Guess who just won the Nobel Peace Prize?

[NatCh]

Thanks for the information, guys. And I agree, incidentally, that Michael Crichton's opinion may be ... less than expert.

[HappyMartin]

Well it may not be banter but at least it has so far been friendy.

I'm referring to the description of this thread.

[NatCh]

That's one of the best things about this community, HappyMartin -- we don't agree on everything (we're all over the board, actually), but we're mostly polite and respectful about it. If that weren't the case, I'd have shoved off long ago.

[yvanleterrible]

When one is driving a car, barelling down the highway and the little temperature gauge lights up, what should one do? Stop and have a specialist look it up or continue full tilt while pondering the reasons for that light being there?

Might be a stupid analogy but my point is that when one has a feeling that an action might cause an ill effect, it should be stopped and be verified. Not continue on as if nothing happened!

Or just step on the gas like we're doing now ...

This is a moral issue and it is helpful.

[jamesdmanley]

"It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species."

"This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000."

Lowell Ponte - The Cooling : Has the Next Ice Age Already Begun? (published 1976 - isbn13 - 9780131723122)

oh how the times change

[Goshzilla]

There is an illusion, one which alot of people fallen for, that scientists all believed global cooling was going to happen. It was never an accepted fact by the large majority of scientists working in that field.

It also doesn't really matter. At one time there were scientists duped into thinking Piltdown Man was real, it being revealed as a hoax has no reflection on the theory of evolution, nor on the credibly of the current concensus.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Goshzilla

It also doesn't really matter. At one time there were scientists duped into thinking Piltdown Man was real, it being revealed as a hoax has no reflection on the theory of evolution, nor on the credibly of the current concensus.

But I believe that a large proportion of Americans, influenced by religious beliefs, do not accept the theory of evolution as being valid, despite the weight of a staggering amount of hard science supporting it. Global warming is the same - many people refuse to accept what's staring them in the face if it goes against their view of how they want the world to be.

[emkay]

Originally Posted by NatCh

I wonder if it seems to you that the minority opposing opinion seems to be growing in scientific circles or not?

No, the opposite. But it only takes one fruitcake to claim that the world's glaciers are actually growing rather than receding, and it's quoted all over the world's media. So the public picture of the issue is often very skewed. As Harry says, people tend to believe what they would like to be true.

The polar ice caps are melting at a much faster rate than scientists predicted. This summer there was even a shipping passage through the arctic. How do we react? By fighting over rights to exploit the place for oil and gas.

[eumesmo]

I feel we need not worry, such small problems always tend to solve themselves. Trying to keep everyone alive, that's the Utopian ideal, and we don't do those anymore. Those who can afford 24/7 A/C for the next 200 years regardless of the status of the world economy, will certainly perpetuate the human race.

[rjnagle]

Please, let's not spread half-articulated insinuations here.

First, I'll say something amazing before I jump into the fray: I have not actually seen the movie! But a movie CAN be a documentary and still express a political opinion. Criticizing a movie on that basis is just ridiculous because it assumes that there is only one objective interpretation about reality. I can count numerous examples of good documentaries that present only one perspective and succeed beautifully. To expect that a documentary should account for all objective reality is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of documentary filmmaking; this criticism is especially unrealistic and unfair when the film's subject is about a complex problem like global warming. Whether you like Michael Moore or not (I do), his filmmaking/documentary skills are unsurpassed, and the political criticisms of his films (even if you accept them) don't diminish the power of his storytelling and his ability to present a single perspective.

From the sources I've seen most of the science as presented in the film was basically right. One controversy about the computer animation sequence was whether it was right to present the 20 feet increase in water level, but that was just one scenario.

Fortunately, several people have discussed the accuracy of the film

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...l-gores-movie/
(if you read only one thing, you should read this piece, which is very long. This post contains numerous comments is by professional climatologists with no ideological axe to grind) The scientist concludes:

For the most part, I think Gore gets the science right, just as he did in Earth in the Balance. The small errors don't detract from Gore's main point, which is that we in the United States have the technological and institutional ability to have a significant impact on the future trajectory of climate change. This is not entirely a scientific issue — indeed, Gore repeatedly makes the point that it is a moral issue — but Gore draws heavily on Pacala and Socolow's recent work to show that the technology is there.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200605260014
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...ths/print.html

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/pr..._the_nobe.html
(this is actually an article critical of Gore's Nobel prize, but I found this a reasoned criticism).

The problem is that naysayers usually end up citing Richard Lindzen

or Fred Singer or Bjorn Lomborg

All three of them have their own agendas to push, so to speak and have received a lot of criticism themselves.

With regard to the British court ruling, Media Matters (a media watchdog site) comments, "

numerous media outlets reported that the judge found nine errors in the film but ignored the judge's finding that An Inconvenient Truth is "broadly accurate" and "substantially founded upon scientific research and fact."

If you have read this far searching for a reason to justify having done so, here's a quote from Al Gore which you will agree is one of the stupidest and silliest statement ever made by a politician:

“A zebra does not change its spots.” - Al Gore, attacking President George Bush in 1992.

[rjnagle]

Wow, that Realclimate.org blog is something.

Here's a piece that says that the 9 so-called factual errors pointed out by the British judge were not errors at all.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...ient-untruths/

They conclude:

Overall, our verdict is that the 9 points are not "errors" at all (with possibly one unwise choice of tense on the island evacuation point). But behind each of these issues lies some fascinating, and in some cases worrying, scientific findings and we can only applaud the prospect that more classroom discussions of these subjects may occur because of this court case.

[rjnagle]

You wrote:

So, speaking as the guy who weighed in above with the position that we don't yet know enough to be speaking authoritatively, let me ask -- and I really do mean this as a sincere request, not a dig or cheap shot -- let me ask what expertise you bring to the discussion? I like to know that sort of thing when I'm considering folks comments, you see, and since this is an area where I admit a fairly complete ignorance, I have no personal expertise within which to consider your comments.

When debating these kinds of issues, of course professional scientists are going to have more nuanced opinions (even when their position is contrary to accepted wisdom).

We have to understand the role that scientists should play in a political debate. Yes, their opinions weigh more, but we should not cede too much authority to their pronouncements simply because they have a Phd (my debate coach said that it's easy to find a fool with a PhD who was willing say any damn thing you please).

Politics, by definition, is the art of discussing/debating specialized issues by nonspecialists. On the other hand, an educated nonscientist can read both sides of the argument with a reasonable understanding of which kinds of evidence are credible and which kinds are not. For more on the proper/improper use of science in political debate, read Chris Mooney's book The Republican War of Science

http://www.waronscience.com/home.php

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by emkay

...
The polar ice caps are melting at a much faster rate than scientists predicted. This summer there was even a shipping passage through the arctic. How do we react? By fighting over rights to exploit the place for oil and gas...

Even worse. James bay is usually frozen quite late in the season. This year it almost didn't freeze. Usually seals use the ice as a birthing ground and this year, not a single pup was born. Polar bears that feed on the pups were seen swimming aimlessly 150 kilometers out to drown.

At the south pole a chunk of ice hundreds of square kilometers, still for eons, was seen detatching and cracking up to melting somewhere else. Quite disturbing!

This is factual observation. Causes can be up for debate but it happened and is part of a trend. To me this is the little warning light that tells me to take the foot of the gas, stop and seek an other way of moving about.

How can so many people sleep through this? Is the virtuality in our lives that strong?

[CommanderROR]

I'm not so sure about the whole "Global Warming" thing and what causes it and how much we influence it. I think it is a natural thing that would have happened anyway, but that we are probably not helping by polluting our nice littel planet.

I do however support the whole campaign to make our civilization more "green". Oil lobbyists and their government cronies had and have far too much power and a lot of the "alternative" concepts were slowed or halted to make sure the Oil kept flowing and the cash kept rolling in.
Even now there is very little progress in the field of alternative energies. Hybrid concepts for cars and the move to Diesel instead of "normal" Petrol are not exactly solutions. They are just little "moves in the right direction" to match the new requirements the governments set. Hyrdogen power is pretty cool as a concept, but since it needs to be produced somewhere it just moves the problem around a bit. Nuclear energy is actually quite nice, but it has very different and unfortunately not very "green" side effects as well.
We really need to see a breakthrough soon, I have no idea how it could work, but I'm sure there are ways to do more than just reduce CO2 emmisions by a certain percentage...and I'm sure those ways won't lead us back to living on trees...

[HarryT]

Nuclear power is the only large-scale power production technology which does not produce greenhouse gases. Properly handled, the safety hazards are acceptable - many European countries produce a significant proportion of their electricity from nuclear plants (eg about 60% in France, 25% in the UK). The UK is currently planning a new generation of nuclear power plants as a major step towards reducing CO2 emissions.

There are a number of advanced designs of nuclear reactor which are more efficient, less complex, and inherently much safer than current generation plants, most notably the Pebble Bed Reactor design.