Tuesday, May 20, 2014
A Representative Climate Change Debate
A "debate" on whether or not climate change is man-made does not mean one person says it is and another person says it isn't.
“...among climate scientists actively publishing [peer-reviewed] climate research, 97% agree that humans humans are causing global warming...the 97% finding was based on over 12,000 papers from 1991-2011 mentioning “global climate change’ or ‘global warming."
Or let John Oliver explain:
The Daily Caller reported that a new survey of meteorologists contradicts the scientific consensus on climate change. But a simple opinion survey does not debunk that 97 percent of climate science papers found that human activities contribute to global warming -- rather, it only shows the stark differences between climate science research and meteorologists' beliefs.
A recent study conducted by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) surveyed its "professional members" to test how political ideologies and climate expertise influence opinions on manmade global warming. The study found that only 52 percent of its members believe global warming is happening and is caused mostly by humans.
However, this study merely shows that the average opinions of meteorologists are at odds with the majority of scientific research on climate change, and does not, as the Daily Caller claimed, show that "there is much more disagreement among climate scientists than previously thought" h/t M.M.
NASA REPORTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE CONSENSUS
MORE HERE from Skeptical Science.
97% global warming consensus meets resistance from scientific denialismThe robust climate consensus faces resistance from conspiracy theories, cherry picking, and misrepresentations.
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12 comments:
But that 3% who believe global warming is a hoax, they MUST be right!!
Galileo was right. :-)
So let me throw in my 2 cents...
I have only encountered a few people who actually deny that our weather patterns and the climate is changing.
Where I find significant divergence is over the causes and remedies.
Many on the right, while not denying the changes, dispute the claims that man is the main culprit.
And so what I see is this...
The left is arguing about the reality of that change and claiming the right does not see, or accept the evidence.
The right is arguing about the causes and remedies.
Unfortunately, for many, they are unwilling to admit, or accept these nuances and so we are left with constant bickering.
It is like the Benghazi episode...
The left claims there is nothing that could have been done to save those guys.
The right is talking about the Administrations seeming unwillingness to come clean afterwards.
All under the rubric of Benghazi.
2 completely different issues, under the same name, in both cases, causing potentially irreparable harm to our ability to engage in meaningful political dialogue.
Ronald Brownstein:
"Much like gun control, climate is an issue that unites Republicans by ideology but divides Democrats by geography. Even if Democrats can build a bigger Senate majority through the next few election cycles—they are positioned to add seats in 2016 even if they lose control in 2014—such gains probably won’t produce the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster against legislation to limit carbon emissions.
The Democrats’ problem is that they cannot build a big Senate majority without winning seats in states heavily dependent on coal, which would suffer the most from limits on carbon. Democrats now hold 21 of the Senate seats in the 19 states that rely on coal to produce a majority of their electricity and half of the seats in the 10 states (some overlapping) that mine the most coal. Resistance from some coal-state Democrats doomed climate legislation in 2009, even when the party controlled 60 Senate seats and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi narrowly muscled a cap-and-trade bill through the House. Senate Democrats such as North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp and Indiana’s Joe Donnelly remain equally unenthusiastic today."
Dave, I believe you nailed it. Perhaps left and right has reached that point where agreement or compromise is not possible.
Dave,
The climate change impasse is more than a simple Error of the Mean between the voices of He Said/She Said, and more than merely political. It has deep historical and cultural roots and a system of unspoken values instilled from the beginning of civilization and passed from generation to generation. Since the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, we are still dithering as if our energy policy paralysis is the sum total of our mythology, our culture, our national heritage, and a cowboy lifestyle that refuses to face reality.
The American energy infrastructure is worth an estimated $21 trillion, which means there are entrenched corporate interests hell-bent on protecting their hordes of filthy lucre.
Please recall a time when lobbyists from the tobacco industry insisted cigarettes were safe, a claim that flew in the face of medical evidence. Today, of course, every cigarette pack contains a warning label, and the evidence is no longer in dispute.
Consider the leaded gasoline controversy - and the role of Dr. Robert A. Kehoe, chief medical consultant for Ethyl Corporation, who argued on behalf of the petroleum industry and insisted that leaded fuels posed no public health threat. In 1943, one researcher (Randolph Byers) discovered severe behavior problems in children with lead poisoning: Byers was threatened with a lawsuit and his research ended. By the 1970s, this discovery: Higher levels of lead in children correlated with lower school performance. The ethyl industry accused the researchers of scientific misconduct.
Since the phase out of leaded gasoline, concentrations of lead in the blood of the general population has dropped 78%, resulting in 1.2 million fewer premature deaths, higher intelligence scores in children, and 58 million fewer crimes.
During past controversies, the petroleum industry and their lobbyists drove all denials, bullied researchers, threatened lawsuits, suppressed evidence, and bought off legislators. Today’s climate change impasse is no different. Corporate America protects its cash cows – whether it is tobacco, leaded gas, insecticides, or genetically modified food – and will do anything short of murder to protect its brands.
Recently, Oklahoma passed a bill authorizing the state to charge homeowners who generate their own solar or wind power. Guess who was behind this bill? Oklahoma’s electrical power utilities!
I remember my Ex going through climate change....hot cold hot cold...at first I thought it was menopause, but the Doc said it was just bad gas. Said nothing could melt her polar cap.
I am sorry...I have a hard time being serious. Truly. Being jimm is alla I can handle.
Since they changed the name from global warming to climate change, few can doubt it exists.
If people don't like something just change the name, obamacare to aca, death panels to care review boards, liberal to progressive. Amazing what a name change can do to perception.
I assume everyone knows the progressive party was started by a conservative.
Octo... I hear what you are saying but is there no room for an honest disagreement among honorable people?
You'll get no argument from me about the need to transition away from fossil fuels, in fact I help out on a sustainable ag ranch in Mexico where we are totally solar powered.
But many of these folks are making an economic argument, not a scientific argument.
It is that economic argument that I believe many on the right just cannot, or are not, willing to see or understand.
I can't think of any corporation that willingly ceded influence, power and money, just to do the right thing.
In fact, I am guessing that most publicly held oild companies, if they were to act in the best interests of the general public, would be sued by their stockholders for fiduciary mismanagement.
That, at least to me, is the dirty unspoken secret of corporate America. As much as conservatives like to believe these people, oops, corporations are benevolent and will do the "right" thing, they won't, because it often is not in the interest of the stockholders.
For example, take hiring...
We keep hearing that companies are waiting to hire because they are pissed off at Obama. Really? No corporation is going to delay necessary hiring just to spite a president. If they need more people, they will hire. And if they believe there is business to support hiring, they'll do it.
That's why typically hiring is the last part to recover after a recession.
All this is to say, in your examples, you are 100% correct. It is all about money.
But that doesn't make it about the science.
And I reckon, like you, it pisses me off too.
Almost as much as the jerks who copy parts of my comments and repost them elsewhere devoid of content.
I'm sure this one will make it there soon...
The science is clear. That there are those that deny it, is due to the politics of business . Hence,
a few scientists are funded by
that sector, one that is better at
marketing than science.
“… is there no room for an honest disagreement among honorable people?”
Dave,
Thank your for your comment. My concern is that we are running out of time and no longer have this luxury.
Energy and climate change are subjects I have been researching for a long time – as a former documentary filmmaker whose career started during the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973. Over the years, my client list included the USDA (Rural Electrification Administration), the DOE, Consolidated Edison, PSE&G, and engineering firms such as Burns & Roe, among others.
In economic and environmental terms, energy and climate change are two sides of the same coin. The National Defense Institute explored the potential impact of global climate change as a threat to national security. Vulnerable regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and island nations of the Pacific will face massive food and water shortages, extremes climate changes ranging from catastrophic droughts to catastrophic storms, religious conflict, the spread of contagious diseases, destabilized governments, human desperation on a global scale, and terrorism. The national security implications of climate change are daunting. These will demand massive humanitarian aid efforts and most likely a military response. One way or another, we will pay a substantial price.
When I read of conservative hand wringing over the size of our national debt (and the ostensible burdens borne by our children), I note the hypocrisy of this concern given the scope – and future cost - of climate change that will also burden our children and future generations. Over what? Greed and short-term economic convenience?
Finally, there is a MORAL ARGUMENT: Although I do not practice any religion, nevertheless, I feel a powerful spiritual connection to the Earth, which has given us life and a diversity of flora and fauna that has evolved over hundreds of million of years. I question the right of anyone to despoil and desecrate this legacy.
RN: Galileo was right. :-)
Yes, but that was Galileo versus the Roman Catholic Church, not Galileo versus his fellow scientists - scientists who would to have not been afraid to speak against the church, if your statement were to be at all relevant to this conversation.
Anyway, I've read that the "97% figure is completely bogus" because "it was based solely on a survey of just 75 people who were asked 2 very general questions that [anyone] would have responded yes to".
Although I've also read that the 97.5 percent figure comes from "a survey of 3146 earth scientists [who were] asked the question Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?" Unfortunately I read that on the Skeptical Science website, which (as we all know) is a "virulent anti-science smear site".
BTW, Richard Lizden, a scientist who was one of those (paid by the tobacco industry) who insisted cigarettes were safe, also, according to SourceWatch, "charged oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services [and] his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels and a speech he wrote, titled Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus, was underwritten by OPEC".
Roy Spencer, another climate change denying scientist,"is a signatory to An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming, which states that Earth and its ecosystems – created by God's intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence – are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting". (link to a post on my blog that contains this information).
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