I have never known any one subject to be as inundated with pseudoscience as the subject of man made global warming. Peeling through the nonsense, do you feel the subject warrants the attention and funding that it currently does?
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The current scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change is found in the AR4 (2007) report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at http://www.ipcc.ch/ A good site for assessing the respective credentials of climate scientists is James Prall's site of the most-cited authors on climate change: http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/ It's interesting to note that while there are some climate change skeptics with legitimate credentials and solid publishing records (e.g., John Christy, Roy Spencer, Roger Pielke, Sr., Richard Lindzen, Robert Balling, etc.), they are a tiny minority and their positions are much more nuanced than those of the climate change skeptical organizations that get the most media attention, such as The Heartland Institute. They tend not to doubt that there is global warming (and most participate in the IPCC), but The Heartland Institute cheered the most recent Pew Poll that showed American belief in global warming had declined. They agree that human emissions are increasing CO2 and that there is likely an anthropogenic component to warming and other aspects of climate change (like ocean acidification), but to question the earth's climate sensitivity. There is a lot of nonsense put out by some of the climate change organizations. S. Fred Singer's Science and Environmental Policy Project and the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine are particularly noteworthy in that regard; the latter is especially tarnished by its association with the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, that regularly publishes crackpot material in its journal (HIV doesn't cause AIDS, homosexuality causes crime, vaccinations cause autism, evolution is false, etc.). I find it startling that two Harvard astrophysicists would publish in such a journal, but Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas have done so--they were the authors of the 2003 paper in the journal Climate Research that claimed that global warming was due to solar variation, only to provoke protests from a dozen or so of the authors they cited that their work had been misused; this also led to the resignation of the journal's editor-in-chief and two of the other editors over what they saw as a failure of peer review. A study of 141 English language "environmentally sceptical" books published between 1972 and 2005 found that 92% of them were published by conservative think tanks or authored by individuals directly associated with conservative think tanks (Jacques et al., Environmental Politics vol. 17, no. 3, June 2008, pp. 349-385). Virtually every major world science organization has issued a statement supporting the general conclusions of the IPCC about anthropogenic climate change, and as of 2007 the only one I'm aware of that is noncommittal is that of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists--which switched from being anti-AGW to noncommittal in 2007. I'm not aware of any scientific organizations that have an anti-AGW statement, though S. Fred Singer attempted to get the American Physical Society to reverse their stance this year. He only managed to collect supportive signatures from 206 people (0.45% of the APS membership), and their petition was denied. John Mashey did an interesting social network analysis of the first 121 signers, and found them to center around the usual suspect conservative think tanks--Singer's SEPP, the George C. Marshall Institute, the Cato Institute, and so forth. You can find that 128-page document here: http://www.desmogblog.com/another-silly-climate-petition-exposed You can also find good commentary on climate science at the following blogs, all authored by climate scientists: Real Climate http://www.realclimate.org/ More Grumbine Science http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/ Duae Quartunciae http://duoquartuncia.blogspot.com/ A few other reliable ones not by climate scientists: Deltoid http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/ Stoat http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/ A more detailed analysis of climate skeptics is here: http://lippard.blogspot.com/2009/12/who-are-climate-change-skeptics.html |
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What ever the cause of Global Warming and personally I believe that AGW has a valid scienctific basis, surely the bigger issue is if there is something we can do to protect the vulnerable living in poor countries then it is our duty and hopefully our want to do so. Forget about risng sea levels and homeless polar bears a 2oC rise in global temperatures could have a devistating effect on crop production in countries already struggling to feed their populations. This rise could increase the temperature above that which is optimum for photosynthisis causing decreases in crop yield and potential famine. Changes in sea and air temperatures could potentially alter the life cycles of many plant and animal species putting ecosystems in danger. If there is a chance that we are responsible for the speed at which our climate appears to be changing should we not rise to the challenge of doing something about it! |
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Indeed, a much better indicator is this: http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf "think we can discount the IPCC as a corrupt organisation and spewer of nonscience" What?? You are clearly not a sceptic. |
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