You can't make this stuff up. Via Wizbang, New Scientist reports:
FOLLOW-UP:
It should also be noted that the study's "dramatic finding" isn't all that dramatic. The Wizbang post linked above has a nice fisking of the New Scientist's poor reporting on this story.
The ocean current that gives western Europe its relatively balmy climate is stuttering, raising fears that it might fail entirely and plunge the continent into a mini ice age.So far, we have increased snowfall, thickening ice caps, and now mini-ice ages, all described as consequences of global warming. But there's no reason to panic; if luck is with us, eventually a global cooling trend will take hold and warm things right back up.
The dramatic finding comes from a study of ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which found a 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream.
The slow-down, which has long been predicted as a possible consequence of global warming, will give renewed urgency to intergovernmental talks in Montreal, Canada, this week on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
FOLLOW-UP:
It should also be noted that the study's "dramatic finding" isn't all that dramatic. The Wizbang post linked above has a nice fisking of the New Scientist's poor reporting on this story.
There is pretty good geological evidence that several previous ice ages were caused by meltwater diluting the salty North Atlantic currents. I agree that there doesn't yet seem to be sufficient evidence that this is happening now, but if it were, the most obvious culprit would be global warming.
I realize that you're mostly just trying to be funny, but "gee if it's getting warmer, then why is it cold?" is a pretty ignorant argument. Even a passing knowledge of meteorology would tell you that abnormal weather conditions cause extremes in all directions.
You might want to consider that the climate change debate mirrors the ID creationism debate almost perfectly (and also shares some major similarities with holocaust deniers). The vast majority of experts in a scientific field agreeing on the basics, while the dissenters, whose ideology is pretty transparent, claim to be persecuted. The parallels don't necessarily mean that climate change deniers are wrong, but it's a pretty good hint that you should probably read up on the subject a good deal before ridiculing the mainstream scientific consensus.
If entire regions of the globe are plunging into a new ice age, then the term "global warming" is a misnomer and should be retired. "Climate change" is better.
Your posts on this subject are the equivalent of the following:
The Newtonians say that a force called "gravity" makes objects fall to the ground. We know that the moon stays up in the sky and just circles the Earth, but these so-called scientists claim that this only confirms their "gravity" theory! They'll take anything as evidence!
You shouldn't blame climate scientists for your misunderstanding of their teminology.
Also, your comparison to Holocaust deniers is way off-base. Denying historical facts — things that already happened, and were experienced first-hand by people still alive today — is not the same thing at all as disputing predictions about what may happen in the future.
And your gravity analogy would be more accurate if the moon were rapidly flying away from the Earth, not just orbiting it.
So change the mooon thing to spacecraft using gravity to slingshot and pick up speed. They'll use anything as evidence for their crazy theory!
Also, do you suppose that any of the people warning about the dire consequences of emissions-driven global warming — specifically, the ones calling for the U.S. to adopt economy-crippling emissions restrictions — are driven by ideology as well?
Those using the scientific findings for political reasons might possibly be driven by ideology, but I'm pretty sure the scientists providing that data are driven by the desire to find the truth. You sound like a creationist arguing that the whole field of biology is only preaching evolution because they hate religion.
And what possible political objective could drive people to want "economy-crippling restrictions" unless they sincerely believed there was danger? On the other side, the objective is obvious--money.
Appeal to authority — strike two.Ad Homeniem, not arguing the point. — Strike three.
The most ironic thing is that the ID argument is most similar to the "anthro" global warming advocates. The refitting of models and spin is so close to ID advocates who can't be held accountable to a single claim is more of an interesting point, one that has been made on a few blogs. Calling evidence contrary and inconveient to findings of scientists heavily invested in finding alarming discoveries 'nitpicking' is laughable. Never mind the man behind the curtain, is it?
However, for whatever reason you have to slip in comparisons to Holocast revisionism is not only snide it's beyond similarity, as Gaijin pointed out.
Speaking of money, how much grant money do you think I would get if I were to propose an experient to investigate harmless ephemera. Oh wait! Did I say harmless? No, I meant incredibly destructive, massively disasterous, pompously dystopian cataclysms that are on the way! A couple of books might lend a clue. Damned Lies and Statistics The Culture of FearQuestion: if Gaijin posted an article tomorrow that refuted every single piece research tilted to the current alarmist hypotheses, what's your gut reaction? I have a feeling the people that have a emotional, religious investment in this fight are the ones who go apes**t when presented contrary evidence and 'nitpicks', namely the acolytes of the left.
I could go ahead and point out that strawmen, appeals to authority, and ad hominems are present in your post, and then run through your "strikes" as well, but I'm not interested in that kind of pissing contest. (Quick, what's the rehetorical term for mentioning X by saying "I'm not going to mention X"?)
About my post:
1. a strawman argument is when someone refutes an argument that hasn't been made. The portion you quoted was directly refuting GB's argument that it's ridiculous to use cold weather patterns as evidence for warming. No straw there.
2. Appeal to authority is a weak argument (which is why I included "not necessarily" in my argument) but it is far stronger than appeal to non-authority (the whole "they laughed at Galileo" thing) or appeal to incredulity ("cold means warming? that sounds silly!"). I'm not saying that the scientific community is infallible, just that one should have some pretty good evidence before ignoring the scientific consensus.
3. Ad hominem is often misunderstood. "A is bad, therefore A is wrong about B" is an ad hominem fallacy. "A has ideological reasons to believe B, therefore A's opinion on B may be based on other than rigorous evidence" is not.
One can find scientists across the political spectrum who believe in global warming, but the scientists who disagree are all conservatives. This certainly isn't a refutaion of their argument, but it's an important data point when deciding who to trust.
Finally, I base my opinions on evidence whenever it is available. If GB made a post containing new evidence or strong arguments against the scientific consensus, I would be happy to learn from it. So far the posts on the subject have contained neither evidence nor strong argument, just a vague reference to cold phenomena as if they somehow refute a whole field of people who spend their professional lives studying these things.
If you look back at the links I left in my posts on an earlier thread, the one from Wood's Hole give a good summary of the thermohaline circulation/Gulf Stream issue.
Just to alert you to another factor affecting recent warming records and future trends is the amount of SOx and other particulate pollution, which have the effect of masking/delaying warming by blocking sunlight from reaching the earth. Ever hear of the Asia Brown Cloud? Apparently it is having a significant effect (blocking more than 10% of solar radiation). Particulates are thought to be the chief reason for the cooling at the time of the 70s, but the warming trend prevailed, particularly as air pollution was cleaned up in the West and the Easter bloc tanked.
You might want to take a look at the report published this summer by a Select Committee on Economic Affairs of the British House of Lords- a conservative bunch - who warn about the negative economic implications of UN and UK climate policies. Even their view is rather scary.
There's little we can now about some of the warming now built-in (as it takes a long time for the CO2 to come out), but is still makes sense to get ready, even if you don't support Co2 abatement or sequestration. I'm for both; I think we need to cut a deal with China, India and Brazil that cut their emissions by accelerating new technology, as well as to start cutting emissions ourselves.
This 8 year old article by Robert Hahn of AEI I think did a fair job of pointing to the issues of political will. I think it is a crying shame that politicians in the US prefer not to take action; it is to a large extent already too little, too late.
By the way Crichton is right about one key point - the warming in big cities is almost entirely due to heat island effect from devlopment and loss of trees. He has let his partial truth blind him from the rest.
Ben, good posts. I see, with an increasingly complex world, a natural desire for people to pull back to a world that seems to make more sense - we call that conservativism in the US, but the same phenomenon is at work in fundamentalism elsewhere. Thus the attractiveness of ID and the denial of climate change science. The libs are just as bad, for wanting to make everything seem simple.
Let me also leave you with some quotes from climate change skeptics:
Bjorn Lomborg: “There is no doubt that global warming is happening or that it is important. Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels will increase Earth's temperature. That is likely to have an overall negative effect.”
Ronald Bailey: “The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide which is accumulating in the atmosphere as a result of the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide levels have increased from 280 parts per million in 1750 to 372 ppm today. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap heat as it is being radiated out into space and re-radiate back toward the surface.”
Fred Singer: “In fact, the IPCC statement is in many ways a truism. There certainly must be a human influence on some features of the climate, locally if not globally.”
Patrick Michaels: “It has been known since 1872 that water vapor and carbon dioxide are the principal "greenhouse" gases in the atmosphere, and that increasing their concentration should elevate the temperature in the lower atmosphere. What has been a subject of contention ever since, is the amount and character of the warming.”
George W. Bush: “First, we know the surface temperature of the earth is warming. It has risen by .6 degrees Celsius over the past 100 years. There was a warming trend from the 1890s to the 1940s. Cooling from the 1940s to the 1970s. And then sharply rising temperatures from the 1970s to today. There is a natural greenhouse effect that contributes to warming. Greenhouse gases trap heat, and thus warm the earth because they prevent a significant proportion of infrared radiation from escaping into space. Concentration of greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have increased substantially since the beginning of the industrial revolution. And the National Academy of Sciences indicates that the increase is due in large part to human activity.”
In what ways do you care to argue with these men?
What should we do right now to send men to Alpha Centauri? Nothing. We should wait for technologies to advance to the point where interstellar space travel is feasible.
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