4 ms·

Global warming? No, actually we're cooling, claim scientists

10 points by jamesbritt 13y ago

Casseres 13y ago
First it was global cooling about 40 years ago. Then it was global warming. Then it was climate change. Now it's a global warming pause. The only thing constant is that career scientists get to make a name for themselves, agenda-pushers have something to base their claims on, and newspaper companies get to sell more newspapers. We don't have the technology to accurately predict the future. Heck, the past has already happened and won't change, but the way we interpret new discoveries changes it changes all the time. If we keep discovering new things about the past, how is it possible that we've already discovered everything about the future?
- kaonashi 13y ago
  >career scientists get to make a name for themselves Yea, there's so much money in climate science, as opposed to say, energy extraction.
  - Casseres 13y ago
    When the government creates grants for political reasons, then yes there is. Same with green energy extraction.
    - kaonashi 13y ago
      Drop in the bucket compared to fossil fuels.
      - Casseres 13y ago
        Yes, because it's more economical and better for the environment to improve efficiency. There is a good correlation between economic efficiency and what's good for the environment. Right now it is more harmful to the environment to manufacture new electric cars and the batteries that they use. It's also more expensive. There are many other large, well-established companies besides new, small, green-initiative companies trying to improve battery efficiency and the environmental impact of said batteries because it's better for business. Interestingly enough, nuclear power is much more efficient, cheaper, and safer than fossil fuel based power, yet the United States has not built any new nuclear power plants in about 40 years because of environmental regulations. If we built newer, safer, more efficient nuclear power plants, we would be able to retire the older, not-as-safe, less-efficient nuclear power plants - and the price of electricity would go down making it more affordable to use electric cars all while using less fossil fuels! (Long-term storage of spent nuclear material is also incredibly safe. There are a bunch of lies floating around that it's not because they suit the other side's story. Also, economics will will encourage the development of technology to find usage for the material rather than keeping it in storage for the next X number of years.) I'm all for having a cleaner, safer environment. But until people get over their "not in my backyard" emotions, and get rid of harmful environmental regulations, then we are forced to use the technology that those people dislike. Why am I familiar with all of this? I'm a merchant mariner. A lot of us work in the energy sector. I'd rather lose those jobs (higher competition for my job and less money) due to self-dependance on nuclear energy while having a cleaner, safer environment. Have you seen the YouTube videos of tests where they crash jets into walls used in nuclear facilities or trains into nuclear containers? The United States is pretty large, we can build those nuclear power plants in places were they will be safe from the environment (unlike Japan which doesn't have much space to choose from).
tedsuo 13y ago
The Daily Telegraph is notoriously full of climate change cranks, and regularly misrepresents the views of scientists and the IPCC. A previous example regarding arctic sea ice: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/07/arctic-misrepresentations/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/07/arctic...
- adventured 13y ago
  Can you speak to what specifically the article is wrong about regarding the apparently dramatic expansion of arctic ice?
  - kaonashi 13y ago
    It was at record lows, so the capacity for a record bounce-back is higher.
    - Shivetya 13y ago
      as in, science still pretty much has so much to learn about then environment and claims of doom and gloom should be taken with the same grain of salt as with religious prophets.
      - kaonashi 13y ago
        Not really, no. The earth is warming, ice receded this summer at record levels; because of that record recession, the normal winter bounceback is higher than normal.
adamconroy 13y ago
Good old telegraph. They try hard to beat fox for the right wing crackpot crown. This article is for their readers not the general public.
JoeAltmaier 13y ago
Arctic ice melted, cooling the oceans. This was modeled and expected. Stop reducing 'global warming' to a catchphrase, its a complex system and its crashing.
orionblastar 13y ago
Climate change, have the numbers been fudged? http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/11/23/climategate-2-0-new-e-mails-rock-the-global-warming-debate/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/11/23/climatega... I don't know if climate change is true or not, but if these leaked emails show anything there is a political agenda behind it and data was concealed and cherry picked to support climate change. Apparently they did not even follow the scientific method? If these emails are true and not fake of course. But why would they fake data? To manipulate the price of fossil fuels and sell carbon credits? How come more money is spent on climate change studying instead of finding alternatives to fossil fuels? Nobody knows. The news media is manipulated one way or another, to get ratings and page hits to sell more advertising. I fear that science has become this way as well. People will believe any report as long as it is stamped with 'peer reviewed' on it. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.22784/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.22784/abstrac... http://people.stern.nyu.edu/wstarbuc/Writing/Prejud.htm http://people.stern.nyu.edu/wstarbuc/Writing/Prejud.htm http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/26628/title/Tackling-peer-review-bias/ http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/26628/... Oh dear, quite a bit of bias there. Ah well find some peers who will review your papers and confirm them so you can continue to get grants and funding. If anyone asks about bias, keep your mouth shut, it was a double blind study done by a neutral third party even if it was biased in some way. Any peer reviews that find problems or find your paper is wrong, conceal such information and claim it does not exist. After all what is the worst that can happen?
- dTal 13y ago
  > if these leaked emails show anything there is a political agenda behind it and data was concealed and cherry picked to support climate change. They really, really don't. You never see more than a sentence or two out of context in what you would call "the news media", because as you say it is manipulated to provide the impression of a scandal, which sells much better than "climate scientists proven honest". "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." That there's barely anything even out of context that's quot-ably dishonest in 5000 emails is if anything a testament to their integrity, given that the whole premise is that they thought they were "talking freely".

10 points by jamesbritt 13y ago

First it was global cooling about 40 years ago. Then it was global warming. Then it was climate change. Now it's a global warming pause. The only thing constant is that career scientists get to make a name for themselves, agenda-pushers have something to base their claims on, and newspaper companies get to sell more newspapers. We don't have the technology to accurately predict the future. Heck, the past has already happened and won't change, but the way we interpret new discoveries changes it changes all the time. If we keep discovering new things about the past, how is it possible that we've already discovered everything about the future?

kaonashi 13y ago
>career scientists get to make a name for themselves Yea, there's so much money in climate science, as opposed to say, energy extraction.
- Casseres 13y ago
  When the government creates grants for political reasons, then yes there is. Same with green energy extraction.
  - kaonashi 13y ago
    Drop in the bucket compared to fossil fuels.
    - Casseres 13y ago
      Yes, because it's more economical and better for the environment to improve efficiency. There is a good correlation between economic efficiency and what's good for the environment. Right now it is more harmful to the environment to manufacture new electric cars and the batteries that they use. It's also more expensive. There are many other large, well-established companies besides new, small, green-initiative companies trying to improve battery efficiency and the environmental impact of said batteries because it's better for business. Interestingly enough, nuclear power is much more efficient, cheaper, and safer than fossil fuel based power, yet the United States has not built any new nuclear power plants in about 40 years because of environmental regulations. If we built newer, safer, more efficient nuclear power plants, we would be able to retire the older, not-as-safe, less-efficient nuclear power plants - and the price of electricity would go down making it more affordable to use electric cars all while using less fossil fuels! (Long-term storage of spent nuclear material is also incredibly safe. There are a bunch of lies floating around that it's not because they suit the other side's story. Also, economics will will encourage the development of technology to find usage for the material rather than keeping it in storage for the next X number of years.) I'm all for having a cleaner, safer environment. But until people get over their "not in my backyard" emotions, and get rid of harmful environmental regulations, then we are forced to use the technology that those people dislike. Why am I familiar with all of this? I'm a merchant mariner. A lot of us work in the energy sector. I'd rather lose those jobs (higher competition for my job and less money) due to self-dependance on nuclear energy while having a cleaner, safer environment. Have you seen the YouTube videos of tests where they crash jets into walls used in nuclear facilities or trains into nuclear containers? The United States is pretty large, we can build those nuclear power plants in places were they will be safe from the environment (unlike Japan which doesn't have much space to choose from).

tedsuo 13y ago

The Daily Telegraph is notoriously full of climate change cranks, and regularly misrepresents the views of scientists and the IPCC. A previous example regarding arctic sea ice: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/07/arctic-misrepresentations/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/07/arctic...

adventured 13y ago
Can you speak to what specifically the article is wrong about regarding the apparently dramatic expansion of arctic ice?
- kaonashi 13y ago
  It was at record lows, so the capacity for a record bounce-back is higher.
  - Shivetya 13y ago
    as in, science still pretty much has so much to learn about then environment and claims of doom and gloom should be taken with the same grain of salt as with religious prophets.
    - kaonashi 13y ago
      Not really, no. The earth is warming, ice receded this summer at record levels; because of that record recession, the normal winter bounceback is higher than normal.

adamconroy 13y ago

Good old telegraph. They try hard to beat fox for the right wing crackpot crown. This article is for their readers not the general public.

JoeAltmaier 13y ago

Arctic ice melted, cooling the oceans. This was modeled and expected. Stop reducing 'global warming' to a catchphrase, its a complex system and its crashing.

orionblastar 13y ago

Climate change, have the numbers been fudged? http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/11/23/climategate-2-0-new-e-mails-rock-the-global-warming-debate/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/11/23/climatega... I don't know if climate change is true or not, but if these leaked emails show anything there is a political agenda behind it and data was concealed and cherry picked to support climate change. Apparently they did not even follow the scientific method? If these emails are true and not fake of course. But why would they fake data? To manipulate the price of fossil fuels and sell carbon credits? How come more money is spent on climate change studying instead of finding alternatives to fossil fuels? Nobody knows. The news media is manipulated one way or another, to get ratings and page hits to sell more advertising. I fear that science has become this way as well. People will believe any report as long as it is stamped with 'peer reviewed' on it. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.22784/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.22784/abstrac... http://people.stern.nyu.edu/wstarbuc/Writing/Prejud.htm http://people.stern.nyu.edu/wstarbuc/Writing/Prejud.htm http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/26628/title/Tackling-peer-review-bias/ http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/26628/... Oh dear, quite a bit of bias there. Ah well find some peers who will review your papers and confirm them so you can continue to get grants and funding. If anyone asks about bias, keep your mouth shut, it was a double blind study done by a neutral third party even if it was biased in some way. Any peer reviews that find problems or find your paper is wrong, conceal such information and claim it does not exist. After all what is the worst that can happen?

dTal 13y ago
> if these leaked emails show anything there is a political agenda behind it and data was concealed and cherry picked to support climate change. They really, really don't. You never see more than a sentence or two out of context in what you would call "the news media", because as you say it is manipulated to provide the impression of a scandal, which sells much better than "climate scientists proven honest". "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." That there's barely anything even out of context that's quot-ably dishonest in 5000 emails is if anything a testament to their integrity, given that the whole premise is that they thought they were "talking freely".