The Shrine

Excellent book. I just finished the paper back, which came out a while ago. It is about psycho environmentalist groups, but has a lot of research on global warming and other hot geo-topics that was very interesting to read. If you like that sort of stuff, or like Crichton's fiction in general, you'll love this book. I've read most of his work and this one is one of his best.

I should read it. I used to like Crichton novels. Be interesting to see his take on the...err, "more impractical" environmentalist groups out there (who I hate, because they detract from the cause of honest environmentalism).

You need to read it, certainly based on your other most recent post, too. I dont want to give away the authors opinion and the data dug up around it, but you will be surprised.

I used to read Chrichton's books all the time. He was the first "serious" author I ever read. Before that I only read Hardy Boy's books. Granted I was 11, but still! I read Jurassic Park, Sphere, The Andromeda Strain, Congo, The Rising Sun, & The Lost World before I got out of reading for a bit. They were great books though.

I'll have to give this one a shot as soon as I can. I'm currently engrossed in the Wheel of Time series. I'm into Book 6 right now.

I'll pass. I'm not interested in reading a fictional work whose main purpose is to challenge peer-reviewed work.

What peer reviewed work are you referring to?

All of the scientific papers and journals that have appeared over the last several decades which support the global warming theory.

There is an equal amount of work from scientists in the same field who disagree. It is all cited and referenced with statistical backup from NASA and the EPA. There just happens to be a story that goes with it. It is a smart book that backs its swagger, i wouldnt so easily dismiss it because it is a work of fiction.

As long as he backs up his claims (unlike some other authors I know of), I'd probably enjoy it.

Flip wrote:There is an equal amount of work from scientists in the same field who disagree.

False. I'll grant that there probably exists work that agrees with Christon's point of view, but there is not an <i>equal</i> amount of work. The majority of scientists in the field, and the relevant scientific organizations agree that global warming is happening, we caused it, and it will get worse. You can find plenty of individuals who disagree with this conclusion. But what you will not find are large organizations which represent the consensus of scientists.

This is often not evident in news articles about global warming, due to the "give each side its turn" principle in journalism. An article from the Columbia Journalism Review called <a href="http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/6/mooney ... p">Blinded By Science</a> does an excellent job explaining why and how this happens.

I'm going with Kupek on this one. The vast majority of scientists, from what I heard dating back to my uni days, actually have stopped debating whether or not there's global warming 'cause there's nothing to debate. They're debating the effects, both short- and long-term, of it and the severity of our current environmental state with respect to it.

And really, trying to say global warming doesn't exist is like saying the holocaust didn't happen or that cigarettes don't cause cancer. You'd have to be extremely biased, close-minded, and blind to not see the effects global warming has had. I have a PBS special on the effects of global warming (released when An Inconvenient Truth was making the indie rounds). If you're interested, I could give you a link to the torrent.

I used to be in the same boat, but now am just skeptical. It could be happening, but Crichton makes some good points (pulled this from some website):

most of the warming in the past century occurred before 1940, before CO2 emissions could have been a major factor (p. 84)

temperatures fell between 1940 and 1970 even as CO2 levels increased (p. 86)

temperature readings from reporting stations outside the U.S. are poorly maintained and staffed and probably inaccurate; those in the U.S., which are probably more accurate, show little or no warming trend (pp. 88-89)

"professors from MIT, Harvard, Columbia, Duke, Virginia, Colorado, UC Berkeley, and other prestigious schools...the former president of the National Academy of Sciences...will argue that global warming is at best unproven, and at worst pure fantasy (p. 90)

temperature sensors on satellites report much less warming in the upper atmosphere (which the theory of global warming predicts should warm first) than is reported by temperature sensors on the ground (p. 99)

data from weather balloons agree with the satellites (p. 100)

there has been no increase in extreme weather events (e.g., floods, tornadoes, drought) over the past century or in the past 15 years; computer models used to forecast climate change do not predict more extreme weather (pp. 362, 425-426)

temperature readings taken by terrestrial reporting stations are rising because they are increasingly surrounded by roads and buildings which hold heat, the "urban heat island" effect (pp. 368-369)

methods used to control for this "urban heat island" effect fail to reduce temperatures enough to offset it (pp. 369-376)

computer simulations are not real-world data and cannot be relied on to produce reliable forecasts (p. 566).

That only scratches the surface, there is a ton of other stuff that definitely makes you think. I wouldnt call globam warming proven fact, THAT would be close-minded, IMO.

Flip wrote:That only scratches the surface, there is a ton of other stuff that definitely makes you think. I wouldnt call globam warming proven fact, THAT would be close-minded, IMO.

Nor is it valid science. Theories, by their very nature, can not become fact. You can never prove a theory correct, you can only prove a theory is false. The theory of relativity, for example, is not a fact. However, it has accurately explained and predicted observed phenomenon, which is about as good as we can get. The global warming theory is the same way. No scientist will claim that global warming is proved. They will, however, say that it is the best explanation that we have for the data. And once the majority of scientists agree that a particular theory is indeed the best explanation, they're not going to continue arguing about it. They're going to assume that the theory is correct, so that they can build on it to do more science.

A surprisingly good place to read up on this is the Wikipedia entry for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_war ... sy">global warming controversy</a>. And if you're looking for compelling arguments from a particular person, read what <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wat ... 29">Robert Watson</a> has to say. I saw him speak about eight months ago. He's the <a href="http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNA ... tml">Chief Scientist</a> for the World Bank, which cares about global warming because of the economic consequences, which can be significant.

A few direct responses to the points you brought up.<ul>
<li>Individual professors does not make a consensus, as I explained earlier. Further, do these people have identities, or is it just "I have a list of names"?
<li>There has been an increase in extreme weather events in the past decade, particulary in the number of hurricanes.
<li>Computer simulations are the <i>only</i> way to produce reliable forecasts. Where do you think daily weather forecasts come from? The Earth's weather is an extremely complex chaotic system. The only way we know how to deal with such systems is through simulation.
</ul>Be wary of people throwing out tiny little cirticisms like this. They are never in context, and often extremely narrow in scope.

It sounds to me you could say there is a consenus the world is flat back in the old days so it must be wrong to say the world is round.

Global warming does not predict an increase in number of hurricanes at all.

Exactly. It is just a theory. A theory that cant be proven or disproven, but since it is human nature to grab onto anything that resembles a cause that is what we do.

The state of fear. Fear sells newspapers and funds research, which leads to conclusions that will continue the funds. In one example, two cloned mice were given to labs. One lab was told that the mouse was genetically enhanced to run a maze faster, while the other lab was told that the mouse was genetically altered to run it slower and lo-and-behold both labs reported back conclusions that suported what they were told. While most experiments are run double blind to prevent this, environmental research is never run double blind. They are funded with a purpose. I know it sounds like crazy conspiracy thinking.

The data that supports global warming is also very suspect. To expand on the 'urban heat effect', that was mentioned, we know that cities are hotter than surrounding areas due to people, buildings, etc. Did you know that temperatures taken in cities are given a subtracter to compensate for this? The formula on what to subtract is based only on population of that city. Some cities have grown in industry, but remained the same as far as population, so why do we use the same number to subtract in 1980 that we do in 2006? It is resulting in false high temperatures.

Some glaciers are melting, yes, but many others are growing again. What is going on here? I think the planet is just being the planet. Our world has been shaped by cataclismic events, it is what it does. To have an unusual period of extreme weather is not uncommon, but people want a reason.

It is impossible to think that we can hold our planet in a certain state. Appearently when Yellow Stone NP was declared a preserve, the people in charge of preserving it created a huge debaucle when they tried to reduce the number of this animal or change the growth pattern of this tree, etc. You cant look at something and expect it to be the same 100 years later. Our climate composed of Nitrogen (N2, 78%), Oxygen (O2, 21%), Argon (Ar, 1%), "greenhouse" gases or Ozone (O, 0 - 0.01%), and Carbon Dioxide (CO2, 0.01-0.1%), is so complex that we are crazy to think we can control its behavior to just stay the same.

I cant find the research right off hand, but the original global warming theorist predicted with his computer simulations and models that at this point we would probably see temperature levels riase 5-10 degrees when in actuality it has been .8 degrees. His models were off by 80-90%. I wouldnt take anyones word on anything if there was a chance they could be off by 90%.

Global warming is such a great theory. It is simple for people to understand and a simple solution to an impossible to answer question. Since it cant be disproven due to bad data and the unknown it will survive, even though it cant be proven either due to the same reasons.

In the old days, we didn't have the benefit of the scientific method and communities of professional scientists. The majority of the experts on have come to a similar conclusion. The detractors are generally invidivuals or organizations funded by companies which are contributors to the problem. Global warming is not an academic problem; we need to make policy decisions based on the science behind it. Given that the majority of people in the field agree it is happening, it seems prudent to me to make policy decisions based on the assumption that they are right.

Global warming does predict an increase in extreme weather patterns. Simply Google "global warming extreme weather".

No, global warming is not <i>just</i> a theory. Relativity is not <i>just</i> a theory. Evolution is not <i>just</i> a theory. These are theories with a preponderance of empirical support. Calling it "just a theory" tries to relegate the idea to the colloquial definition of the term. Theories that agree with experimental evidence are the foundation of science.

And yes, global warming can be disproven, since it is a valid scientific theory. Falsifiability if a requirement for a valid scientific theory.

Again, invidivuals criticisms not in context (and not cited) aren't worth much. I get the feeling most of what you know is from the individual detractors like Chricton. Try reading what some of the supporters have said, which can be easily found in the links provided above. So one researcher had a large margin of error. Do you think that's the only model ever used? The world changes. But the accelerated change we are seeing now is strongly correlated with the increase of emmissions of certain gasses.

Well, i'm obviously not footnoting and referencing because it is in the book if you want to read it. I have been looking into those references and graphs and there is certainly enough stuff to raise doubt in the whole articles and journals.

Proponents for global warming take things out of context, also. To say, global temperatures have risen by .8 degrees doesnt give the full story or answer questions like why did it raise .5 degrees from 1910-1940 if CO2 is the reason? And why did it drop again during our industrial era? And what has happened since 1980 to make it rise? It is all due to CO2 and greenhouse emissions? No way.

I'll say this again. Global warming did not predict more hurricanes. One of the leading authorities on hurricanes ended up resigning over this because it's an unpopular view to tell people that the extra hurricanes are perfectly normal (or at least not related to global warming).

Edit: here's the article http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prome ... eaves.html

Flip wrote:Exactly. It is just a theory. A theory that cant be proven or disproven, but since it is human nature to grab onto anything that resembles a cause that is what we do.

Well, Kinetic Molecular Theory is technically a theory as well. I'm willing to be you can't find a scientist worth his/her salt who doesn't believe in its basic principles considering most of chemistry and a lot of physics is based on it.

The scientific method of thought is not falsification (ie. proving something wrong). You believe in the theory that makes the most sense until something along comes that's better. If it's proven to be better than the theory before it (often proving the other was wrong, as Kupek pointed out), it's generally followed. If the other wasn't proven wrong, you'll have accepters on both sides until something better comes along that both sides agree to. The whole "world is flat vs world is round" is a very primitive example of it. Of course, this assumes you have reasonable, rational individuals who are not biased and willing to admit they are wrong. Not something you find in spades in today's society.

Right now, using scientific evidence, the best theory to the uneven increase in the Earth's tempurature is global warming. Most scientists agree since there's nothing better.

Global warming isnt just saying the earth is getting hotter. If you want to take the temperature data as right, which as i stated is suspect due to factors like the urban heat island effect, then lets say for the sake of example that the Earth did in fact get hotter by .8 degrees.

What global warming is saying, the whole meat of the theory, is that CO2 and green house gases are the cause. Charts show that CO2 levels have always been rising, so why in 1940-1980 did temperature not follow?

A better theory is that temp and CO2 do not have a correlation and the reaosn for the warming is due to other factors like population, solar activity, or a pure unknown. We're not willing to accept this for some reason. We know what CO2 does and since it is rising and temp is rising we think that is the reason, but it doesnt make sense when broken down.

This is just a strange Earth cycle, but environmental groups and scientists like like to put a CO2 face on it so they get funded and people panic.

Here is a good take on Gore's book:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Ym ... FiZjFlNjc=

—Iain Murray is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Sourcewatch calls the Competitive Enterprise Institute a <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti ... ">front</a> for corporate interests. If the IRS documents described at Wikipedia are correct, then over eight years, CEI has received over <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitiv ... titute">$2 million from ExxonMobil</a>. That sounds like an accurate assesment to me.

I really don't want to get drawn into arguing on a point-by-point basis. It's futile. We can go back and forth over the minutia, the whole time completely missing the point. It's impossible to tell without context if these circitcisms are valid, and nor do they necessarily undermine the current common conclusion. It's not useful to me to hear criticisms of a study when I am not already familiar with that study. I would, however, like to point out that you are trying to learn science from non-scientists. This should give you pause.

As for Chricton's book, it is not science. It is a polemic in the form of a story, and I don't see the point in making time for it. But please consider reading what scientists have to
say:<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/climatech ... ">American Meteorlogical Society</a>
<li><a href="http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/document.asp? ... =3222">The national science academies of the G8 nations and Brazil, China and India.</a>
<li><a href="http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/clima ... ">Ameircan Geophysical Union</a>
<li><a href="http://www.ourplanet.com/aaas/pages/atm ... ">American Association for the Advancement of Science</a>
</ul>
These are not scientific studies themselves, but the general conclusions groups of scientists are coming to knowing what the field looks like. And Don, I stand corrected. I know extreme weather patterns are a likely result of global warming in the future, and I had many news articles connecting that with hurricanes.

Crichton is a hack!

Kupek wrote:

—Iain Murray is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Sourcewatch calls the Competitive Enterprise Institute a <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti ... ">front</a> for corporate interests. If the IRS documents described at Wikipedia are correct, then over eight years, CEI has received over <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitiv ... titute">$2 million from ExxonMobil</a>. That sounds like an accurate assesment to me.

Flip, that's proof on how the Conservative propoganda works (generally speaking, here). They don't want to prove the other side wrong (that includes other Conservative stances which doesn't agree with theirs; anything that goes against what they're trying to push), they just want to put in the mind of the public enough doubt to cause them not to believe the other side. Since most people are too lazy to look, it works very, very well.

Just because someone puts out a competing theory, it doesn't mean it deserves your time. You have to dig into the background and ensure that it's not biased.

BTW, Liberal proganda works by presenting a theory you can't prove is true but you also can't ignore 'cause there's enough facts behind it; it's all in how it's put together (again, generally speaking). Michael Moore is a perfect example of this. The Conservatives use their method to put doubt in it so they can control it and not have people act on it, such as people getting too worked up about the issue. This is what they've done with global warming. Sure you can be concerned, just don't go out and try to change the world. They put enough doubt in your mind and the minds of anyone who's not far over to the left wing in their political/social beliefs so that nothing actually gets done.

Kupek wrote:

I would, however, like to point out that you are trying to learn science from non-scientists. This should give you pause.

If an everyday normal person can take scientifical work and present it in an easy to understand way, and then state the real work for future lookup... i dont see much of a problem.

Oh well.

There are plenty of scientists who have done the same thing.

So if you're making a report that doesn't support the global warming trend who are you supposed to get your funding from? The guys saying the sky is falling?

How come none of the pro global warming reports have a warning like: "This is funded by people with pro-Global Warming interest?"

The "pro-global-warming interest" people you are mostly referring to are scientists who, most likely, get their funding from foundations, trusts, and etc., Don. While it is true that science has to be paid for by someone, the kinds of organizations who are funding the "pro-global-warming interest" people (by which I assume you mean people who believe that global warming is occurring and that we need to do something to stop it) are historically less likely to be troubled by problems of bias and conflict of interest than those who are funded by an energy industry or other agency with an economic stake in seeing warming theories "disproven".

Or, to put it another way, I trust some relatively poor scientist slaving away in a lab somewhere over climate data, who's funded by a foundation dedicated to the advancement of science, a hell of a lot more than I trust a scientist working with a grant from the oil industry.

Who benefits economically in the short term from having to change their way of living to reject fossil fuels? Nearly nobody. And yet, people are still taking the time to say that we might be in big trouble here. Why would they do such a thing when it represents changes to their way of life as well as ours that might be uncomfortable? Well, possibly because they *care* - about humanity's future and the planet, environmentalist-wonky as I may sound.

Just my two cents on that one.

You get the funding, then do the research, then publish your study. They don't say "We plan on making a study confirming global warming, please give us money." And when you publish your study, it's common practice to say who funded you. Most climate research is probably funded by the government.

Considering that the Ice caps are melting, and glaciers are declining, sea levels are rising, I do think that global warming certainly does exist. Also, I am not well studied on the subject, but is it not true that the planet is getting warmer at a fairly fast rate, and that we are currently warmer than we have been in our civilization's entire history?

Though I do feel that global warming is not the most major problem, I believe the most major problem are the pollutants themselves, their toxic factors. The US has only about double the population of Japan, but over six times the amount of CO2 emissions, be more like Japan (minus the molestation games) =)

Even worse than pollution, I think is the impact of too many roads, over-fishing, clear-cutting, agriculture, and other such side-effects of human over-population. Lack of resources can lead to disaster:



And we are spending them at an ever increasing rate.

Well, thats the quick and dirty that everyone knows, but it can all be debated fairly strongly. Mainly the cause. CO2 and greenhouse gases may not be the problem.

Flip wrote:Well, thats the quick and dirty that everyone knows, but it can all be debated fairly strongly. Mainly the cause. CO2 and greenhouse gases may not be the problem.

I think most of the debate stems from whether or not this is a normal, cyclical event or whether or not we're accelerating it. That's one anti-GW theory I can believe may be true at the end, although it doesn't look that way since so many scientists believe that we are, to a degree, affecting it. Like Seek's pic above or all the pics that Gore shows in his movie. Are we simply experiencing a cyclical upswing or are we causing it? I think the truth is somewhere in between, so we need to at least attempt to put some serious effort forth in reduction of fossil fuel usage.

I think global warming debate gets rather useless because it is easy to find someone from either side that sounds like they know they're doing. For example I can make up something like: "Although temperatures have been raising, experts in (something) say this is normal due to (Solar Activity of whatever)." Because no one here is actually an expert in global warming and there is no easy one source authority on this, it turns into googling for 'global warming is fake (or not)' and pull a link from there.

To quote something I saw a message board on global warming, it'd be a good idea to reduce fossil fuels just because smogs and pollution suck (and probably has more immediate effects than GW anyway), but don't try to fearmonger it as the end of the world.

Don Wang wrote:I think global warming debate gets rather useless because it is easy to find someone from either side that sounds like they know they're doing. For example I can make up something like: "Although temperatures have been raising, experts in (something) say this is normal due to (Solar Activity of whatever)." Because no one here is actually an expert in global warming and there is no easy one source authority on this, it turns into googling for 'global warming is fake (or not)' and pull a link from there.

Which is why I think it's worthwhile to note that the people who say global warming is not happening are in the staggering minority of climate scientists, and that large organizations of scientists (a sampling in an above post) have come to a consensus that is is happening, and have issued statements saying so.

Andrew, Killer Bee wrote:http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74

I think this is the most unconvincing response i have ever read.

The author is trying to contradict with the points in the book and ends up agreeing with most of them. He says there are more factors than just CO2 influencing the temp and gives a 'best guess' to the cooling period of 1940-1970... He agrees some parts of the world are cooling, while others are not, but gives no reason as to how this is possible. He agrees Antarticta is cooling. He agrees sea levels are hard to measure and some sea levels are rising while others are falling, but gives no reason as how this is possible. He defends the original GW theorists prediction being off by 300% by saying that the guy had multiple scenarios of which if you combined them he would have only been of by 60%. And he admits that temps around cities are adjusted, but makes no mention as to the forumla.

Wouldnt you think global warming would be spread somewhat evenly? If some of the world is cooling, some is warming, some has rising sea levels, some has lowering sea levels isnt that pretty good proof that this isnt a world crisis?

This is a pretty poor pro-GW blog entry.