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Al Gore cracks me up. The man that’s out to say that the Earth is warming up and it’s all our fault is out in a vest, long sleeves and thick jeans. Granted, this is the easiest time of year to sell this message as much of the U.S. is broiling under record temperatures. I usually find it enjoyable when the temperature is the coldest in January and February to try to get people to laugh at Global Warming anyway.
Back to Gore– he’s in the news because of his movie and the new people that he has gotten to join his crusade against those that are causing global warming– except himself in his SUV limos and jets he flies from place to place. But I digress.
It turns out that many scientists don’t think Gore’s movie is factually correct. Gore claims that many scientist back up his assertion. But:
[There are] hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. “Climate experts” is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore’s “majority of scientists” think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.
You can follow the link to see what the real climate scientists think about what is going on and who/what is at fault and whether Gores other claims are accurate, but when you start with a sample of scientists, but not those that are practiced in the field, you are just opening yourself up to attacks. It gets so bad that
Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: “Gore’s circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention.”
Carter does not pull his punches about Gore’s activism, “The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science.”
Again, the problem is that people are being deceived about a problem that the scientists in the field do not agree with the activists and what they are spouting off in an attempt to gain attention to themselves and their cause. How about some non-biased research for once?
But Bob Carter is not a climate scientist either. His field is geology and marine gelogy, and he understands paleo-climate (i.e. what the climate was in the distant past). His interest in climate change seems to be at the hobby level. He has not published research on it.
I think you will find the clear scientific consensus is that climate change is certainly happening now, is either man made or exacerbated by greenhouse gas emissions, and it will get worse in the coming years.
You will find much disagreement on details, and it may be that Al Gore has overstated things in his movie. (I haven’t seen it, but I have never seen an understated movie yet!) However, there is no doubt that climate change is a serious issue, which will cause substantial suffering over the years. That is a clear scientific consensus.
I have listened to many nay sayers on this issue, but I notice that whilst they often say that there are climate scientists who disagree with the consensus, they cannot seem to name any.
I wrote a post about what I see as the Christian response to global warming here:
http://safle.org/wordpress/2006/07/10/the-christian-response-to-global-warming.html
Regards,
Stephen
I don’t think that there’s any question that climates change– they changed from the Adamic time to the Noahic time to the current time. There have been periods of warming and cooling. I do not think that there is a consensus to the amount that greenhouse gases are the cause of it– and I (being a mere CompSci major) do not have the qualifications to say that there should be.
To my analytical mind, there are too many factors to attach climate change to any one factor because we don’t have significant control body in order to test against. Nor can we eliminate factors very well– we cannot turn off the sun, for instance.
That all being said, I can trust the God of the Universe to control the climate.
Have either of you read State of Fear by Michael Crichton? I know he’s an MD and fiction writer, but his apendices are impressive. His main point on global warming and climate change is that the data is so scant as to make the political movement trying to stop it highly suspect of hidden motives.
The environment is an incredibly complex system – the exact controls of which
are still unclear. A couple of things are certain though:
1. It is absolutely indisputable that both temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have been rising in the last hundred years or so; and 2. it is also clear on theoretical grounds that carbon dioxide causes a greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide levels are rising as a result of human activity.
Basically no one disputes these facts. They have been measured.
Unfortunately, the next stage is a little less clear. It may be that the two are not tightly linked; it may be that the long-term effects are not warming but cooling (because of the complex way the system works. For instance, recent research has measured a 20% cooling over 10 years of the North Atlantic Drift – the gulf stream that keeps Northern European temperatures so much more temperate than Labrador, which is at about the same latitude).
How do wetlands interact with carbon dioxide? What is the effect of deforestation, and reforestation in Northern climbs? (Recent research in University of Wales at Aberystwyth – where I am – suggested that reforestation in Canada causes less reflection of sunlight and greater absorption of the energy, thus paradoxically warming the climate).
No-one can prove the implication: human beings are producing carbon dioxide that is directly leading to global warming. But, let me repeat: “all things being equal”, human beings are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and carbon dioxide causes a greenhouse effect.
Given this theoretical background, I think that our base assumption must be that human activity _is_ partly responsible. In this case, we must be considered guilty until proven innocent. This is particularly so because it really may be too late to do anything about the problem if we wait too long. Some are arguing it is already too late to do anything about the problem, and we must invest our energies in adapting our civilisations to cope with climate collapse. We can hope these people are wrong, but we cannot ignore this problem. So on all these these grounds, we should be actively trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Regards,
Stephen