There will inevitably be a major or world war centred on the Middle East. As the oil reserves start to get depleted, the pro-Western governments of places like Saudi Arabia will no longer be able to keep their populations happy by throwing money at them. So these governments will get overthrown by fundamentalist Islamic and/or Arab nationalist movements. Of course the US will stick their nose in, so the place will go up like a powder keg.
Timeframe? 20 years tops. Probably closer to 10.
I doubt it. Arab nationalism is a dying if not dead ideology for starters. It had its heyday from the 1950s - 1970s with its last hurrah being the Ba'athist revolutions in Syria and Iraq. The Ba'athist government in Iraq is now gone and it turns out that, despite what George Galloway claimed, it was widely hated in that country (and was barely an ideology for the last decade or so anyway). The Syrian regime will survive but only by protecting itself, not by expanding itself.
Islamism and other religious-fundamentalist movements are much stronger right now but it remains to be seen whether they can form something coherent and strong the way fascism or communism did. The case of Afghanistan from 1996-2001 suggests Islamist governments will have to combat considerable internal and external dissent and opposition. There's also the problem of "what now?" when a jihadist movement brings an Islamist government into power. Suddenly you have to deal with poverty, economic problems etc etc and religious-based ideologies tend to be terrible at these things preaching piety and offering little in the way of practical solutions.
I can't see a world war developing in the Middle East. As long as the West has interest there it will protect its allied government (eg Saudi Arabia) with whatever they need. As soon as the oil runs out the Western support will too. The region will probably fall into decades of warfare but it won't be a world war because the world interest - oil- won't be there any more.
That's assuming we don't find a new power source before the oil runs out. In the 19th century the big question of "what happens when the coal runs out?" came to naught.
However, with current technology hydrogen fuel cells a fractionally worse for the environment than reguar fuel.
Nobody. The patents on fuel cells would have expired 20 years ago - this is why these "oil companies bought the patents" are simply mindless conspiracy theories.
Firstly, patents are public. That's part of the deal with the patent system: the idea is you patent it, and in return for making the invention public, you get a limited monopoly on the invention. All these "wonder patents" that the conspiracy theorists say the oil companies bought and sat on, most would have expired by now and would be simple public knowledge anyone can implement, and even when the patents were valid, you would have been able to simply go to the patent office and get the complete documentation describing how to make said invention.
The issue is complex, gnarly, and can be discussed to death, but the precis is:
1. It's not about saving the planet; it's about saving ourselves.
2. We are not living sustainably - we are living beyond our means.
3. We are not a hive mind, which makes it difficult to gain the will to fix the problem.
1. It's not about saving the planet, it's about saving ourselves
The Sun has been main sequence for around 5 billion years, and there has been life on Earth for about 4 billion, and complex multicellular life for about 1 billion. Humans have been around for 2 million years in their modern form. Now say we do $BADTHING that causes us to go extinct - well, the Sun still has another five billion years of main sequence, and life as we know it will be supported for something like 700 million to one billion years from today. We are but a blip; Earth will shrug us off like we shrug off winter vomiting disease if we do end up doing $BADTHING. Earth may be sick, but just like winter vomiting disease, will "feel" [0] terrible for a couple of days and then will just get on with life.
From a planetary point of view, it's even arguable that we're helping: all the carbon (which is essential for life) that had been locked up and removed from the biosphere forever is now being returned into the biosphere where once again it is available for life forms to use - we might actually be extending life on Earth, even if it's ultimately bad for us as one particular species.
2. We are not living sustainably
It's estimated if everyone lived how the west did, we'd need several Earths (I've heard from three to ten; it probably depends on whether you're looking at just North America or every industrialised country in the world).
The oil won't suddenly run out - not by a long shot. We won't suddenly wake up one day and find all the petrol stations closed because all of a sudden, the wells dried up. Rather, production follows a curve - production from a field increases until it peaks, then gradually falls away. Once it's peaked, there's nothing you can do to increase the production rate in a meaningful way.
Already we are using oil faster than we are discovering new oil, and already the big oil fields are pumping as quickly as they can, but demand is increasing faster than supply. The high cost of oil at the moment is partially due to political uncertainty, but mostly due to simple market forces: demand is outstripping supply.
On the greenhouse gas front, there's a lot of guff that's said about that: for example, the claim that Britain is meeting its Kyoto targets is patently and obviously false: there are more cars on the road, more planes in the sky, more consumer goods in the house. How can our greenhouse gases be falling? They aren't; we simply outsourced our industry to the Far East and migrated to a service economy - all we did is move that greenhouse gas production elsewhere, then claimed we were meeting our targets! Claims that there's no point us doing anything because China will produce that increase in $TIMEPERIOD are also disingenious: it's not the rural Chinese peasant who's driving Chinese demand - it's us!. We're driving Chinese industrialisation and Chinese demand. While this increasingly leads to China having a self-sustaining economy (with increasing domestic industrial demand), it's the west's insatiable demand for cheap goods that bootstrapped the process. Yes, Tonto, we have seen the enemy..and the enemy is us.
3. We are not a hive mind
... and this makes the problem extremely hard to address.
For instance, any one of us could give up our cars, give up holidays, and only buy second hand consumer goods. But we know it would not make a measurable difference unless everyone did the same at the same time, and it will seriously degrade our quality of life, without having any measurable benefit whatsoever. This dilemma means everyone's waiting for someone else to act first, so no one acts. They all wait for the Government to act instead. But the government has the same dilemma. Let's take a look at commercial aviation - a recent newsworthy environmental bugbear.
Let's say Britain bans all commercial flights tomorrow. Well, it only makes up 5% of our CO2 output anyhow, and would not make a measurable difference to the world's greenhouse gas problem, but it would destroy our economy.
So it takes the whole world to do it at the same time. But no one is willing to act first and cripple their economy, because they expect others to simply take advantage of the situation.
So what does it mean?
It means if our advanced technological society survives, it will only survive through pure, dumb luck.
If we are lucky, the decline in oil production will happen before ecological collapse (or hopefully, ecological collapse won't happen at all). If we are lucky, the decline will happen at such a rate that it takes enough time that market forces will work in time: as oil declines, it will become less affordable, and force the development of alternatives. If it takes long enough to decline, alternatives (which include renewables, simply using less stuff, better technology, better recycling, better biofuels, better solar and wind technology, better nuclear technology) will develop - and as they do the cost of the alternatives to oil will fall as they are heavily commercialised and production methods are refined - and our society can continue to advance. Where once oil was cheap and more sustainable alternatives were expensive, the sustainable becomes cheap and oil expensive. No one will bother with oil for fuel again.
If we are moderately unlucky, we experience a downturn as oil declines but alternatives aren't in place in sufficient quantities for a period of time, but eventually, these alternatives are refined and after an uncomfortable and difficult downturn, we resume on course.
If we are very unlucky, industrialised society collapses. This is a very bad scenario - all the "low hanging" energy fruit (i.e. coal that's easy to get hold of, oil that's easy to get hold of) that got the industrial revolution going, and can be easily harvested by a non-industrial society that's trying to industrialise - has gone forever. We have only one shot at advanced society: if we screw this one up, we can't start a new one, because the easy to get at resources that bootstrapped this process the last time are all gone. To get a meaningful amount of resources now, you need advanced drilling and mining techniques, which simply wouldn't be available to a depleted, post apocalyptic society... and given that the Earth has only 700M to 1bn years left, it's unlikely that enough fossil fuel resources would accumulate, for, say a super intelligent race of cockroaches to start their own industrial revolution - let alone the remaining humans. Indeed, I think if intelligent life is to survive in this solar system at all past the next 700M years, we must get it right. Sadly, when our political and commercial systems only care about the next quarter, getting the next 700M to 1Bn years right really is just going to be a matter of dumb luck.
One thing you might observe is the oil companies can already see the handwriting on the wall. I don't recall an oil company calling itself an oil company for a few years...strangely, they all have increasingly been calling themselves energy companies. A political commentator I heard on the radio about ten years ago said once oil companies stop calling themselves that, you know oil's days are numbered. (This number of course may still be quite large!)
Oil reserves are hard to measure, mainly because new techniques for harvesting it are developed all the time, I remember when I was a kid they said we only had 20-30yrs of oil left....well here we are and we still have plenty.
I am on the fence about global warming...probably leaning towards the side of its a load of bollocks.
I've read both sides and there is argument for both theories....its 50/50.
I'm another one that doesn't really care to much. As Winston says it's nothing to do with saving the planet..its saving our own sorry asses. The planet will eradicate itself of any 'virus' that is harming it long before it 'dies'.
Who's to say we are the end of the line anyway...I'm sure the dinosaurs (if they could think!) thought they were the bees knees too...and they were around a lot longer than we were.
If we are so stupid as to destroy our own existence..then do we deserve to survive anyway as a species?...we are smart enough to know what we are doing so if we don't do anything about it...then bring on the apocalypse and let the ants have a go!
i think mother nature needs to be told who's boss round here. i suggest we all go into the woods and kick some squirells around, throw some rocks at fish, shout abuse at some starlings.
she'll get the message soon enough and sort out the thermostat.
failing that, the west some dump thier nuclear arsenals on the useless countries of the world (we all know who i'm talking about) it'll free up some oil for the rest of us.
Oil reserves are hard to measure, mainly because new techniques for harvesting it are developed all the time, I remember when I was a kid they said we only had 20-30yrs of oil left....well here we are and we still have plenty.
Back then we were discovering oil as quickly or more quickly than we were using it. The case is not the same now; we're using it faster than we are discovering it despite technological increases.
I am on the fence about global warming...probably leaning towards the side of its a load of bollocks.
I thought that too, but it was only because I too happened to live in a big oil city near big oil refineries and hung out with big oil people!
However, the consensus that anthropo...antrho...human induced global warming is real is now quite difficult to refute. The Met. Office's Hadley Climate Centre, for instance, has re-run their models from a point in the past (i.e. taking climate models, and validating them by starting them with the observations of 50 years ago, and see how well they predict the trends that got us to where we are now) and have demonstrated that they have very good climate models. Then, with the validated climate model, they can try experiments: for example, fix the Sun's output at a particular level, or take away all the increased CO2 emissions. The models have demonstrated that the biggest factor in recent times has been human CO2 emissions. It's not the only factor, just the biggest!
The real debate amongst climate scientists is not whether global warming is happening at all or whether it's man made, the debate is will it be merely a slight inconvenience, or will it be a disaster? The hippies and press of course immediately leap on the conflated disaster theories because it serves an agenda (for hippies, their point of view we should all live stone age lifestyles in tune with Gaia, and for the mainstream media, because sensationalism sells).
But if you look at real peer-reviewed research...yep, it's us. We are changing the composition of the atmosphere at quite a rate. While climate change is just a fact of nature and will happen with or without us, the current climate trends are quite strongly influenced by how we are changing the atmosphere.
By the way, the usual right wing counter example of "Well, the forecasters can't even get the weather right for next week, how can they forecast 50 years into the future" either ignorantly or willfully misses the point. Meterologists and climatolagists are not the same people even if their field is related. A simple analogy is to take a pan of water, and put it on a stove. The meterologist is the person trying to predict where each convection and each bubble in the water forms; he'll be lucky to be acccurate for predictions more than a few seconds into the future. The climatologist instead is the person who says given this heat setting, the water will boil in N minutes, and if you put the lid on, the water will boil M minutes sooner - and he'll be right for the most part, even though the timespan is much longer. The accuracy of general trend forecasting over a very long period is obviously going to be much better than trying to forecast the weather on a given day.
If we are so stupid as to destroy our own existence..then do we deserve to survive anyway as a species?...we are smart enough to know what we are doing so if we don't do anything about it...then bring on the apocalypse and let the ants have a go!
It would be a tragedy if we were lost, that's why. Besides, it's up to us. As I said - intelligence in the solar system probably only has one shot at it - there may be as little as 500 million years for life as we know it to exist on Earth which isn't long enough for a new intelligence to evolve from insects. People might think I'm odd, but I think it would be a huge tragedy if we failed, and the solar system was just yet another lifeless star system in 500M years time.
I was reading a few weeks ago that CO2 is the greenhouse gas to worry about the least. Methane is the bad boy as it traps MUCH more heat than CO2 does and the biggest producer of Methane globally is cattle.
So....mad cow disease might be the way to go on this one.
It would be a tragedy if we were lost, that's why. Besides, it's up to us. As I said - intelligence in the solar system probably only has one shot at it - there may be as little as 500 million years for life as we know it to exist on Earth which isn't long enough for a new intelligence to evolve from insects. People might think I'm odd, but I think it would be a huge tragedy if we failed, and the solar system was just yet another lifeless star system in 500M years time.
I personally think life is extremely common in the universe, just the distances are so vast that it seems empty to us coz the furthest we have been is the moon (not counting probes). My old car had about the same mileage as it is to the moon.
Tragedy happen everyday..it's more of a tragedy that WE are the cause of species going extinct EVERYDAY.....whats the greater tragedy there?
There is other intelligent life on earth, dolphins, whales, chimps etc...maybe not AS intelligent as us but then evolution hasn't stopped yet. Think about dolphins or a moment...without humans what a Utopian life they lead, playing all day, eating fish, no obsession with material items, living at one with nature...so...who is the most intelligent? That's open for debate too!
I personally think life is extremely common in the universe, just the distances are so vast that it seems empty to us coz the furthest we have been is the moon (not counting probes).
I tend to agree, it would be extremely arrogant of us to believe we live on the only inhabited planet in the universe.
There is almost certainly life out there somewhere and they probably in the same position as us and pondering the same questions...
I've read both sides and there is argument for both theories....its 50/50.
No it isn't. The vast majority of climatologists have a concensus about Global Warming which is that we are contributing to it. If you scout around the internet then there can appear to be a lot of counter-debate, largely because they're either repeating old, reputed theories (solar flares etc) or because they're trading in pseudoscience dressed-up as proper science. It's like the 9/11 conspiracy theorists - they can provide pages of detailed arguments which can look convincing if you know little or nothing about what they're talking about. Then the experts come along and pull it all to pieces. Then they have to repeat the process because a whole bunch of people read the sceptic's website again.
No it isn't. The vast majority of climatologists have a concensus about Global Warming which is that we are contributing to it. If you scout around the internet then there can appear to be a lot of counter-debate, largely because they're either repeating old, reputed theories (solar flares etc) or because they're trading in pseudoscience dressed-up as proper science. It's like the 9/11 conspiracy theorists - they can provide pages of detailed arguments which can look convincing if you know little or nothing about what they're talking about. Then the experts come along and pull it all to pieces. Then they have to repeat the process because a whole bunch of people read the sceptic's website again.
I'm not talking about sceptics websites..here is a quick link to qualified scientist that dispute one or more things about global warming...
These are a small minority, though. Essentially, by claiming that the arguments are "50-50" or anything similar you'd be arguing that the opinions of a small minority of scientists are as valid as the opinions of the large majority. That isn't even slightly correct.
Basically, if we take a large number of experts in a particular field and the vast majority come to one conclusion and the minority refute it then the intelligent, rational thing to do is assume the majority are correct and the minority are being obstinant or are just plain wrong. That's not siding with the scientific establishment or being some sort of conformist, it's just plain rationality.
Incidentally, a lot of those scientists mentioned aren't even climatologists so it's debatable whether they even fit into the above example. Having geologists or chemists refute the majority of opinions about climate by climatologists is a little like a dentist siding against the majority opinion of neurologists on the functioning of the human brain.
These are a small minority, though. Essentially, by claiming that the arguments are "50-50" or anything similar you'd be arguing that the opinions of a small minority of scientists are as valid as the opinions of the large majority. That isn't even slightly correct.
Basically, if we take a large number of experts in a particular field and the vast majority come to one conclusion and the minority refute it then the intelligent, rational thing to do is assume the majority are correct and the minority are being obstinant or are just plain wrong. That's not siding with the scientific establishment or being some sort of conformist, it's just plain rationality.
Incidentally, a lot of those scientists mentioned aren't even climatologists so it's debatable whether they even fit into the above example. Having geologists or chemists refute the majority of opinions about climate by climatologists is a little like a dentist siding against the majority opinion of neurologists on the functioning of the human brain.
I believe Galileo was a small minority when he announced the earth was not the centre of the universe....turned out he was right.
..Its not a small minority anyway..that's just 'some' of them. Numbers don't make something right or wrong...facts do. Global warming caused by humans is a THEORY not a fact. Therefore it is 50/50....there is arguments for both sides....2 sides= 50/50...both sides have convincing arguments (based on scientific fact and study).
Also Global warming is not measured ONLY by climatologists. Geologists (measuring historical climate through rocks etc), oceanographers (seas temperature, current flow etc etc), astronomers (the sun is a prime candidate for global warming).
I believe Galileo was a small minority when he announced the earth was not the centre of the universe....turned out he was right.
..Its not a small minority anyway..that's just 'some' of them. Numbers don't make something right or wrong...facts do. Global warming is a THEORY not a fact. Therefore it is 50/50....there is arguments for both sides....2 sides= 50/50...both sides have convincing arguments (based on scientific fact and study).
Gallielo wasn't up against rational science, he was up against religious dogma so that isn't a good comparison. If he'd been submitting his data to scientists for review he wouldn't have had any problems convincing anyone as he was quite clearly correct.
I agree global warming is a theory but the *vast majority* of climatologists (ie experts in this field, not merely "scientists") agree that the current concensus is most likely correct. If anyone has good data to the contrary then they're welcome to submit it but most sceptics are simply repeating arguments the climatologists have already considered and eventually rejected. There's no closed ranks, nor heads in the ground. If people had real, hard evidence that human emissions of CO2 are not contributing to global warming then the concensus could be overturned tomorrow. It hasn't happened because it hasn't surfaced and it looks increasingly unlikely that it will.
As for "convincing arguments" I agree that much global warming scepticism was well-considered and scientific. It's also been looked-at and rejected. This site goes over the arguments against (good and bad) and refutes them:
Also Global warming is not measured ONLY by climatologists. Geologists (measuring historical climate through rocks etc), oceanographers (seas temperature, current flow etc etc), astronomers (the sun is a prime candidate for global warming).
But climatologists *are* the only ones with any real expertise regarding Earth's climate; other scientific branches are more narrow in their outlook as they focus on specific things. Hence astronomers were more likely to think of sun-flares whilst oceaonologists can relate to global temperatures with relation to ocean temperature etc. However, a) climatologists have to take into account the whole climate and how all these things relate to it b) oceanologists and astronomers *will* have been asked for their input anyway. This is about science, lest we forget, people trying to find out the truth. It's not about people having a preconcieved idea and sticking to it.
In the grand scheme of things, we are currently between two ice ages - so we'll most probably be saying "Brrr! It's bloody chilly around here!" as we peer out from our igloos in 10,000 years time. The Earth was far warmer in the past. The problem is not that the Earth is warming up or cooling down, but that the rate of the heating or cooling is too much for the ecosystem to cope with.
At the time is was rational science, his peers (scientists) disagreed with him.
I agree global warming is a theory but the *vast majority* of climatologists (ie experts in this field, not merely "scientists") agree that the current concensus is most likely correct.
Why are you stuck on what climatologist say....you really need to study the concept of global warming more if you think they are the only ones that know whats going on, it encompasses most scientific fields. The sea has long been held as the worlds thermometer so wouldn't someone who studies that have a say in the matter? or astronomers who have studied the suns cycles for years?...or geologist that can study millions of years of climate change?? or even the guy cutting down a 2000yr old tree and looking at the growth rings.....The historical and cause of climate goes further than just sticking your finger out and saying 'its windy today'.
Also on the 'vast majority' thing....as I said numbers don't prove anything. Tesla the AC/DC current issue...look into that, Tesla was well in the minority at the time on AC vs DC power yet here we are today using AC.
If people had real, hard evidence that human emissions of CO2 are not contributing to global warming then the concensus could be overturned tomorrow. It hasn't happened because it hasn't surfaced and it looks increasingly unlikely that it will.
And they same for the other way...if people had real hard evidence FOR humans causing global warming it would be a fact and not a theory.
Edit: Your link is about as worthy as any of the 'skeptic' sites too.
There is almost certainly life out there somewhere and they probably in the same position as us and pondering the same questions...
Let's just hope they lean our way when it comes to the Speccy vs. Commode. It would suck to have to go to war with a whole planet over something like that. But we'd probably win after sneezing once or twice over there. And then we could use their place as dump for the lesser intelligent individuals over here who think they know better when it comes to their Brown Box*
We could call it something catchy like Stupidplace, Dumbtopia or c64vsspectrum.com
But climatologists *are* the only ones with any real expertise regarding Earth's climate
Rubbish, if it turns out the Global warming is due to changes in the sun what the hell do they know about that?
Another example below copied from my link that climatologists would know nothing about...
# Henrik Svensmark, Danish National Space Center: "Our team ... has discovered that the relatively few cosmic rays that reach sea-level play a big part in the everyday weather. They help to make low-level clouds, which largely regulate the Earth’s surface temperature. During the 20th Century the influx of cosmic rays decreased and the resulting reduction of cloudiness allowed the world to warm up. ... most of the warming during the 20th Century can be explained by a reduction in low cloud cover."[44]
I believe Galileo was a small minority when he announced the earth was not the centre of the universe....turned out he was right.
He wasn't in a small minority of scientists following the scientific principle, though. He was a lone scientist against religious dogmatists. The comparison is a non-sequitor.
..Its not a small minority anyway..that's just 'some' of them. Numbers don't make something right or wrong...facts do. Global warming caused by humans is a THEORY not a fact. Therefore it is 50/50....there is arguments for both sides....2 sides= 50/50...both sides have convincing arguments (based on scientific fact and study).
Hmmm. That's a very bizarre analysis with all due respect! For example, there is an argument that the earth is flat. However, you wouldn't say it's 50/50 that the earth actually is flat just because there are two arguments: one that says it is and one that says it isn't.
Secondly, you're making the usual mistake that the main stream media make by calling something "only a theory". Theory, when applied to science, does not mean hunch. That would be conjecture. Human induced climate change isn't only a conjecture - it is a pretty solid scientific theory that's getting more and more solid every day as the evidence mounts. It's perfectly normal that scientists try and test the theory and try and find out whether the principles set out by the theory are false, it's their job - it's part of the scientific process to do this. As a result, theories get more and more refined. But scientists don't talk to each other about "scientific fact" (except colloquially). In science, everything is a theory... but in science, a theory is actually a big deal, it's not an "only", it's not an alias for "hunch".
Electricity is only a theory, too. But if I flick the light switch, the light turns on. Quantum theory is "only a theory" too, but still transistors appear to work, and quantum theory is one of the foundations of the humble field effect transistor, of which millions are sitting on my lap right now. Relativity is "only a theory", too, but the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the mid 1940s can tell you just how forceful those theories turned out to be.
The basis of theories in the scientific method are to set out some testable, falsifiable principles, and then test them, and test them - and keep testing them, trying to find holes. Maxwell's equations, for instance, are part of a theory. But the fact you managed to type the last message showed that calling a scientific theory "only a theory" is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of scientific theory. It's not just a conjecture where you say "I observed A, therefore it must be caused by B". That's probably what you're meaning when you say "only a theory", sort of like when a detective has a hunch. However, the word theory has a rather more solid meaning within the scientific method - and if something being scientifically examined has made it past conjecture, past hypothesis and into a falsifiable, testable theory - then it's already getting pretty damned solid.
Unfortunately, the mainstream media and education has failed in this regard to educate the public that theory doesn't mean hunch or guess, but is actually the closest you get to fact in the scientific method. It means people tend to not take things seriously when they are described as theories, when the evidence is in fact overwhelming; and it could actually lead to the downfall of western society in an extreme case. All over the misunderstanding of one word!
At the time is was rational science, his peers (scientists) disagreed with him.
No, it was the church who disagreed with him because his ideas were heretical.
Why are you stuck on what climatologist say....you really need to study the concept of global warming more if you think they are the only ones that know whats going on, it encompasses most scientific fields. The sea has long been held as the worlds thermometer so wouldn't someone who studies that have a say in the matter? or astronomers who have studied the suns cycles for years?...or geologist that can study millions of years of climate change?? or even the guy cutting down a 2000yr old tree and looking at the growth rings.....The historical and cause of climate goes further than just sticking your finger out and saying 'its windy today'.
Also on the 'vast majority' thing....as I said numbers don't prove anything. Tesla the AC/DC current issue...look into that, Tesla was well in the minority at the time on AC vs DC power yet here we are today using AC.
I'm not saying I know either way, I don't, I'm saying that when a very large group of people who are experts in a particular field agree a wide-ranging concensus on a subject and a small minority (many of whom are not even experts in that field) disagree then I know which side to plump for, rationally.
I've read a *lot* about global warming. I used to have plenty of time for the sceptic position. I don't *want* global warming to be happening. I wish it was all a load of rubbish. The thing is the evidence and the opinions of experts all points one way. I've seen plenty of good scepticism shot-down in flames by better scientific argument. I've seen no real attack on the scientfic concensus except the repetition of sceptic arguments I've already seen. Every time I find a reasonable, scientific challenge to the GW concensus I very soon find it being refuted. Why? Because climatologists have already looked at all the data, they've already seen all the arguments. It's old news. The concensus wasn't reached overnight, it took a lot of debates, a lot of facts, a lot of expertise and a lot of sceptics needed to be convinced. Huge tracts of the GW debate are still without concensus (eg whether hurricanes and other extreme weather are getting worse because of GW).
Tesla and AC/DC is a bad example - that wasn't about scientific concensus. Edison went with DC because he, personally, was convinced it was the future and he simply ignored Tesla's AC experiments. That's not comparable with climatologists and sceptical positions put-forward by other scientists - they do, and have, listen to them.
And they same for the other way...if people had real hard evidence FOR humans causing global warming it would be a fact and not a theory.
As I said already, it is a theory. But it's the theory that the vast majority of experts in the field agree is most likely correct based on all the data they've looked at, debated, and looked at again. They can't say "this is definitely, definitely happening" because it's science: someone could come up with new data that throws the concensus away tomorrow. It's just that that's extremely unlikely. Science deals with looking at all the data and reaching the most likely conclusion based on that.
Why are you stuck on what climatologist say....you really need to study the concept of global warming more if you think they are the only ones that know whats going on, it encompasses most scientific fields. The sea has long been held as the worlds thermometer so wouldn't someone who studies that have a say in the matter? or astronomers who have studied the suns cycles for years?...or geologist that can study millions of years of climate change??
Funnily enough, climatologists DO talk to all of these other people. Scientists don't sit in neatly compatmentalised boxes, not listening to other branches of science - believe it or not, climatologists include the inputs of astronomers studiying the Sun, and oceanographers and the rest of them. Look at the work the Hadley Climate Centre includes in their models. It includes solar output. It includes trends observed in the ocean. After all, they are all pretty important to the climate.
A climatologist that did not also use the research of these people would not be a good climatologist.
Theory does not imply (found) fact(s) until proven to be so. Theories generated on both sides of this particular fence have not proven anything 100% either way.
Both sides (not this forum) should stop bickering, get back to their laboratories and come back when they have something more solid to offer.
Rubbish, if it turns out the Global warming is due to changes in the sun what the hell do they know about that?
Another example below copied from my link that climatologists would know nothing about...
# Henrik Svensmark, Danish National Space Center: "Our team ... has discovered that the relatively few cosmic rays that reach sea-level play a big part in the everyday weather. They help to make low-level clouds, which largely regulate the Earth?s surface temperature. During the 20th Century the influx of cosmic rays decreased and the resulting reduction of cloudiness allowed the world to warm up. ... most of the warming during the 20th Century can be explained by a reduction in low cloud cover."[44]
I think you missed my point: climatologists, when deciding whether humans contributed to global warming, took data and input from experts in other fields. They've studied, considered, and rejected all this stuff.
Incidentally, it's interesting that the sceptics tend towards certainties ie "most of the warming during the 20th Century can be explained by a reduction in low cloud". That's not even a remotely scientific position, it's a theory (one rejected by the vast majority of experts by looking at all the data, not just concentrating on one thing) by one person presented as though it's fact.
Hmmm. That's a very bizarre analysis with all due respect! For example, there is an argument that the earth is flat. However, you wouldn't say it's 50/50 that the earth actually is flat just because there are two arguments: one that says it is and one that says it isn't.
Bad example as that's already a proven.
If there was no definite proof the earth was round then it would be a 50/50 argument and using Zarebs idea that the majority rules..then the earth would be flat as at the time the vast majority of the population believed it to be so!.
Secondly, you're making the usual mistake that the main stream media make by calling something "only a theory". Theory, when applied to science, does not mean hunch. That would be conjecture. Human induced climate change isn't only a conjecture - it is a pretty solid scientific theory that's getting more and more solid every day as the evidence mounts.
That's not the dispute, the dispute is, is human climate change responsible for the level of global warming we are seeing...your confusing 2 arguments. There is no doubt that humans are responsible for some climate change...the question is are they SIGNIFICANTLY responsible for the climate change we are seeing or is it a natural thing.....
Our change could be as little as a drop of water in the ocean compared with natural CO2 immissions (volcanic activity, plants etc), and methane emmissions from cattle (which could be argued as human caused as we raise them in such numbers), sun activity etc.
Incidentally, it's interesting that the sceptics tend towards
Just to be clear I'm not a sceptic..I'm on the fence...I wouldn't be surprised about the final result either way.
The point I am making simply is there are valuable arguments for both ways and both ways can and do shoot down the others counter arguments.
The fact that there is division in the scientific community in itself shows nothing is a proven and us debating it on WOS will as usual go no where and we are not going to convince the other that our 'belief' is the correct one.
We can both throw links and 'facts' at eath other all day and not change a damn thing...I respect your position, you respect mine and the flat world keeps turning.
Funnily enough, climatologists DO talk to all of these other people. Scientists don't sit in neatly compatmentalised boxes, not listening to other branches of science - believe it or not, climatologists include the inputs of astronomers studiying the Sun, and oceanographers and the rest of them. Look at the work the Hadley Climate Centre includes in their models. It includes solar output. It includes trends observed in the ocean. After all, they are all pretty important to the climate.
A climatologist that did not also use the research of these people would not be a good climatologist.
Exactly!! thanks for making my point...just because someone is classed as a geologist, astronomer etc does not mean they have no knowledge/input on climate! :D ...works both ways
Comments
No it should be at least 4
One for clear, one for green, one for brown, and a special one for Blue Nun and Baby Cham bottles :D
I doubt it. Arab nationalism is a dying if not dead ideology for starters. It had its heyday from the 1950s - 1970s with its last hurrah being the Ba'athist revolutions in Syria and Iraq. The Ba'athist government in Iraq is now gone and it turns out that, despite what George Galloway claimed, it was widely hated in that country (and was barely an ideology for the last decade or so anyway). The Syrian regime will survive but only by protecting itself, not by expanding itself.
Islamism and other religious-fundamentalist movements are much stronger right now but it remains to be seen whether they can form something coherent and strong the way fascism or communism did. The case of Afghanistan from 1996-2001 suggests Islamist governments will have to combat considerable internal and external dissent and opposition. There's also the problem of "what now?" when a jihadist movement brings an Islamist government into power. Suddenly you have to deal with poverty, economic problems etc etc and religious-based ideologies tend to be terrible at these things preaching piety and offering little in the way of practical solutions.
I can't see a world war developing in the Middle East. As long as the West has interest there it will protect its allied government (eg Saudi Arabia) with whatever they need. As soon as the oil runs out the Western support will too. The region will probably fall into decades of warfare but it won't be a world war because the world interest - oil- won't be there any more.
That's assuming we don't find a new power source before the oil runs out. In the 19th century the big question of "what happens when the coal runs out?" came to naught.
Nobody. The patents on fuel cells would have expired 20 years ago - this is why these "oil companies bought the patents" are simply mindless conspiracy theories.
Firstly, patents are public. That's part of the deal with the patent system: the idea is you patent it, and in return for making the invention public, you get a limited monopoly on the invention. All these "wonder patents" that the conspiracy theorists say the oil companies bought and sat on, most would have expired by now and would be simple public knowledge anyone can implement, and even when the patents were valid, you would have been able to simply go to the patent office and get the complete documentation describing how to make said invention.
The issue is complex, gnarly, and can be discussed to death, but the precis is:
1. It's not about saving the planet; it's about saving ourselves.
2. We are not living sustainably - we are living beyond our means.
3. We are not a hive mind, which makes it difficult to gain the will to fix the problem.
1. It's not about saving the planet, it's about saving ourselves
The Sun has been main sequence for around 5 billion years, and there has been life on Earth for about 4 billion, and complex multicellular life for about 1 billion. Humans have been around for 2 million years in their modern form. Now say we do $BADTHING that causes us to go extinct - well, the Sun still has another five billion years of main sequence, and life as we know it will be supported for something like 700 million to one billion years from today. We are but a blip; Earth will shrug us off like we shrug off winter vomiting disease if we do end up doing $BADTHING. Earth may be sick, but just like winter vomiting disease, will "feel" [0] terrible for a couple of days and then will just get on with life.
From a planetary point of view, it's even arguable that we're helping: all the carbon (which is essential for life) that had been locked up and removed from the biosphere forever is now being returned into the biosphere where once again it is available for life forms to use - we might actually be extending life on Earth, even if it's ultimately bad for us as one particular species.
2. We are not living sustainably
It's estimated if everyone lived how the west did, we'd need several Earths (I've heard from three to ten; it probably depends on whether you're looking at just North America or every industrialised country in the world).
The oil won't suddenly run out - not by a long shot. We won't suddenly wake up one day and find all the petrol stations closed because all of a sudden, the wells dried up. Rather, production follows a curve - production from a field increases until it peaks, then gradually falls away. Once it's peaked, there's nothing you can do to increase the production rate in a meaningful way.
Already we are using oil faster than we are discovering new oil, and already the big oil fields are pumping as quickly as they can, but demand is increasing faster than supply. The high cost of oil at the moment is partially due to political uncertainty, but mostly due to simple market forces: demand is outstripping supply.
On the greenhouse gas front, there's a lot of guff that's said about that: for example, the claim that Britain is meeting its Kyoto targets is patently and obviously false: there are more cars on the road, more planes in the sky, more consumer goods in the house. How can our greenhouse gases be falling? They aren't; we simply outsourced our industry to the Far East and migrated to a service economy - all we did is move that greenhouse gas production elsewhere, then claimed we were meeting our targets! Claims that there's no point us doing anything because China will produce that increase in $TIMEPERIOD are also disingenious: it's not the rural Chinese peasant who's driving Chinese demand - it's us!. We're driving Chinese industrialisation and Chinese demand. While this increasingly leads to China having a self-sustaining economy (with increasing domestic industrial demand), it's the west's insatiable demand for cheap goods that bootstrapped the process. Yes, Tonto, we have seen the enemy..and the enemy is us.
3. We are not a hive mind
... and this makes the problem extremely hard to address.
For instance, any one of us could give up our cars, give up holidays, and only buy second hand consumer goods. But we know it would not make a measurable difference unless everyone did the same at the same time, and it will seriously degrade our quality of life, without having any measurable benefit whatsoever. This dilemma means everyone's waiting for someone else to act first, so no one acts. They all wait for the Government to act instead. But the government has the same dilemma. Let's take a look at commercial aviation - a recent newsworthy environmental bugbear.
Let's say Britain bans all commercial flights tomorrow. Well, it only makes up 5% of our CO2 output anyhow, and would not make a measurable difference to the world's greenhouse gas problem, but it would destroy our economy.
So it takes the whole world to do it at the same time. But no one is willing to act first and cripple their economy, because they expect others to simply take advantage of the situation.
So what does it mean?
It means if our advanced technological society survives, it will only survive through pure, dumb luck.
If we are lucky, the decline in oil production will happen before ecological collapse (or hopefully, ecological collapse won't happen at all). If we are lucky, the decline will happen at such a rate that it takes enough time that market forces will work in time: as oil declines, it will become less affordable, and force the development of alternatives. If it takes long enough to decline, alternatives (which include renewables, simply using less stuff, better technology, better recycling, better biofuels, better solar and wind technology, better nuclear technology) will develop - and as they do the cost of the alternatives to oil will fall as they are heavily commercialised and production methods are refined - and our society can continue to advance. Where once oil was cheap and more sustainable alternatives were expensive, the sustainable becomes cheap and oil expensive. No one will bother with oil for fuel again.
If we are moderately unlucky, we experience a downturn as oil declines but alternatives aren't in place in sufficient quantities for a period of time, but eventually, these alternatives are refined and after an uncomfortable and difficult downturn, we resume on course.
If we are very unlucky, industrialised society collapses. This is a very bad scenario - all the "low hanging" energy fruit (i.e. coal that's easy to get hold of, oil that's easy to get hold of) that got the industrial revolution going, and can be easily harvested by a non-industrial society that's trying to industrialise - has gone forever. We have only one shot at advanced society: if we screw this one up, we can't start a new one, because the easy to get at resources that bootstrapped this process the last time are all gone. To get a meaningful amount of resources now, you need advanced drilling and mining techniques, which simply wouldn't be available to a depleted, post apocalyptic society... and given that the Earth has only 700M to 1bn years left, it's unlikely that enough fossil fuel resources would accumulate, for, say a super intelligent race of cockroaches to start their own industrial revolution - let alone the remaining humans. Indeed, I think if intelligent life is to survive in this solar system at all past the next 700M years, we must get it right. Sadly, when our political and commercial systems only care about the next quarter, getting the next 700M to 1Bn years right really is just going to be a matter of dumb luck.
One thing you might observe is the oil companies can already see the handwriting on the wall. I don't recall an oil company calling itself an oil company for a few years...strangely, they all have increasingly been calling themselves energy companies. A political commentator I heard on the radio about ten years ago said once oil companies stop calling themselves that, you know oil's days are numbered. (This number of course may still be quite large!)
[0] just putting it in human terms.
I am on the fence about global warming...probably leaning towards the side of its a load of bollocks.
I've read both sides and there is argument for both theories....its 50/50.
I'm another one that doesn't really care to much. As Winston says it's nothing to do with saving the planet..its saving our own sorry asses. The planet will eradicate itself of any 'virus' that is harming it long before it 'dies'.
Who's to say we are the end of the line anyway...I'm sure the dinosaurs (if they could think!) thought they were the bees knees too...and they were around a lot longer than we were.
If we are so stupid as to destroy our own existence..then do we deserve to survive anyway as a species?...we are smart enough to know what we are doing so if we don't do anything about it...then bring on the apocalypse and let the ants have a go!
she'll get the message soon enough and sort out the thermostat.
failing that, the west some dump thier nuclear arsenals on the useless countries of the world (we all know who i'm talking about) it'll free up some oil for the rest of us.
He'll be mounted in a museum with 6 legged kids pointing and laughing at it...much the same as 2 legged kids do now.
Back then we were discovering oil as quickly or more quickly than we were using it. The case is not the same now; we're using it faster than we are discovering it despite technological increases.
I thought that too, but it was only because I too happened to live in a big oil city near big oil refineries and hung out with big oil people!
However, the consensus that anthropo...antrho...human induced global warming is real is now quite difficult to refute. The Met. Office's Hadley Climate Centre, for instance, has re-run their models from a point in the past (i.e. taking climate models, and validating them by starting them with the observations of 50 years ago, and see how well they predict the trends that got us to where we are now) and have demonstrated that they have very good climate models. Then, with the validated climate model, they can try experiments: for example, fix the Sun's output at a particular level, or take away all the increased CO2 emissions. The models have demonstrated that the biggest factor in recent times has been human CO2 emissions. It's not the only factor, just the biggest!
The real debate amongst climate scientists is not whether global warming is happening at all or whether it's man made, the debate is will it be merely a slight inconvenience, or will it be a disaster? The hippies and press of course immediately leap on the conflated disaster theories because it serves an agenda (for hippies, their point of view we should all live stone age lifestyles in tune with Gaia, and for the mainstream media, because sensationalism sells).
But if you look at real peer-reviewed research...yep, it's us. We are changing the composition of the atmosphere at quite a rate. While climate change is just a fact of nature and will happen with or without us, the current climate trends are quite strongly influenced by how we are changing the atmosphere.
By the way, the usual right wing counter example of "Well, the forecasters can't even get the weather right for next week, how can they forecast 50 years into the future" either ignorantly or willfully misses the point. Meterologists and climatolagists are not the same people even if their field is related. A simple analogy is to take a pan of water, and put it on a stove. The meterologist is the person trying to predict where each convection and each bubble in the water forms; he'll be lucky to be acccurate for predictions more than a few seconds into the future. The climatologist instead is the person who says given this heat setting, the water will boil in N minutes, and if you put the lid on, the water will boil M minutes sooner - and he'll be right for the most part, even though the timespan is much longer. The accuracy of general trend forecasting over a very long period is obviously going to be much better than trying to forecast the weather on a given day.
It would be a tragedy if we were lost, that's why. Besides, it's up to us. As I said - intelligence in the solar system probably only has one shot at it - there may be as little as 500 million years for life as we know it to exist on Earth which isn't long enough for a new intelligence to evolve from insects. People might think I'm odd, but I think it would be a huge tragedy if we failed, and the solar system was just yet another lifeless star system in 500M years time.
So....mad cow disease might be the way to go on this one.
I personally think life is extremely common in the universe, just the distances are so vast that it seems empty to us coz the furthest we have been is the moon (not counting probes). My old car had about the same mileage as it is to the moon.
Tragedy happen everyday..it's more of a tragedy that WE are the cause of species going extinct EVERYDAY.....whats the greater tragedy there?
There is other intelligent life on earth, dolphins, whales, chimps etc...maybe not AS intelligent as us but then evolution hasn't stopped yet. Think about dolphins or a moment...without humans what a Utopian life they lead, playing all day, eating fish, no obsession with material items, living at one with nature...so...who is the most intelligent? That's open for debate too!
So long and thanks for all the fish.
There is almost certainly life out there somewhere and they probably in the same position as us and pondering the same questions...
No it isn't. The vast majority of climatologists have a concensus about Global Warming which is that we are contributing to it. If you scout around the internet then there can appear to be a lot of counter-debate, largely because they're either repeating old, reputed theories (solar flares etc) or because they're trading in pseudoscience dressed-up as proper science. It's like the 9/11 conspiracy theorists - they can provide pages of detailed arguments which can look convincing if you know little or nothing about what they're talking about. Then the experts come along and pull it all to pieces. Then they have to repeat the process because a whole bunch of people read the sceptic's website again.
I'm not talking about sceptics websites..here is a quick link to qualified scientist that dispute one or more things about global warming...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
These are a small minority, though. Essentially, by claiming that the arguments are "50-50" or anything similar you'd be arguing that the opinions of a small minority of scientists are as valid as the opinions of the large majority. That isn't even slightly correct.
Basically, if we take a large number of experts in a particular field and the vast majority come to one conclusion and the minority refute it then the intelligent, rational thing to do is assume the majority are correct and the minority are being obstinant or are just plain wrong. That's not siding with the scientific establishment or being some sort of conformist, it's just plain rationality.
Incidentally, a lot of those scientists mentioned aren't even climatologists so it's debatable whether they even fit into the above example. Having geologists or chemists refute the majority of opinions about climate by climatologists is a little like a dentist siding against the majority opinion of neurologists on the functioning of the human brain.
I believe Galileo was a small minority when he announced the earth was not the centre of the universe....turned out he was right.
..Its not a small minority anyway..that's just 'some' of them. Numbers don't make something right or wrong...facts do. Global warming caused by humans is a THEORY not a fact. Therefore it is 50/50....there is arguments for both sides....2 sides= 50/50...both sides have convincing arguments (based on scientific fact and study).
Also Global warming is not measured ONLY by climatologists. Geologists (measuring historical climate through rocks etc), oceanographers (seas temperature, current flow etc etc), astronomers (the sun is a prime candidate for global warming).
Gallielo wasn't up against rational science, he was up against religious dogma so that isn't a good comparison. If he'd been submitting his data to scientists for review he wouldn't have had any problems convincing anyone as he was quite clearly correct.
I agree global warming is a theory but the *vast majority* of climatologists (ie experts in this field, not merely "scientists") agree that the current concensus is most likely correct. If anyone has good data to the contrary then they're welcome to submit it but most sceptics are simply repeating arguments the climatologists have already considered and eventually rejected. There's no closed ranks, nor heads in the ground. If people had real, hard evidence that human emissions of CO2 are not contributing to global warming then the concensus could be overturned tomorrow. It hasn't happened because it hasn't surfaced and it looks increasingly unlikely that it will.
As for "convincing arguments" I agree that much global warming scepticism was well-considered and scientific. It's also been looked-at and rejected. This site goes over the arguments against (good and bad) and refutes them:
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/how-to-talk-to-global-warming-sceptic.html
But climatologists *are* the only ones with any real expertise regarding Earth's climate; other scientific branches are more narrow in their outlook as they focus on specific things. Hence astronomers were more likely to think of sun-flares whilst oceaonologists can relate to global temperatures with relation to ocean temperature etc. However, a) climatologists have to take into account the whole climate and how all these things relate to it b) oceanologists and astronomers *will* have been asked for their input anyway. This is about science, lest we forget, people trying to find out the truth. It's not about people having a preconcieved idea and sticking to it.
At the time is was rational science, his peers (scientists) disagreed with him.
Why are you stuck on what climatologist say....you really need to study the concept of global warming more if you think they are the only ones that know whats going on, it encompasses most scientific fields. The sea has long been held as the worlds thermometer so wouldn't someone who studies that have a say in the matter? or astronomers who have studied the suns cycles for years?...or geologist that can study millions of years of climate change?? or even the guy cutting down a 2000yr old tree and looking at the growth rings.....The historical and cause of climate goes further than just sticking your finger out and saying 'its windy today'.
Also on the 'vast majority' thing....as I said numbers don't prove anything. Tesla the AC/DC current issue...look into that, Tesla was well in the minority at the time on AC vs DC power yet here we are today using AC.
And they same for the other way...if people had real hard evidence FOR humans causing global warming it would be a fact and not a theory.
Edit: Your link is about as worthy as any of the 'skeptic' sites too.
We could call it something catchy like Stupidplace, Dumbtopia or c64vsspectrum.com
;-)
*Man, the jokes are endless with that one.
Rubbish, if it turns out the Global warming is due to changes in the sun what the hell do they know about that?
Another example below copied from my link that climatologists would know nothing about...
# Henrik Svensmark, Danish National Space Center: "Our team ... has discovered that the relatively few cosmic rays that reach sea-level play a big part in the everyday weather. They help to make low-level clouds, which largely regulate the Earth’s surface temperature. During the 20th Century the influx of cosmic rays decreased and the resulting reduction of cloudiness allowed the world to warm up. ... most of the warming during the 20th Century can be explained by a reduction in low cloud cover."[44]
He wasn't in a small minority of scientists following the scientific principle, though. He was a lone scientist against religious dogmatists. The comparison is a non-sequitor.
Hmmm. That's a very bizarre analysis with all due respect! For example, there is an argument that the earth is flat. However, you wouldn't say it's 50/50 that the earth actually is flat just because there are two arguments: one that says it is and one that says it isn't.
Secondly, you're making the usual mistake that the main stream media make by calling something "only a theory". Theory, when applied to science, does not mean hunch. That would be conjecture. Human induced climate change isn't only a conjecture - it is a pretty solid scientific theory that's getting more and more solid every day as the evidence mounts. It's perfectly normal that scientists try and test the theory and try and find out whether the principles set out by the theory are false, it's their job - it's part of the scientific process to do this. As a result, theories get more and more refined. But scientists don't talk to each other about "scientific fact" (except colloquially). In science, everything is a theory... but in science, a theory is actually a big deal, it's not an "only", it's not an alias for "hunch".
Electricity is only a theory, too. But if I flick the light switch, the light turns on. Quantum theory is "only a theory" too, but still transistors appear to work, and quantum theory is one of the foundations of the humble field effect transistor, of which millions are sitting on my lap right now. Relativity is "only a theory", too, but the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the mid 1940s can tell you just how forceful those theories turned out to be.
The basis of theories in the scientific method are to set out some testable, falsifiable principles, and then test them, and test them - and keep testing them, trying to find holes. Maxwell's equations, for instance, are part of a theory. But the fact you managed to type the last message showed that calling a scientific theory "only a theory" is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of scientific theory. It's not just a conjecture where you say "I observed A, therefore it must be caused by B". That's probably what you're meaning when you say "only a theory", sort of like when a detective has a hunch. However, the word theory has a rather more solid meaning within the scientific method - and if something being scientifically examined has made it past conjecture, past hypothesis and into a falsifiable, testable theory - then it's already getting pretty damned solid.
Unfortunately, the mainstream media and education has failed in this regard to educate the public that theory doesn't mean hunch or guess, but is actually the closest you get to fact in the scientific method. It means people tend to not take things seriously when they are described as theories, when the evidence is in fact overwhelming; and it could actually lead to the downfall of western society in an extreme case. All over the misunderstanding of one word!
No, it was the church who disagreed with him because his ideas were heretical.
I'm not saying I know either way, I don't, I'm saying that when a very large group of people who are experts in a particular field agree a wide-ranging concensus on a subject and a small minority (many of whom are not even experts in that field) disagree then I know which side to plump for, rationally.
I've read a *lot* about global warming. I used to have plenty of time for the sceptic position. I don't *want* global warming to be happening. I wish it was all a load of rubbish. The thing is the evidence and the opinions of experts all points one way. I've seen plenty of good scepticism shot-down in flames by better scientific argument. I've seen no real attack on the scientfic concensus except the repetition of sceptic arguments I've already seen. Every time I find a reasonable, scientific challenge to the GW concensus I very soon find it being refuted. Why? Because climatologists have already looked at all the data, they've already seen all the arguments. It's old news. The concensus wasn't reached overnight, it took a lot of debates, a lot of facts, a lot of expertise and a lot of sceptics needed to be convinced. Huge tracts of the GW debate are still without concensus (eg whether hurricanes and other extreme weather are getting worse because of GW).
Tesla and AC/DC is a bad example - that wasn't about scientific concensus. Edison went with DC because he, personally, was convinced it was the future and he simply ignored Tesla's AC experiments. That's not comparable with climatologists and sceptical positions put-forward by other scientists - they do, and have, listen to them.
As I said already, it is a theory. But it's the theory that the vast majority of experts in the field agree is most likely correct based on all the data they've looked at, debated, and looked at again. They can't say "this is definitely, definitely happening" because it's science: someone could come up with new data that throws the concensus away tomorrow. It's just that that's extremely unlikely. Science deals with looking at all the data and reaching the most likely conclusion based on that.
Funnily enough, climatologists DO talk to all of these other people. Scientists don't sit in neatly compatmentalised boxes, not listening to other branches of science - believe it or not, climatologists include the inputs of astronomers studiying the Sun, and oceanographers and the rest of them. Look at the work the Hadley Climate Centre includes in their models. It includes solar output. It includes trends observed in the ocean. After all, they are all pretty important to the climate.
A climatologist that did not also use the research of these people would not be a good climatologist.
Both sides (not this forum) should stop bickering, get back to their laboratories and come back when they have something more solid to offer.
I think you missed my point: climatologists, when deciding whether humans contributed to global warming, took data and input from experts in other fields. They've studied, considered, and rejected all this stuff.
Incidentally, it's interesting that the sceptics tend towards certainties ie "most of the warming during the 20th Century can be explained by a reduction in low cloud". That's not even a remotely scientific position, it's a theory (one rejected by the vast majority of experts by looking at all the data, not just concentrating on one thing) by one person presented as though it's fact.
Bad example as that's already a proven.
If there was no definite proof the earth was round then it would be a 50/50 argument and using Zarebs idea that the majority rules..then the earth would be flat as at the time the vast majority of the population believed it to be so!.
That's not the dispute, the dispute is, is human climate change responsible for the level of global warming we are seeing...your confusing 2 arguments. There is no doubt that humans are responsible for some climate change...the question is are they SIGNIFICANTLY responsible for the climate change we are seeing or is it a natural thing.....
Our change could be as little as a drop of water in the ocean compared with natural CO2 immissions (volcanic activity, plants etc), and methane emmissions from cattle (which could be argued as human caused as we raise them in such numbers), sun activity etc.
Just to be clear I'm not a sceptic..I'm on the fence...I wouldn't be surprised about the final result either way.
The point I am making simply is there are valuable arguments for both ways and both ways can and do shoot down the others counter arguments.
The fact that there is division in the scientific community in itself shows nothing is a proven and us debating it on WOS will as usual go no where and we are not going to convince the other that our 'belief' is the correct one.
We can both throw links and 'facts' at eath other all day and not change a damn thing...I respect your position, you respect mine and the flat world keeps turning.
Exactly!! thanks for making my point...just because someone is classed as a geologist, astronomer etc does not mean they have no knowledge/input on climate! :D ...works both ways