Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate
dailytech.com
dailytech.com
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/editor.cfm
I'm having a little trouble finding the "explosion" in that text. They're publishing one paper by a presumptive skeptic, and are (ZOMG!) open to debate. Yeah, that's blown the consensus thing wide open, it has...
On the dissenting side, we have Christopher Monckton. Mr. Monckton is not a scientist by trade; he is, first and foremost, a politician, and a businessman next. He has recommended that the AIDS epidemic be dealt with by forcefully quarantining all individuals in the U.S. and U.K. who are infected. His policies and positions are similar to those of the current U.S. neo-conservative; you might imagine that Dick Cheney wrote an article critical of anthropogenic climate change, and you wouldn't be far off the mark.
On the supporting side, we have David Hafemeister (I didn't bother Googling "Peter Schwartz"). David holds a PhD in physics from the University of Illinois, and is currently employed at CalPoly. He has authored or coauthored a ... well, shall we say, "respectable" number of books, and an even larger quantity of papers. Peer-reviewed papers, no less. The next time you're feeling lazy, you might want to read his c.v. [http://www.calpoly.edu/~dhafemei/dh_cv_1107.pdf].
Disclaimer: I am not a fan of arguing by appeal to authority, and I do happen to think that some aspects of human impact on global climate have been politicized and blown out of proportion -- somewhat. I have always advocated the approach that we should try to live as efficiently as possible, leaving as small of a footprint on the planet as possible, even while continuing to understand all of the mechanisms involved in global climate patterns. That said, I think it's just silly to lend any credence whatsoever to the dissenting opinion in this case, and it's certainly ridiculous to claim that the "myth" of global warming has been "blown wide open".
Did you completely skip over the first part of my last paragraph? "I am not a fan of arguing by appeal to authority." So, yes, naturally the relative backgrounds of the authors in question should be completely ignored.
In principle, it's wrong to attack a person's reputation in a debate, but I'm not entering the global warming "debate" here. I am instead criticizing the stupid tone of both the article and the headline posted here on News.YC.
Furthermore, even though in principle either ad hominem or appeal to authority fallacies shouldn't be used in debate, there are practical reasons for doing so. For one, I could devote every waking moment of the rest of my life to analyzing global climate patterns and the vast array of variables that influence them, and I still would not understand the field perfectly. Therefore, given two dissenting opinions, I will be more inclined to lend more credence to the opinion coming from the person that has spent that kind of time on analyzing the system.
I'd prefer not to fall into the tarpit of debating Darwinism with a creationist, nor social responsibility (or human rights, or liberty, or ... well, pretty much any sociological subject) with pretty much any current member of the U.S. Congress, nor global warming with Christopher Monckton.
And, finally, in case you missed it the first time: this is coming from someone who takes a stance very far away from what passes for environmentalism in the U.S.
A nazi can do perfectly good rocket science, an oil company researcher can produce perfectly valid climate studies. Discussing character of your opponent in a debate in any form is off topic, unless you are on the Oprah show.
P.S. Sorry for the Godwin's.
There are times when a person's background and motivations must be weighed against their position.
> Update 7/17/2008: After publication of this story, the APS responded with a statement that its Physics and Society Forum is merely one unit within the APS, and its views do not reflect those of the Society at large.
* We're running out of oil.
* Oil costs too much.
* The oil we do have comes from unstable parts of the world with political regimes we might prefer to avoid providing money to.
* We face increased competition for fuel from developing nations like India and China.
* There are other environmental effects of pollution in addition to global warming.
* Our current reliance on "dirty fuels" is (quite probably) leading to an increase in respiratory diseases like asthma in developed countries.
* Our activities in general are leading to species and habitat loss at an unprecedented rate -- effectively, we are an extinction event.
I think too many "global warming sceptics" are motivated either by a desire to carry on as normal, or (as Homer Simpson put it) not letting "the environmentalists win". But clearly, we need to find alternative energy sources regardless of global warming, and we need to do it now.
There is, however, room for some disagreement on exactly how large and how urgent the problem is. If the only problems are as you suggest, then we can pretty much afford to sit back and let research progress as normal, safe in the knowledge that market forces and the natural advancement of technology will mean that renewable CO2-neutral energy sources will become economical in the coming decades.
On the other hand if, as some of the more alarmist global warming advocates would have us believe, a few more years of current CO2 emissions will suddenly put us over some kind of tipping point causing the melting of Antarctica, the stopping of the gulf stream, a neverending drought and the end of all life on Earth (and I'm only exaggerating their predictions slightly) then we'd need to take more severe actions -- like severely cutting energy consumption right now instead of waiting to develop better energy sources.
Right now we have all sorts of people using scenarios on the Al Gore doomsday end of the scale in order to justify policies such as cap-and-trade and carbon taxes. In the end these sorts of policies, as well as causing hardship to everybody, might wind up being counterproductive, since they'd slow down the economy and hold up the development of the alternative energy sources which are the real long-term solution.
It doesn't help that most of the people who are pushing for, say, increasing taxes on CO2 are exactly the same sort of people who are always calling for increasing taxes on something.
Like I've been saying for years, global warming is a technological problem, and we should always beware of people trying to push sociological solutions to technological problems.
I'd go along with that. I think ideas like carbon trading are clearly designed to subsidise poorer nations, without actually reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Someone eloquently described such trading systems as "carbon indulgences", in that it makes people feel better about the pollution they produce while actually doing precious little about it in real terms.
http://www.carbontradewatch.org/pubs/carbon_neutral_myth.pdf
My main point is that arguing about global warming is a big waste of time, and we should concentrate on finding efficient, clean and sustainable ways to live as we want to.
And the density of dangerous particles in the air has gone way, way down over the last few hundred years in large cities. So that seems like less of a concern.
Re. your second point: we don't have smogs in most western nations today, but there are other effects specifically from motor fuels, particularly diesel, which creates more particulate matter than petroleum. This has been implicated in the increased incidence of asthma in western nations, and is also thought to exacerbate hay fever.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18280198?dopt=AbstractPlu...
-- From the original APS article http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/editor.cfm
What do we do about it?
Massive centralization and government control?
Or free-market based solutions, based on: 1. restoring individual property rights, 2. re-classifying pollution as trespass rather than nuisance, 3. providing legal remedy?
Besides, it seems to go on to say that there is usefulness in finding alternative fuels anyways. Of course, we all know what the OP's statement will be used for and alternative energy is certainly not it.
There is a whole raft of evidence showing that co2 is released because the earth is hotter. There's evidence to show the 'green house effect' doesn't really do much. There's evidence to show direct correlation between sunspots, and the temperature on earth.
To label people 'denialists' and 'intelectually lazy' is offensive. Of course we shouldn't use so much oil. We should be more efficient. But the reasons for blaming humanity for global warming are shady. More to do with money and power, and oppressing the third world.
The "Global warming is caused by man" theory has turned into a religion instead of actually looking at the latest available evidence to make an informed decision. that is intelectually lazy.
Unless you really think pg would have gone to the trouble of accessing his sock puppet account to congratulate himself and Jessica on their wedding day [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=205946].