The Dangers of Lay People talking Science

[the54thvoid]

There was a forum post a while back about research calling into question the man made influence on climate change. Lots of folk then started waving the old skeptic flag about global warming. Well, the editor that allowed that article into his journal has now resigned over it. I read an article about the 'paper' and it's author last night. Find it here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14768574

The basic summary is this:

He [the author] is also on the board of directors of the George C Marshall Institute, a right-wing thinktank critical of mainstream climate science, and an advisor to the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, an evangelical Christian organisation that claims policies to curb climate change "would destroy jobs and impose trillions of dollars in costs" and "could be implemented only by enormous and dangerous expansion of government control over private life".

That would be those idiots that think the earth is about 7000 years old.

I rarely post in this forum because it's full of uneducated opinions on branches of science most of us know nothing about and as such - should keep our mouths shut about. It's fine to have an opinion on a moral (abortion) or subjective (art) matter but to grab tidbits of info from selected (and highly questionable) articles makes a mockery of having a forum called "Science and Technology".

Furthermore, the scientific community is prone to influence from outside sources (the tobacco lobby was one of the most influential). An evangelical scientist working for a group that has the views expressed in the quoted section above is just as bad. His interest is not in the scientific benefit but instead on qualifying his own organisations belief.

Science is ultimately about getting closer and closer to the truth. Mistakes get made along the way but real science is something above religion and money. It's about understanding why everything is. Giving credence to 'controversial' new papers is damaging to that ultimate quest. So please, before all the malleable young minds start saying 'yeah, i knew that <insert mainstream accepted view> was crap', please question it's source and it's objectivity.

Scientific revolutions do happen but normally when a new approach lets somebody test it for the first time (when the theory starts to become fact). The vast majority of climate work points to a hotter planet with human industrial (and biological) influence being a factor. So when one or two studies pop up and say "no", ask yourself why.

And finally, its so easy to be a skeptic because it takes away the guilt or responsibility. It must be even easier to be an evangelical scientific skeptic because 'god must will it'. In today's mainstream and empirically structured scientific community - being a skeptic is ignorant but easy way out of responsibility.

Enjoy that guilt free ride on your descendants one way ticket to disaster.

 

[micropage7]

i guess theres a time for smart people stop act like the god and say we know it all
we have push this nature too much and we have taken from this nature too much
look at fossil energy, from billions time we just drain it for 100years
we never pay attention until its late, like this time as usual

 

[DannibusX]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914-1,00.html

 

[Arctucas]

I believe that science has shown the climate of the Earth to be cyclical; cold-to-warm-to-cold-to-warm..., on a several tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years basis. So yes, there is 'climate change', it is perfectly natural, and has being occurring long before mankind emerged on this planet. And it will continue long after mankind is gone.

I also believe we are currently in one of the warmer periods. Given the length of time humans have been aware of climate is so short as to to be statistically insignificant.

When humankind is able to collect, analyze, interpret, and present (sans agenda) empirical data spanning several millions of years, then I believe an argument may be made one way or the other.

That 'scientists' for either side believe they know enough at this point is, frankly, the height of arrogance and conceit.

 

[dorsetknob]

""" ello """

i got mixed Views on global warming
one line of reasoning is as the earth ages it loses heat from the core and therefor earth is cooling (like a poker pulled out of a fire loses heat) don't think many will argue that's not true.

now balance that against the expectation that as the Sun Ages its going to evolve into a RED GIANT and expand. probably well past the orbit of the earth and as such will probably engulf the earth this will certainly cause global warming.

So yes Earth will eventually suffer from global warming but at the end it or whats left of it will only get colder ( down to -274K or about absolute ZERO).

PS remember flaming only reheats something for awhile

 

[FordGT90Concept]

...claims policies to curb climate change "would destroy jobs and impose trillions of dollars in costs" and "could be implemented only by enormous and dangerous expansion of government control over private life".

...but these claims are accurate. Climate legislation leads to jobs being deported to countries that don't have tough legislation in place (namely, India and China--shifting to sub-Saharan Africa sooner or later) and it's pretty easy to come up with a "trillions of dollars" figure when you factor in everything from increased cost of food production and distribution to artifical increases in costs through "carbon tax(es)."

The science behind "global warming" I say "meh" to. On the economics side of things: we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. The only solution to this problem is a technological breakthrough on the level of discovering fission.

 

[streetfighter 2]

 

[hat]

""" ello """

i got mixed Views on global warming
one line of reasoning is as the earth ages it loses heat from the core and therefor earth is cooling (like a poker pulled out of a fire loses heat) don't think many will argue that's not true.

now balance that against the expectation that as the Sun Ages its going to evolve into a RED GIANT and expand. probably well past the orbit of the earth and as such will probably engulf the earth this will certainly cause global warming.

So yes Earth will eventually suffer from global warming but at the end it or whats left of it will only get colder ( down to -274K or about absolute ZERO).

PS remember flaming only reheats something for awhile

As for the core cooling, it stands to reason that eventually, over the course of a very, very long time, eventually the Earth could possibly lose heat, but if true, that's a highly insignificant factor at this point. Up against the natural climate phases of the planet, core cooling isn't even a drop in the bucket. If that were the case, one might think we were steadily on a decline, but that's not the case is it?

As for your red giant idea... that has nothing to do with global warming. We're talking about climate change within the planet's internal climate, not external forces such as the sun. Until some extreme events occur, like the sun's expansion during its death sequence, the sun's activity doesn't play a major role in our climate. Thanks to our nifty atmosphere, our temperatures remain remarkably stable. Take a look at planets like Mercury, that get deep fried on the sunny size and flash frozen on the dark side, thanks to not having an atmosphere... and there's also the opposite extreme with planets like Venus, which remain toasty forever because of the atmosphere there. Also, when the sun expands and engulfs the earth, it will be more than global warming... it would be more like not having a planet Earth anymore because it melted inside the sun.

The only solution to this problem is a technological breakthrough on the level of discovering fission.

Don't we already have an experimental fusion reactor somewhere?

 

[HTC]

As for the core cooling, it stands to reason that eventually, over the course of a very, very long time, eventually the Earth could possibly lose heat, but if true, that's a highly insignificant factor at this point. Up against the natural climate phases of the planet, core cooling isn't even a drop in the bucket. If that were the case, one might think we were steadily on a decline, but that's not the case is it?

As for your red giant idea... that has nothing to do with global warming. We're talking about climate change within the planet's internal climate, not external forces such as the sun. Until some extreme events occur, like the sun's expansion during its death sequence, the sun's activity doesn't play a major role in our climate. Thanks to our nifty atmosphere, our temperatures remain remarkably stable. Take a look at planets like Mercury, that get deep fried on the sunny size and flash frozen on the dark side, thanks to not having an atmosphere... and there's also the opposite extreme with planets like Venus, which remain toasty forever because of the atmosphere there. Also, when the sun expands and engulfs the earth, it will be more than global warming... it would be more like not having a planet Earth anymore because it melted inside the sun.



Don't we already have an experimental fusion reactor somewhere?

Unless we do something bad to the atmosphere: then it would be a problem, no?

EDIT

He [the author] is also on the board of directors of the George C Marshall Institute, a right-wing thinktank critical of mainstream climate science, and an advisor to the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, an evangelical Christian organisation that claims policies to curb climate change "would destroy jobs and impose trillions of dollars in costs" and "could be implemented only by enormous and dangerous expansion of government control over private life".

That's the problem with priorities: who cares if the planet ends up imploding or something, as long as we make money, it's all good ...

 

[hat]

The planet produces loads of smoke to go into the air on its own. Volcanoes can be pretty dirty things...

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

It's a rather pointless debate anyways. Whether the amount of heating caused by man is miniscule or the majority, natural or not, you still have to spend money to do something about it. A natural ice-age is just as bad as an unnatural one. Unfortunately that doesn't really matter to those at the top spurring the argument against man made warming as their whole goal is to be "conservative" in the expenditure of money for anything other than making more money in the short term. Only when the shit hits the fan will something large scale be done about this, and by then it will cost more and be less effective.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Don't we already have an experimental fusion reactor somewhere?

Probably a dozen or more of them around the world but none of them can sustain a reaction for more than a fraction of a second. The problem with fusion is that the fuel (deutrium, tritrium, and hydrogen) wants to fly apart. Stars keep running because of their mass--we have to replicate a strong gravitational field in a small area (some do it with lasers, some do it with magnets) and that's a tough nut to crack.

Fusion would be a great answer to our energy problems but it remains out of reach.

 

[Jetster]

The only facts are that this is pointless. Use common sense people. Don't pollute and reuse when you can. Scientist on both sides of this issue have lost integrity. Just like the Media has.

 

[Steevo]

As for the core cooling, it stands to reason that eventually, over the course of a very, very long time, eventually the Earth could possibly lose heat, but if true, that's a highly insignificant factor at this point. Up against the natural climate phases of the planet, core cooling isn't even a drop in the bucket. If that were the case, one might think we were steadily on a decline, but that's not the case is it?

As for your red giant idea... that has nothing to do with global warming. We're talking about climate change within the planet's internal climate, not external forces such as the sun. Until some extreme events occur, like the sun's expansion during its death sequence, the sun's activity doesn't play a major role in our climate. Thanks to our nifty atmosphere, our temperatures remain remarkably stable. Take a look at planets like Mercury, that get deep fried on the sunny size and flash frozen on the dark side, thanks to not having an atmosphere... and there's also the opposite extreme with planets like Venus, which remain toasty forever because of the atmosphere there. Also, when the sun expands and engulfs the earth, it will be more than global warming... it would be more like not having a planet Earth anymore because it melted inside the sun.



Don't we already have an experimental fusion reactor somewhere?

The sun plays a HUGE part in the temperature of our planet as we experience it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation

Maunder Minimum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum

The temp of the earths core plays a large part in the stability, as well as the ocean and atmosphere, but the sun is directly responsible for heating them to maintain temperature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Radiation_and_Climate_Experiment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance


There are far too many factors that we still don't even know exist to try and include them in any sort of climate model predictions. The largest contributor to our earths temperature we know little about and have only early warning systems of a few minutes for solar radiation storms, and no high accuracy prediction for output.

We need to gather data for another few hundred years, and during that time we need to still live, work, and play.

 

[streetfighter 2]

This thread is silly, so forgive me while I quote more Onion:
Scientists Trace Heat Wave To Massive Star At Center Of Solar System

The only facts are that this is pointless. Use common sense people. Don't pollute and reuse when you can. Scientist on both sides of this issue have lost integrity. Just like the Media has.

Ditto. I don't believe that being environmentally friendly leads to economic chaos -- profiteering does that.

My eco-measures include, but are not limited to:
a) driving at ~60MPH on the freeway to conserve gas.
b) driving a 4 banger with no aftermarket stupidity.
c) strategic replacement of lights with CFLs.
d) turning off lights and electronics whenever possible.
e) eating lots of animals to piss off PETA.
f) only buying hookers from pimps which certify that their merchandise is local (not trafficked/imported).
g) drinking liquor to conserve water.
h) not falling to sleep in the shower at least one day of the week.
i) ripping on Mussels in every other post.
j) disposing of hazmats using approved facilities.
k) praying to an open-minded god.
l) buying local produce whenever possible.

 

[twilyth]

This thread really is ridiculous. It's the same as saying that you can't learn anything until you've learned something. Yahright, and how exactly do you think that's going to work? Hmmmm?

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

I don't think it's nearly as ridiculous as many of the responses in the climate change thread(s) which is what he's talking about in the OP.

 

[Peter1986C]

g) drinking liquor to conserve water.

There is water involved in its production.