YOUR VIEWS: in response to Jared Rader's article, “Global warming debate still going strong.”
Click here to read Jared Rader's article, “Global warming debate still going strong.”
I am not the first nor will I be the last to say how utterly disgusted I am with how misconstrued the global warming debate has become.
In this case however, The Oklahoma Daily did such an abysmal job of cloaking its own biased and uninformed opinion on the subject that it felt more like an opinion editorial rather than an actual “news” article.
How utterly embarrassing that the journalist attempted to portray “global warming” and “climate change” as identical issues, as if the two words are somehow interchangeable.
Let me address a couple of points.
Firstly, the headline of the article was “Global warming debate still going strong,” and its sub heading read: “As some scientists warn of coming changes, skeptics say issue is political.”
The Daily then goes on to display an enlarged quotation from Dr. Postawko, associate professor of meteorology, which reads: “The number of scientists that don’t believe the climate is changing is relatively small. In an effort to give equal legitimacy to both sides, the impression is that the science community is pretty split, but it’s really not”.
Dr. Postawko is right on one thing: the vast majority of scientists agree that the climate is changing.
It’s a slow, natural process which is constantly occurring on our planet. But that’s a nonissue. Hardly anyone is disputing this.
What people ARE disputing is whether the Earth is actually headed toward a significant climb in temperature in the next 100 years, and more importantly, is it man-made?
However, The Daily decided that more sinister tactics would be appropriate in order to make the “anti-global warming” crowd look like a tiny minority of non-professionals who are largely at odds with their superior scientifically-backed peers.
The article seems to present both sides, but between the cheap photograph of a five-year-old girl with her Greenpeace parents holding a sign saying “it’s my future,” and Dr. Postawko’s quote, it isn’t hard to see which way The Daily is leaning.
If you want to be mature about the global warming debate then stop trying to make skeptics of global warming, especially man-made global warming, look incompetent through the distortion of language.
Climatologists who are skeptical of man-made global warming should be applauded for their continued demand for adequate “hard science” to support such a hypothesis.
Policy decisions, which would regulate emissions, private consumption and affect every single American should not be based upon an often misused Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, unproven computer model predictions and a man who “invented the Internet.”
There are a large number of scientists and climatologists who believe that we indeed are experiencing global warming; however they argue that the reasons behind this are solar rather than man-made.
If one looks at the evidence available, one can observe that the Earth’s temperature has been steadily rising and declining in our recorded history, and not even over thousands of years, but centuries.
Seeing as how about 99 percent of our energy comes from the sun, it would make sense that solar cycles affect our climate.
However, this seems to remain largely unmentioned in the debate. That’s exactly why this debate has become political, because if the solar theory is true, what would the point of passing carbon legislation be?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that The Daily, nor mass media in general, is very interested in all the facts. Nor are Greenpeace and the 350 activists.
If they really cared about the facts they would think twice before promoting such a drastic change in legislation, legislation which could effectively castrate our economy while still failing to prevent countries such as China and India from expanding their already massive economies.
Does anyone realistically believe that forcing people to pay carbon taxes and drive hybrids is going to help anything while our eastern competitors will be far surpassing us in carbon emissions before long?
And does anyone remember that we’re in a recession? Anyone?
I can promise that CO2 isn’t keeping India awake at night.
Instead it has more important issues at hand, like providing economic opportunities for the millions of its citizens who are still below the poverty line.
Tucker Cross
Letters junior
Increase Text Size
Decrease Text Size
Print Story
Mail to Friend
More Stories
Comments
Tucker, I am glad you brought up this issue at the very end of your story about raising millions of citizens above the poverty line. It is important to know that moving our economy into a "green" economy will create more jobs than you have ever seen. Millions of jobs that can't be outsourced. One of the underlining movements in this green revolution is to bring people out of proverty by providing them with clean energy jobs in mass transit, building the energy of tomorrow, remodeling homes, creating green spaces, opening new recycling centers to handle the increased amounts of recycled items, creating the cars of tomorrow and many more future jobs that will put millions of American back to work. If someone believes that 6.5 billion people can't reshape our planets climate than they are a fool. We are changing the ph levels in our oceans, increasing every greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, and our consumption levels are way out of control. Peak oil is creeping towards us at an alarming rate, because our economy is so tied to 19th century technologies that I don't even want to imagine what it will be like if gas doubles again in another 10 years. Imagine $6 a gallon gas in 2020. The solutions are in front of us, and I don't want the U.S. and the world to cause a bigger more costly problem than what is necessary. We need to pass bold climate legislation in Congress to move our economy away from fossil fuels and to a new green mean machine. Will the U.S. win the clean energy race? Only time will tell and we will see how many skeptics like our very own Senator James Inhofe will derails the U.S. from moving forward in this fight to save our future economy. I think China, India, Brazil, and EU probably appreciate Senators like him because they know they will be the winners while the U.S. will be the looser in this race under such policies proposed by him. Senator Kerry and Senator Boxer just released the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act in Congress around a month ago and it is a flawed bill the the dirty economy has already gotten its hands on, but it is the best we got for now. I just hope we can create real bold climate policy that will help reshape our new economy into the American we use to know.
I did not know undergrad Letters studies was including meteorology classes. I am also surprised that one of them did not write to the OU Daily to support the Intelligent Climate theory.
Perhaps Tucker Cross should get on LORA and read some actual published, peer-reviewed research. There's no debate among scientists about climate change, and the few dissenters' (what a negative sounding word) ideas have been disapproved.
Yes, we're in a recession, and the eastern countries are going to become economically stronger. No one's saying that giving everyone a Prius will solve the problems of the world. People often like to claim that we're the most advanced country on earth - maybe it's time we act like it and put some effort into transitioning to more sustainable habits and investing in cleaner, renewable technology. We need to take responsibility and be the model country for the rest of the world.
I'd like to quote Carl Sagan:
"The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
Even if climate change is bunk (it's not), absolutely nothing bad can come from treating our planet better. If we screw this one up, we have no where else to go.
I agree that over hundreds of millions of years, our planet's climate has gone through many icehouse and greenhouse worlds. In fact, our planet's history has mostly been greenhouse with little to no polar ice caps. That has been supported by hundreds, maybe thousands, of scientific papers written over the last century.
However, that being said, these cycles take place over 20,000 to 400,000 years, so how do you explain a quite rapid global temperature change in just 100 years? The orbital cycles that cause climate change take a very long time. Much more time than any human can fathom. So it's odd that our planet would take such an abrupt turn in climate without any natural phenomenon to explain it.
To the question of, is our planet getting warmer? I think you have to turn a very blind eye not to believe that notion. Just take a look at our polar ice caps in the 1960's and then take a look at them today. That kind of rapid melting of so much ice cannot be attributed to solar energy alone. We are not moving closer to the sun and the sun is not getting hotter to my knowledge. So what's left appears to be a human factor. I think the evidence speaks for itself. Say what you will about how climate models are only models. Quite frankly, they are the only thing we've got. They are also the best thing we have. No one can definitively say that there will be massive sea level rise in the next century due to rising global temperatures, but if you melt an ice cube in a glass, the water level tends to rise.
The earth is getting warmer and people who cite record low temperatures this year fail to recognize the difference between weather and climate. Weather is short term (as in a day or an hour), but climate is over the long term, often years, centuries, thousands, or millions of years. Look up definitions of both terms if you don't believe me. Just because some places have a very cold day doesn't mean the global temperature isn't rising over time.
I'm sure people will comment on how delusional I am and call me nasty names, but that's not having a reasoned discussion. Yes, people need jobs and politics is a difficult game, but we need to stop thinking in the short term. Climate is a geologic issue an therefore needs to be looked at on a geologic timescale. If we ignore the scientific evidence for a warming Earth now then we are only looking at a human timescale. Perhaps the answer isn't a simple one, but let's look at what we can do to mitigate the problem. Climate change isn't going away and neither is the Earth, but humans might if we continue to ignore the issue.
I'm not sure what kind of climate science they're teaching over in the Letters department, but it looks like you've been woefully misinformed on a few issues.
First, Dr. Postawko is correct in her statements: the vast majority of climate scientists accept the strong evidence that humans are causing increasing global temperatures due to emissions of greenhouse gases. Very few scientists actively pursuing research in the field are skeptical that anthropogenic climate change is occurring. I am surprised that you imply a professor at one of the top meteorology schools in the world is misinformed...a gutsy statement, with of course nothing to back it up.
You are correct in saying that skeptical scientists should be applauded: that's part of science. However, they have to be able to provide some sort of evidence to back up their skepticism (most of the "evidence" turns out to be industry funding).
(continued in next comment)
There are some issues with your claims that I will address here:
1. "There are a large number of scientists and climatologists who believe that we indeed are experiencing global warming; however they argue that the reasons behind this are solar rather than man-made." Not true. Do you really think all these thousands of scientists forgot to check solar activity? The majority of the warming experienced in the past century (especially the past 50 years or so) can be attributed to human greenhouse gas emissions. There are many converging pieces of evidence in support of that "hypothesis." The warming effect due to greenhouse gasses (GHGs) boils down to basic physics, so if you are to claim that the warming in this century has nothing to do with greenhouse gasses, you must first explain (i) why the rapidly-increasing GHG levels are not causing the observed warming (i.e., what sort of negative radiative forcing is counteracting the increased GHG levels), and (ii) what sort of natural phenomenon is providing the radiative forcing identical to that of the increased GHG emissions, because the sun alone is not adequate.
2. "If one looks at the evidence available, one can observe that the Earth’s temperature has been steadily rising and declining in our recorded history, and not even over thousands of years, but centuries." True, natural climate variability happens. But the current warming cannot be explained by natural variability. Here is the temperature record for the past 1000 years from a variety of studies:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...
(continued in next comment)
(continued from previous comment)
3. Regarding those "unproven" climate models: You are right that we cannot take thousands of planet earths, adjust the GHG emissions differently on each one, and wait a few centuries to see how the climate has changed. That's just not very practical. However, to test the validity of the model, we can compare model results to something we do know: for example, the last century's climate. So, when the models simulate the past century with ALL *natural* forcings (including volcanic eruptions, changes in the SUN, etc.), the observed climate and simulated climate diverge towards the end of the century, with the simulations significantly underestimating the mean global temperature. However, when all *natural* forcings AND *anthropogenic* forcings (e.g., GHG emissions) are included, the simulated climate is in much better agreement with observations. Not only does this increase confidence in the model's ability to simulate climate reasonably well, but it provides some (but by no means all) evidence that the observed warming of the past century is due to human influences. Here's the image:
http://ccd4e.org/images/clip_image004.gi...
In the future, please try to learn some of the science before making ignorant claims about it. Also, as a PhD student in meteorology here at OU, I'd appreciate it if you didn't belittle our faculty.
It is astonishing how the arguments from the people who believe in "global warming" (however that is defined) all reduce to the argument from authority. In fact, there is little to no scientific consensus or factual support for "global warming" as it is popularly conceived. "Global warming" is yet another hysterical scare tactic from a lunatic fringe that are devoid of any knowledge of science or history. These people are so irrational that they believe forcing people to use expensive and scarce energy sources will be beneficial to our economy and alleviate poverty. Truly, its a comment on human nature to the degree to which people can rationalize anything.
With regards to the climate models, you can always tweak the models "after the fact" to reproduce anything. It is remarkable that any scientist could be so ignorant of this basic fact. "Garbage in, garbage out." LOL. Sad, that the meteorology department has such mediocre faculty and provides such a poor education.
Briareus,
Let's not make blanket personal attacks or attack the institution: it's not fair and sounds ridiculous. Also, I am not here to discuss political issues, just the science.
With regards to climate models being "tweaked," it is a common question offered up by politicians, etc. There is a good discussion about the issue at this website:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/arc...
Also, regarding your statement: "It is remarkable that any scientist could be so ignorant of this basic fact." Well, perhaps it is not a "basic fact," since most scientists understand the climate models and their validity and merit as a useful tool.
Feel free to believe what you want; I just wanted to clarify Tucker's misrepresentation of science and correct some of his statements.
http://som.ou.edu/
I'll let the meteorology department's homepage defend the program's merits. Put simply, it's quite good.
It's obvious that briareus has no idea what he's talking about. In fact, he's most likely a total ignoramus who only opposes the idea of anthropogenic global warming because his favorite political party told him to. All I see from him are ad hominem attacks with no basis in reality.
I'd tell briareus to spend a semester learning how to do computer-based modeling but I think that much math and the application of scientifically proven fundamentals would be too much for him.
I'd say our meteorology Ph.D. commenter summed up the science pretty effectively. These models aren't just trendlines drawn in Excel; they come from a solid scientific basis. That's the reason these climate scientists can make these statements--if they don't put the right terms in the model, they can't fudge the results to match past measurements no matter how hard they try.
The previous commentor doesn't know what he/she is talking about. When you have to resort to name-calling, its a good sign that you can't debate the argument on the merits. The bottom line on the meteorological models is that they amount to nothing more than speculation. The only way to test a model of a complex natural system is to compare the model results repeatedly against the system. So if you want to know if predictions of global temperature 100 years from now are accurate, you'll have to wait many thousands of years. The fact is, meteorologists don't know everything about the atmosphere, and furthermore, they don't know what they don't know. Thinking they know everything, they fall into the common error of human vanity. This is hardly cutting-edge science.
@briareus
"The bottom line on the meteorological models is that they amount to nothing more than speculation (...) thousands of years."
Navier–Stokes equations are nothing more than speculations now, huh? Look, you should probably restrain yourself from making such comments on "meteorological models" when you are obviously grossly ignorant in math, physics and meteorology.
"So if you want to know if predictions of global temperature 100 years from now are accurate, you'll have to wait many thousands of years."
I can tell with perfect accuracy, and without waiting a thousand years, that you suck at math.
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.