Quote:
Originally Posted by Argonavis
The latest GW inanity is:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...-30417,00.html
It seems that the great barrier reef will be extinct in 20 years.
How does this pass even modest research? The reef has existed for 18 million years (the northern part - 2 million years for the southern) and gone through numerous climate cycles - there has been at least 5 ice ages and interglacials in the last 400k years and the reef is still there but the GW hysteria is going to make it disappear in 20 years!
lots of politics, not much science
I quite like this summary:
http://bostonreview.net/BR32.1/emanuel.html
it is a bit of a read, but worth it as an excellent summary of climate science. |
Well said Argonavis!
Whilst I don’t agree with your views on the relative expense of nuclear energy compared with coal (although a combination of coal, gas, hydro and renewables may be more appropriate for this country for the forseeable future), I’m tickled pink by your response to ‘The Australian’ article.
If we were to believe the newspapers of a few years ago (and the researchers keen to add more spice to their grant applications), the crown of thorns starfish should have done the demolition job on the Great Barrier Reef already.
I’ve been following what I believe to be sensible, science-based sources of information on ‘human-caused global warming (GW)’ for at least ten years and I’m convinced that there’s no definite proof that the minor rises in temperature some regions of the world have experienced in recent decades are caused by human action, or will result in catastrophic outcomes for ourselves and our children. I say 'some regions’ as not all the globe is affected. Readers may recall hair-raising shots of huge ice shelves setting sail from the Antarctica Peninsula on TV, all set to a predictably ominous music track. The Peninsula is only 4% of the Antarctic and is the only bit showing any evidence of warming. Satellite measurements show absolutely no temperature increase over the other 96% of Antarctica, which has an average temperature of -37 deg. C.
(Ref:
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarc...al_warming.htm
In fact it's also debatable whether the increase in CO2 is all man-made (and then produces warming), or whether it is the warming that comes first and produces more CO2 due to outgassing from the warmer oceans (which contain 39,000 gigatonnes of carbon compared with humans' 5.5 GT-C/yr ).
Historically we've seen it all before (the receeding glaciers in Europe are uncovering remains of villages), but this is the first time it’s been turned into a quasi-religion. When a population has an easy life as a product of human effort, science and technology, when their only source of information is the news media, when they’ve been through a fact-free school education system, when science is distorted by bad politics, there’s plenty of time and acres of fertile ground for illogical, non-productive speculation and agitation.
It’s wonderful to be among such knowledgeable folk here when it comes to astronomy. Many of you are experts in other areas, but most of us fall apart when it comes to disputed subjects outside our specialties. Let’s see now, we have intelligent design, sea level rise, feng shui, nuclear power, water divination, miraculous cures, UFO’s, diet regimes, the ozone hole, astrology and many others to choose from. Some effort may be required in some of these to reach an informed opinion, some end up just being a matter of faith. The links on GW posted recently should at least give food for thought for anyone with an enquiring mind and who appreciates the scientific method (that covers everyone at IIS of course!).
I’ve only skimmed through Kerry Emanuel‘s ‘Phaeton’s Reins, the human hand in climate change’
http://bostonreview.net/BR32.1/emanuel.html At first sight it looks like a balanced view of the subject, but I (we all?) need to look at it more carefully.
As previously posted for those who missed it ...
GW Petition explanation (and link to a most important 2001 review paper on the scientific data):
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm