Right-wing vs Left-wing science
Filed under: Climate Science FAQ Greenhouse gases Instrumental Record Paleoclimate— william @ 14 January 2005 - ()
Every now and again, the myth that “we shouldn’t believe global warming predictions now, because in the 1970′s they were predicting an ice age and/or cooling” surfaces. Recently, George Will mentioned it in his column (see Will-full ignorance) and the egregious Crichton manages to say “in the 1970′s all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming” (see Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion ). You can find it in various other places too [here, mildly here, etc]. But its not an argument used by respectable and knowledgeable skeptics, because it crumbles under analysis. That doesn’t stop it repeatedly cropping up in newsgroups though.
I should clarify that I’m talking about predictions in the scientific press. There were some regrettable things published in the popular press (e.g. Newsweek; though National Geographic did better). But we’re only responsible for the scientific press. If you want to look at an analysis of various papers that mention the subject, then try http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/.
Where does the myth come from? Naturally enough, there is a kernel of truth behind it all. Firstly, there was a trend of cooling from the 40′s to the 70′s (although that needs to be qualified, as hemispheric or global temperature datasets were only just beginning to be assembled then). But people were well aware that extrapolating such a short trend was a mistake (Mason, 1976) . Secondly, it was becoming clear that ice ages followed a regular pattern and that interglacials (such as we are now in) were much shorter that the full glacial periods in between. Somehow this seems to have morphed (perhaps more in the popular mind than elsewhere) into the idea that the next ice age was predicatable and imminent. Thirdly, there were concerns about the relative magnitudes of aerosol forcing (cooling) and CO2 forcing (warming), although this latter strand seems to have been short lived.
The state of the science at the time (say, the mid 1970′s), based on reading the papers is, in summary: “…we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate…” (which is taken directly from NAS, 1975). In a bit more detail, people were aware of various forcing mechanisms – the ice age cycle; CO2 warming; aerosol cooling – but didn’t know which would be dominant in the near future. By the end of the 1970′s, though, it had become clear that CO2 warming would probably be dominant; that conclusion has subsequently strengthened.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... ling-myth/
The climate debate is really too complicated to explain in one thread. I spent a good year or so doing a few courses about climate change/environmental geography. Don't expect to convince anybody with a few paragraphs. Its one of those things that are tl;dr to most people yet they are still willing to assert that its phoney without doing the hard research those who support it (those who aren't blindly supporting it, that is) do
I realize that providing ruveyn a source which says his bogus claim about "most 1970s scientists were global cooling believers" isn't going to suddenly convince him that anthropogenic climate change is happening. But the fact of that matter is that ruveyn and others have made this nonsense claim WAY TOO MANY TIMES and, for any impressionable third parties out there, I think it's useful to show that its a BS claim. On another web forum, in 2007, there were a bunch of BS claims about Obama being a Muslim going on the internet. While I didn't think I'd be able to convince people to vote Obama, I did find it useful to link to the Snopes page that showed the "Obama is a Muslim" claim to be bogus.
I don't think ruveyn is going to stop repeating it. We've already been there before in a previous thread. Just for that I'm going to be pre-emptive. Claims that temperatures during the "medieval warm period" were warmer than today over the entire globe are also bogus. The only way you get the "medieval warm period" to be warmer than today's measured global mean temperature is to only consider certain proxy data from Europe and the North Atlantic.
Skeptics are blatantly hypocritical when they criticize tree-ring data in one case (the data used to create the controversial "hockey stick" graph) yet refer to the very same source of data (while only considering a subset of it) to claim that the medieval warm period was much warmer than today.
Kraichgauer
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Not to stray too far from the subject of the thread, but the History Channel had run an interesting documentary a few years ago called (I believe) Big Chill, Little Ice Age. This dealt with how during much of the middle ages and after, Europe underwent what could only be described as a miniature ice age, in which temperatures dropped considerably.
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
Now THAT'S noteworthy!
But less so now.
_________________
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. ~Heinrich Heine, Almansor, 1823
?I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me.? - Hunter S. Thompson
Even Glenn Beck admits man is having an impact on climate change "off camera" in a USAweekend interview.
http://www.usaweekend.com/article/20100219/ENTERTAINMENT01/100218001/Don-t-judge-Beck-by-his-cover
Excerpt from the article:
“You’d be an idiot not to notice the temperature change,” he says. He also says there’s a legit case that global warming has, at least in part, been caused by mankind. He has tried to do his part by buying a home with a “green” design and using energy-saving products. “I’m willing to do anything but use the CFLs,” he says of compact fluorescent light bulbs. “I put them in once and couldn’t stand the way they lit up the room.”
I wonder how many other journalists on Fox would admit something like this?
The ultimate impact that man has on the environment remains to be seen, and may never be fully understood in terms of the other factors involved.
There is a new study out that was reported in the science journal Nature that the sixth major extinction of life on the planet is underway: "a threat that is man-made, inflicted by habitation loss, over-hunting, over-fishing, the spread of germs and viruses and introduced species, and by climate change caused by fossil-fuel greenhouse gases, says the study".
It is disasters like this that we don't think affect us because we continue to see the prosperity and propogation of our species on the planet. Many pay no mind to the fact that we as animals are of no more value to the environment than any other primate, and that we have nowhere to escape, if the balance of nature no longer welcomes us.
We don't have to see the effects of flooding of our coasts or anything else geographically significant to be fully impacted, by other environmental impacts, like a bacteria or virus that we might play a part in propogating, which we have no ability to control.
Balance of nature is left wing science, because it goes against right wing tradition that man has dominion over all living things and the earth.
If this tradition continues, the effect of going against it could be political suicide, but the effect of staying with it in "a grand 'ole proud" manner, may lead to the end of most, if not all of us.
Even Glenn Beck understands part of this problem. A possible indicator that he is not the patriarch he portrays in his TV show.
Republicans favor war and war is incentive to fund scientific projects (applied science, not theoretical).
Our military needs are the reason we have GPS. World War II made radar the major thing that it is. The e-mail and the internet were originally motivated by military applications. War is good for science funding.
ruveyn
Well, I can't speak for all scientists, but I'm kind of a pacifist, so whether war results in research funding or not I would never vote for anyone who is militaristic. Money should be spent on research regardless of whether you are at war or not.
That's actually not necessarily true.
How much evolutionary biology have you actually studied? I would be willing to bet that it was nothing more than a lecture or two in an intro-level course you took at a government-run high school.
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WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Balance of nature is left wing science, because it goes against right wing tradition that man has dominion over all living things and the earth.
.
Why not?
stronger species DOMINATE weaker species
it is called darwinism
Evolutionary theory fail
Its not about strength, its about the right traits at the right time. Mammals were weaker then dinosaurs and yet now they dominate the world because their penchant for burrowing to avoid dangerous predators (among other reasons) let them survive an asteroid impact and the subsequent impact winter. There are many other examples of 'weak' species 'winning'. Then again, do mammals really 'dominate'? What is the most numerous, dangerous type of organism on the Earth? It certainly is not Man
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Opportunities multiply as they are seized. -Sun Tzu
Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many -Machiavelli
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do
How can you stop me without using violence?
you can't
LOL Wow great point!
How could I stop you without violence? I would point out that somebody owns that cow, and that you'll owe them money if not get in trouble with the law for destroying that property. Since you probably aren't interested in paying for said cow, or spending the evening in jail, you will probably go home and sulk like a good lunatic
_________________
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. -Sun Tzu
Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many -Machiavelli
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do
How can you stop me without using violence?
you can't
LOL Wow great point!
How could I stop you without violence? I would point out that somebody owns that cow, and that you'll owe them money if not get in trouble with the law for destroying that property. Since you probably aren't interested in paying for said cow, or spending the evening in jail, you will probably go home and sulk like a good lunatic
I was speaking about an unowned cow
obviously I respect property rights(unlike you socialist)
Its not about strength, its about the right traits at the right time. Mammals were weaker then dinosaurs and yet now they dominate the world because their penchant for burrowing to avoid dangerous predators (among other reasons) let them survive an asteroid impact and the subsequent impact winter. There are many other examples of 'weak' species 'winning'. Then again, do mammals really 'dominate'? What is the most numerous, dangerous type of organism on the Earth? It certainly is not Man
A cosmic disaster about 65 million years ago gave mammals a leg up.
ruveyn
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