Global Warming. Fact or grossly exaggerated??
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Are Humans Causing Global Warming? Ask Floyd Landis.
Sat, Apr 21 2012 11:30 | Permalink
Blog Post for Columbia University Press
The earth is warming. But can we be sure that humans are the cause? Yes. The same way cycling officials were sure that biker Floyd Landis doped with synthetic testosterone while winning the 2006 Tour de France.
With Lance Armstrong retired and most of the other top riders expelled for illegal drug use, Landis had become one of the favorites. He was leading when in stage 16 he fell to eleventh place. Then, just as his chances of winning seemed dashed, Landis won the next stage going away and went on to ride the Champs-Élysées in the winner’s yellow jersey.
A few days later, Landis’s team announced he had failed a test for banned steroids. Landis appealed the ban, raised an estimated $1M for his defense, and wrote a 300-page book titled, “Positively False: the Real Story of how I won the Tour de France.”
After years of denial, in 2010 Landis reversed himself and admitted that from 2002 through 2006 he had used a grab-bag of banned substances and methods. Why did he finally have to give up his denial? Because the carbon isotope test proved beyond reasonable doubt that he had doped with synthetic testosterone.
Testosterone is mostly carbon. Synthetic testosterone is made entirely from plants, which have a different carbon isotope ratio than our environment overall. The carbon in Landis’s body had the distinctive plant ratio, proving beyond reasonable doubt that he had doped with synthetic testosterone.
So how do scientists use the method to confirm that humans are causing global warming?
Since 1800, CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere has risen 40% and because of the greenhouse effect, warmed the planet. The obvious source of the added carbon is the 330 billion tons of carbon that burning fossil fuels has added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. Yet global warming deniers deny this obvious fact. Well then, let’s prove it.
First, coal, oil, and natural gas also come from plants and also have the distinctive carbon isotope ratio of plants. As CO2 in the atmosphere has built up steadily, its isotopic composition has shifted just as steadily in the direction of plant carbon. That tells us the added carbon is coming from plants. But what kind of plants? That question we can also answer.
One carbon isotope, C14, is radioactive and dies away to undetectable levels in 50,000 years or so. Fossil fuels, being millions of years old, have no C14 left. Adding ancient carbon should have lowered the proportion of C14 in the atmosphere—and it has. For the last 50 years, as the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has increased, its C14 ratio has fallen steadily.
Just as the carbon isotopes prove that Landis doped his body, they prove beyond reasonable doubt that humans are doping the atmosphere with ancient plant carbon, carbon from fossil fuels.
Unlike people, isotopes do not lie.
James L. Powell
Are Humans Causing Global Warming? Ask Floyd Landis.
Sat, Apr 21 2012 11:30 | Permalink
Blog Post for Columbia University Press
The earth is warming. But can we be sure that humans are the cause? Yes. The same way cycling officials were sure that biker Floyd Landis doped with synthetic testosterone while winning the 2006 Tour de France.
With Lance Armstrong retired and most of the other top riders expelled for illegal drug use, Landis had become one of the favorites. He was leading when in stage 16 he fell to eleventh place. Then, just as his chances of winning seemed dashed, Landis won the next stage going away and went on to ride the Champs-Élysées in the winner’s yellow jersey.
A few days later, Landis’s team announced he had failed a test for banned steroids. Landis appealed the ban, raised an estimated $1M for his defense, and wrote a 300-page book titled, “Positively False: the Real Story of how I won the Tour de France.”
After years of denial, in 2010 Landis reversed himself and admitted that from 2002 through 2006 he had used a grab-bag of banned substances and methods. Why did he finally have to give up his denial? Because the carbon isotope test proved beyond reasonable doubt that he had doped with synthetic testosterone.
Testosterone is mostly carbon. Synthetic testosterone is made entirely from plants, which have a different carbon isotope ratio than our environment overall. The carbon in Landis’s body had the distinctive plant ratio, proving beyond reasonable doubt that he had doped with synthetic testosterone.
So how do scientists use the method to confirm that humans are causing global warming?
Since 1800, CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere has risen 40% and because of the greenhouse effect, warmed the planet. The obvious source of the added carbon is the 330 billion tons of carbon that burning fossil fuels has added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. Yet global warming deniers deny this obvious fact. Well then, let’s prove it.
First, coal, oil, and natural gas also come from plants and also have the distinctive carbon isotope ratio of plants. As CO2 in the atmosphere has built up steadily, its isotopic composition has shifted just as steadily in the direction of plant carbon. That tells us the added carbon is coming from plants. But what kind of plants? That question we can also answer.
One carbon isotope, C14, is radioactive and dies away to undetectable levels in 50,000 years or so. Fossil fuels, being millions of years old, have no C14 left. Adding ancient carbon should have lowered the proportion of C14 in the atmosphere—and it has. For the last 50 years, as the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has increased, its C14 ratio has fallen steadily.
Just as the carbon isotopes prove that Landis doped his body, they prove beyond reasonable doubt that humans are doping the atmosphere with ancient plant carbon, carbon from fossil fuels.
Unlike people, isotopes do not lie.
James L. Powell
Well Moviefan's conclusion is conspiracy theory.For what it's worth, from http://www.jamespowell.org
I (James) had previously reviewed peer-reviewed scientific articles from 2013 with the topics, or keyword phrases, "global warming" and "global climate change,". They numbered 1,911. I have now also reviewed articles from 2013 with the keyword phrase "climate change," finding 8,974. Combining the searches, 2013 saw 10,885 articles under one or more of the three phrases. Only two articles [see here and here] in my judgment rejected anthropogenic global warming.
Combining this result with my earlier studies (see here and here), over several years I have reviewed 25,182 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals. Only 26, about 1 in 1,000, in my judgment reject anthropogenic global warming. I describe my methodology here.
...
What can we conclude?
....
North pole is on water, South pole is on land. That means the NP is heated from above and below while the SP just from above.
As opposed to the consensus of science.
Reminds of that classic.
There we were 3 against a 1000. We held them off for four days, but they just kept coming, until finally, victory.
Toughest three we ever fought.
I examined the Cook research earlier in this thread and demonstrated that it is absolute garbage (as is that even bigger piece of propaganda trash, the Doran paper cited by Groggy). Since this guy says Cook provided "invaluable technical expertise," I'm sure the same is true of his work.
Ah, the latest in basketcase's ongoing misrepresentations of my replies. Actually, my vote is for real-world evidence over horribly flawed computer-model projections.
I'm surprised that you actually believe the IPCC is apolitical. I'm assuming you also believe in Santa Claus and feel that anyone who doesn't share your belief is part of a "conspiracy theory."
I hope Santa was good to you this past Christmas, basketcase.
However, when you get a little older, I have some news for you....
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And before someone inevitably asks, I didn't have to make any effort to find the latest evidence of political biases in the IPCC. Here's today's Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/07/floods-gales-un-climate-change-extreme-weather
Let's pull a select quote from IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri:
"Countries have to decide what would be the implications of inaction"?
Sorry, but politically neutral scientists aren't allowed to make such claims.
So much for the "conspiracy theory" idiocy.
You may have examined it, but didn't show anything of the kind.
Why aren't scientist allowed to make such statements. They are warning all governments of all stripes to get their act together, and they are telling them the truth.
Because science is about discovering truths about the world, not winning political arguments.
As many of us know all too well, anyone who is political and engages in political debates loses the ability to be objective. You instinctively tend to favour evidence that supports your argument, and discount or downplay evidence that doesn't support your position.
Science can't work that way. All evidence has to be considered, regardless of whether or not you "like" the evidence.
By the way, I didn't say Pachauri was being partisan, I said he was being political. Taking a position on matters that are to be decided by politicians and government is being political, even if you are offering your political advice to all parties.
Clearly you didn't read or understand an earlier post that showed that science is just not that simple. There are some basic understanding that half to be believed, as of today unprovable, in order to study sciences. Science is full of uncertainties and estimations.
The scientist you hi-lighted as supposedly playing was doing not such thing. He was just laying out the facts as almost the whole climate research community sees it.
In fact, he was arguing for government action, going so far as to say that action is needed immediately and that "countries have to decide."
That is not simply stating the findings of his research.
That's really the whole problem. The IPCC has an agenda. You may support that agenda. But it doesn't change the fact that the existence of the agenda means the IPCC's reports are advancing that an agenda.
Claims that the agenda exist are easily provable (I didn't look any further than today's newspapers). To say that I am engaging in a "conspiracy theory" is pure idiocy, given how easy it is to prove that the agenda exists.
No, he wasn't being political or winning political arguments. As a qualified scientist, he is certainly more qualified, than the pseudo scientists, carpenters, bakers, and candlestick makers, to tell the countries' leaders how serious the situation is and to get things done to deal with.
Science is about uncovering truths about the natural world, not gathering proof points to support arguments to government.
This is a huge issue and the primary reason why so many people are skeptical. It's the primary reason I'm a skeptic.
As much as Groggy and others like to think I've been brainwashed by Big Oil, the Koch Brothers, the Heartland Institute, etc., the reality is that climate research represents the worst of politicized science. It is pseudo science. It is the gathering of information to support an argument, not to determine whether there is any merit to the theory of anthropogenic global warming.
Science must be separate from politics. Completely separate, to the greatest extent possible. The fact that so many of the leading climate researchers (Mann, Schmitt, Jones, Hansen, etc.) can't see that only fuels enormous doubts about the IPCC's reports.
Personally, I think the IPCC jumped the shark quite some time ago. It convinces no one other than the believers, and has no legitimacy among skeptics.
No, what you said is that the 10,000 authors who published on anthropogenic causes of climate change last year, they lied due to a political agenda and the 2 who published opposing it are the only ones who could see the truth.
And that isn't a conspiracy theory?
So in your world, when the vast majority of scientists see climate change as having a major negative impact on human life and society worldwide they should just keep quiet? Science is also about solving problems.
You should really take that to heart. Thousands upon thousands of scientists followed the evidence to the clear conclusion of humanity having an impact on climate change yet somehow you know better.
Another falsehood.
In fact, I said the claim about the "95% certainty" was motivated by the IPCC's political agenda -- a political agenda that was confirmed by the chair of the IPCC in his comments in a newspaper today.
I didn't say they should keep quiet. They can speak about the findings. They can pursue research to find scientific solutions (something the researchers never seem to do, for obvious reasons). Indeed, if they really think this is an issue, that is exactly what they should be doing.
But they can't be advancing arguments to governments.
If politicians and others want to take up the cause, that's one thing. But when the researchers themselves become politicized, they can no longer claim to be engaged in "science."
If you disagree with me on that point, then that confirms that you don't know what science is.
Not quite. Their beliefs are based on their confidence in their computer models. The "evidence" has been quite unkind to their beliefs.
By the way, as has already been noted, "thousands upon thousands" of scientists (eg., the 36,000 members of the Institute of Physics in the U.K.) agree with me. So you should stop implying that "scientists" disagree with me. Some do, others don't. Also, climate researchers do not represent the "vast majority" of scientists.
Science is also about saving lives, through medicine, feeding the starving, through agronomy and examining the inner workings of the world and beyond through the likes of physics.
I don't think you're brainwashed just ignorant in the nicest of ways, of the world of science, just like those in earlier threads who said the scientist were just interested in padding their pay checks. Whether it's wilful or otherwise is tough to tell. Sometimes science and politics go hand in hand. Take the science of cloning. We know how, why, and even when, but it was decided by the powers to be not to go lightly into the realm of human cloning. There are limits set by politics, some might say ethics and guided by science. I'm not sure much the time where one stops and the other starts. Some countries have decided not to get involved in some aspect of nuclear science involving WMD's. That was a political reason and damn anyone to say if they were right or wrong.
The IPCC made the decisions and claimed they did based on the science at hand, which the largest majority of qualified scientist agreed with. Science that since then the research has been augmented by nearly 25% more data and knowledge based information in a mere 5 years. To take actions and find out we were early harms no one, but to be late can doom everyone.
I find it quite easy to determine how to divide the line.
The IPCC could be one of two things:
-- It could be an organization that plays a leading role in overseeing scientific research into the theory of global warming, producing research findings on a regular basis.
-- It could be an advocacy organization that works on behalf of the U.N. to get governments to implement changes that the U.N. believes are in mankind's best interests.
Unfortunately, the IPCC has tried to do both. As a result, it isn't credible as a scientific organization.
Scientific research and political agendas don't mix. Nothing good can come from politicized research.
The IPCC could be one of two things:
-- It could be an organization that plays a leading role in overseeing scientific research into the theory of global warming, producing research findings on a regular basis.
-- It could be an advocacy organization that works on behalf of the U.N. to get governments to implement changes that the U.N. believes are in mankind's best interests.
Unfortunately, the IPCC has tried to do both. As a result, it isn't credible as a scientific organization.
Scientific research and political agendas don't mix. Nothing good can come from politicized research.
A great many more people, many with more of an understanding of things scientific feel the opposite. Science and politics as shown in my example do mix.
