How long will AGW Alarmism persist?

Question

What will it take to dispel the AGW theory?

How many inconsistencies will have to take place before the public will no longer tolerate waffling?

I've already heard some scientists presenting back-up plans to keep the theory alive such as the earth might cool for a number of years as natural factors will temporarily overwhelm AGW. If this does become the official stance of "respected scientific organizations" will the public accept this?

Obviously, there is much at stake. How firmly will scientists hold to their consensus view. It appears numbers have already been "worked" to support the consensus view. (Mann's graph) (Hansen's, the global warming alarmist in chief's recent temperature blunder.

What will be the result of a large number of people scrambling to protect their reputations.

Will anyone be held accountable?

Sorry for so many questions. I'll give you a little prediction of my own. Alarmists will say I am starting with a false premise. I say all of their beloved computer models do the same.

Answer 1

T.J. Nelson has already disproved the AGW theory at his website: http://brneurosci.org/co2.html Nelson asks: "Therefore, it is theoretically possible for increases in CO2 to cause increases in surface temperature. The question is, is the amount of warming enough to be significant?"

And the answer is: "CO2 is more evenly distributed than water, so if CO2 caused warming it would have a proportionately greater effect in areas where there is little water vapor (such as deserts and in very cold regions), while in areas with a lot of water, the effect of CO2 may be insignificant compared to the effect of water vapor. This is one of many factors that mitigate against the idea of a "climate catastrophe."

"The net effect of all these processes is that doubling carbon dioxide would not double the amount of global warming. In fact, the effect of carbon dioxide is roughly logarithmic. Each time carbon dioxide (or some other greenhouse gas) is doubled, the increase in temperature is the same as the previous increase. The reason for this is that, eventually, all the longwave radiation that can be absorbed has already been absorbed. It would be analogous to closing more and more shades over the windows of your house on a sunny day -- it soon reaches the point where doubling the number of shades can't make it any darker."

"The analogy with a greenhouse would be that the glass in the roof becomes slightly thicker. The effect of warming also depends on the conditions inside the greenhouse. If the greenhouse were full of ice at exactly -0.01 degrees Celsius, making the glass slightly thicker just might be enough to melt all the ice and flood the greenhouse. But if the greenhouse had some regions that were hot and some that were very cold (as the planet Earth does), it would have a very small overall effect."

"As an aside, the term "greenhouse effect" is actually a misnomer. In greenhouses, most of the warming that is observed is not caused by carbon dioxide, or by absorption of infrared radiation by the glass as many people think, but by reduction in convection." ...in fact, CO2 levels have only increased by 23.7% since 1900."

  

"Nelson's conclusion is very important: "large temperature increases predicted by many computer models are unphysical and inconsistent with results obtained by basic measurements. Skepticism is warranted when considering computer-generated projections of global warming that cannot even predict existing observations."

Answer 2

1) As long as the sponsors are willing to pay the bill for promoting it and as they are some of the richest people on the planet they can waste pocket money for a long time, at least until temps drop to the late 40s level.

2) The Co2 drives global warming thing has less value than nitrogen in a cars exhaust is a prime factor in smog. At least nitrogen gives smog its brown color all Co2 does is make plants grow better as does nitrogen. What have these greens got against plant food and fertilizer for plants that mage them grow better.

Really it is the biggest of the big oil conglomerates that is funding the whole AGW scam and they have from the begining.

Answer 3

*yawn*  These kinds of questions are such a bore.  

"When did you decide that AGW is a hoax?"  

"Did you know Al Gore's underpants have a carbon footprint bigger than Uzbekistan?"

"How many chucks would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck Al Gore?"

Until the deniers can present some solid scientific evidence to support their arguments, these sort of questions are just empty rhetoric.

Additional details:

"The false premise is that CO2 drives climate change."

Greenhouse effect.

"There are an unknown amount of likely very important variables that do not go into the climate models."

Wow, what a bizarre, vague, and utterly unsubstantiated statement.

"It appears from historical records shoe that CO2 is an effect of temperature change, not necessarily the cause."

CO2 is both a feedback and a forcing.

Convince me that CO2 has caused any of the numerous past climate changes and I will be more open to the possiblility"

Impossible.  You're unwilling to be convinced.  Fact is that after the '800 year lag', CO2 drove climate change for thousands of years afterwards.  That's why CO2 and global temperature graphs line up so well.

Of course this is a moot point.  Greenhouse effect.

"Ken, It seems to me you are saying AGW is in essense the theory of everything. It cannot be proven wrong, because it accounts for all variables. Brilliant!"

Give me a break.  AGW does not require a 1-to-1 correspondance between CO2 and global temperature.  There are many other forcings and natural variations.  By oversimplifying the theory, you ensure that in your mind, it's wrong.

It's a strawman argument.  Nobody (except the deniers) claims that temperatures should follow CO2 precisely.

Answer 4

Will you still be saying this when all of our coastal cities are underwater?  Arguing with you people islike arguing with people who believe in alien abductions or the flat earth theory.  People don't take you seriously because you're a waste of time.  Go away.

Answer 5

Here are some ideas to dispel the AGW theory:

- stop science classes

- destroy sprectrophotometers in the US

- ban IR astronomy

- send 95% of scientists to work camps

- disband universities of science

- burn books and publications on atmospheric physics

- forbid comparisons of models with observed results on the poles

- increase by 1m the coastal level everywhere so that Bangladesh does not notice the rising sea level

- ignore the concentrations of greenhouse gases

- pretend CO2 is not a greenhouse gas

Answer 6

The "alarmism" will persist until someone does something about it.  

To be sure, there is always a slight possibility that we may be wrong.  But that is no excuse not to act.  There is a slight possibility that we are wrong about just about anything.  For example, there is a slight possibility that we are wrong about the theory that exercise is good for you.  That doesn't mean we don't do it.  

If you think the computer models are starting with a false premise, what exactly is that false premise, and how do you know it's false?

Answer 7

The global warming alarmist announcements were well planned and well timed, designed to give maximum scare in miminum time.  But the whole silly, moronic thing is falling apart and the buffoons who support it are fading too.

Very soon, when people realize they've spent too much money and nothing has happened or is going to happen it will die out completely.  Then the AGW zealots will be put in prisons where they belong.

Answer 8

The point is the burden of proof remains on the alarmists.

Since when does ANY denier need to provide an alternate theory or scientific evidence? Empirical evidence is all that's required since this is a logics based argument which disproves the validity of the global warming theory propounded by the alarmists.

Firstly the premise is that man-made carbon emissions are causing global warming. The empirical evidence does not line up = theory invalid. It does not matter how good your methodology is, the theory is not validated by you invalidating other theories or providing "better science".

Now I know that individuals conveniently change the parameters of this hypothesis to cover more possibilities. That's the beauty of empirical evidence, you can't fudge it. Ppl can measure themselves by observation so the premises of your theory must constantly evolve to cover those variables. I have to say you're doing a reasonable job there but please use a bit of logic. It's just irrational to try to prove the validity of a theory that began with a false assumption

Answer 9

Gosh! What a lot of questions in one question!

Taking them from the top:

1 - This is a "when did you stop beating your wife?" question hence is inherently unanswerable: Most definitions of "alarmist" include the word "needlessly". There is not much 'needless' about trying to prevent major economic damage and possibly much worse based on probable scenarios!

2 - Good science, hard facts, revised data: The normal stuff. Unfortunately for you, so far, no denier (sorry, 'sceptic') seems willing or able to provide any data that dispels AGW theory.

Sceptics only provide supporting data 32% of the time ('alarmists' do so 71% of the time) and even when they do give links, 20% of the time they are to wiki or blogs (alarmists only do this 3.5% of the time), Fact is, 'Alarmists' are eight times as likely as 'Deniers' are to use credible, scientific sources as support (64% vs 7.5%)

3 - No idea; you're asking for individual opinions on how the world's population will react to a hypothetical situation based on a falsehood - don't know what sort of credible answers you expected!

4 - I doubt anyone will be held accountable - not the selfish excessive consumers, not the drill-at-any-cost oil guys and not scientists who were doing their best to understand this complex issue in the off chance that they are wrong.

There is, however, a slight possibility that countries that carry on contributing to AGW even after reasonable time was allowed to start correcting their ways may have to pay compensation (hence the lawsuits already launched against the USA).

Ooooh: You got the last one right! Does that mean you knew you were starting with a false premise and did it deliberately?

Let me make my own prediction: I'll get more thumbs down than up; if I get this right will you concede that the rest of my answer is right?

(In other words, another example of poor casual relationship logic)

Answer 10

James E: your understanding of plant ecology seems even more ignorant than your understanding of climatology.  First of all, atmospheric nitrogen is not available to plants.  Second of all, nitrogen deposition and increasing CO2 levels -- although they make stimulate plant growth -- have an overall negative effect on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. So the blanket statement that CO2 and nitrogen helps plant growth is misleading and inaccurate.

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Master_B:  I would argue that it is the responsibility of the "denier" to educate themselves and read some science.  The scientific evidence is overwhelming that humans contribute to climate change.  I can only link the literature so many times -- now it's your responsibility to read it!

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/publications...

http://journals.royalsociety.org/content...

http://www.dvgu.ru/meteo/library/3076000...

http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/mpa/publi...

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ab...

Answer 11

Look at the UPSIDE of WG, if wasn't for it, you would have a LOOOOOOOOOOT less people looking at looking at different ways of taking care of picking their trash, recycling and being more sensible about wasting resources.

Answer 12

It really matters not if CO2 is the driver. It's still a green house gas(GHG), that not only retains/absorbs heat. But due the crystalline properties of carbon it reflects it back into the earths atmosphere. The major difference between past and present climates, have more to do with natural variability offsetting retention values.

Answer 13

The theory of AGW does not promote alarm-ism. Only those who deny the science perpetuate a myth of alarm-ism. Organizations like the IPCC have provided a range of scenarios. They didn't say it would be 5 degrees warmer next year. They did say it COULD be 5 degrees warmer by 2100. If you took that to be a display of alarm-ism on their part, that's your poor interpretation. And show me Hansen's blunder. Better yet, show me anything but the unsubstantiated, unscientific opinion you're passing off as fact. Just one link to a respected scientific organization, please!!! I emphasize RESPECTED!

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/clim...

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/rese...

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/positi...

http://www.geosociety.org/positions/pos1...

http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_...

http://nationalacademies.org/onpi/060720...

http://www.ipcc.ch/

Answer 14

You wrote: "I've already heard some scientists presenting back-up plans to keep the theory alive such as the earth might cool for a number of years as natural factors will temporarily overwhelm AGW."

Apparently you don't understand the basics of the theory of AGW.  There is nothing in AGW theory that says the temperature rise will be constant or linear, so clearly there's no need for any "back-up" plans.  The theory of AGW has always (if you read some scientific literature you'd know this) recognized natural climate factors that will work with or against the radiative forces of AGW, causing short-term periods of cooling or even more rapid warming.  In fact, one of Hansen's paper in the 80's projected a cooling trend falling a moderate volcano eruption in the 90's.  He was right.