I've been overwhelmingly busy for the last few weeks, so I dropped the ball
on the free will arguments. Since I'm still very busy, and since I'm at the
point where I need to do serious work to make a proper rigorous argument on
that front now, I'd like to beg y'all indulgence and table that for a few
weeks, but still quickly jump in here.
> You don't have to believe them, or me or anyone. Today?s topic
> had different atmosphere professors, by the video it looked to be
> over years from the early 80?s to now and one said this and one
> said that and the next said something else. Their point was that
> even when you have an open mind and really know the facts you can
> still disagree on the outcome. These are experts and their
> statements ranged from doomsday to not enough data to absolutely
> nothing to worry about. So are you going to believe a newscaster
> or politician or worse some actor when they TELL you that they
> KNOW we are destroying the world?
>
> Bad news sells.
>
While I certainly agree that predictions that we are literally destroying
the world are vastly overstated, GWB's stated viewpoint on global warming is
several standard deviations understated from the most probable outcome. GWB
has stated that there is still debate and uncertainty in the scientific
community concerning the connection between the increase in the amount of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and an increase in the mean global
temperature. I'll agree that is technically true. It is possible to find
experts witnesses that will argue that way. However, it is also possible to
pull out expert witnesses that will claim that the evidence that linked OJ
to the murders is inconclusive or the evidence for evolution is dubious.
(There are tenured PhD biologists at major schools who have become
creationists.)
Instead of relying on a unanimous opinion within the scientific community,
it is reasonable to rely on the consensus opinion. That is often hard to
get from news reports, but it is possible.
First, one can look at general groups. For example, there is a NRC
(National Research Council) report at
http://www.nap.edu/books/0309068916/html/
which addresses the magnitude of the change over the last decade.
The nature of this council is defined at
http://www.nas.edu/nrc/
with the following words:
...the National Research Council has become the principal operating agency
of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of
Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the
scientific and engineering communities. The National Research Council is
administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine.
Second, even the scientists who are in the "global warming skeptic" camp are
not arguing that there will be no global warming as a function of the change
in CO2. Let me quote one of them from
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/970719/features.html
Of all people, Michaels insists there could be. "When it comes to it, the
modelers and the skeptics are not so far apart," he says. Indeed, if
pressed, Michaels, Lindzen, Spencer and other skeptics suggest a doubling of
CO2 in the atmosphere would raise average temperatures by between 1 and 1.5
�C. And 1.5 �C is the bottom end of the modelers range of predictions.
The models are predicting between 1.5C and 4.5C of change with the doubling
of carbon dioxide.
Ancient data also supports the correlation between greenhouse gasses and
temperature. That can be seen at:
http://www.nicl-smo.sr.unh.edu/icwg/fig2.html
It also indicates that the last 30 years are the warmest in 1000 years, with
some indication that the last 30 years are the warmest 30 years in the past
3000.
So, when GWB argues that the jury is out and we need to wait to see if
global warming as a result of carbon dioxide emissions is real, he's not
being prudent, he's in denial.
Dan M.
