Chicken Little Has a Long History

Bradly left out the famous Ehrlich-Simon bet that Ehrlich lost big time.

What really frightens me about the entire deabte, on both sides, is the complete lack of scientific debate going on in the media. I have never seen a comprehensive analysis on a) the evidence that suggests that there is man-made warming b) the scientific methods and data colelction processes used (and their reliabilty and validity) or c) an exhaustive rebuttle to the claims made by global warming "alarmists."

All I see is anecdotal evidence on one side and "well the scientists say" on the other side. I think the deniers feel like if they can show one or two theoretical chinks in the armor of GW that they have comletely diproved the theory and anyone who continues to believe it is an idiot. On the other side, it seems like everyone who believes in GW is taking somebody else's analysis and studies on face value. I wouldn't be suprised if all the research that is coming in is from one igloo in Alaska.

Science is not about coming up with ideas and theories. It's about trying to methodically tear down every theory or idea that exists until all you have left is the truth.

This article seemed to be more about proving that everyone including scientists have biases. That should be a given and irrelevant. What I want to see is more of the little pieces of enviromental science so that I can determine myself what the bigger picture seems to be.

Sorry about the long rant. What I was trying to get at is, does anybody know of good places to find condensed information on GW? Is there a good source for critiques of different studies on both sides? You would think with all the time and energy spent on this subject somebody might have at least read a lot of abstracts and put some kind of unbiased website up...

"I think the deniers feel like if they can show one or two theoretical chinks in the armor of GW that they have comletely diproved the theory and anyone who continues to believe it is an idiot."

Matt, I haven't heard much from people I would refer to as "deniers". I have read very much from people who are skeptics about one or more of the links in the CO2 Emissions to Industry must be Massively Regulated logic chain. Most skeptics I have read about would better be described as "cautious", as in:

"Let's be damned sure we understand what is going on before we inflict upon the world a sharp reduction in living standards for a problem which may or may not exist, a problem we cannot likely solve."

Let me clarify that there is a gap a mile wide in my mind between skeptics and deniers. Sometimes skeptics have a sense of humor that makes them sound like deniers. When I say deniers I'm talking about people who think that GW isn't possible because it snowed in Vegas last year.

Matt,

Here is Richard Lindzen's take on where the science stands. If you don't know him, he is one of the most qualified climate scientists in the world (works at M.I.T.):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB200014240527487...

Also, another voice of sanity is Bjorn Lomborg out of Denmark:

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article...

Agreed. Also, if global warming is as dire a problem as the climate change side contends, our best bet to reverse it is to continue to develop technology as rapidly as we can and try to innovate around the problem. We currently don't possess the technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere, and no matter what words are spoken in Copenhagen we are not going to convince every country in the world to impoverish itself in order to stem carbon emissions.

We've innovated around problems before. An observer in 1850, if told that the world in 2009 would have about 6.5 billion people, would rightly wonder if we are all drowning in horse manure.

Very true. It's far more likely that someone makes billions off a machine that turns farts into fuel than America reducing it's emmisions by 80% through legislation. Although, I'm sure Obama will take credit for it anyway.

At the risk of sounding simplitic, I think the reason is that climate science is very, very complicated. Climate change predictions rely on models with a great number of inputs, some of which are themselves derived from other models. The signal-to-noise ratio in climate science is very low, which makes it hard for either side to demonstrate anything conclusively. As an aside, it's even more difficult when the raw data is kept secret or destroyed, since then it's effectively impossible for anyone else to re-run the models.

The case most of the libertarian skeptics are making is that the onus is on the climate change side (1) to prove (in the scientific sense) catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (not on the skeptics to prove a negative), (2) to show that the proposed carbon reduction regulations will prevent the catastrophe, and (3) to show that the benefits of carbon regulation outweigh the costs.

There's widespread agreement in the mainstream scientific community that the earth has been warming gradually over the past 150 years. That's a far cry from meeting all three of the prongs above. And I for one think that global warming proponents would need to show all three of the above convincingly before we should spend trillions of dollars to combat global warming.

I really appreciate the scientific-minded answer that you gave me. I agree very much with everything that you stated because for once it is congruent with everything I learned about science through 14+ years of school. Your reference to the corrupted data is the reason I was compelled to write my first post. I'm starting to become very cynical about the whole process.

I guess I didn't word my post very well. I completely agree that the onus is on the scientific community to do all things you stated. But there are scientists and others who claim that they have already done so. I doubt very much that they have, so what I was hoping for is an abbreviated summary of the research that has taken place and information about their research methods so I can better understand how far they have come in defeating their onus (my gut says it's not very far for all the reasons you stated, but I don't want to rely on my gut).

It never ceases to amaze me how many people learn so little from history.

The mindset is created at an early age -- my third grade is being made to produce environmentalist propaganda as part of her everyday school assignments (following the government mandated California curriculum).

Counter it. Steve Landsburg talks about the same effect in The Armchair Economist:

http://www.shrubwalkers.com/prose/list/not.html

The letter to his daughter's preschool teacher at the end is especially striking.

That's a beautiful excerpt. Thanks.

If you want to watch an environmentalist's head explode, ask them what we should do about the amount of water wasted to rinse recyclables or the pollution generated to store and transport them.