[Argonavis (William)]

Originally Posted by sjastro

Any armchair expert can glean the Internet and produce data to support their own prejudices (and I am referring to both sides of the debate).

I put much more credibility on the opinions of climate scientists.
http://stats.org/stories/2008/global..._apr23_08.html

Science isn't done by survey, although I appreciate what you are trying to convey. I prefer to make up my own mind based on the evidence.

Surveys themselves are subject to abuse. This survey is reporting on "do you believe" rather than "is there solid evidence for".

The survey reports "Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century." This is not surprising. These are human beings who are influenced by the popular culture, just like everyone else.

The earth's average global temperature is believed to have increased by 0.4 °C ± 0.6 °C over the last 100 years. The error bars are bigger than the movement! There is also numerous factors affecting the accuracy of these measurements. Most of these increases were prior to the 1950's. These numbers are subject to much debate.

The real issue is that the data is ambiguous, the science uncertain, and the future unknown.