Who are the most un-biased/credible scientists who believe that GW is man made....read on?

Question

By that, I mean ones that are perhaps not funded by the government, or simply have a good reputation as scientist.

Answer 1

I would like to address the "obvious liar", the first reply.

To suggest that man does not affect the natural balance is just ludicrous.  

The conservative media has distorted the reality.  Thousands of scientists, worldwide, have determined that unusual climate change has been caused by human endeavor.   Only a few have claimed otherwise.  Nevertheless, both sides have been given the same amount of press until recently.  Most of the, so-called science saying that the change happening now is natural has been overwhelmingly been disproved.  Many of these scientists have been proved paid by oil interests.

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/

Answer 2

"Not funded by the government"?  Here in the U.S. the Bush administration is full of oil industry insiders who would love to disprove global warming, and have a long record of censoring and softening reports on global warming.

Similarly, many scientists are pissed that the IPCC government review process softened their warnings about the likely effects of global warming.

If the government were not involved, its bias towards denial would have less of an influence, Americans would be much better educated on the subject, and we'd be a lot farther along in doing something about it.

Answer 3

How about Stephen Hawking?

Answer 4

A lot of the scientist who 'put their names' to the GW theories say that they dont actually endorse what those theories say. But global warming has happened over and over in the past, well before we lit our first factory chimney. That it is our fault is just another frightener from the various govts to take our minds of their hidden agendas.

Answer 5

It's a tricky question, since 'reputation' is based on how one is spoken of by others.  The folks with an agenda speak very highly of others serving that same agenda.

Truth matters.  The last deadly Ice Age ended ten thousand years ago. The glaciers have been driven back 2,000 miles and the oceans have risen hundreds of feet - all this before man ever became industrialized.

That is the Truth.  Anyone blaming mankind for what nature has been doing for thousands of years is an obvious liar.

Answer 6

How about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change set up by the World Meteorological Organization at the U.N.?  "Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they need to deal objectively with policy relevant scientific, technical and socio economic factors. They should be of high scientific and technical standards, and aim to reflect a range of views, expertise and wide geographical coverage."  They just released a conclusive report in 2007 indicating beyond the shadow of a doubt that global warming is human induced.  They won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts.

Answer 7

You know,, I understand that people have low opinions of scientists... you all suck up the mad scientists of the movies, and no one even cares about all the good things that science has brought forth... that being said, why does everyone assume that every scientist's personal ethics are for sale, based on who funds them?

   If any of you know any real research scientists, speak up.

For my own part, I recall my former peers as being precise, accurate and immovable in their opinions and methods. I never met a pure scientist who was afraid to pick a fight with their employer.

Most of you have no idea how hard it is to do pure research. It requires ultimate personal discipline and precision. The politics of global warming (which is what you talk about here) is left to the second-echelon, the people who failed out or never could take the pressure of hard science- the teachers (sorry!), professors and applied scientists- these are the talking heads.

Most climatologists are too busy to worry about the political ramification of their work... the ones who talk so much are obviously not giving 100% to their research, which makes them suspect.

Answer 8

This is an excellent question that many of us have wished to put with a good range of answers.

If I had an oil well that was capable of producing 6,000,000,000,000 litres of oil/gas a year and then set fire to its output, I would expect the result to modify a lot of things in this world, including climate.

Is this not what mankind is doing?

I would like to think that there is a clever conspiracy going on

about GW  and you would expect industry to be the last to accept it because of the massive overheads it is going to create for them. But when you get companies like IBM acknowledging it and pumping huge sums into it, then you have to admit that there is probably something in it.

I've been sitting on the fence for some time now but something tells me I'm about to fall off.

Answer 9

Julie- all i can say to your answer is BO!!OCKS. The IPCC leave out any info that suggests climate change could be natural and they add lies to their reports.

Dana1981 - i am totally shocked that you even admit that you get your info from wikipedia

Answer 10

It's refreshing to see someone looking to science for credibility on this matter!

First it must be said that the science community believes global warming is *both* man-made and natural.  This is a key point a lot of people are missing.  Science long ago established that climate change has occurred over earth's long history.  The more recent data about the human factor in its *acceleration* can be found at a number of science-oriented websites.

In a related recent answer, I spent a lot of time compiling a list of credible research organizations and equally credible sites that report on their conclusions.  For your question I've retrieved that list and edited out some reputable sources -- including science sites reviewed by scientists -- because while they also believe that humans are involved, they are mostly distilling and *reporting* the data, and I felt that wasn't fair or relevant to your question.  This new list focuses more directly on research groups.  

In the interest of full disclosure, some of these *are* funded by the government, but I believe they fit your "or" requirement of having a good reputation for science.  NASA, for example, has over the decades provided us unprecedented and vast data, leading to a great deal of what we now know about our planet and its atmosphere.  Its Nimbus-7 satellite confirmed the existence of the ozone hole (discovered by the British Antarctic Survey), and provided mankind our first image of the damage, waking some people up to the inadvertent destructive power of human activity on our atmosphere.  Ozone depletion due almost entirely to human use of CFCs wasn't taken seriously either -- sound familiar? -- until a decade after scientists suggested it.  We owe them a profound vote of credibility as they warn us now about global climate change.

"Climate Science From Climate Scientists" - a nonprofit group of scientists.  Click the 'people' tab for individual bios.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/arc...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/arc...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/arc...

The Union of Concerned Scientists - a not-for-profit alliance of scientists who research air quality, alternative energy sources, and the impact of global warming

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/sci...

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/sci...

The National Center For Atmospheric Research

http://www.ncar.ucar.edu/research/climat...

The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research - a nonprofit consortium of research universities

http://www.ucar.edu/webcasts/voices/#

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/2...

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environ...

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/eart...

American Geophysical Union - a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 50,000 members from over 140 countries

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

Answer 11

I’d say that anyone who submits their research into the peer-review process is credible.

Answer 12

The National Academy of Sciences would be at the top of my list.  No one has ever been able to successfully attack their credibility.

These guys would be a close second place:

The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Physics, the American Chemical Society, the American Meteorological Association, etc.

Note that speakeasy says all these tens of thousands of scientists are "obvious liars".  Not a credible statement.

Answer 13

I  can't really answer your question because the most credible scientists are the ones who are funded by "the government" (i.e. receive research grants from institutions like the National Science Foundation and/or work for public universities or government institutions like NASA).

Personally I think the most credible scientist with regards to global warming is probably James Hansen, but as the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), you would automatically deem him biased or not credible.  Even though he's been doing climate science research for 40 years, developed some of the earliest and best climate models, and has actually had to battle the government's censorship of his work.

I mean, is he less credible than some petroleum geologist who receives funding from Exxon Mobile and/or the George Marshall Institute - private entities with clear global warming agendas?