I agree. Which is why I sourced the link from the Australian Skeptics and from
geologists (who have been involved in ancient climate studies). The link in question
was one suggested as "Exploring the global warming myth for dummies" :-)
> But to call this issue controversial is dubious as there is very little
> controversy among climatologists. I don't have exact figures, but the
> massive majority of climate scientists believe global warming will
> happen.
Without sources, it can be just as easily argued, a massive majority of climate
scientists _don't_ support global warming. Anecdotal does not equal evidence.
>From _our_ perspective of fish keepers climate change is not really the problem.
Instead manmade disturbances are the _real_ issue. All "global warming" is, is a
media driven distraction. Lets face it, manmade ecological change is what is what is
driving modern extinction. If you want to stop the forests from being cut
down....maybe the answer is to stop the forests from being cut down, rather than
attempting to "prevent" global warming.
> Do we need to wait for proof of this? By that time it will be too late
> to
> reverse the effects.
The "proof" is not proof, and effects are unsubstantiated and not causally linked. As a
scientist, you believe this to be reason enough to devote time, energy and money?
> And those with the loudest voices against this
> are
> the people with monetary interests in things that cause global warming.
> Would you rather trust them, or trust someone who actually has a non
> vested interest and has spent all of their life studying it?
Given that a majority of people producing the model(s) and studying it have a vested
financial interest (ie/ their jobs, not to mention millions of dollars worth of funding), I
think you analogy is rather flawed.
> Does
> anyone
> doubt the ozone layer is being depleted? You don't hear anyone arguing
> about that anymore, but they used to in the same manner. After all,
> how
> could a few compounds really make that much difference to something as
> massive as the atmosphere?
The ozone layer is a slightly different kettle of fish. The single biggest contributor to
ozone lose (from literature I have read) are jet engines combusting the ozone. But you
don't hear about that in popular media (which drives political decision making) because
nobody is going to stop airflights? However if you would some info, I can source some.
>
> We did this cool experiment in a chemistry/physics class I had where we
> looked at aborbance across the wavelengths of energy coming from the
> sun
> by different compounds. If you look at various greenhouse gases they
> absorb wavelengths that are totally different to the majority of
> compounds
> in the atmosphere. If you increase those gases then more energy gets
> absorbed and held, and things heat up. It isn't difficult to
> demonstrate
> as it really isn't very complicated at the most simple level (although
> things are considerably more complicated than that due to various
> compensatory factors that influence climate).
I too performed similar experiments at Uni (in Chemistry though). This is
why "Greenhouse Gases" are called greenhouse gasses. They are (in order of
magnitude) H2O, CH4 and CO2. Given that levels of all three have not changed
significantly to match the "global warming" models over the last 50 years, why do you
support the models? On an off chance they _might_ be correct?
>
> Everyone is free to think whatever they like, and I'm not so nieve as
> to
> say that just because the scientists say it is so that it must be so,
> but
> I'd be more willing to trust them on some of these issues than folks
> who
> really don't know diddly about what they are talking about and stand to
> make or loose a lot of money as a result.
I actually trust scientists. At least those who actually do scientific research. Not the
people who make their living pedalling half truths to a sensationalism driven media, to
feed back into additional funding from poll watching politicians.
caio
Graeme