Comments on: Spin Me Again! More Americans Now Think Global Warming is Exaggerated

By: Environmental Data

Environmental Data — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 22:08:50 +0000

Nice article! You can track all kinds of global warming stats on our site.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:18:46 +0000

Check out the graphs here: UK Met Office Fact 2: Temperatures are continuing to rise.

By: Timothy B. Hurst

Timothy B. Hurst — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:57:48 +0000

C'mon, Chuck. Making universal claims like "Journalists and bloggers know nothing of causal inference…" is like claiming all guys named Chuck have a mustache.

Journalists and bloggers are not a homogeneous group. Making that assumption weakens your argument.

By: Chuck Cardiff

Chuck Cardiff — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:12:15 +0000

Jeff ID has it right. Journalists and bloggers know nothing of causal inferences in nonexperimental research. To them, correlation is causality. If you take the time to read legitimate research and understand the data, you will see that the situation is quite unclear.

By: Jeff Id

Jeff Id — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:43:32 +0000

The science is horribly corrupted by politics. As an example copenhagen presented conclusions as though they came from 2500 scientists. The scientists were never asked!

Most bloggers and reporters know absolutely nothing about science.

At my blog we present papers, data and code. Nothing hidden.

http://www.noconsensus.wordpress.com

I can say that after nearly a year of reading dozens of climate papers, nobody knows the real answer about climate! I can also say, liberals don't care becasue it helps further their socialist goals.

By: David in Davis

David in Davis — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 12:34:45 +0000

Journalist(e.g., amerigreen) + one-sided reporting = bias: now an advocate not an objective reporter

Scientist(e.g., Hansen) + advocacy = bias: now an advocate not an objective scientist

Neither profession can have it both ways. It's called ethics. Objectivity is not a false idol. Without objectivity, both science and journalism are worse than useless, i.e., harmful.

By: Owen

Owen — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 05:25:28 +0000

I guess I am a newer convert to that 41% population being sighted. I used to generally be supportive of the warming argument as conveyed by the news. My demographic is middle class and generally in the distracted with life catagory. In the last two months I finally took enough time to more thoroughly read about the "for" and "against" human causation arguments on climate warming. My more considered opionion is that humans are not a significant climate change factor and that human acitivity is a minority factor to climate change. If there are many others like me who are now starting to become much more aware of this subject, you might expect that 41% population to increase a bit more in the near term.

By: Phaeton

Phaeton — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:59:31 +0000

* Global Screaming: Climate Hysteria Reaches New Level – The fact that warming has been detected on other planets like Mars and Jupiter where there are no humans at all?…

* LiveScience – Sun Blamed for Warming of Earth and Other Worlds – Earth is heating up lately, but so are Mars, Pluto and other worlds in our solar system, leading some scientists to speculate that a change in the sun’s activity is the common thread linking all these baking events:
http://cristiannegureanu.blogspot.com/2009/03/car…

By: americangreen

americangreen — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:42:00 +0000

@ Bruce: You are correct. I had no desire to build up a discussion of the proof of Global Warming in this article. In general, I reject out of hand the idea that I would need to start from the ground up and prove global warming from the get-go every time I suggest that it is factual…

I mean… I haven't spent my entire life working on climate change issues. I'll be the first to admit that I haven't plotted whatever data you refer to… but that's not really the point of the article. The point of the article is that such a massive massive majority of the people who DO study it for a career get to

I mean, I believe in a division of labor here. I think we do have experts in our society. In this case, my argument was that, since the Scientists agree by a overwhelming numbers that Climate Change is starting to show disastrous affects on our planet across the board, that it is irresponsible for the media to present it as "even".

Further, I would agree that folks should do whatever research they want to do, but I would say that doesn’t make ‘em equivalent. Are you saying, Bruce, that all of climate change science would be discredited by a change in climate? I guess I would say that these folks know what’s up: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7940532…

By: C. Bruce Richardson

C. Bruce Richardson — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:13:14 +0000

Some of us have noticed that folks arguing that there is a global warming "crisis" seldom even try to make the case. "americangreen" didn't try to make the case. He just seems to want to keep skeptics from being able to present the case for skepticism.

If the science is really that "settled" then why not present that settled science? Instead we get opinions stated as fact. Modeling stated as evidence. Ad hominem arguments in response to legitimate skeptical arguments. And often, gratuitous vicious personal attacks.

"Americangreen" seems to be of the opinion that skeptical arguments should be suppressed. Why? If the science is really settled, it should be very easy to counter any skeptical argument. The truth is that the science is anything but settled.

I found that charts that are published on this issue are often smoothed in a way that is deceptive. I have learned to plot climate data myself. I generally use HadCRUT data because that isn't a skeptical source. I would urge everyone interested in this issue to download and plot the data for themselves.

What you will find is that from around 1910 until around 1940, it warmed around 0.5 C. That is around 0.017 / year. Then there was a cool period from around 1940 until around 1970.

From around 1980 until 2004 it warmed around 0.45 C. That is around 0.019 / year.

Most scientists would agree that the 1910-1940 warming was natural because that was before there was a significant increase in atmospheric CO2.

But it assumed that a very similar warming from around 1980 until 2004, could not have been natural even though solar activity was higher between around 1940 and around 2004 than all but a few years since 1794. Now solar activity is very low and will probably continue to be low for a good while.

Incidentally, if you look at the HadCRUT data, you will see that there has been a cooling trend since around 2004. Somehow, that cooling is seldom mentioned. I suspect that "americangreen" might argue that the cooling should not be mentioned because it might cause folks to question the existence of a warming crisis. We certainly wouldn't want to confuse people. Would we?