Global warming has quickly become one of the most heated issues in America (pun intended). Rising temperatures and melting icebergs are indisputable evidence that the Earth is warming, but is this global heat wave a man-made crisis or just overblown hype?
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Who Are Today’s Skeptics?
- From Sierra Club
By Sierra Club - Explore, Enjoy and Protect the Planet
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Ad Hominem
What if we were studying the effects of the affect of CO2 on its climate. No one is living on the planet and we were just scientists.
Would we create a global warming crises?
Look at the facts as presented by Christopher Monckton
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm
- Vizion July 25, 2008 2:39PM
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Both sides biased
The problem with The Sierra clubs objections is that it doesn't address the science of the debate but the motives of the objectors, which of course cannot be proven. It seems to me that the Global Warming proponents are every bit as biased and non objective as any Global Warming skeptics. It's a fact that research takes money. The state of climate research has reached a point where global warming proponents and opponents alike must get money from people who support research which has the potential to support their views. The fact that GW researchers who get money from people who support their views does not in any way prove that their research is flawed. The fact that the essay attacks their motives rather than the science is evidence to me that the science must have validity. I'm very disturbed by the emotional and political nature of this debate which has interfered with true scientific debate.
- tbcass
July 26, 2008 4:18AM
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not equally!
Did you not read the first argument: "Science is on our side"? That is where they talk about the science - this is a critique of skeptics.
- davisDave August 19, 2008 6:03PM
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Yes equally
Since you made no objections to my statements then I have to assume you have no argument against them. My objective was to point out that when you attack the (unprovable) motives of the skeptics rather than the facts you essentially lose the argument. The Sierra Club's argument has no merit. Who is more biased than the Sierra Club?
- tbcass
September 4, 2008 4:12AM
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The Oregon Petition
You need to mention the late Dr. Sietz and the Oregon Petition. At the site of the petition (petitionproject.org), they claim to have collected over 30,000 signatures. It also claims to be peer reviewed. Who reviewed it? The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Here is what else I found out:
The petition and the documents included were all made to look like official papers from the prestigious National Academy of Science. They weren’t, and this attempt to mislead has been well-documented.
The complete story includes RJ Reynolds Tobacco, Exxon Mobil and is quite interesting and can be found at desmogblog.com.
- Eva August 19, 2008 8:04PM
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Insufficient evidence.
Quite honestly I've studied the evidence and find it lacking but, I am in total agreement that we should make an all out effort to find alternative sources of energy. My fear is that when it comes out that the global warming crisis is a sham people will become complacent and go back to their energy wasting way of life. The sense of urgency is sidetracking us to spend money on dead end technologies such as hybrid vehicles instead of Hydrogen Fuel Cells. At the same time many of the Global Warming alarmists oppose nuclear energy which is a proven safe source of clean energy (Europe has no problems).
- tbcass
September 4, 2008 4:04AM
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I don't take "climate skeptics" seriously.
One of the most commonly heard arguments they spit out is that in prehistoric times global temperatures went up first and then CO2 levels followed the temperature increases, therefore CO2 levels rising today are a result rather than a cause of global warming. I frankly cannot understand how anyone would put forth such a rediculous claim. And here's why:
That sequence (first temperature, then CO2) is EXACTLY what is expected from climate change that is entirely natural, that is, the Sun is the forcing agent that starts the process. Quite simply, our greenhouse gas emitting civilization didn't exist back then. So what must have happened was that as the CO2 levels increased, in response to the slightly higher temperatures, it acted as a feedback agent causing the temperature to rise still more. If Earth was locked in an ice age, the feedback loop caused by natural global warming would have overcome the albedo effect of ice reflecting most of the sunlight and thus keeping the Earth cold. If not for the feedback loop involving CO2, then the glaciers would have remained as extended as they were instead of melting back.
CO2 levels today are estimated to be higher than they have ever been over the past half a million years. If CO2 levels are indeed always a result of global warming, then we should have been a lot hotter than we've been in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Quite simply, we are indeed emitting vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and the heat retaining properties of that gas have been understood by chemists for over a century. Unless and until those properties are falsified by the global warming "skeptics", I will lable them what they look like: paid shills for the big oil companies.
- Dale Husband
September 19, 2008 12:51AM
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Is Global Warming a Crisis?
Next to the question is a picture of a polar bear walking through slushy ice. I assume this is to draw attention to it's habitat slowly melting away. If it's true, my question is: So what? There is no rule in nature that states all species will survive. If global warming is occuring, and it's caused by man, then it's a natural event. I don't want to see the polar bears go away but if they do, it won't change my life at all.
Arvinc
- arvin
October 1, 2008 5:53AM
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The End of Nature
If "it's caused by man, then it's a natural event."
No it is not a natural event. Try reading "The End of Nature" by Bill McKibben. http://www.billmckibben.com/end-of-nature.html We have been dumping massive amounts of CO2 and other pollutants into our atmosphere.
What is alarming right now is the rate of change that is ocurring. We may end up killing off 30% of the earth's species in the next 40 years.
http://www.nature.com/nature/links/040108/040108-1.html
I am sure that some life on Earth will continue. Should it be us?
- dgross
July 23, 2009 4:16PM
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Public Disinformation Campaign
It is important to point out that there is an intentional public disinformation campaign about climate change being waged by big oil ; similar to the tobacco industry denial that smoking was harmful. It’s sometimes even the same people who claim that smoking is OK that are making claims that everything is OK with the planet.
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html
So it is important to check out the credentials of the climate change skeptics. A good website that checks out these claims is Sourcewatch: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Climate_change_sceptics
- dgross
July 23, 2009 2:28PM
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