My belief in Global Warming is getting shaky

[Biochemist]

A "credible view" in the editorial section of a newspaper?

Was this contributor a climate scientist? I doubt it.

We are doing it again. He really can't be a climate scientist because he published in the WSJ. The article in the WSJ Op Ed was written by Patrick Michaels, professor of Environmental sciences at U o Virginia. Richard Lindzen (MIT) has also published in the WSJ.

You'll have to be more specific. Are you talking about the IPCC?

Yes. You will have to read the article if you want to critique it.

This is one of the most common denialist arguments.

And this tactic is one of the more common with the alarmists. Any argument in opposition is labeled "denialist". It is a handy way to avoid the opposing argument's fact basis.

Yes, the Earth has been both colder and warmer in the past. The point that people continually miss is that it's the *rate* of temperature increase that is alarming.

Only to some. No one has demonstrated that rate itself is a risk.

It's also important to remember that when we talk about a 0.5 degree increase, it is a *global average*. The artic may stay cool while the tropics heat up several degrees, or vice versa.

You mean like it is now?

[Essay]

We are doing it again. He really can't be a climate scientist because he published in the WSJ. :naughty: how does that follow? :evil:

 

On May 16, 2004, The Washington Post published an opinion piece in its Sunday "Outlook" section about The Day After Tomorrow -- the upcoming Hollywood film depicting a nightmare scenario in which global warming causes severe and sudden weather to ravage North America -- by Patrick J. Michaels, a staunch critic of global climate change theory....

Patrick J. Michaels is senior researcher in environmental studies at the Cato Institute; research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia; author of two books on global warming, The Satanic Gases and Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming; and editor of World Climate Report, a biweekly newsletter on climate studies funded in large part by the coal industry. According to a 1998 article by Institute for Public Accuracy executive director Norman Solomon, the Cato Institute has received financial support from energy companies -- including Chevron Companies, Exxon Company, Shell Oil Company, and Tenneco Gas, as well as the American Petroleum Institute, Amoco Foundation, and Atlantic Richfield Foundation.

Media Matters - Pat Michaels: scientist, energy industry lackey, Washington Post contributor

 

...speaking of "doing it again...."

Just once it'd be nice to see someone deny climate change who wasn't already "on board" at :eek: Cato, Heartland, or Heritage... regardless of where they publish their work.

 

At least we know he's qualified to be a movie critic.

 

ohhhh; too sarcastic? Sorry....

 

William Gray is a climatologist who publishes in newspapers, etc. :hihi:

Why not look into some of his work for evidence that things are overblown?

:hihi:

[freeztar]

We are doing it again. He really can't be a climate scientist because he published in the WSJ. The article in the WSJ Op Ed was written by Patrick Michaels, professor of Environmental sciences at U o Virginia. Richard Lindzen (MIT) has also published in the WSJ.

 

Patrick Michaels and Richard Lindzen do appear to be climate scientists, so I retract my statement.

Yes. You will have to read the article if you want to critique it.

 

Fair enough. Where can I find it?

And this tactic is one of the more common with the alarmists. Any argument in opposition is labeled "denialist".

 

Let's not get bogged down with semantics. How about climate change skeptic?

 

It is a handy way to avoid the opposing argument's fact basis.

Ahh, but I didn't avoid the arguments. In fact, I refuted them.

 

Only to some. No one has demonstrated that rate itself is a risk.

What has been demonstrated is the effects of a temperature rise of several degrees. Do you mean to tell me that there is no difference if this change happens over 50 years or 1000 years?

 

You mean like it is now?

 

What do you mean?

[freeztar]

Just once it'd be nice to see someone deny climate change who wasn't already "on board" at :naughty: Cato, Heartland, or Heritage... regardless of where they publish their work.

 

Here, here!

[Biochemist]

...speaking of "doing it again...."

Just once it'd be nice to see someone deny climate change who wasn't already "on board" at :naughty: Cato, Heartland, or Heritage... regardless of where they publish their work.

Soooooo, you are suggesting that we should (to be fair) disregard anything said by anyone associated with the IPCC (for example) because they already have a stated position???????

[Biochemist]

Fair enough. Where can I find it?

Wall Street Journal, 4/14/08, Op Ed page (last page of section 1)

Ahh, but I didn't avoid the arguments. In fact, I refuted them.

Stating a different opinion is not refuting. And I was referring to the data in the WSJ article, which you have not yet read.

What has been demonstrated is the effects of a temperature rise of several degrees.

Demonstrated? Don't you mean "modeled"?

Do you mean to tell me that there is no difference if this change happens over 50 years or 1000 years?

I mean to suggest that no one has established that there is any difference in net effect.

[REASON]

Patrick Michaels and Richard Lindzen do appear to be climate scientists, so I retract my statement.

 

While these gentlemen may qualify as climate scientists, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page is notorious for its partisan right-wing bias similar to what is found in conservative talk radio and the FOX "News" channel.

 

The WSJ is also known for printing articles relating to climate change that are unscientific, distorted, and/or misleading in their representation of climate science as addressed in the following RealClimate.org article.

 

The Wall Street Journal vs. The Scientific Consensus - RealClimate.org

 

We are disappointed that the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has chosen to yet again distort the science behind human-caused climate change and global warming in their recent editorial "Kyoto By Degrees" (6/21/05) (subscription required).

 

Last week, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and 10 other leading world bodies expressed the consensus view that "there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring" and that "It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities". And just last week, USA Today editorialized that "not only is the science in, it is also overwhelming".

 

It is puzzling then that the WSJ editors could claim that "the scientific case….looks weaker all the time"...

[Biochemist]

While these gentlemen may qualify as climate scientists, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page is notorious for its partisan right-wing bias similar to what is found in conservative talk radio and the FOX "News" channel.

The WSJ is indeed conservative. Fox is to the right of NBC, CBS, and ABC, but is not conservative. In fact, a number of credible academic studies that measure bias found Fox least biased of the big five (including CNN). But this would be another thread topic.

 

Incidentally, 85% of the staff at Fox are registered democrats. This (humorously) DOES make them more conservative. The average at CBS, ABC, CNN and NBC was about 95%.

The WSJ is also known for prining articles relating to climate change that are unscientific, distorted, and/or misleading in their representation of climate science as addressed in the following RealClimate.org article.

Thank GOODNESS that RealClimate has no biases.

 

Next, you will be saying NPR is unbiased.

[freeztar]

Wall Street Journal, 4/14/08, Op Ed page (last page of section

 

Do you have a link? I don't subscribe to the WSJ. I searched their site and found no such topic for 4/14.

 

1)Stating a different opinion is not refuting.

 

I meant to write "argue".

 

And I was referring to the data in the WSJ article, which you have not yet read.

 

Well, since you have and you are bringing it up, why not tell us about this data.

 

Demonstrated? Don't you mean "modeled"?

 

Oh, the semantics...

How about "demonstrated through modeling".

 

I mean to suggest that no one has established that there is any difference in net effect.

 

What do you mean by "net effect"?

[modest]

We are doing it again. He really can't be a climate scientist because he published in the WSJ. The article in the WSJ Op Ed was written by Patrick Michaels, professor of Environmental sciences at U o Virginia.

 

He resigned from that position. He now gets paid by fossil-fuel and oil companies. Like his article do ya? Tell us more about it.

 

-modest

[REASON]

The WSJ is indeed conservative.

 

I am trying to establish a correlation between the right-wing media and the dissemination of distortions, misrepresentations and emotional denialism in a concerted effort to undermine climate science and the general consensus among climate scientists that anthropogenic global warming is occurring.

 

I contend that this use of the media is a factor that is causing people's belief in global warming to get shaky, if not influencing them to reject it completely.

 

So far, you've said nothing and offered no evidence to disprove this obvious connection.

 

Thank GOODNESS that RealClimate has no biases.

 

Yes, RealClimate does have a bias in favor of climate science, not political ideology.

 

Climate change is an issue for humanity, not partisan politics.

[Biochemist]

Do you have a link? I don't subscribe to the WSJ. I searched their site and found no such topic for 4/14.

I don't think it is on the web. Let me try to transcribe a little of it:

- an excerpt:

 

...For years, records from surface thermometers showed a global warming trend beginning in the late 1970s. But temperatures sensed by satellites and weather ballons displayed no concurrent warming.

 

These records have been revised a number of times, and I examined two major revisions of these records. They are the surface record from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the satellite-sensed temperatures originally published by University of Alabama's John Christy, and the weather-balloon records originally published by James Angell of the U.S. Commerce Department.

 

The two revisions of the IPCC surface record each successively lowered temperatures in the 1950s and the 1960. The result? Obviously more warming--from largely the same data.......

 

....There have been six major revisions in the warming figures in recent years, all in the same direction. So its like flipping a coin six times and getting tails each time. The chance of that occurring in 0.016, or less than one in 50. .......

 

.....Finally, no one seems to want to discuss that for millennia after the end of the last ice age, the Eurasian Arctic was several degrees warmer in summer (when ice melts) than it is now. .....

 

...But as we face the threat of massive energy taxes--raised by perceptions of increasing rates of warming and the sudden loss of Greenland's ice--we should be talking about reality

My apologies to the WSJ for any typos.

[InfiniteNow]

Yes, the Earth has been both colder and warmer in the past. The point that people continually miss is that it's the *rate* of temperature increase that is alarming.

No one has demonstrated that rate itself is a risk.

 

I could just say that it has been demonstrated that plants cannot keep up with the rate at which we are adding to atmospheric CO₂ concentrations, but I won't. I'd prefer to hit you in the face with a shovel... erm... I mean, provide citations that prove your assertion desperately wrong.

 

There's the food issue where it's harder to grow food for our exploding population in the face of rapidly/abruptly changing climate.

 

Additionally, fresh water supplies are running out, and drought conditions more common.

 

Glacial melt is a key water source for several massive groups of people, but they are melting so quickly they they, too will run out of water.

 

There are the sensitive bioorganisms which are dying quickly at the quick climate change and this rate of change is impacting entire ecosystems.

 

 

But, that's not really hard enough of a shovel, is it? You claimed:

 

No one has demonstrated that rate itself is a risk.

 

...and now that I'm done laughing, I'll share some sources which plainly suggest otherwise.

 

 

Abrupt Climate Change and Extinction Events in Earth History -- Crowley and North 240 (4855): 996 -- Science

Slowly changing boundary conditions can sometimes cause discontinuous responses in climate models and result in relatively rapid transitions between different climate states. Such terrestrially induced abrupt climate transitions could have contributed to biotic crises in earth history. Ancillary events associated with transitions could disperse unstable climate behavior over a longer but still geologically brief interval and account for the stepwise nature of some extinction events. There is a growing body of theoretical and empirical support for the concept of abrupt climate change, and a comparison of paleoclimate data with the Phanerozoic extinction record indicates that climate and biotic transitions often coincide. However, more stratigraphic information is needed to precisely assess phase relations between the two types of transitions. The climate-life comparison also suggests that, if climate change is significantly contributing to biotic turnover, ecosystems may be more sensitive to forcing during the early stages of evolution from an ice-free to a glaciated state. Our analysis suggests that a terrestrially induced climate instability is a viable mechanism for causing rapid environmental change and biotic turnover in earth history

 

 

Influence of CO2 emission rates on the stability of the thermohaline circulation

Here we use a simple coupled atmosphere-ocean climate model to show that the Atlantic thermohaline circulation is not only sensitive to the final atmospheric CO₂ concentration attained, but also depends on the rate of change of the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere.

 

 

Abrupt Climate Change -- Alley et al. 299 (5615): 2005 -- Science

Large, abrupt, and widespread climate changes with major impacts have occurred repeatedly in the past, when the Earth system was forced across thresholds. Although abrupt climate changes can occur for many reasons, it is conceivable that human forcing of climate change is increasing the probability of large, abrupt events. Were such an event to recur, the economic and ecological impacts could be large and potentially serious.

 

 

Central European vegetation response to abrupt climate change at 8.2 ka -- Tinner and Lotter 29 (6): 551 -- Geology

The close connection between climatic change and vegetational response at a subcontinental scale implies that forecasted global warming may trigger rapid collapses, expansions, and invasions of tree species.

 

 

Blackwell Synergy - Conservation Biology, Volume 15 Issue 3 Page 578-590, June 2001 (Article Abstract)

Although forests, as a class, have proved resilient to past changes in climate, today's fragmented and degraded forests are more vulnerable. Adaptation of species to climate change can occur through phenotypic plasticity, evolution, or migration to suitable sites, with the latter probably the most common response in the past. Among the land-use and management practices likely to maintain forest biodiversity and ecological functions during climate change are (1) representing forest types across environmental gradients in reserves; (2) protecting climatic refugia at multiple scales; (3) protecting primary forests; (4) avoiding fragmentation and providing connectivity, especially parallel to climatic gradients; (5) providing buffer zones for adjustment of reserve boundaries; (6) practicing low-intensity forestry and preventing conversion of natural forests to plantations; ( 7) maintaining natural fire regimes; (8) maintaining diverse gene pools; and (9) identifying and protecting functional groups and keystone species. Good forest management in a time of rapidly changing climate differs little from good forest management under more static conditions, but there is increased emphasis on protecting climatic refugia and providing connectivity.

 

That's what I pulled in just a few minutes. If you'd like to hold on to that assertion you made, then I'll be glad to spend a few more hours doing research on this just to make you look stupid. I'd caution you against such an approach, however. :rolleyes:

[CraigD]

Incidentally, 85% of the staff at Fox are registered democrats. This (humorously) DOES make them more conservative. The average at CBS, ABC, CNN and NBC was about 95%.

That’s an amazing statistic! :eek_big:

 

What’s your source for it, Biochemist? :rolleyes:

[freeztar]

I don't think it is on the web. Let me try to transcribe a little of it:

Originally Posted by Wall Street Journal, 4/14/08; Author- Patrick Michaels, Title "Our Climate Numbers are a Big Old Mess"

- an excerpt:

 

...For years, records from surface thermometers showed a global warming trend beginning in the late 1970s. But temperatures sensed by satellites and weather ballons displayed no concurrent warming.

 

These records have been revised a number of times, and I examined two major revisions of these records. They are the surface record from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the satellite-sensed temperatures originally published by University of Alabama's John Christy, and the weather-balloon records originally published by James Angell of the U.S. Commerce Department.

 

The two revisions of the IPCC surface record each successively lowered temperatures in the 1950s and the 1960. The result? Obviously more warming--from largely the same data.......

 

Why do you suppose there were revisions?

It happens all the time in science. As we learn more, we revise the data.

....There have been six major revisions in the warming figures in recent years, all in the same direction. So its like flipping a coin six times and getting tails each time. The chance of that occurring in 0.016, or less than one in 50. .......

 

What an absurd analogy.

He seems to be implying that the data was fiddled with to reach a desired outcome. Does he offer any proof of this?

 

.....Finally, no one seems to want to discuss that for millennia after the end of the last ice age, the Eurasian Arctic was several degrees warmer in summer (when ice melts) than it is now. .....

First of all, ice can melt at any time of the year.

Anyhow, so what? It was warmer back then. Ok. What's the point?

No wonder no one wants to discuss it. :rolleyes:

...But as we face the threat of massive energy taxes--raised by perceptions of increasing rates of warming and the sudden loss of Greenland's ice--we should be talking about reality

 

Ok, what's this reality he speaks of? And why is he so worried about massive energy taxes? :eek_big:

 

Does he actually give any substantial arguments in this piece?

He's keen to point out what is wrong, but does not say why.

[modest]

Yes. You will have to read the article if you want to critique it.

Fair enough. Where can I find it?

 

A better source than the allusive WSJ article indicating Patrick Michaels' views can be found here:

The Way of Warming

By Patrick J. Michaels, Paul C. Knappenberger, and Robert E. Davis

 

I obviously haven't read it, but it's easy to see from the wording straight off that bias and influencing opinion are the motivation for this work:

 

At the outset, we believe it is going to be very difficult to demonstrate a large negative net effect of these changes, at least in free societies: Life span has doubled, crop yields have quintupled, and average wealth has increased to levels beyond the imagination of someone alive in 1900. All of those changes occurred as the planet warmed. Global warming may not have created those benefits (although there is some evidence for a positive agricultural impact), but it surely did not prevent them.

 

Everyone here is smart enough to see what is wrong with a paragraph like this. Life spans have doubled in the free/privileged world which happened during global warming but that doesn’t mean global warming doubled life spans but maybe it does. It basically implies that everyone is going to get "wealth beyond the imagination" and live longer because of global warming :rolleyes:

 

The suspicious wording is accented by the writer who:

 

One Colorado electric cooperative has openly admitted that it has paid $100,000 to a university academic [Michaels] who prides himself on being a global warming skeptic.

-source

 

It's sad that public money paid to a utility company is used to bribe scientists! I’m sorry, did I say ‘scientist’? If your ethics are so bad as to accept a bribe for doing nothing more than supporting politically motivated propaganda then you don’t get to be called a scientist.

 

I'm not sure the paper needs critiquing. If Michaels really is the best source to interpret data on global warming in a skeptical way then the skeptic's position has already failed - at least on me.

 

-modest

[Essay]

Soooooo, you are suggesting that we should (to be fair) disregard anything said by anyone associated with the IPCC (for example) because they already have a stated position???????

 

I'm a bit late, re: my Cato, Heritage, Heartland comment;

and Reason already pointed this out:

"Yes, RealClimate does have a bias in favor of climate science, not political ideology."

 

...but yes; it's the difference between focusing on climate change in order to understand, control, and ameliorate serious future change;

versus focusing on climate change in order to ease the way for continuing free-enterprise capitalism.

 

But I wouldn't even say that the IPCC has a stated position on CC (at least not a pre-existing position, as the economic think tanks do).

IPCC has an evolving position; and based only on a limited set of "facts" for which a consensus could be achieved.