Here, I answer Chapter 1's obnoxious challenge in a manner befitting it.
By kyle8 Posted in Archived — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Chapter 1, wanted US to tell him the five main reasons that many scientists believe in AGW. After searching the evidence there is actually only one real reason a person might link global climate change to current human actions. But in keeping with the arrogant style of his challenge I will give the five reasons.
1) HATE - Some Scientists are ideological enemies of capitalism, industrialism, and globalization. This gives them a convenient outlet for their prejudices.
2) GREED - Some Scientist are in an ongoing quest for more research dollars. The big bucks right now are coming from governments, universities and NGO's all pimping Global warning and the subsequent fear mongering.
3) COWARDICE - Some Scientists have been censured by the "consensus" community and many are now scared into silence.
4) OPPORTUNISM - The Bandwagon effect, wanting to be popular.
5) THE EVIDENCE - There is of course, some evidence pointing toward AGW. There is also conflicting evidence. Let me state here that yes GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE IS HAPPENING. Second, THERE APPEARS TO BE AT LEAST SOME HUMAN MADE ATTENUATION OR FORCING. However that is a far cry from saying we are all going to hell in a hand basket in the very near future because we are all so greedy and drive SUV's.
I stated earlier that there was only one real reason one might believe in a significant human component of Global Climate Change. That reason is the large increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in recent years.
Ice core samples show a correlation between higher CO2 in general during hot periods, and lower CO2 during colder periods. What is not clear is the cause and effect relationship between these two things. In fact the evidence seems to be that CO2 is a lagging indicator of global climate change.
As in this report:
Historical carbon dioxide record from the Vostok ice core
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/vostok.htm
by
J.-M. Barnola, D. Raynaud, C. Lorius
According to Barnola et al. (1991) and Petit et al. (1999) these measurements indicate that, at the beginning of the deglaciations, the CO2 increase either was in phase or lagged by less than ~1000 years with respect to the Antarctic temperature, whereas it clearly lagged behind the temperature at the onset of the glaciations.
Look, my mind is open, maybe we are causing global warming. But I won't be convinced by a "consensus" which denigrates and attacks all contrary data, and has the appearance of a religion.
What I want to know is, If global temperatures actually cool in the following years are we going to be able to prosecute all the alarmists for trying to scare us to death?