Are your views on global climate change written in stone or are you open minded, ready to engage in debate?

Question

The issue is of such importance that it seems everyone should be receptive to the data collection now underway by scores of sources, from government agencies, to university research, to private entities and think tanks.

How entrenched is your position? Is there room for refinement, or doubt?

Answer 1

The issue of global warming has scientific and political aspects. The two should not be confused.  The basic laws of physics governing the interaction of molecules with radiation are known and the parameters specific to greenhouse gasses have been measured to a high degree of pecision.  The radiative forcing due to greenhouse gasses can be calculated from first principles and the result is consistent with the measured emission spectrum of the earth.  Case closed.  I am open to any new evidence or theory about processes that may mitigate the effects of radiative forcing, provide that that theory does not violate conservation of mass, energy, momentum, or charge and is consistent wth Maxwell's equations, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics and thermodynamics and is consistent with all observations.  The science questions are a matter of evidence and there is no room for politics.  The political question is, given the scientific evidence, what should be done?  The full range of actions is open for debate.  I am philisophically disposed toward free market-based solutions, but I don't have strong opinions. I am open to any good suggestions.    

Answer 2

I re-evaluate my stance any time new data becomes available.  So far, nothing has been discovered to suggest the Sun isn't the primary cause of climate change.  

The issue of whether or not the Earth has warmed over the last couple of hundred years should not be in doubt.  We've been warming since the last Ice Age, with a minor pullback here and there.  Data supporting this is irrelevant to the true issue, that issue being:  What is the SOURCE of this warming trend...

Solar activity records point to a solar cause.  Until man better understands the mechanism linking solar activity and climate change, debates on the issue are equivalent to debates on the nature of God (more supposition than substance).

Answer 3

I don't debate with idiots.

Answer 4

I will continue to be skeptical of AGW until such time that scientific proof is provided.  I see a lot of posts in this group that state that AGW has been proven.  Hopefully, those posters are not knowingly lying but are simply misinformed.

Answer 5

I love to keep an open mind and re-evaluate my position after I have been presented with new data and researched that conclusion. As a Scientist I like to keep my options open and the ability to refine my position.

However I find it difficult to do this with those individuals that find it necessary to remain inflexible or even those partake in verbal abuse of character or data with unsubstantiated claims or whimsical flights of fantasy. This is a huge and immediate turn off whether they are right or not.

Room for Doubt...absolutely not. This topic, global climate change, is far to serious to leave room for doubt.

Yet I do find the mass majority of individuals here are puking up spoon feed media views and with a serious lack of imperial data to back up these claims. Seriously though...if you took money out of the equation...and began to apply pure science...and in some cases just common sense (as I point at a place called Chernobyl....where do you think all that air went?)...you might find that there is actually some truth to both sides and that we really just need to take a proactive approach.

Answer 6

i'm always open to hearing either side of an argument.

when it comes to global climate change i am open to hearing all of the facts, and new info comes out all the time. i may change my mind i may not

Answer 7

I'm always open to new findings on the topic, but so far the debate has been in regards to old data. In my opinion I've seen the people who believe that it's all the cause of humans that have closed their minds to other possibilities and claim the debate is over.

I feel there's always room for doubt and refinement. I think that's what irks me the most about people who are adamat that the science of what's causing the latest warming trend has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

To me we have things we know for sure.

1) CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rising. - We also have evidence from ice core data that CO2 increases lags a rise in temperature. We've also learned that both deserts and oceans give off more CO2 than they absorb when they warm up. There's even something that I read this morning that I want to check out for myself inregards to ocean temperatures and that they take a while to respond to different warm and cold trends.

2) We have warmed up after the little ice age. Even though we had some dips of cold trends along the way.

3) We are learning more about the Sun, since we have better telescopes.

4) We have better equipment now to collect data. - Satelites, but we still need to have better earth temperature reading stations.

I just don't feel we should just jump to conclusions and yes that's what I think the scientific body did in respect to correlating CO2 is the driving force of this warming trend we experienced. I feel they pushed every other possiblity aside, since it didn't fit their paradigm or what they were supposed to prove. Why they were supposed to prove it I don't know?

I feel they could of gained more peoples support just by saying we are concerned about the rising CO2 levels and that we aren't sure if changing our habits will make a dent in what we are observing happening or not, but we feel it would be prudent that we do so. The other thing I see is that people on here think that change can happen overnight. It can't, but it is happening all you have to do is go to websites of power companies and automobile companies to see the changes that are taking place. I give it ten years to see all the different higher mileage cars on the road, since it's more realistic to understand that people can't just afford to trade their cars in for a different car. Or think they can just find a different mode of transportation to get to work.

What I observe occuring is heavy handed tactics, when they didn't need to do that. As you can see on this answer page that scare tactics only causes people to think up crazy end of the World type scenarios. I'm sure a lot of us are sick to death of answering those types of questions on here.

Answer 8

If it is U want me to believe a lie, forget it.. Examine your data it is garbage..  

Answer 9

First off there should be no "public" debate.  It should be a scientific debate conducted by scientists.  Having Al Gore and Rush Limbaugh debate climatology is just as useless as George Bush discussing the pro and cons of quantum string theory.  It is all hogwash.

What actions if any is a political question and is open for public debate.

As a scientist, I always leave room for doubt.  Climatology by its very nature cannot prove anything, there is room doubt.   It is not like the second law of thermodynamics which can be derived and tested.

Answer 10

I'm educated enough to say without a doubt it can happen. But have enough tangible sense to realize it may not. Especially in the Doom's Day scenario's. Myself like most skeptics believe, it needs to be substantiated before propagated. Omission is the key ingredient in the (Alarmist's) agenda. Most but not all are isolated incidences that have been occurring pre modernized man and some pre humanoid existence. Others are natural cause and effect relationships. This is noted in the area of hemispheric relationships and simple seasonal variations. I guess the bottom line is to make sure you tag home plate before doing a victory dance.

Answer 11

I think that I have an open mind on global warming. We don’t know everything that there is to know about climatology, and nor will we ever know everything.

However, the greenhouse theory is based on some pretty simple and established physics. Certain gases, “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere absorb outgoing infrared radiation. An increase in greenhouse gases will absorb more infrared radiation.  It would revolutionize the scientific world and the field of climatology if this notion of greenhouse gases was proven to be incorrect.

So, while I remain open-minded, I believe that the foundation of the science of climatology will remain solid.

Answer 12

Of course I'm open.  But to date, I'm still waiting for conclusive evidence that humans are the even a significant fraction of what we've been told, let alone the main cause.  The argument the AGW believers rely on the most is the use of scare tactics and that's definitely not reliable or even ethical.  And so far on the rare occasion I do see some information that does seem legitimate, I find more convincing information that is able to refute it. So yes I'm open, but I guess it's my nature as an American to be skeptical about something government and the media are so gung-ho to jump aboard.  

Answer 13

I'm always open-minded to new data and information.  For example, I found Svensmark's cosmic ray theory intriguing when it first came out, but subsequent studies have proven that it simply can't explain the recent warming.

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/global...

As Benjamin noted, AGW is based on solid fundamental physics.  For it to be wrong, somebody has to find a forcing which could overwhelm the 1.6 W/m^2 from CO2.  Some argue solar effects - well, solar irradiance is a forcing more than an order of magnitude weaker than CO2 alone, and its output has not increased as the planet has warmed over the past 30 years.  Blaming the Sun requires ignoring physics.

If somebody can come up with an explanation of why the 37% increase in CO2 has not caused significant warming, and what unknown forcing is stronger than that from greenhouse gases, I'm certainly open to it.  I just don't see it happening.

Answer 14

I am both open minded and entrenched in my position.

My position is that the individual should be free to do as he pleases so long as his chosen activity harms no one else, and the necessary corollary to that is that the burden of proof as to that harm rests with those seeking to forcibly curtail and/or tax the activity in question, not with those who wish to engage in the activity, especially if it is productive activity (because it's not just the actor whose interests are at stake, it's the consumers for whom the actor is acting).

That position is firm.    I will not change it.

My mind is always open to examples of activities that do cause harm, and to evidence of causation of harm.

Prove that cars in Boston cause droughts in Kenya and I will include AGW on the list of harms caused by people's activity.

I do not say it "can't" be us, or it necessarily is not us - it is usually impossible to prove a negative, and it is not my burden to prove a negative.    I simply point out the fact that that AGW has not been proven.    Someday perhaps it will be.    Until then it is antithetical to a free society to limit activity simply because you suspect, though cannot, despite tens of billions of dollars spent to attempt to, prove said causation.

Dana seems to think that because CO2 traps some heat, the burden of proof shifts to the skeptics.   This is ludicrous - the fact that it's been warmer, and it's been as warm, and it's been almost as warm, for hundreds of years, sometimes thousands of years, as it has been for the last twenty, even though CO2 levels during each of those periods were stable and lower than today, means that there are other factors.   The fact that we do not fully understand (and in some cases do not understand at all) what caused those prior warm periods means there are factors that we do not know about.

This makes sense since climate science is in its infancy relative to other sciences.

If four hours after you eat my salad, you become sick, it does not prove salmonella.   You have, I am certain, had stomach viruses and past unexplained maladies that caused you to toss your dinner.   Traces of salmonella on my cutting board woud prove that what made you sick was my salad.   There are no such traces here.

I am not sure I should have used that analogy since I do make a really, really good chunky salad.

Answer 15

Open minded-- just not right this minute. As soon as I see the SAT data for about another 10-15 years, plus the solar data for the same future time period, I will make a final decision.