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Sixteen Concerned Scientists: No Need to Panic About Global Warming

87 points by llambda 15y ago

jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
it is a common tactic of climate change deniers to line up some number of scientists to convey the sense that there is some question about climate change. but this isn't how science works; it's not the case that because one or 10 or 100 scientists have questions about gravity it means that gravity doesn't exist. the existence of climate change caused by humans is settled science. no amount of wall street journal editorializing or smears by conservative politicians is going to change that.
- ceejayoz 15y ago
  Precisely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Steve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Steve
  - vasco 15y ago
    From the article: >We did not wish to mislead the public into thinking that scientific issues >are decided by who has the longer list of scientists! I was under the impression that currently accepted scientific discoveries required that the majority of the scientific community to be in agreement. If this is not the case could you point me to an explanation? I'm really curious, not trying to be a smart-ass or something.
    - ceejayoz 15y ago
      Scientific issues are decided by who has the best evidence. Consensus comes in where there's any debate over who has the best evidence.
- hollerith 15y ago
  >the existence of climate change caused by humans is settled science. the editorial does not question that. it questions the need for drastic action to reduce carbon emissions.
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
    Sure it questions it. As a helpful thought experiment, try this: look at how many phrases are placed in quotation marks in this piece. Each time the writer encloses a phrase like "global warming" or "pollutant" in question marks, he's trying to cast doubt in your mind. It's a very transparent and sophistic technique. The writer (Claude Allegre) is, in fact, a climate-change denier. He's not merely trying to foster more scientific investigation into climate change or slow the pace at which we adapt to it (although it looks like that's what he wants you to believe here). He doesn't believe that humanity is causing climate change at all (a view that flies in opposition to the long-settled science on this subject), and therefore he's trying to get you to believe that simply slowing down our response to climate change is perfectly OK. But this just isn't the case; it's a recipe for permanently hosing the environment. At the end of the day, there's an Occam's razor test you can apply to this kind of thing. If this were real science, it'd be published in a peer-reviewed journal, not a conservative mouthpiece of big business like the Wall Street Journal.
- mturmon 15y ago
  And some of these "scientists" have little to no credentials in climate science or adjacent fields. Many of them are also retired or emeritus. Burt Rutan a scientist? Edward David (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_E._David_Jr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_E._David_Jr.), an engineer who spent 8 years as a research director for Exxon? J. Scott Armstrong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Scott_Armstrong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Scott_Armstrong), an advertising and marketing professor? It's a freaking joke. Compare the publication records, science activity, and career impact of the people on the other side. These tend to be people who have spent their lives seriously measuring and analyzing climate, not just dilettantes with a grudge. (E.g., http://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Miller/ http://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Miller/, who's the science PI of a satellite designed to measure CO2, and a contributor to the fourth IPCC report.)
  - ceejayoz 15y ago
    The first guy listed, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_All%C3%A8gre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_All%C3%A8gre, is a real winner too... Asbestos removal a leftist plot, telling a Nobel Prize winner in physics that atmospheric drag doesn't affect the speed an object falls, etc.
- cicero 15y ago
  I'm curious what would it take to overturn "settled science," or are you saying that is impossible. I was not aware that science took that kind of a dogmatic stance.
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
    It's not "dogma" to say that gravity exists or that fire is hot. Just because science is a constant process of investigation and discovery, it doesn't mean that we can never arrive at any conclusions or take action based on what we know to be true.
  - srl 15y ago
    > I'm curious what would it take to overturn "settled science," Evidence to the contrary. Or, failing that, a lack of the traditional continual build-up of supporting evidence is often enough to cast a theory into doubt. I feel like I should note: I know next to nothing about climate science, and this comment is meant neither in support or in denial of any related theory. I'm merely defending science as a whole. (Remediating the sad state of my knowledge about climate science is high on my todo list.)
  - lukifer 15y ago
    Though I agree with your core point, "settled science" is a contradiction in terms.
  - jonhendry 15y ago
    Look at what's been going on with the "faster than light neutrinos". That would really overturn settled science. But to do so is going to require more than 16 people writing an op/ed saying that the results were correct and the effect was real. It's going to require more than articles in newsmagazines. The scientists behind the original results have examined their work for mistakes, and rerun the experiment controlling for possible confounding issues. The apparent effect remained. Now other labs are going to try to produce a similar result. If you want to overturn "settled science", you need data to clearly back up your claim. It's not enough to have a contrary interpretation of existing data. You need more data to support your interpretation as the correct one.
- durandal1 15y ago
  Agreed, climate change is built into cycles of earth's atmosphere, everyone agrees about that. The reasons for climate change, and the question if whether how much we can do about is up for debate. Lining up scientists for popular press articles are a "tactic" often used for all kinds of arguments, no need to call them out for that.
- gavanwoolery 15y ago
  It's not really a conservative or liberal issue. Yes, many liberals are pro anthropomorphic climate change, and many conservatives are anti, but it goes both ways. Nothing is settled science until you can prove it beyond reason of doubt - i.e. see it in action. If the earth does warm dramatically in X years, then we can measure the temperature difference against our CO2 output and past warm periods like the Medieval Warm period. That is REAL science. Anything else is speculation or...wait for it...a HYPOTHESIS. Keep in mind, even minorities can be right, even when it seems completely foolish or counter-intuitive. Remember when everyone thought the earth was flat, and that we lived in a geo-centric or helio-centric universe?
  - jmmcd 15y ago
    Anthropogenic Reasonable doubt I agree that seeing it as a conservative versus liberal issue is unhelpful.
    - gavanwoolery 15y ago
      Sorry - yes you are right, anthropogenic is the word I was looking for :)
  - gamble 15y ago
    Except that it is now a conservative issue. There used to be bipartisan consensus among politicians and the public that global warming was a real phenomenon. Then Kyoto asked people to do something about it, and denial became an article of faith among conservatives. You just have to look at the polling: ten years ago, conservatives and liberals had the same views on global warming, but since Kyoto support for denialism has skyrocketed among conservatives. It is almost impossible now to be a conservative politician in America without denying global warming. I think it's a false equivalence to claim that it isn't a conservative vs. liberal issue when denial is almost entirely confined to one side, and that side is massively biased.
- tsotha 15y ago
  This makes no sense. We've been assured now for years AGW is true because it's the scientific consensus. Isn't that how it became "settled science", after all? And now you say it doesn't matter how many scientists are skeptical. Is this some kind of one-way street, this settled science? I mean, clearly the models are wrong, so it wasn't that. They've utterly failed to predict the lack of temperature rise in the last decade or so. Come to think of it, besides the models, what makes anyone think it's real? Oh yeah, settled science. So... it's like phrenology, then?
  - yequalsx 15y ago
    Your claim about temperatures not rising over the last 10 years is not true. [1] [1] http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=115:cm2&id=359:myth-two-in-the-past-10-years-since-1998-temperatures-have-been-dropping http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/index.php?option=com_cont...
    - tsotha 15y ago
      Hah! I also used to do crap fits to curves like that when my data didn't work. You can only fit a line to the graph like that if you assume temperatures are going to rise quickly in the future. This is a joke, right?
      - jonhendry 15y ago
        Not as much of a joke as pinning your whole argument on an outlier.
        tsotha 15y ago
        That's the point though. There's no way to know if it's an outlier or not. The AGW people are assuming it's an outlier. I guess we'll know in ten years. My money's on serious revisions to the model.
    - glenra 15y ago
      Do you realize that your chart doesn't actually show "the last ten years"? It stops in 2007. What's happened since 2007 is not irrelevant to the question at hand. Here's an example of a temperature chart that does show "the last 10 years": http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2001/to:2011/normalise http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2001/to:2011/norma... (the "WoodForTrees Index" is a composite created from the mean of HADCRUT3VGL, GISTEMP, RSS and UAH, offset by their baseline differences.)
- pbreit 15y ago
  The words "settled" and "incontrovertible" have little place in science.
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
    Not so. In fact the opposite is true; as scientists reach consensus about facts, it enables science to progress. Just because facts exist does not mean the process of scientific discovery ceases.
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  The very idea of "settled science" is antithetical to the scientific method. Science is not a popularity contest. Nor is it a matter of dogma vs. heresy. It is a matter of evidence and theories that are either backed up by evidence or refuted by it. Discussing science on any other level is counterproductive.
  - lutorm 15y ago
    The very idea of "settled science" is antithetical to the scientific method. Huh? Theories that are backed up by enough evidence are generally regarded as "settled". That of course doesn't mean they can't be "unsettled" if some truly remarkable data shows up, but it's still a useful heuristic to concentrate on things that are more uncertain.
    - InclinedPlane 15y ago
      Science is a debate. Use of the term "settled science" is an attempt to shut-down debate, which is unhelpful. More so, the subject at hand is the evolution of a chaotic system with literally thousands of different influencing variables. This is not something as simple as gravity, electromagnetism, or even evolution. And the science of climatology is still very much an open debate. If the evidence of AGW actually was overwhelming then it'd be easy enough to present it and move on, as happened with the ozone hole. Instead the evidence is rather more subtle and has very significant error bars. If you believe that AGW requires bold action to avoid catastrophe then shutting down debate is an enormous mistake, because all it does is leave people who are unconvinced even less convinced while it forestalls the advancement of climate science and potentially the strengthening of evidence in support of that theory.
      - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
        Not at all. Gravity is settled science. "Fire is hot" is settled science. Etc., etc.
        InclinedPlane 15y ago
- lutorm 15y ago
  I actually wish the APS had avoided the statement "incontrovertible", because I think that overstates it. They could have said something along the lines of "the evidence is strong enough that failing to take action is now indefensible". The guy that resigned does have a point in saying that we can discuss whether neutrinos are faster than c, and the uncertainties when it comes to climate change are certainly larger than that.
- wdr1 15y ago
  How is this different from the tactic of its supporters to line up inflectional politicians & hollywood to make movies waxing romantic over nature, anecdotal polar bears stories, or the ice caps on Kilimanjaro? I mean, for or against, global warming, both sides are filled with blowhards. It just makes it a frustrating endeavor to get at real data.
_delirium 15y ago
This article is a bit high on polemics and low on science for my tastes (unsurprising since it's a WSJ editorial, but still). Is there a more sober whitepaper version that spends less time explaining that CO2 is colorless (true but irrelevant) and talking about the ominous drumbeats of their opponents, and more time on their thesis? Not just a rhetorical question; it seems like they might have a defensible thesis, especially about the cost/benefit profile, but it's hard to tell as presented.
- gavanwoolery 15y ago
  You will find most arguments for and against global warming a bit high on polemics, and a bit low on science. Asking whether or not the earth will be warmer in 100 years is about as fruitless as asking whether or not it will rain in 100 days. The earth has warmed and cooled dramatically long before human existence, and will continue to in spite of us. Our CO2 output is only one of many factors in a very difficult to compute equation of thermodynamics. Keep in mind, its not just activity on earth, but the state of the sun that largely determines temperature, and both are very complex systems that are virtually impossible to model accurately. Downvote this if you agree with me. :)
  - gavanwoolery 15y ago
    I should add that in spite of what anyone's stance might be, we should still reduce our dependence on coal and fossil fuels for a number of reasons.
    - hobin 15y ago
      Agreed. A curious question that immediately popped in my head was: would it be ethical to use the fear of the public for disruption by global warming (whether it's true or not)? This fear could be used for good purposes, such as trying to increase funding for fusion. (I mean, good graces, it'll be at least 2033 before DEMO becomes productive!) Understandably, I'd prefer all people to be scientifically (and 'engineerically') literate on these issues and be able to make good decisions for the good reasons. However, I'm also realistic enough to see that this probably won't be happening anytime soon. (Also, on a more personal note: no, I would not consider this ethical.)
gaurav_v 15y ago
Googling the cosignatories names revelas that several work for Exxon. I don't see how the WSJ didn't consider this relevant information to disclose, instead presenting them only as 'distinguished scientists.'
- ceejayoz 15y ago
  > I don't see how the WSJ didn't consider this relevant information to disclose... It's a WSJ editorial. They probably wouldn't consider it relevant info if the article writer worked for Exxon.
- glenra 15y ago
  If you're going to make allegations of that sort, you should at probably list the "several" who you conclude "work for" Exxon. Better yet, link your sources.
saulrh 15y ago
Sixteen Thousand Concerned Scientists: Get These Posers Out of Our Hair and Let Us Save Your Food Crops
- moonchrome 15y ago
  If we are going to be using crops for food by the time global warming effects become significant we deserve to die out. They are already using bacteria to produce amino acids industryially, few decades in that are is inevitably going to bring us to a point where you can have a shallow pool of water with bacteria in it under UV lights, stacked on top of each other producing amino acids, carbs and fats. Maybe even directly synthesize some of those using a large scale chemical reaction. That's sort of the answer to "global warming problems". All of those problems are going to exist anyway and a far simpler solution is to modify our environment (eg. large protective domes around cities that can withstand the stress of a tornado, filter cosmic rays, etc.) and technology instead of trying to regress to "organic farming" and cutting energy consumption. That might sound like SF but considering the technological progress, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect advances in nanotechnology/materials/construction/food production etc. in that time-frame. The biggest hurdle seems to be energy, with Thorium and micro nuclear reactors looking very realistic in that timeframe. Who knows, maybe we get efficient nuclear batteries by then.
- saulrh 15y ago
  Two small notes. First, this is a serious problem. People don't seem to realize that "sixteen scientists" don't matter. Sixteen thousand would have; just sixteen is a drop in the bucket. The problem is that headlines like that sell ad impressions. Our media has a conflict of interest, and the news is losing. Second, this post has been bouncing back and forth between 6 and 14 karma for the last two hours, which I find amusing.
  - glenra 15y ago
    It only takes one scientist to be right about something. We don't measure scientific truth by weighing or tallying up the numbers of religious adherents on each side, we do so by evaluating the arguments and the evidence given.
mkramlich 15y ago
It's possible to get 16 people to come forward and back any particular claim or position. So take this with skepticism.
- TiredGrump 15y ago
  I have 16 experts who strongly disagree with your position.
sambeau 15y ago
This calls it: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkable-editorial-bias-on-climate-science-at-the-wall-street-journal/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkabl... The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has long been understood to be not only antagonistic to the facts of climate science, but hostile. But in a remarkable example of their unabashed bias, on Friday they published an opinion piece that not only repeats many of the flawed and misleading arguments about climate science, but purports to be of special significance because it was signed by 16 “scientists.” (Note: I wish he hadn't put the word "scientists" in quotes as it, sadly, undermines a good editorial piece.)
- ceejayoz 15y ago
  Hell, just start Googling people from the list of contributors. The first is "Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_All%C3%A8gre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_All%C3%A8gre > In 1996, Allègre opposed the removal of carcinogenic asbestos from the Jussieu university campus in Paris, describing it as harmless and dismissing concerns about it as a form of "psychosis created by leftists". The campus' asbestos is deemed to have killed 22 people and caused serious health problems in 130 others. I think I'd pass on his endorsement, personally...
  - MaysonL 15y ago
    And the second is J. Scott Armstrong, Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School.
  - radu_floricica 15y ago
    Isn't it accepted fact right now that removing asbestos creates more cases of cancer then leaving it where it is? What happened at the time was a very un-rational and unproductive response - the removal of all asbestos everywhere, with no regard to costs and side-effects.
    - ceejayoz 15y ago
jl6 15y ago
Well the headline at least is correct: even in a dire emergency, panic is the wrong response.
- jonhendry 15y ago
  The problem is, by doing everything they can to delay any response or preparation, the WSJ is in fact making panic more likely. The WSJ approach would insist that it would be a mistake to insure your home against fire and buy fire extinguishers and smoke detectors. That would be "panic".
darksaga 15y ago
I actually have two points about this. First of all, I still remember reading articles from the 1970's from scientists who were convinced we were headed for another ice age. That's right, another ice age. The exact opposite of the what climate experts are telling us now - less than 40 years ago. My other point is this - let's just assume all these scientists are right. Wouldn't it be better if we just did what they suggest and reduce our impact on the planet? If they're wrong, we help the planet. If they're right, we're still ok. I would prefer this outcome to not doing anything then finding out they're right and then we're really screwed. For reference, here's the Time Magazine 1974 article about the coming Ice Age - http://bit.ly/zNZfI8 http://bit.ly/zNZfI8
- ghouse 15y ago
  That someone was wrong in the past does not mean someone else is wrong in the present-day.
- jshen 15y ago
  One magazine article is not the same thing as the mountains of evidence for climate change.
- dantheman 15y ago
  Unfortunately - reducing our impact in the way many advocate has serious consequences on the poor and impoverished. In fact the best way to lower humanity's impact on the environment is to reduce third world poverty and thus reduce population growth. Many scientists advocate a mixed approach - where we work on improving crops so that they'll grow in warmer climates, improve water processing, and in general improve humanity's ability to handle climate change all the while allowing developing countries to use fossil fuels to improve their standard of living. As technology advances they'll move to other means of energy.
  - ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
    "In fact the best way to lower humanity's impact on the environment is to reduce third world poverty and thus reduce population growth." False. When you reduce poverty in a third world population, they simply breed more. This has repeatedly been observed. If you want to loosely throw around words such as "fact" and "best", then I submit that the following, although potentially unpleasant to you, is closer to the correct usage: "In fact the best way to lower humanity's impact on the environment is to eliminate third world population."
themgt 15y ago
"Easter Island 2: Earth" is going to be so much more entertaining for the people 1000 years from now. We didn't get to read through all their "why cutting down the last tree won't be so bad - plus we need more Moai statues" hack WSJ op-eds from concerned islander scientists What I learned from this letter: CO2 emissions are good for plants and poor people; controlling CO2 emissions is Stalin
- shingen 15y ago
  Humans won't be around in 1,000 years. Our shelf life is nearly at expiration. We'll become some other configuration of life.
  - gus_massa 15y ago
    Modern humans appeared 100.000 / 200.000 years ago. We probably won't evolve into a new specie in the next 1.000 years.
    - Zancarius 15y ago
      However, we're fully capable of annihilating ourselves or at least obliterating a significant chunk of our population. I believe that's what shingen may have been alluding to.
    - shingen 15y ago
      I'm saying that our own evolution is now directly in our hands. At the current rate of change, much less a further acceleration, what we'll be able to do to ourselves engineering wise in just the next 50 years will be dramatic. Normal evolution is over for humans. We will self-evolve by action and choice. In 1,000 year - whatever we are at that point, we will not be human as we recognize the term today. Whether it's a super mutant form, still organic and engineered to the moon; or cyborg in shell, with a soft organic inside; or stored digitally in organic matter; or any variation there of. There are a lot of possibilities, the one with zero chance of being around in 1,000 is the form we currently take on.
gavanwoolery 15y ago
I love how religious everyone gets about this. What does that mean? A group of people preach one thing, and everyone takes their word for it. Your college professor told you anthropomorphic climate change is the real deal, and you took their word for it. Your conservative talk show host told you the opposite, and you took their word for it. I do not care what f_cking side you are on. Yes, that's right, I called your "science" a religion. It is religion when you use more faith than reason or logic. Its a religion when you get emotionally involved in your belief. Think for yourself. What does a REAL scientist try to do? Disprove their hypothesis. Look for holes in your argument, fallacies, unknown variables, false positives, etc. <end rant>
- shingen 15y ago
  One case where the rant should have continued. That they don't spend as much time and effort trying to disprove their owns theories, is the prime indicator that something is wrong with the conclusions being drawn.
ghouse 15y ago
As a society, we know how to take action under uncertainty and imperfect information. It makes no sense to me when people argue we should take no action. The only rational viewpoint I understand is taking action (and realizing cost) proportionate to our confidence. Risk-based cost-benefit analysis. The "It's took expensive to address the problem" argument doesn't hold water; it presumes the outcome is binary.
- celoyd 15y ago
  The "It's took [sic] expensive to address the problem" argument It’s amazing how common this is. It was smart of Gore to use the phrase “an inconvenient truth”, because so many arguments boil down to “it isn’t happening, because if it were we would have to do a lot of work”.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  But the longer we wait the more certain we are of the exact changes, if any, and we will have better tech to deal with it. And dealing with it does not mean cutting down on CO2 -- just because the environmental groups contains a vocal minority that feels guilty by not being a hunter/gatherer -- it means building dikes, transport water, etc, etc.
  - ghouse 15y ago
    I agree, but that statement will always be true. The longer you wait, the better you'll be informed. Forever. That statement is a perpetual excuse for inaction. The other factor that changes over time is the cost (if any) to address the problem (if any). As an example, if burning oil does lead to global warming, then why do we as a society subsidize the price of oil to encourage its consumption?
kristofferR 15y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if WSJ starts promoting Intelligent Design as a real scientific opinion soon too.
dantheman 15y ago
Flagged - this type of article doesn't really belong on HN as there isn't really anything new presented in it and will merely cause a flamewar.
- VMG 15y ago
  The SOPA stories seems to have left the impression for some that HN is a place for political discussion.
  - lukifer 15y ago
    Politics doesn't happen in a vaccuum: it can and does involve issues that intertwine with real life, of which SOPA was just one. Ecology underlies both economics and tech; Earth's ecosystem is the ultimate platform.
- snowmaker 15y ago
  It is news that the WSJ is continuing to print articles of this nature. Regardless of the truth or quality of the op-ed, the fact remains that the WSJ has a large audience and this article will be influential. Such an event warrants discussion.
  - intended 15y ago
    By that criteria, many wsj op Ed pieces will be food for discussion. I agree with the parent post, this is not suitable for hn and is flame bait.
prawn 15y ago
Here is a thread on AskScience regarding this article: http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/p04l4/how_accurate_is_this_article_on_global_warming/ http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/p04l4/how_accura...
gerggerg 15y ago
The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Ok lets play this game. The fact is that H20 is not a pollutant. It's a molecule that sustains life and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Bring on the ice age!!
- grannyg00se 15y ago
  I found that statement interesting as well. Anything can be a pollutant given the right concentration. An interesting game to play with the H20 "non pollutant" is to see how much of it you can consume before you become ill.
- jonhendry 15y ago
  Poop is not a pollutant. It's a substance that sustains life and is a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Thus, there's no point in controlling it, or making sure it doesn't accumulate. (The next time a person in Congress tries the "CO2 is natural etc" gambit, I'd love someone to stand up and ask if that person has stopped wiping their ass.)
- lutorm 15y ago
  Yeah, that's the most retarded passage in the whole article. And that says something. Maybe people are not aware that most things are toxic in concentrations higher than natural, including, for example, oxygen. And even if elevated CO2 caused humans to walk around in a blissful high, it would have nothing to do with its impact on climate...
- ceejayoz 15y ago
  Plus, CO2 apparently has an odor (metallic) at high concentration, and our exhalations aren't particularly high - just 4-5% more CO2 than the air we inhaled. Three basic fact fails in one sentence.
- radu_floricica 15y ago
  The point they made is that more CO2 is not necessarily a bad thing. It's not my place as a non-specialist to judge how likely global warming really is (so I'm not judging) but I do wonder if it's really a bad thing. I mean, everything I know tells me making the earth a bit warmer and richer in CO2 is a good thing. And there is a distinct lack of credible apocalyptic scenarios... most I've seen say basically "there will be losers", i.e. there will be countries where the climate change will make things hotter and more arid. But for me, in central/eastern europe, warmer winters would be great...
mathattack 15y ago
It would be interesting to follow the money trail on these 16 scientists. I do somewhat buy the plausibility of the economic arguement that reacting to global warning is more efficient than trying to stop it. The "it's not proven" crowd seem to be in the same camp as the folks claiming you can't prove smoking causes cancer.
pg_bot 15y ago
I find climate projections to be very similar to financial projections of startups. A typical chart will show hockey stick like growth (temp vs revenue) over a long period of time. Since both groups need to prove that they will have an impact in order to get funding they are motivated to show the most drastic/promising future. As a statistician I tend to discount any long term projections for complex systems because I know that there are too many factors that will influence the results.
unabridged 15y ago
My #1 doubt always comes from what constitutes a statistically significant temperature change on a 100-150 yr scale (or however long we have had consistent measurements). What is the variance in 100 yr temperature differences over the last 100K to 1M years? Even if the current historical models are accurate do we really have accuracy at this resolution? 2 or 3 degrees C change over 100 yrs may be a common occurrence. To me it like trying to judge whether a stock price movement over the course of 10 minutes is significant based on historical daily stock prices.
- grannyg00se 15y ago
  As far as I'm aware, there is (indirect) data on that. In fact I believe part of the concern is that the data suggests that when the planet was in fact 2 or 3 degress off, it was a rather less hospitable planet. Regarding your stock analogy: People make real money decisions based on ten minutes of stock price movement and historical daily stock prices.
molecularbutter 15y ago
More Global Warming denialism from a Murdoch news source? I'd pretend to be shocked, but really the only thing surprising is that the WSJ is still even vaguely respectable considering it's ownership and bizarre bias.
tomjen3 15y ago
Even if the oceans were going up 10m in a week it seems counterproductive to panic -- it might be better to buy a boat or build a dike.
- jonhendry 15y ago
  If you wait until oceans were going up 10m in a week, you're going to have a lot of people panicking and fighting over boats. In order to avoid panic, you have to prepare well ahead of time. Airlines tell you what to do in an emergency when the flight starts, they don't wait until the plane hits the water.
jmmcd 15y ago
> The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. Yes, and ozone is a poison, but in the high atmosphere it still protects you from skin cancer. This arguments seems calculated to appeal to the most scientifically ignorant of audiences. > This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Yes, because evolution happened at a single point in the past, and no evolution at all happened in the many millions of years since CO2 concentrations dropped below that level.
etfb 15y ago
I think the heading is wrong. Should be "Sixteen Concerned Physicists, Administrators, Politicians and a Couple of Ex-Climatologists: No Need to Blame Us For Obama Getting Re-Elected"
pbreit 15y ago
The editorial is confusing. On one had, it seems to be suggesting that while human-caused global warming is happening, it is not necessary to panic and in fact it would be better to divert resources away from global warming mitigation and back to regular ole projects. But then it also makes a number of suggestions that global warming is not happening or that if it is, it is not human-driven. I do think scientists questioning aspects of the global warming debate should be able to have their say but they need to make sure their arguments are sound and fact-based.
lukifer 15y ago
It's quite possible that the dangers of climate change are alarmist and overstated. But to think that aren't serious side effects to over a century of industrialization is to be short-sighted and willfully ignorant. There's a reason that geologists now refer to the current era as the "Anthropocene".
InclinedPlane 15y ago
This editorial seems weak and poorly constructed. What does that say about the degree to which anthropogenic global warming exists and will be a significant hazard in the 21st century and the courses of action that are sensible to do anything about that, if any? Absolutely nothing. One way or the other.
melonakos 15y ago
Not all scientific fields are created equally. Some simply have access to better experimentation methods than others. Climate scientists have ridiculously poor measurement methods, historic records, and computational models to possibly be coming up with any conclusions. An article on this topic: Err on the Side of Bologna – According to Scientists, http://bit.ly/wYbEIB http://bit.ly/wYbEIB
melonakos 15y ago
Aliens Cause Global Warming: A Caltech Lecture by Michael Crichton, http://bit.ly/vZX5si http://bit.ly/vZX5si
vannevar 15y ago
Flagged for containing deliberate falsehood: Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 "Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2. This is demonstrably false, and it is at this point impossible for those who published the article to be unaware that it is false if they made any effort whatsoever to verify it. The quote given has nothing to do with the overall rate of global warming, and it has been made abundantly clear since the quote was made public that it did not refer to global warming.
tripzilch 15y ago
BREAKING! "Same group of people again proves willing to go on public record to agree on position they've already agreed with on public record in the past" "Astronaut, CEO, ex-US Senator, Chemist, Cardiologist, former Exxon Manager of Strategic Planning, Electrical Engineer and Rocket Scientist remain unconvinced by Climatologist Research on Climate" [1] in other news, - - - - - - - - http://online.wsj.com/article/plumber-discovers-higgs-boson.html http://online.wsj.com/article/plumber-discovers-higgs-boson.... -- HONORARY PLUMBER DISCOVERS HIGGS BOSON "When the LHC folks called me in to fix their toilets, I knew it wasn't something ordinary clogging their pipes. So I got to work, and there it was, hiding in the drains", tells the plumber, honorary member of the New York-based Royal American-Italian Society for Interdimensional Drainage and Fungal Kingdoms. Recently, the Society has come under fire by animal-rights group PETA for allegedly wearing raccoon fur-suits[2]. "These guys never give up, do they? You accidentally step on a turtle once, and they'll hound you forever." - - - - - - - - [1] As wel as 2 or 3 people who's credentials I've been completely unable to verify except for being a "honorary" or "life" member or fellow of some (always US industry funded) scientific foundation or other and having worked closely with ExxonMobile in the past. BTW weird how it's always ExxonMobile, not other oil corporations such as Royal Dutch Shell or BP, anyone know why it's specifically Exxon being involved with all the climate research? [2] True story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/peta-super-mario-tanooki_n_1096101.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/peta-super-mario-ta...
jvandonsel 15y ago
Seems to be the standard three-pronged argument: 1) The climate isn't warming. 2) But if it is warming, it's not due to man. 3) But if it is due to man, it might be a Good Thing. Very tidy.

87 points by llambda 15y ago

it is a common tactic of climate change deniers to line up some number of scientists to convey the sense that there is some question about climate change. but this isn't how science works; it's not the case that because one or 10 or 100 scientists have questions about gravity it means that gravity doesn't exist. the existence of climate change caused by humans is settled science. no amount of wall street journal editorializing or smears by conservative politicians is going to change that.

ceejayoz 15y ago
Precisely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Steve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Steve
- vasco 15y ago
  From the article: >We did not wish to mislead the public into thinking that scientific issues >are decided by who has the longer list of scientists! I was under the impression that currently accepted scientific discoveries required that the majority of the scientific community to be in agreement. If this is not the case could you point me to an explanation? I'm really curious, not trying to be a smart-ass or something.
  - ceejayoz 15y ago
    Scientific issues are decided by who has the best evidence. Consensus comes in where there's any debate over who has the best evidence.
hollerith 15y ago
>the existence of climate change caused by humans is settled science. the editorial does not question that. it questions the need for drastic action to reduce carbon emissions.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  Sure it questions it. As a helpful thought experiment, try this: look at how many phrases are placed in quotation marks in this piece. Each time the writer encloses a phrase like "global warming" or "pollutant" in question marks, he's trying to cast doubt in your mind. It's a very transparent and sophistic technique. The writer (Claude Allegre) is, in fact, a climate-change denier. He's not merely trying to foster more scientific investigation into climate change or slow the pace at which we adapt to it (although it looks like that's what he wants you to believe here). He doesn't believe that humanity is causing climate change at all (a view that flies in opposition to the long-settled science on this subject), and therefore he's trying to get you to believe that simply slowing down our response to climate change is perfectly OK. But this just isn't the case; it's a recipe for permanently hosing the environment. At the end of the day, there's an Occam's razor test you can apply to this kind of thing. If this were real science, it'd be published in a peer-reviewed journal, not a conservative mouthpiece of big business like the Wall Street Journal.
mturmon 15y ago
And some of these "scientists" have little to no credentials in climate science or adjacent fields. Many of them are also retired or emeritus. Burt Rutan a scientist? Edward David (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_E._David_Jr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_E._David_Jr.), an engineer who spent 8 years as a research director for Exxon? J. Scott Armstrong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Scott_Armstrong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Scott_Armstrong), an advertising and marketing professor? It's a freaking joke. Compare the publication records, science activity, and career impact of the people on the other side. These tend to be people who have spent their lives seriously measuring and analyzing climate, not just dilettantes with a grudge. (E.g., http://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Miller/ http://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Miller/, who's the science PI of a satellite designed to measure CO2, and a contributor to the fourth IPCC report.)
- ceejayoz 15y ago
  The first guy listed, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_All%C3%A8gre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_All%C3%A8gre, is a real winner too... Asbestos removal a leftist plot, telling a Nobel Prize winner in physics that atmospheric drag doesn't affect the speed an object falls, etc.
cicero 15y ago
I'm curious what would it take to overturn "settled science," or are you saying that is impossible. I was not aware that science took that kind of a dogmatic stance.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  It's not "dogma" to say that gravity exists or that fire is hot. Just because science is a constant process of investigation and discovery, it doesn't mean that we can never arrive at any conclusions or take action based on what we know to be true.
- srl 15y ago
  > I'm curious what would it take to overturn "settled science," Evidence to the contrary. Or, failing that, a lack of the traditional continual build-up of supporting evidence is often enough to cast a theory into doubt. I feel like I should note: I know next to nothing about climate science, and this comment is meant neither in support or in denial of any related theory. I'm merely defending science as a whole. (Remediating the sad state of my knowledge about climate science is high on my todo list.)
- lukifer 15y ago
  Though I agree with your core point, "settled science" is a contradiction in terms.
- jonhendry 15y ago
  Look at what's been going on with the "faster than light neutrinos". That would really overturn settled science. But to do so is going to require more than 16 people writing an op/ed saying that the results were correct and the effect was real. It's going to require more than articles in newsmagazines. The scientists behind the original results have examined their work for mistakes, and rerun the experiment controlling for possible confounding issues. The apparent effect remained. Now other labs are going to try to produce a similar result. If you want to overturn "settled science", you need data to clearly back up your claim. It's not enough to have a contrary interpretation of existing data. You need more data to support your interpretation as the correct one.
durandal1 15y ago
Agreed, climate change is built into cycles of earth's atmosphere, everyone agrees about that. The reasons for climate change, and the question if whether how much we can do about is up for debate. Lining up scientists for popular press articles are a "tactic" often used for all kinds of arguments, no need to call them out for that.
gavanwoolery 15y ago
It's not really a conservative or liberal issue. Yes, many liberals are pro anthropomorphic climate change, and many conservatives are anti, but it goes both ways. Nothing is settled science until you can prove it beyond reason of doubt - i.e. see it in action. If the earth does warm dramatically in X years, then we can measure the temperature difference against our CO2 output and past warm periods like the Medieval Warm period. That is REAL science. Anything else is speculation or...wait for it...a HYPOTHESIS. Keep in mind, even minorities can be right, even when it seems completely foolish or counter-intuitive. Remember when everyone thought the earth was flat, and that we lived in a geo-centric or helio-centric universe?
- jmmcd 15y ago
  Anthropogenic Reasonable doubt I agree that seeing it as a conservative versus liberal issue is unhelpful.
  - gavanwoolery 15y ago
    Sorry - yes you are right, anthropogenic is the word I was looking for :)
- gamble 15y ago
  Except that it is now a conservative issue. There used to be bipartisan consensus among politicians and the public that global warming was a real phenomenon. Then Kyoto asked people to do something about it, and denial became an article of faith among conservatives. You just have to look at the polling: ten years ago, conservatives and liberals had the same views on global warming, but since Kyoto support for denialism has skyrocketed among conservatives. It is almost impossible now to be a conservative politician in America without denying global warming. I think it's a false equivalence to claim that it isn't a conservative vs. liberal issue when denial is almost entirely confined to one side, and that side is massively biased.
tsotha 15y ago
This makes no sense. We've been assured now for years AGW is true because it's the scientific consensus. Isn't that how it became "settled science", after all? And now you say it doesn't matter how many scientists are skeptical. Is this some kind of one-way street, this settled science? I mean, clearly the models are wrong, so it wasn't that. They've utterly failed to predict the lack of temperature rise in the last decade or so. Come to think of it, besides the models, what makes anyone think it's real? Oh yeah, settled science. So... it's like phrenology, then?
- yequalsx 15y ago
  Your claim about temperatures not rising over the last 10 years is not true. [1] [1] http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=115:cm2&id=359:myth-two-in-the-past-10-years-since-1998-temperatures-have-been-dropping http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/index.php?option=com_cont...
  - tsotha 15y ago
    Hah! I also used to do crap fits to curves like that when my data didn't work. You can only fit a line to the graph like that if you assume temperatures are going to rise quickly in the future. This is a joke, right?
    - jonhendry 15y ago
      Not as much of a joke as pinning your whole argument on an outlier.
      - tsotha 15y ago
        That's the point though. There's no way to know if it's an outlier or not. The AGW people are assuming it's an outlier. I guess we'll know in ten years. My money's on serious revisions to the model.
  - glenra 15y ago
    Do you realize that your chart doesn't actually show "the last ten years"? It stops in 2007. What's happened since 2007 is not irrelevant to the question at hand. Here's an example of a temperature chart that does show "the last 10 years": http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2001/to:2011/normalise http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2001/to:2011/norma... (the "WoodForTrees Index" is a composite created from the mean of HADCRUT3VGL, GISTEMP, RSS and UAH, offset by their baseline differences.)
pbreit 15y ago
The words "settled" and "incontrovertible" have little place in science.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  Not so. In fact the opposite is true; as scientists reach consensus about facts, it enables science to progress. Just because facts exist does not mean the process of scientific discovery ceases.
InclinedPlane 15y ago
The very idea of "settled science" is antithetical to the scientific method. Science is not a popularity contest. Nor is it a matter of dogma vs. heresy. It is a matter of evidence and theories that are either backed up by evidence or refuted by it. Discussing science on any other level is counterproductive.
- lutorm 15y ago
  The very idea of "settled science" is antithetical to the scientific method. Huh? Theories that are backed up by enough evidence are generally regarded as "settled". That of course doesn't mean they can't be "unsettled" if some truly remarkable data shows up, but it's still a useful heuristic to concentrate on things that are more uncertain.
  - InclinedPlane 15y ago
    Science is a debate. Use of the term "settled science" is an attempt to shut-down debate, which is unhelpful. More so, the subject at hand is the evolution of a chaotic system with literally thousands of different influencing variables. This is not something as simple as gravity, electromagnetism, or even evolution. And the science of climatology is still very much an open debate. If the evidence of AGW actually was overwhelming then it'd be easy enough to present it and move on, as happened with the ozone hole. Instead the evidence is rather more subtle and has very significant error bars. If you believe that AGW requires bold action to avoid catastrophe then shutting down debate is an enormous mistake, because all it does is leave people who are unconvinced even less convinced while it forestalls the advancement of climate science and potentially the strengthening of evidence in support of that theory.
    - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
      Not at all. Gravity is settled science. "Fire is hot" is settled science. Etc., etc.
      - InclinedPlane 15y ago
lutorm 15y ago
I actually wish the APS had avoided the statement "incontrovertible", because I think that overstates it. They could have said something along the lines of "the evidence is strong enough that failing to take action is now indefensible". The guy that resigned does have a point in saying that we can discuss whether neutrinos are faster than c, and the uncertainties when it comes to climate change are certainly larger than that.
wdr1 15y ago
How is this different from the tactic of its supporters to line up inflectional politicians & hollywood to make movies waxing romantic over nature, anecdotal polar bears stories, or the ice caps on Kilimanjaro? I mean, for or against, global warming, both sides are filled with blowhards. It just makes it a frustrating endeavor to get at real data.

_delirium 15y ago

This article is a bit high on polemics and low on science for my tastes (unsurprising since it's a WSJ editorial, but still). Is there a more sober whitepaper version that spends less time explaining that CO2 is colorless (true but irrelevant) and talking about the ominous drumbeats of their opponents, and more time on their thesis? Not just a rhetorical question; it seems like they might have a defensible thesis, especially about the cost/benefit profile, but it's hard to tell as presented.

gavanwoolery 15y ago
You will find most arguments for and against global warming a bit high on polemics, and a bit low on science. Asking whether or not the earth will be warmer in 100 years is about as fruitless as asking whether or not it will rain in 100 days. The earth has warmed and cooled dramatically long before human existence, and will continue to in spite of us. Our CO2 output is only one of many factors in a very difficult to compute equation of thermodynamics. Keep in mind, its not just activity on earth, but the state of the sun that largely determines temperature, and both are very complex systems that are virtually impossible to model accurately. Downvote this if you agree with me. :)
- gavanwoolery 15y ago
  I should add that in spite of what anyone's stance might be, we should still reduce our dependence on coal and fossil fuels for a number of reasons.
  - hobin 15y ago
    Agreed. A curious question that immediately popped in my head was: would it be ethical to use the fear of the public for disruption by global warming (whether it's true or not)? This fear could be used for good purposes, such as trying to increase funding for fusion. (I mean, good graces, it'll be at least 2033 before DEMO becomes productive!) Understandably, I'd prefer all people to be scientifically (and 'engineerically') literate on these issues and be able to make good decisions for the good reasons. However, I'm also realistic enough to see that this probably won't be happening anytime soon. (Also, on a more personal note: no, I would not consider this ethical.)

gaurav_v 15y ago

Googling the cosignatories names revelas that several work for Exxon. I don't see how the WSJ didn't consider this relevant information to disclose, instead presenting them only as 'distinguished scientists.'

ceejayoz 15y ago
> I don't see how the WSJ didn't consider this relevant information to disclose... It's a WSJ editorial. They probably wouldn't consider it relevant info if the article writer worked for Exxon.
glenra 15y ago
If you're going to make allegations of that sort, you should at probably list the "several" who you conclude "work for" Exxon. Better yet, link your sources.

saulrh 15y ago

Sixteen Thousand Concerned Scientists: Get These Posers Out of Our Hair and Let Us Save Your Food Crops

moonchrome 15y ago
If we are going to be using crops for food by the time global warming effects become significant we deserve to die out. They are already using bacteria to produce amino acids industryially, few decades in that are is inevitably going to bring us to a point where you can have a shallow pool of water with bacteria in it under UV lights, stacked on top of each other producing amino acids, carbs and fats. Maybe even directly synthesize some of those using a large scale chemical reaction. That's sort of the answer to "global warming problems". All of those problems are going to exist anyway and a far simpler solution is to modify our environment (eg. large protective domes around cities that can withstand the stress of a tornado, filter cosmic rays, etc.) and technology instead of trying to regress to "organic farming" and cutting energy consumption. That might sound like SF but considering the technological progress, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect advances in nanotechnology/materials/construction/food production etc. in that time-frame. The biggest hurdle seems to be energy, with Thorium and micro nuclear reactors looking very realistic in that timeframe. Who knows, maybe we get efficient nuclear batteries by then.
saulrh 15y ago
Two small notes. First, this is a serious problem. People don't seem to realize that "sixteen scientists" don't matter. Sixteen thousand would have; just sixteen is a drop in the bucket. The problem is that headlines like that sell ad impressions. Our media has a conflict of interest, and the news is losing. Second, this post has been bouncing back and forth between 6 and 14 karma for the last two hours, which I find amusing.
- glenra 15y ago
  It only takes one scientist to be right about something. We don't measure scientific truth by weighing or tallying up the numbers of religious adherents on each side, we do so by evaluating the arguments and the evidence given.

mkramlich 15y ago

It's possible to get 16 people to come forward and back any particular claim or position. So take this with skepticism.

TiredGrump 15y ago
I have 16 experts who strongly disagree with your position.

sambeau 15y ago

This calls it: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkable-editorial-bias-on-climate-science-at-the-wall-street-journal/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkabl... The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has long been understood to be not only antagonistic to the facts of climate science, but hostile. But in a remarkable example of their unabashed bias, on Friday they published an opinion piece that not only repeats many of the flawed and misleading arguments about climate science, but purports to be of special significance because it was signed by 16 “scientists.” (Note: I wish he hadn't put the word "scientists" in quotes as it, sadly, undermines a good editorial piece.)

ceejayoz 15y ago
Hell, just start Googling people from the list of contributors. The first is "Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_All%C3%A8gre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_All%C3%A8gre > In 1996, Allègre opposed the removal of carcinogenic asbestos from the Jussieu university campus in Paris, describing it as harmless and dismissing concerns about it as a form of "psychosis created by leftists". The campus' asbestos is deemed to have killed 22 people and caused serious health problems in 130 others. I think I'd pass on his endorsement, personally...
- MaysonL 15y ago
  And the second is J. Scott Armstrong, Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School.
- radu_floricica 15y ago
  Isn't it accepted fact right now that removing asbestos creates more cases of cancer then leaving it where it is? What happened at the time was a very un-rational and unproductive response - the removal of all asbestos everywhere, with no regard to costs and side-effects.
  - ceejayoz 15y ago

jl6 15y ago

Well the headline at least is correct: even in a dire emergency, panic is the wrong response.

jonhendry 15y ago
The problem is, by doing everything they can to delay any response or preparation, the WSJ is in fact making panic more likely. The WSJ approach would insist that it would be a mistake to insure your home against fire and buy fire extinguishers and smoke detectors. That would be "panic".

darksaga 15y ago

I actually have two points about this. First of all, I still remember reading articles from the 1970's from scientists who were convinced we were headed for another ice age. That's right, another ice age. The exact opposite of the what climate experts are telling us now - less than 40 years ago. My other point is this - let's just assume all these scientists are right. Wouldn't it be better if we just did what they suggest and reduce our impact on the planet? If they're wrong, we help the planet. If they're right, we're still ok. I would prefer this outcome to not doing anything then finding out they're right and then we're really screwed. For reference, here's the Time Magazine 1974 article about the coming Ice Age - http://bit.ly/zNZfI8 http://bit.ly/zNZfI8

ghouse 15y ago
That someone was wrong in the past does not mean someone else is wrong in the present-day.
jshen 15y ago
One magazine article is not the same thing as the mountains of evidence for climate change.
dantheman 15y ago
Unfortunately - reducing our impact in the way many advocate has serious consequences on the poor and impoverished. In fact the best way to lower humanity's impact on the environment is to reduce third world poverty and thus reduce population growth. Many scientists advocate a mixed approach - where we work on improving crops so that they'll grow in warmer climates, improve water processing, and in general improve humanity's ability to handle climate change all the while allowing developing countries to use fossil fuels to improve their standard of living. As technology advances they'll move to other means of energy.
- ThaddeusQuay2 15y ago
  "In fact the best way to lower humanity's impact on the environment is to reduce third world poverty and thus reduce population growth." False. When you reduce poverty in a third world population, they simply breed more. This has repeatedly been observed. If you want to loosely throw around words such as "fact" and "best", then I submit that the following, although potentially unpleasant to you, is closer to the correct usage: "In fact the best way to lower humanity's impact on the environment is to eliminate third world population."

themgt 15y ago

"Easter Island 2: Earth" is going to be so much more entertaining for the people 1000 years from now. We didn't get to read through all their "why cutting down the last tree won't be so bad - plus we need more Moai statues" hack WSJ op-eds from concerned islander scientists What I learned from this letter: CO2 emissions are good for plants and poor people; controlling CO2 emissions is Stalin

shingen 15y ago
Humans won't be around in 1,000 years. Our shelf life is nearly at expiration. We'll become some other configuration of life.
- gus_massa 15y ago
  Modern humans appeared 100.000 / 200.000 years ago. We probably won't evolve into a new specie in the next 1.000 years.
  - Zancarius 15y ago
    However, we're fully capable of annihilating ourselves or at least obliterating a significant chunk of our population. I believe that's what shingen may have been alluding to.
  - shingen 15y ago
    I'm saying that our own evolution is now directly in our hands. At the current rate of change, much less a further acceleration, what we'll be able to do to ourselves engineering wise in just the next 50 years will be dramatic. Normal evolution is over for humans. We will self-evolve by action and choice. In 1,000 year - whatever we are at that point, we will not be human as we recognize the term today. Whether it's a super mutant form, still organic and engineered to the moon; or cyborg in shell, with a soft organic inside; or stored digitally in organic matter; or any variation there of. There are a lot of possibilities, the one with zero chance of being around in 1,000 is the form we currently take on.

gavanwoolery 15y ago

I love how religious everyone gets about this. What does that mean? A group of people preach one thing, and everyone takes their word for it. Your college professor told you anthropomorphic climate change is the real deal, and you took their word for it. Your conservative talk show host told you the opposite, and you took their word for it. I do not care what f_cking side you are on. Yes, that's right, I called your "science" a religion. It is religion when you use more faith than reason or logic. Its a religion when you get emotionally involved in your belief. Think for yourself. What does a REAL scientist try to do? Disprove their hypothesis. Look for holes in your argument, fallacies, unknown variables, false positives, etc. <end rant>

shingen 15y ago
One case where the rant should have continued. That they don't spend as much time and effort trying to disprove their owns theories, is the prime indicator that something is wrong with the conclusions being drawn.

ghouse 15y ago

As a society, we know how to take action under uncertainty and imperfect information. It makes no sense to me when people argue we should take no action. The only rational viewpoint I understand is taking action (and realizing cost) proportionate to our confidence. Risk-based cost-benefit analysis. The "It's took expensive to address the problem" argument doesn't hold water; it presumes the outcome is binary.

celoyd 15y ago
The "It's took [sic] expensive to address the problem" argument It’s amazing how common this is. It was smart of Gore to use the phrase “an inconvenient truth”, because so many arguments boil down to “it isn’t happening, because if it were we would have to do a lot of work”.
tomjen3 15y ago
But the longer we wait the more certain we are of the exact changes, if any, and we will have better tech to deal with it. And dealing with it does not mean cutting down on CO2 -- just because the environmental groups contains a vocal minority that feels guilty by not being a hunter/gatherer -- it means building dikes, transport water, etc, etc.
- ghouse 15y ago
  I agree, but that statement will always be true. The longer you wait, the better you'll be informed. Forever. That statement is a perpetual excuse for inaction. The other factor that changes over time is the cost (if any) to address the problem (if any). As an example, if burning oil does lead to global warming, then why do we as a society subsidize the price of oil to encourage its consumption?

kristofferR 15y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if WSJ starts promoting Intelligent Design as a real scientific opinion soon too.

dantheman 15y ago

Flagged - this type of article doesn't really belong on HN as there isn't really anything new presented in it and will merely cause a flamewar.

VMG 15y ago
The SOPA stories seems to have left the impression for some that HN is a place for political discussion.
- lukifer 15y ago
  Politics doesn't happen in a vaccuum: it can and does involve issues that intertwine with real life, of which SOPA was just one. Ecology underlies both economics and tech; Earth's ecosystem is the ultimate platform.
snowmaker 15y ago
It is news that the WSJ is continuing to print articles of this nature. Regardless of the truth or quality of the op-ed, the fact remains that the WSJ has a large audience and this article will be influential. Such an event warrants discussion.
- intended 15y ago
  By that criteria, many wsj op Ed pieces will be food for discussion. I agree with the parent post, this is not suitable for hn and is flame bait.

prawn 15y ago

Here is a thread on AskScience regarding this article: http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/p04l4/how_accurate_is_this_article_on_global_warming/ http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/p04l4/how_accura...

gerggerg 15y ago

The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Ok lets play this game. The fact is that H20 is not a pollutant. It's a molecule that sustains life and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Bring on the ice age!!

grannyg00se 15y ago
I found that statement interesting as well. Anything can be a pollutant given the right concentration. An interesting game to play with the H20 "non pollutant" is to see how much of it you can consume before you become ill.
jonhendry 15y ago
Poop is not a pollutant. It's a substance that sustains life and is a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Thus, there's no point in controlling it, or making sure it doesn't accumulate. (The next time a person in Congress tries the "CO2 is natural etc" gambit, I'd love someone to stand up and ask if that person has stopped wiping their ass.)
lutorm 15y ago
Yeah, that's the most retarded passage in the whole article. And that says something. Maybe people are not aware that most things are toxic in concentrations higher than natural, including, for example, oxygen. And even if elevated CO2 caused humans to walk around in a blissful high, it would have nothing to do with its impact on climate...
ceejayoz 15y ago
Plus, CO2 apparently has an odor (metallic) at high concentration, and our exhalations aren't particularly high - just 4-5% more CO2 than the air we inhaled. Three basic fact fails in one sentence.
radu_floricica 15y ago
The point they made is that more CO2 is not necessarily a bad thing. It's not my place as a non-specialist to judge how likely global warming really is (so I'm not judging) but I do wonder if it's really a bad thing. I mean, everything I know tells me making the earth a bit warmer and richer in CO2 is a good thing. And there is a distinct lack of credible apocalyptic scenarios... most I've seen say basically "there will be losers", i.e. there will be countries where the climate change will make things hotter and more arid. But for me, in central/eastern europe, warmer winters would be great...

mathattack 15y ago

It would be interesting to follow the money trail on these 16 scientists. I do somewhat buy the plausibility of the economic arguement that reacting to global warning is more efficient than trying to stop it. The "it's not proven" crowd seem to be in the same camp as the folks claiming you can't prove smoking causes cancer.

pg_bot 15y ago

I find climate projections to be very similar to financial projections of startups. A typical chart will show hockey stick like growth (temp vs revenue) over a long period of time. Since both groups need to prove that they will have an impact in order to get funding they are motivated to show the most drastic/promising future. As a statistician I tend to discount any long term projections for complex systems because I know that there are too many factors that will influence the results.

unabridged 15y ago

My #1 doubt always comes from what constitutes a statistically significant temperature change on a 100-150 yr scale (or however long we have had consistent measurements). What is the variance in 100 yr temperature differences over the last 100K to 1M years? Even if the current historical models are accurate do we really have accuracy at this resolution? 2 or 3 degrees C change over 100 yrs may be a common occurrence. To me it like trying to judge whether a stock price movement over the course of 10 minutes is significant based on historical daily stock prices.

grannyg00se 15y ago
As far as I'm aware, there is (indirect) data on that. In fact I believe part of the concern is that the data suggests that when the planet was in fact 2 or 3 degress off, it was a rather less hospitable planet. Regarding your stock analogy: People make real money decisions based on ten minutes of stock price movement and historical daily stock prices.

molecularbutter 15y ago

More Global Warming denialism from a Murdoch news source? I'd pretend to be shocked, but really the only thing surprising is that the WSJ is still even vaguely respectable considering it's ownership and bizarre bias.

tomjen3 15y ago

Even if the oceans were going up 10m in a week it seems counterproductive to panic -- it might be better to buy a boat or build a dike.

jonhendry 15y ago
If you wait until oceans were going up 10m in a week, you're going to have a lot of people panicking and fighting over boats. In order to avoid panic, you have to prepare well ahead of time. Airlines tell you what to do in an emergency when the flight starts, they don't wait until the plane hits the water.

jmmcd 15y ago

> The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. Yes, and ozone is a poison, but in the high atmosphere it still protects you from skin cancer. This arguments seems calculated to appeal to the most scientifically ignorant of audiences. > This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Yes, because evolution happened at a single point in the past, and no evolution at all happened in the many millions of years since CO2 concentrations dropped below that level.

etfb 15y ago

I think the heading is wrong. Should be "Sixteen Concerned Physicists, Administrators, Politicians and a Couple of Ex-Climatologists: No Need to Blame Us For Obama Getting Re-Elected"

pbreit 15y ago

The editorial is confusing. On one had, it seems to be suggesting that while human-caused global warming is happening, it is not necessary to panic and in fact it would be better to divert resources away from global warming mitigation and back to regular ole projects. But then it also makes a number of suggestions that global warming is not happening or that if it is, it is not human-driven. I do think scientists questioning aspects of the global warming debate should be able to have their say but they need to make sure their arguments are sound and fact-based.

lukifer 15y ago

It's quite possible that the dangers of climate change are alarmist and overstated. But to think that aren't serious side effects to over a century of industrialization is to be short-sighted and willfully ignorant. There's a reason that geologists now refer to the current era as the "Anthropocene".

InclinedPlane 15y ago

This editorial seems weak and poorly constructed. What does that say about the degree to which anthropogenic global warming exists and will be a significant hazard in the 21st century and the courses of action that are sensible to do anything about that, if any? Absolutely nothing. One way or the other.

melonakos 15y ago

Not all scientific fields are created equally. Some simply have access to better experimentation methods than others. Climate scientists have ridiculously poor measurement methods, historic records, and computational models to possibly be coming up with any conclusions. An article on this topic: Err on the Side of Bologna – According to Scientists, http://bit.ly/wYbEIB http://bit.ly/wYbEIB

melonakos 15y ago

Aliens Cause Global Warming: A Caltech Lecture by Michael Crichton, http://bit.ly/vZX5si http://bit.ly/vZX5si

vannevar 15y ago

Flagged for containing deliberate falsehood: Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 "Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2. This is demonstrably false, and it is at this point impossible for those who published the article to be unaware that it is false if they made any effort whatsoever to verify it. The quote given has nothing to do with the overall rate of global warming, and it has been made abundantly clear since the quote was made public that it did not refer to global warming.

tripzilch 15y ago

BREAKING! "Same group of people again proves willing to go on public record to agree on position they've already agreed with on public record in the past" "Astronaut, CEO, ex-US Senator, Chemist, Cardiologist, former Exxon Manager of Strategic Planning, Electrical Engineer and Rocket Scientist remain unconvinced by Climatologist Research on Climate" [1] in other news, - - - - - - - - http://online.wsj.com/article/plumber-discovers-higgs-boson.html http://online.wsj.com/article/plumber-discovers-higgs-boson.... -- HONORARY PLUMBER DISCOVERS HIGGS BOSON "When the LHC folks called me in to fix their toilets, I knew it wasn't something ordinary clogging their pipes. So I got to work, and there it was, hiding in the drains", tells the plumber, honorary member of the New York-based Royal American-Italian Society for Interdimensional Drainage and Fungal Kingdoms. Recently, the Society has come under fire by animal-rights group PETA for allegedly wearing raccoon fur-suits[2]. "These guys never give up, do they? You accidentally step on a turtle once, and they'll hound you forever." - - - - - - - - [1] As wel as 2 or 3 people who's credentials I've been completely unable to verify except for being a "honorary" or "life" member or fellow of some (always US industry funded) scientific foundation or other and having worked closely with ExxonMobile in the past. BTW weird how it's always ExxonMobile, not other oil corporations such as Royal Dutch Shell or BP, anyone know why it's specifically Exxon being involved with all the climate research? [2] True story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/peta-super-mario-tanooki_n_1096101.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/peta-super-mario-ta...

jvandonsel 15y ago

Seems to be the standard three-pronged argument: 1) The climate isn't warming. 2) But if it is warming, it's not due to man. 3) But if it is due to man, it might be a Good Thing. Very tidy.