one thing, common-sense and wisdom are things completely different.

The problem with science nowadays is that it is not impersonal, and is generally performed with the goal of earning a profit. Pure science (which searches for facts, not consensus), as it was once termed, is quite uncommon. In the case of climate change, the results had been determined even before the science was performed. In order to be paid, those performing the research had to make sure their research came to the same pre-determined results. These pre-determined results are decided upon by policy makers (politicians), and scientists are required to provide science which fits. In return, scientists who promulgate the climate change doctrine receive new laboratories, equipment, and money.

My specialty is economics, and it is a broad discipline. When applying economic principles to the climate data now available, I can't help but be skeptical. There is simply not enough information to determine any trend. Indeed, the IPCC itself states quite clearly that there "is" a pause in warming, rather than the more accurate "has been". What's more, they are unable to explain this trend. I have heard them make excuses ranging from changes in solar irradiation and air pollution from China, to changes in the number of sunspots. The simple fact is that, despite countless billions of dollars spent, and countless hours of research done, they simply don't know. And if they can't explain the current pause in global warming right now, how can they possibly guess what the climate will be like a century from now?

Once again, time will tell. Let's see where temperatures are in 20 years. If there is no global warming by that time, will you still believe that climate change is occurring?

The poll is at 69% for the believers. That is less than it was a few years ago, apparently the tide is starting to change.

When I was young, I used to be in awe of doctors and professors, and I completely believed anything and everything which they told me. But as got older, I was disappointed to find that these people, despite their high levels of education, are as human as anyone else, and just as prone to making mistakes.

So this is a good reason to ignore the majority of them and rely instead on your own gut feeling? Has it at all occurred to you that the reason you believe the minority is because THEY are the ones making the mistake? No. Clearly you haven't because the ones you believe are the ones that match your ideological view and you've believed the propaganda that this whole thing is an attack on the industrialized world. Well, sorry to break it to you, but clean energy also requires industry, it just needs a different way to approach the way things are done. There are profits out there, even for the dirty energy sector, but few of them are willing to give up the easy profits for the long term view.

The problem with science nowadays is that it is not impersonal, and is generally performed with the goal of earning a profit.

Exactly. And once again the bulk of the anti-man-made climate change research is funded by the very companies that have the most to lose from clean energy. Doesn't that ring alarm bells for you? This is not a popularity contest. The BULK of the SCIENCE points clearly that this is a problem. To believe your argument, you'd have the believe that the BULK of scientists are only interested in money, and that the only ones to be believed are those funded by companies who, weirdly enough, get the very results they want. I'm sick of this double standard in this argument. When I hear scientists speak, those impartials whose funding has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing, they are pretty much unanimous is their agreement of man-made climate change. Burying this issue in BS will not solve it or make it go away. It's just stupidity at the highest level.

So this is a good reason to ignore the majority of them and rely instead on your own gut feeling? Has it at all occurred to you that the reason you believe the minority THEY are the ones making the mistake?

Tell me honestly, is the majority always right?

So this is a good reason to ignore the majority of them

Please provide evidence that Sangetsu's opinion opposed "the majority".

you believe the minority What is your evidence that the views that Sangetsu "believes" are supported by only a minority of scientists.

If you invoke one of those bogus "97%" studies, I'm just going to laugh.

And...unless I overlooked it, I don't think Sangetsu has ever stated in this thread that he "believes" in what any scientist or group of scientests says. He simply provided a scientific fact-based debunking of CAGW polemic.

If "THEY" (as you put it) are "the ones making the mistake", then genuine science will reveal that mistake during the process of independent verification.

the bulk of the anti-man-made climate change research is funded by the very companies that have the most to lose from clean energy

Again: Evidence please! Or at least a link to a source or two.

Your circular logic simply re-emphasizes the importance of facts and the alarming degree to which facts are ignored by so many supposedly educated people. You can't possibly mean oil companies because even if they funded the bulk of any research they are also some of the biggest investors in alternative energy technologies!

The BULK of the SCIENCE points clearly that this is a problem Where is the evidence to back up this claim? Not even the revered IPCC "clearly" says that manmade CO2 emissions are "a problem."

To believe your argument, you'd have the believe that the BULK of scientists are only interested in money

Wrong. To believe Sangetsu's argument, you only have to believe that a corrupt minority of (pseudo-)scientists and bureaucrats are only interested in money (or power).

and that the only ones to be believed are those funded by companies who, weirdly enough, get the very results they want.

Again, please provide evidence to back up your funding argument. From 2001 to 2007 the US government alone spent over 37 billion dollars on climate change activities http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/fy08_climate_change.pdf Wheras Exxon-Mobil funded 16 million dollars in research by skeptics from 1998 to 2005 http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf

US government funding of the manmade climate change scare (to nothing of total UN, etc. international funding) dwarfs poor old Exxon's miserly donations.

And even with all that funding, the CAGW propadanda machine still can't prove manmade CO2 causes dangerous climate change.

OK, let's play your game for a moment or two. Let's ignore the bulk of peer reviewed research and embrace the direct-to-media release, unreviewed "research" funded by donor capital funds and donor trusts that you embrace. Let's pretend that man-made climate change is fiction... What we do know FOR SURE is that ocean levels have risen more than 25cm since pre-industrial times, that low lying islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans are seeing their shorelines disappear virtually before their eyes, that ocean acidity caused by the absorption of CO2 is on the rise and that shell deformity of small ocean animals is increasing dramatically, potentially affecting the larger animals that feed on them, that average temperatures by decade are increasing decade to decade, changing climates and affecting everything from animal habitats to wine growing. These points are not up for argument, they are fact. If this is simply a natural event, then I have a question to ask of you...

...what should we do about it? Doing nothing is not an option. The cost to countries would be far too great. Even if you were right, this fundamental problem still remains. It's one thing to disagree with the cause, but it's another to ignore the problem all together...

What we do know FOR SURE is that ocean levels have risen more than 25cm since pre-industrial times,

We don't know this. The IPCC has predicted only 2.3mm per year of sea level increase, and arrived at this figure because a single tidal gauge in Hong Kong indicated a rise of this amount. This was the only recorded rise at any of the gauges around the world which the IPCC monitors, so it became the benchmark. Satellite measurements of sea level have existed for decades, and these show no rise.

There has been no sea level rise in 50 years, though there was some before. The predicted level increase for the entire century is 10cm, with a margin of error of, guess what? 10cm.

As you know, Holland sits below sea level, and of course they keep careful track of exactly what is happening to the level of the sea at all times. This quote is from the KNMI in Holland, the agency which is officially in charge of keeping an eye on sea levels, it reads: "De waterstandswaarnemingen laten nog geen versnelde zeespiegelstijging zien" or "The water level measurements show no acceleration of sea level rise".

The other concerns you list sound worrisome, but if they are written by the same lot who argued that the sea levels are rising, they should not be taken as true without a grain of salt.

Sangetsu03 - I was reading through all your comments and despite your protestations of being reasonable and well-informed you're spouting the same rhetoric as you did last time when this discussion came up. Every time your position is debunked you just change the topic.

For example, last time we discussed this issue you bought up the point about there being record ice accumulation on the poles, and I pointed out that this position had been investigated and while there was more ice in the water the problem was that there's less ice on the land, and land ice is slow to accumulate (it takes centuries of snowfall slowly compacting). But you're bringing this up again.

In this VERY thread I pointed out that the air in many major cities (like New York) is heavily polluted, but you blandly state that pollution is under control and the current measures are adequate.

There simply is no point discussing something with someone who refuses to even acknowledge that there's the faintest possibility that they might be mistaken. You try to paint yourself as a reasonable person engaging in a reasonable discussion, but it is perfectly clear to even the casual observer that you're incapable of admitting when someone else makes a good point or when you're wrong.

Oh, and about Holland (aka West Netherlands), they've been recording an average rise in sea levels of 1.5mm per year. The quote you provide is out of context (as usual) and misleading, and a more accurate translation, given the context, would be that the author is uncertain about the long-term data (500~1000 years ago). HOWEVER the Dutch have kept EXTREMELY accurate records for the last 200 years, and the data that we're certain of shows a definite rise in sea levels. Again, you're quoting things out of context, misleading people and pretending you have a point. You don't. The author of the KNMI document is just displaying healthy scientific skepticism about data that they cannot absolutely confirm. The more modern, reliable, data is VERY clear and cannot be refuted. A rise of 1.5mm a year doesn't sound like a lot, but again that's an average, and the current records show an acceleration in that rise.

Let's ignore the bulk of peer reviewed research and embrace the direct-to-media release, unreviewed "research" funded by donor capital funds and donor trusts that you embrace. Let's pretend that man-made climate change is fiction...

No need to pretend it's fiction and no need to ignore the bulk of peer reviewed research. My position on climate change is based solely on peer-reviewed studies and observational data. I'm naturally skeptical of any dramatic claims and only convinced by observable facts or sound reasoning that strictly adheres to the scientific method. I therefore reject non-peer reviewed studies and I "embrace" absolutely none of the things you say I do.

Please cite the evidence your implication the "bulk of peer reviewed research" concludes that man-made CO2 emissions are causing harmful climate change. Given your impressive confidence in your claims, surely you can easily cite at least one source? That will also satisfy my request above for evidence for your assertion that Sangetsu's (and my) position stands in contrast to the majority".

You haven't provided any of the other evidence I requested, though. I'm being a sarcastic twit, here. Facts are my priority, and genuinely want to know if you can show me some facts that I may be missing (in which case I might be convince to change my mind on the subject). So, do you have any evidence that "the bulk" of the research that undermines the case for CAGW (or manmade climate change) is funded by companies opposed to clean energy to provide pre-determined results? If you don't, I hope you will consider that perhaps the reason you assert that allegation with such conviction is primarily that the rhetoric has been repeated so pervasively and persistently that sounds convincing: i.e. the "well everyone knows it's true" presumption. You also haven't cited evidence for your bold declaration that "The BULK of the SCIENCE points clearly that [CAGW] is a problem". If too is a contention that you accept on faith with not need for evidence, you may be surprised what you find when you see what's actually written in "the bulk of" the actual scientific studies. And at the risk of sounding obstinate, do you have any evidence that all CAGW-skeptical scientists are in the pay of agenda-driven corporations? Seriously, I will reconsider my current stance if you can show me convincing evidence of the claims you make, but you're just reciting allegations that you happen to belief as a matter of faith, then please stop trying to use them as the basis for genuine debate.

What we do know FOR SURE is that ocean levels have risen more than 25cm since pre-industrial times

Actually, no we don't know that for sure. It is true, though, that tide gauge-based records imply sea level rise of 10 to 25cm since the late 19th century. The issue of sea level rise, however, turns out to be a big "so what?" It's follows approximately 60 year natural oscillation cycles (PDM, AMO, etc.) and may therefore appear to times to be accelerating, but the long-term trend shows a global average of a mere 0.01mm a year with no acceleration, and 21 century sea level rise estimated at about 27cm, basically the same as the 20th century. (http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/pdf/10.1007_s00382-013-1771-3.pdf) So, small Pacific island communities are actually not "seeing their shorelines disappear virtually before their eyes." In fact, in spite of all the heart-rendering stories in the media about Kiribati sinking beneath the waves, its tide gauge record shows a negative sea level trend (http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/1371.php).

ocean acidity caused by the absorption of CO2 is on the rise

To be precise, the oceans are not become more acidic. Although ocean pH has dipped from 8.10 to around 8.07, but since this is still well above 7.0, so the oceans are become "less alkaline" but they are not acidifying.

shell deformity of small ocean animals is increasing dramatically

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but...evidence please! Which studies indicate this "dramatic" increase in shell deformity? And you need several such studies from around the world to make the case for a global phenomenon.

Numerous peer-reviewed studies like this one (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0028983) conclude exactly the opposite.

average temperatures by decade are increasing decade to decade, changing climates and affecting everything from animal habitats to wine growing. These points are not up for argument, they are fact.

No! They most certainly are not "fact"! By what authority do you think you can declare any and all further argument invalid?!

You carefully phrase your argument that temps are rising by decade because my first post obliterated the rubbish claim that global temperature are rising faster much faster than predicted. The fact remains, though, that the earth has stopped warming! Temperatures have flatlined for the past 16 years at least! and shown a cooling trend for the past 10! This is what is "fact"! And a temperature rise that is not happening cannot change climates or have the range of affects you claim. Why would you declare so aggressively that such fairy tales are facts when you obviously know they are not?

The final point is that since at least 1998 there has been no global warming. Dr Jones, head of the Climate Research Unit admitted this in an interview with the BBC after the "debunked" climategate scandal. The IPCC has also aknowledged that the tempertaure has not risen.

Since the temperatures have not been increasing, then the side effects that are purported to be caused by global warming can't be happening, can they?

Once again, time will tell.

It is often referenced that the world underwent an ice-age some 10,000+years ago. Well, to melt ice, the surrounding temperature has to get very warm - global warming, to use the popular term, obviously happen in order to melt the ice-age. So, without industrialization, global warming already happened many thousands of years ago, did it not?

Frungy - I searched through about 20 pages of your past comments and couldn't find your past discussion with Sangetsu, so I'm going to have ask you directly about it.

Now, please don't think I'm just being a contentious ass. None of my questions a rhetorical. I truly am just seeking to clarify the facts.

About the polar ice caps:

while there was more ice in the water the problem was that there's less ice on the land

By land, do you mean Antarctica? or the northern tips of Canada and Greenland? What do you mean by "less"? Less compared to when? And what, specifically, is "the problem"?

the air in many major cities (like New York) is heavily polluted

I don't think anyone would argue that air pollution is bad. However, the anti-global warming legislation being urged by the warmists is aimed nearly exclusively at restricting and reducing CO2 emmissions, and has essentially nothing to do with pollution. So I have to disagree with your statement that:

Any part of a comprehensive strategy to combat global warming would involve huge cuts in pollution.

I'm sure you know this so I'm reiterating this fact not to preach to you but to benefit the less informed who may be reading: CO2 is not pollution. It is a trace gas in the atmosphere that is absolutely essential for all life on the planet.

Pollution should be addressed, but it's a separate issue from global warming.

I would personally like to see the sources for your air pollution data because I find it hard to believe your claim that:

Living in a city like New York is equivalent in health effects to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

Citation?

We've been struggling with pollution control since the first people built a city. The problems have just magnified with industry.

I can't agree with this either. In the case of New York City, pollution was a much bigger problem before industrialization enabled modern infrastructure like sewage, electric power supply and electric street lamps, paved roads and motorization. Up till then, horses were still widely used for transportation, and the their feces soiled the streets. It either dried up and got carried the wind, caked up on windows, etc. and and breathed in by the population spreading respiratory and other diseases... or got rained on, blended with the dirt on the unpaved streets into a muddy stew and spread around the city and contaminated the clean water supply, causing dysentery and other intestinal diseases. Are you really arguing that these problems have "magnified" (not diminished) with industry? If so, I would like to know what the evidence for your argument is.

Mexico City is also a great success story in overcoming air pollution. You hardly ever hear the once-popular "Make-Sicko City" epithet you once did over a decade ago.

I'm afraid we're getting off topic, but to sum up: Pollution is bad and needs to be addressed, but it is a separate issue from global warming.

Global warming deniers aren't just ignorant, they are dangerous. We need to start shaming them.

Strangerland; Great idea, pesecute those that disagree with you. Mmm, i find that far more dangerous than one who does not believe in man made global warming.

My method will persecute a few fools. The doubters will kill us all. Risk mitigation - better to put a few fools out of our misery to save us all, then pander to fools and kill us all.

Strangerland: How do you define "global warming deniers"? Any famous examples? And what precisely do they deny? Of what are they ignorant? And how are they dangerous? And will you shame them?

Global warming deniers aren't just ignorant, they are dangerous. We need to start shaming them.

According to global warming scientists themselves, there has been no global warming since at least 1998. Can you "deny" that?

Yesterday 17 hot weather records were set around the world. Interesting? But more than 1000 cold weather records were broken, and Osaka saw it's earliest snow in 24 years. Can you deny that?

It is quite easy for me to deny global warming is occurring, especially when it really isn't.

Who is really in "denial" here? Sounds like it is you.

There's little point trying to argue with sangetsu03 because he believes what he wants to believe, and will not listen to anything else. FYI:

The 10 warmest years since 1880 (those on record) are (in order): 2010, 2005, 1998, 2003, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2007, 2004, 2012. Less precise reconstructions of earlier temperatures put these temperatures as at least the highest in at least many centuries.

Notice something? They have ALL occurred in the last 15 years. Apparently to some this means that there is no global warming. There will always be variances from year to year, but the average temperatures are CLEARLY rising (as can be seen by the details above). What deniers latch on to is the unusually hot 1998 caused by a strong El Niño event. Because of one very warm year in a trend of rising temperatures, deniers use that as the base for an "average temperature" and then use it to say the climate is not warming. This is indeed true and back by facts if you use the (up until then) hottest year recorded as your control temperature. Unfortunately, it is also clearly bad science to do so, a little like taking the oldest living person's age as the average life expectancy and then using that to claim we aren't living as long these days. Bad science.

While there will be places that experience very hot and very cold temperatures, the FACT remains that average temperatures are rising. There is no denial of this without introducing bad science. You may base your argument on actual climate data, but the reasoning and results are such bad science that a high schooler would fail terribly if they followed your lead.

And just to top it off, thanks to the unusually hot 2010 (another El Niño), you can't even use 1998 anymore as your control temperature. Or are you now going to switch to 2010 and say the climate has been cooling since then?

Strangerland: How do you define "global warming deniers"?

Not in any words that would pass the posting rules on this site. But if you're asking what makes someone a global warming denier, it's someone stupid enough to believe those who would deny it exists in order to preserve their vested financial interests instead of believing the 98% of scientists that have actually studied it and say it exists.

Of what are they ignorant?

Logic and intelligence.

And how are they dangerous?

Because they are enabling the destruction of our planet.

And will you shame them?

Yes. Any way I can. I'd like to point at them and laugh, except it's no laughing matter.

There's no doubt the earth is going through a period of warming. But there's no convincing proof that it has anything to do with humanity.

Yeah, no convincing proof other than scientists studying it and seeing that the earth has never gone through a change in climate this fast ever, with the exception of maybe after the comet that killed the dinosaurs.

...which half the global warming (climate change) deniers will say could not have happened since the world is only 5000 years old.

Why intelligent people even give these people a voice is beyond me. We should be ridiculing them every step along the way.

sangetsu03: there has been no global warming since at least 1998.

homleand: There's no doubt the earth is going through a period of warming.

So who is correct?

The 10 warmest years since 1880 (those on record) are (in order): 2010, 2005, 1998, 2003, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2007, 2004, 2012.

How old is the world? What are the ten warmest years since 4.5 billion BC?

Everyone seems to forget that there was a long cold period known as "the little ice age" which happened to have three especially cold years, which were 1650, 1770, and, conveniently enough, 1850. Climate change scientists always start their charts at around this time because it was abnormally cold. If they move their chart to cover the last thousand years, the temperatures we are seeing now are nothing alarming.

What are the ten warmest years since 4.5 billion BC?

People weren't around 4.5 billion years ago so that isn't really relevant, is it?

three especially cold years, which were 1650, 1770, and, conveniently enough, 1850. Climate change scientists always start their charts at around this time because it was abnormally cold.

If the little ice age ended in 1850, as most scientists agree, why is looking at temperatures since 1880 - after the end of the cold spell - 'convenient' for climate change scientists?

If they move their chart to cover the last thousand years, the temperatures we are seeing now are nothing alarming.

Yet I see you give no link to any set of figures showing temperatures over the last thousand years. Here's a graph showing temperatures over the last two thousand years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

It shows the mediaeval warming period, the little ice age and the very sudden, very sharp rise in temperature in the last century or so. Note that while there are quite sharp fluctuations year-to-year, the general trend is for a gradual rise and fall, until the late 1880s, when the rise is very sudden and very steep. And yes, alarming.

No one is saying it's never been warm before, or that climate change hasn't happened before. Obviously it has. The difference is the speed at which it is occurring this time, bringing with it rapid changes in weather and extreme weather events that we are not prepared for.

donkusai, you are living up to your name.

sangetsu03: there has been no global warming since at least 1998. homleand: There's no doubt the earth is going through a period of warming. So who is correct?

Both are correct. The explanation applies to your other statement:

The 10 warmest years since 1880 (those on record) are (in order): 2010, 2005, 1998, 2003, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2007, 2004, 2012. Notice something? They have ALL occurred in the last 15 years. Apparently to some this means that there is no global warming. ... average temperatures are CLEARLY rising. ...What deniers latch on to is the unusually hot 1998 caused by a strong El Niño event.

Did you not read any of my posts? Or did you forget them? Or are ignoring them and hoping the facts will go away? The 1998 El Nino temperature spike is cancelled out by the the 1999-2000 La Ninas. The pause in warming is sill evident in all four glogal temperature data sets even when these El Nino/La Nina effects are factored out!

cleo, look at the sources for the temperature reconstruction you linked to: It's made of MBH, i.e. the long since discredited original "hockey stick" (M in MDH is for Michael Mann) and derivative studies using essentially the same flawed data sets. How about this paper that shows the mediaeval warm period as "equaling or slightly exceeding the mid-20th century warming, is in agreement with the results from other more recent large-scale multi-proxy temperature reconstructions"? http://www.clim-past.net/8/765/2012/cp-8-765-2012.pdf

The difference is the speed at which it is occurring this time, bringing with it rapid changes in weather and extreme weather events that we are not prepared for.

There is no scientific evidence to support that statement.

From the IPCC's very own special report on extreme weather: "There is low confidence in any observed long-term (40 years or more) increases in tropical cyclone activity (ie intensity, frequency, duration)." IPCC Fifth Assessment Report: "no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century". Again from the IPCC SPEX: "There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change" "The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical [winter] storms and tornadoes" "The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses"

I welcome you to prove me wrong by linking to peer-reviewed science that at proves that recent extreme weather events are more frequent and that they are caused by manmade CO2 emissions.

How about this paper that shows the mediaeval warm period as "equaling or slightly exceeding the mid-20th century warming

The graphs in that paper seem to show the same thing, that the mediaeval warming and subsequent cooling took place gradually over nearly 1000 years, while the current warming is occurring at a much faster pace. Lookit the graphs on p 775, if anything they're even more marked than the wiki graph.

There is no scientific evidence to support that statement (that we're getting more extreme weather)

Scientific evidence my sainted aunt Sally. You only need to watch the weather reports and the news, I've never seen it like this before and I wasn't born yesterday. When I first came to Japan whirlwinds were a very, very rare event, now we can get three or four in a week. The Philippines had the strongest typhoon known to hit land in history just recently. Unprecedented monsoon rains caused widespread flooding in Pakistan last year. The UK is supposedly famous for its rain, yet today water shortages are common. When I was a kid the summers were never that hot and electric fans were something you saw only in films, now they're essential for the summer heatwaves.

Cleo, Typhoon Haiyan was one of 58 super-typhoons with pressure of 900 mb or lower that have occurred since 1950, but while there 50 between 1950 and 1987, there have been only 8 in the past 25 years, so they're not increasing.

http://models.weatherbell.com/tokyo_sub900mb

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration also ranks Haiyan 7th in terms of wind speed. It was not the biggest in history.

I don't doubt that you feel like weather is becoming more extreme, but that does not make it scientific fact.

Science and historical records show no trend in extreme weather.

Globally, “there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.” http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/full/nature11575.html

No signifcant trend in global cyclone landfalls since 1970 http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/2012.04.pdf

Peer-reviewed research shows no conclusive and general proof as to how climate change affects flood behaviour. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1623/hysj.2005.50.5.797

Peer-reviwed study in Nature shows no correlation between temperature changes and long-term drought variations http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/abs/491338a.html?lang=en

And again: there is no scientific evidence that the rise in global temperature since 1850 (which is still only 0.8 degrees C) is causing more extreme weather.

Haven't you all heard Global warming ended in 1998.

Global Warming is not only fiction, its a massive Fraud, led by Al Gore, the failed politician.

On the Earth, the climate changes. Always has, always will until the Sun expands and encompasses the orbit of Earth. It was warmer during the Roman and Greek times than it is now. This is proven by ice cores from Greenland AND in the Andes Mtns of South America. It has been warming and cooler over the millions of years since the Moon was blasted away from it.

CO2 amounts are rising, but is that just correlation or is it causation? THAT is the real question. In the 1970s scientists though another ice age was about to happen and more CO2 was suggested as a way to get higher productivity from farming. Humans are certainly responsible for much of the CO2 released, but there are other huge CO2 factories on Earth too - volcanoes as an example.

Any climate scientist will tell you that 30 yrs of "trend data" for climate studies means NOTHING. They need a few hundreds years of data before making a bold statement such as "global warming." We need 180 more years before "blobal warming" can be declared based on science. At this point it is an unproven theory that may or may not turn out to be fact.

No "global warming" since 1996. 65% increase in ice on Polar Ice Caps. Hurricane frequency in US at lowest levels for many years. Still the hype from the politically motivated IPCC continues. We are not fooled. Anthropogenic Global Warming? Nonsense. A lie and a Scam. The climate has changed since the Beginning of the planet. Nothing to fear. Remember Climategate.

No "global warming" since 1996. 65% increase in ice on Polar Ice Caps. Hurricane frequency in US at lowest levels for many years. Still the hype from the politically motivated IPCC continues. We are not fooled. Anthropogenic Global Warming? Nonsense. A lie and a Scam. The climate has changed since the Beginning of the planet. Nothing to fear. Remember Climategate.

No.