Canadian Scientist comes out against Global Warming

[tjinaz]

Good read... whether you belive it or not it outlines the current political influence on science. I am sure it happens on both sides.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/...ming020507.htm

Seems like this has gone beyond science and more toward an ideology.

[worth]

Originally Posted by tjinaz

Seems like this has gone beyond science and more toward an ideology.

I think you hit the nail on the head with that statement.

[Slava]

Very interesting. I overheard someone say that the environment is the "moral dilemma" of our times the other day. I think that this is directly tied in with the ideology comment you made above. It's hard for the "average guy" to know where all of this takes him!

[Cowperson]

For amusement, the Deniers Page at The National Post.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/n...d-f181196a6d71

Cowperson

[Looger]

definitely not isolated, here's an article i stumbled across on another forum:

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/s...6fef8763c6&k=0

Astrophysicist Nir Shariv, one of Israel's top young scientists, describes the logic that led him -- and most everyone else -- to conclude that SUVs, coal plants and other things man-made cause global warming.

Step One Scientists for decades have postulated that increases in carbon dioxide and other gases could lead to a greenhouse effect.

Step Two As if on cue, the temperature rose over the course of the 20th century while greenhouse gases proliferated due to human activities.
Step Three No other mechanism explains the warming. Without another candidate, greenhouses gases necessarily became the cause.

...

Dr. Shariv, a prolific researcher who has made a name for himself assessing the movements of two-billion-year-old meteorites, no longer accepts this logic, or subscribes to these views. He has recanted: "Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media.
"In fact, there is much more than meets the eye."

Dr. Shariv's digging led him to the surprising discovery that there is no concrete evidence -- only speculation -- that man-made greenhouse gases cause global warming. Even research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-- the United Nations agency that heads the worldwide effort to combat global warming -- is bereft of anything here inspiring confidence. In fact, according to the IPCC's own findings, man's role is so uncertain that there is a strong possibility that we have been cooling, not warming, the Earth. Unfortunately, our tools are too crude to reveal what man's effect has been in the past, let alone predict how much warming or cooling we might cause in the future.

"Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming," he states, particularly because of the evidence that has been accumulating over the past decade of the strong relationship that cosmic- ray flux has on our atmosphere. So much evidence has by now been amassed, in fact, that "it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist."

there's plenty of dissenting views to the UN (cough TAX cough AGENDA ahem OPEN YOUR EYES) reports, problem is what's getting force-fed down the media pipe.

[llama64]

Can't campaign on a platform against gay marriage or abortion anymore, so they gotta make something a moral dilemma.

Global warming is happening, it's not a matter of belief or not, the facts are there. Whether humans are conclusively to blame and whether this is a bad thing is up for debate. I mean really, how many massive coastal cities do we need?

Vancouver could use a good soaking me thinks...

I find it amusing when people state that they don't "believe" in global warming.

[Looger]

i should add that i'd never heard of shariv, so how prominent his research is or how vetted his statements are i cannot attest to.

but it is in a serious paper, i guess it's up to anyone interested to check with Lawrence Solomon of the National Post to follow up.

[Slava]

I guess my point wasn't on whether the planet is warming or not; I think that there is enough evidence to say that it is. But who knows what the cause is, and who really knows whether it can be reversed even if we know what the cause is. At the end of the day, people just feel better when they think they know what causes things though.

[Looger]

Originally Posted by llama64

I find it amusing when people state that they don't "believe" in global warming.

i keep hearing that 'global warming deniers' say this but i have yet to meet ANYONE that has expressed this to me, in that global warming thread we had a week+ ago i don't recall one post saying that the climate isn't changing.

what's really going on here?

EDIT: it sure sounds to me like some people are trying to polarize this debate, the two camps being 'believers' and 'deniers'. so brilliant.

[mykalberta]

The truth is we will never know for sure until its either too late or nothing happens.

Its the oil cruisis of the 70s all over again, we will run out by the year 2000 - oh wait we were wrong, its the year 2007, oh wait wrong again the year 3000

Scientists cant find a direct link between humans and apes yet, only hypothesis's. Until that simple (what should be simple if its true) link can be made, I wont trust any scientists.

The only truth is this, releasing carbon emissions into the atmosphere is not a good thing, who knows what it causes - but its not a good thing.

I have always wondered how the UN signed off on the Kyoto Protocol and yet there was that report last week on how the scientists have confirmed Global warming - what is the point of a UN sponsored report when its supposedly already been confirmed because of Kyoto?

Unless Kyoto was just Europe's attempt to balance the economic playing field of the mid to late 90's with the US and Canada (since they are magically the only countries that have to do anything). Funny how that ended up hmmmm.

MYK

[ken0042]

I seem to recall hearing that the average temperatures on both Mars and Jupiter are on the rise as well.

I'm not saying that I don't think that we are having an impact on our environment. I am saying that it is good to hear both sides of the story before making conclusions.

[worth]

Yeah, there have been scientists that have said that the suns temperature has been rising, thus affecting the temperatures of other planets as well, which could be one of the major factors to consider about global warming.

[Looger]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I'm not saying that I don't think that we are having an impact on our environment. I am saying that it is good to hear both sides of the story before making conclusions.

i hope that people realize that when issues as complex as this have 'two sides' we are in deep deep trouble.

[ken0042]

Perhaps "two sides" was a poor choice of words on my part.

Maybe "multiple hypotheses" or "multiple contributing factors" would have been better.

[Looger]

good to hear that you're not a brainwashed journalism student.

EDIT: not all journalism students are brainwashed, poor choice of wording, sorry.

[Cowperson]

Further amusement, China says its up to the West to take care of global warming . . .

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/s...fa53f21&k=9084

On the other hand, the International Energy Agency said a few days ago indicates China will pass America as the number one CO2 emitter by 2009:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/07/bu...rssnyt&emc=rss

Also, the number one oil bull on Bay Street cut his energy weighting yesterday, saying:

Crude oil consumption in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries dropped last year for the first time in 20 years as a result of the aggressive actions by many of those nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to CIBC World Markets Inc.

“Governments are waging a war on carbon,” said Jeff Rubin, chief strategist and chief economist at CIBC World Markets in his Canadian portfolio strategy outlook report this morning. “The decline in crude consumption in the OECD last year seems further evidence of policy-mandated demand-destruction aimed at reducing oil consumption in an effort to abate GHG emissions,” he added.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...tory/Business/

EDIT:

A few days ago in the Globe & Mail, this feature on The Dirtiest City In The World. How would you like to live in this place?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...Story/National

Cowperson

[llama64]

Originally Posted by Looger

i hope that people realize that when issues as complex as this have 'two sides' we are in deep deep trouble.

Yup, but look at what the next federal election is about. Complex and important discussions often get jumped on by the idiots who run for public office and then try to gain support by polarizing the issue into a us vs them debate.

Every political party does it, and as far as I can tell, it's only hurting society. Why do we let issues like this be governed by the masses? You can't tell me that Homer Simpson is qualified to weigh in on things like this.

Authority for climate policy should be left to those who actually know ****, and not run out in the public court.

[Looger]

well llama64, i would think that the answer lies more in the 'educate homer' direction, and less in the scientific dictatorship direction.

brezhinski's 'elite unrestrained by morals' is not what i would lobby for...

[Bill Bumface]

Really, either way it doesn't matter. The earth is warming, no one denies this. Whether its humans or not is a useless debate.

Either it is, and we need to clean up our act, or its not, and we clean up our act.

Both courses of action arrive at a positive outcome.

[Looger]

i disagree hulkrogan.

the heart of the debate for me lies in the mechanism at work to 'clean up our act'.

being blamed (taxed) for something i didn't do - that is finance entire economies to go in this wasteful direction, when no emergency situation exists, is not a positive outcome and doesn't necessarily reduce emissions - look at kyoto, where the rich countries can just buy credit off of the poor countries that aren't even close to being allowed to HAVE polluting industries! what total garbage, what insane nonsense.

the blame game is a bad one to play, and unfortunately it's one being played.

i think we should realize that we're not in emergency mode, and change via regulations and new standards to adjust to lower outputs of harm without deep-sixing our economies or filling up the coffers of the super-rich with global taxes - a bad precedent.