Study Finds World Warmth Edging to Ancient Levels 534
Krishna Dagli writes to mention a decades-long study by NASA scientists. According to the research, global temperatures are reaching highs not seen in thousands of years. From the article: "One of the findings from this collaboration is that the Western Equatorial Pacific and Indian Oceans are now as warm as, or warmer than, at any prior time in the Holocene. The Holocene is the relatively warm period that has existed for almost 12,000 years, since the end of the last major ice age. The Western Pacific and Indian Oceans are important because, as these researchers show, temperature change there is indicative of global temperature change. Therefore, by inference, the world as a whole is now as warm as, or warmer than, at any time in the Holocene. According to Lea, 'The Western Pacific is important for another reason, too: it is a major source of heat for the world's oceans and for the global atmosphere.'"
Historical Data Readings (Score:1, Insightful)
Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ [runfatboy.net] - Exercise for the rest of us.
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:1, Insightful)
It all depends on which agenda they're pushing, or who's funding them.
Are you and the previous poster both, by any chance, on the payroll of Phillip Morris? Either state facts as to how this study does or does not show statistical significance for their conclusions and error bars or stop spreading this "all science is just opinion" bull crap.
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:An Inconvenient Truth (Score:3, Insightful)
*This doesn't necessarily correlate directly with those countries who have had the longest dependence on fossil fuels. But it's not so far off.
Stop Gravity Now! (Score:1, Insightful)
Now, I'm not saying that humans are helping things a long any, but there is NO way to do as the t-shirts say and "Stop Global Warming". Even if we reduce emmisions, we are still a threat of the Earth if by sheer numbers alone. We have far overshot the carrying capacity and are damaging the Earth, but I don't see all the environmentalists supporting, uh, "population correction".
There is way to much hype surrounding global warming. The global climate is getting warmer: fact. This is solely the fault of humanity and only humanity can stop it: fiction.
I'm not saying to screw with the Earth as much as we can, I'm just saying that the climate change is inevitable, especially considering the unfathomable amount of humans on this planet.
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:1, Insightful)
the most media-hyped environmental issue of all (Score:2, Insightful)
He's right. This issue is being played so much by the media it is hard to get honest science. All in the name of money -- either from the latest blockbuster movie or a never-ending fountain of grant money.
Where's George Carlin when you need him?
Enough is enough /.! We are better than this! (Score:5, Insightful)
People who keep repeating that climate change is a conspiracy remind me of someone who has just been told they have a cancer and are in denial. WAKE UP! Ugh.
And another thing, how have we come to such a situation where these anti-evolutionist climate change deniers congregate to /.?
Not only do their numbers seem to be increasing, but I see people after all this time still engaging their mindless trolls!
This is the 21st century, we are a global society and as such I am personally confident that it is not a forgone conclusion that the human race is destined for a 'Bladerunner' future dystopia. However, the first step in avoiding such a fate is to acknowledge the true state of our reality. (...cue the trolls to say I'm somehow advocating the downfall of western civilization) ugh...
Re:An Inconvenient Truth (Score:2, Insightful)
I've gotta disagree with you there. Those who have the stongest economies* will have the less uncomfortable time of it. People can point fingers and complain all they want, but in the end, the quality of life will remain highest for those who have the best economies
I take it you weren't alive in 1973.
Those with the furthest to fall, will fall and it will not be a pleasant experience for anyone. With the astounding energy dependence of the USA I can't see it going very comfortably. Perhaps this is why the current administration is in such a state of denial, doctoring studies, saying all the facts aren't in yet, etc.
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:3, Insightful)
From the article:
"The California researchers obtained a record of tropical ocean surface temperatures from the magnesium content in the shells of microscopic sea surface animals, as recorded in ocean sediments."
. .
When applied over thousands of years, not bad. It is clearly warmer now than during the last ice age, innit?
When applied over the past thirty years the margin is larger than the measurement. If the graph on the linked site were in whole degrees over the past thousand years it would appear to the eye as a straight, level line.
This is not to say that small changes cannot have pronounced influence. They can. But we are talking about very small changes against comparitively large margins of error. The trend has been warming for quite some time. We really do not have a very good idea about what is happening now, nevermind why it is happening.
One thing seems clear to me though (Warning! Warning! Incoming opinion. Get a grip), while man may well be able to destablize environment, he is absolutely powerless to stablize it.
KFG
Re:Time Warp (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:3, Insightful)
Welcome to critical thinking where you have to gather info from various opposing sides and attempt to discern between the lies to gather what is often at best a blurry picture. But you're right in that you should pretty much never take what one side tells you for the truth, because then you're guarenteed to be wrong. (This goes along with the post above that says everyone lies, because everyone does by tilting it in their favor or framing it in their perspective)
like the world needs another theory... (Score:1, Insightful)
We evolved from other animals, any of which would, in our shoes, behave the same way we do. So we like electricity, automobiles, and such...how can this be defined as unnatural, and therefore be construed as BAD?
Whatever we may or may not do will effect the earth this way or that, we, as all other plants and animals, will, like always, evolve to survive in the new conditions that are forever being created by this mudball Earth. IMO, we cannot separate our actions from the rest of nature.
We are just doing what we were gifted to do to survive. If the planet warms, big deal. All that means is some variant of us more adapted to a hotter planet will thrive and displace us, until, of course, the earth cools again as it wavers up and down in the galactic plane.
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Time Warp (Score:5, Insightful)
This is true... there have been hot periods and cold periods in Earth's past. However, what many of these new findings are suggesting is that the current rate of change exceeds what happened previously. It's that things are heating up *really fast* that is being blamed on human intervention. Further, TFA notes that we are reaching the warmest Holocene temperatures... and we're *not slowing down* yet. That's a bit frightening.
And whether any of this is due to human action or not is, to a large extent, irrelevant. If you're sitting around the house with some friends and one of them points out that the drapes in the living room just caught fire, you don't sit there and argue over whether they caught fire because of faulty electrical, errant ashes from the fireplace, or the cat knocking over a candle. You do what you can to put out the #$(*#& fire! If valid science is suggesting serious problems ahead because of global warming, let's stop arguing and do something, anything, to try and stop it.
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:3, Insightful)
I would have to agree with this. A lot of 'scientific' reports are funded by political organizations that want to push an agenda. I find it hypocritical that SlashDot will rip apart and condemn a MS SQL benchmark article (for example) that has some MS funding but completely believe a scientific report on a political issue like global climate change - and yes, these days, it is a political issue.
I think there are fundamentally two kinds of thinking and everyone does both of them to some degree. You can develop an opinion and then look to find support, or you can analyze the data and use it to form an opinion. If you predominantly do the former you'll end up with opinions like you just expressed. People don't like MS and thus show reasons their numbers are wrong. People do like the idea of global warming, so they don't find reasons their numbers are wrong. I can sort of understand that perspective.
The other way to think is to look at the numbers from a MySQL study and see if they hold up, logically. Are all the number presented and the data to evaluate it including error or is it just PR? Use this analysis to form opinions on the study. Apply the same technique to the global warming studies. In this case, finding one study to be credible and another to not be is in no way hypocritical.
As for trying to judge the credibility of those presenting data to lie, well we look at motivations. Do people conducting a study for MS have motivation to skew the results in favor of the product MS is trying to generate marketing material for? Do the scientists who conducted this study have motivation to come up with false positives?
This particular study is culled from multiple, publicly available sources and includes that underlying data and the margin of error. Your approach of disbelieving everything is not a workable model as it is useless. Making decisions based upon emotion and then trying to support them is even worse for accuracy. The best we can do is look at the data and the people presenting it and make our judgment based upon that. I suggest you rethink your decision making processes.
Re:The MOST Inconvenient Truth (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason it is a problem is that we aren't really prepared for it.
Well, sure, but the rate matters. A ten meter sea level rise over a thousand years means cities gradually pull back from the coasts. A ten meter sea level rise over a hundred years means cities are abandoned, causing national and international distrubances due to displaced persons etc.
Re:Those Ancient Internal combustion engines ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Are humans responsible for the shrinking polar ice caps on Mars as well?
Re:like the world needs another theory... (Score:3, Insightful)
Specifically, relating to global warming, maybe we are the cause. On the other hand, maybe it would be occuring without any human influence. But what really needs to be recognized is that it IS happening and that there are some potentially serious side effects. Given that, should we be thinking about what we can do to slow down global warming? Or should we just write it off as natural and accept that any resulting human population corrections are just as natural? I don't know... just a couple thoughts.
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:3, Insightful)
And even if accurate, facts are usually pretty easy to abuse into supporting a political position.
Consider. These guys want you to believe the Earth is at unprecedented highs, thus we MUST panic and DO something. Something usually being defined as harmful to Western Civilization. Note that Kyoto would only limit CO2 emmissions from advanced Western nations yet allow China and the 3rd world to spew unlimited amounts of the stuff.
Now consider the unescapable fact that the Earth HAS been hotter in the past, despite the FUD coming from the enviro political hacks. Greenland wasn't given that name as some sort of horrible joke. It used to be GREEN. When the dinosaurs roamed the earth it is thought to have been much warmer than today. Note also the evidence of melting polar caps on Mars, something unlikely to be caused by humans.
Fact #1: The biggest influence on global climate is a big semi stable fusion reactor that has only been studied in detail for a fairly short period of time but is already known to vary its output on multiple cycles measured in years. Several studies indicate solar output is currently increasing.
Fact #2: More and more evidence points to Earth getting warmer.
If you are a green who secretly yearns to eliminate humanity (or at least Western Civilization's share of humanity) because of our 'raping of the earth' you leap on global warming as a way to scare people into surrendering their technological civilization, thus making it easier to achieve your goal of if not 'killing all humans', at least allowing war, pestilence and famine to thin the herd 90%. Sane people notice the earth getting warmer, Mars getting warmer and the sun shining a little brighter and connecting the dots, figure it is natural. But if it gets bad enough to interfere with our lifestyle we will do something about it. Shouldn't be all that hard.
two good reasons to still look for alternatives (Score:2, Insightful)
The next is more immediate and long lasting. The cities keep people soaking 24/7/365 in saturated poison. Petroleum burns dirty, really filthy, I don't care which engine you are talking about, and the obvious health detriments are there to *see* because you can see how dirty the air is, let alone measuring it with instruments. When the air gets chunky styled in a variery of designer colors and fragrances, you know it falls into the "not good for you" category.
Re:Enough is enough /.! We are better than this! (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because you can't see any clear motivation, doesn't mean their isn't one.
Their motivation may stem from any of the following:
Now I don't know how many of these motivations apply to how many climatologists... but I also know that I am not a climatologist (or even an academician) and so I cannot possibly imagine all of their pressures and motivations. And neither can you.
Therefore, the idea that "I don't see an obvious motivation to lie, so why are y'all so skeptical?" is perilously useless.
Re:like the world needs another theory... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think what people construe as 'BAD' is coastal cities flooding all over the globe ( think Katrina in New York, LA, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, etc. ), increasted desertification, famine, ecozone change, loss of farmland, etc. etc. The suffering, loss of life, destruction, displacement, famine and starvation are what people are concerned about and consider 'BAD'. Sure, in the course of human history there has been plenty of tours of the Four Horseman, but civilization is an attempt to mitigate these risks. I suspect a lot of people who think this kind of thing is no big deal because it has happened regularly, would change their tune is they had to flee famine or invaders.
Yes, it has happened in the past, and it certainly will happen again, but the whole point of civilization is to make life easier by removing or mitigating these risks. Some people are indifferent, and some people what to try to avoid this kind of catastrophe, for themselves and future people. Everyday that I get my fat, lazy ass up and get in the car to work on the internet, I thank god for all the technological advances that allow me to spend my life looking at pictures of naked women on the internet.
Re:Return of the Old Air (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The MOST Inconvenient Truth (Score:3, Insightful)
Yea verily!
I acknowledge that temperatures are changing. My question is harder: what is really causing the change, and what can we do to affect the system? So far everything I've heard has been of the "I've noticed this set of factors, and I guessing that if we stop doing X, we'll be OK" and I don't trust that. Making recommendations without complete knowledge (or at least more complete than we have today) could cause more problems than we already have.
It depends upon your perspective. If you make your living growing a specific crop in a specific location, it could make or break you. If you are worried about the possible extinction of a single species that only lives in a specific environment, you may care a lot. If you are worried about the value (or existance) of your beach-front property, you may be concerned. On the other hand, if you can take a longer view, one that understands that the planetary ecosphere has been evolving continuously for many millions of years, and will continue to do so for many millions of years to come, then it may not bother you quite so much.
I believe that humans have adapted to a lot of different environments over the years, and will continue to do so for many millenia to come, so while there may be some short-term pain, as a species, we'll continue to thrive, even if it does get a little warmer or a little colder.
Re:Enough is enough /.! We are better than this! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, compare that to the opposite view (that climate change is not happening). Here there is a quite understandable incentive to lie, since many of the corporations whose use of fossil fuels is the alleged cause of climate change are extremely valuable funding sources.
Both groups make claims, more or less, to scientific credibility and objective truth: one is claiming X and the other not X. (I should say that many of the claims are only qualified support: "studies support X" rather than "X is true", etc.)
One then has to make a choice. One view, the absolutist one, is that no conclusions are trustworthy for the reasons you stated and I expanded on.
Another (potentially error-prone) approach requires making a choice and determining who is more likely to be correct. With this in mind, choosing the group that has the least motivation to lie (rather than no motivation) seems like a plausible strategy.
Re:Enough is enough /.! We are better than this! (Score:3, Insightful)
Credible? Or possible? Its possible that most scientists are left wing and support Kyoto because it has "socialist" politics. But if you can prove scientists are "mostly" left wing politically you then need to prove that:
I know you believe these four items are true, but I think that item four can be interpreted either way. But I wonder why, exactly, a "Leftist" is inherently opposed to CO 2 emmisions. I am what you would call a Leftist, and I don't oppose industry! A lot of this conflict comes from the fact that those on the left tend to favor government regulation of industry and those on the right oppose it. The science seems to imply that these emmissions are doing real harm and the free market is not going to save us from this, in the highly likely senario that this is a real problem. (see: the tragedy of the commons) What, exactly, is the cause of your scepticism here? The evidence seems to be pretty strong that this is really happening. What makes you doubt it?
But honestly, I don't see how changing our energy policy could be a bad thing here. Industry isn't going to just give up and fold because of emmissions restrictions anymore than forumla 1 stopped when they banned turbochargers. The end result is more research, cleaner air and less dependance on foreign oil. The industry doesn't want to do it because they believe it will hurt their bottom line. They are right of course, in the short term emission caps will require more investment in r&d, hurting short term profits. But dammit, they aren't just going to close the doors and give up!
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:2, Insightful)
But that's why it's so difficult! Without 2 or 3 PhDs in biology or geography it's difficult to understand the "facts". Just like if my docter tells me I need tests Foo, Bar, and Baz I'll probably let her do it, but I don't understand the tests or what they do. I have a rudimentary understanding of the human body and of biology and chemistry but not enough to know how some of these tests work or what drugs I'm told to take afterward. I trust my docter though and will do nearly anything she says I need.
What happens if she's "motivated" to support certain drugs? Or my insurance company? What if she believes in practicing medicine certain way and doesn't want to give that up and that in turn is harmful to my health, or to others down the road?
She's now compromised my health in favor of $MOTIVATION.
So what if scientists, journalists or politicians are motivated by certain industries, associations or businesses? I already don't trust studies by industry, even if they are right. But I'm not sure I trust scientists or journalists either. The former can believe in a certain school of thought and never consider other views. Consider certain scientific journals, many times they won't publish things they don't "like". Those are the preachers and not the scientists. The latter (journalists) knows as little as I do, and if they can get a story that preaches enough doom they'll publish it, regardless of facts. If it sells papers, subscriptions or gets ratings: w00t!
Re:Those Ancient Internal combustion engines ... (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, it's not temperatures that are important at all from a human standpoint. It's change in temperatures. So, an Earth on averate 10 degrees C warmer than it is today is perfectly inhabitable. If it happens too fast though, all our stuff is in the wrong places. Our "breadbasket" farming regions end up in deserts or in places so cold an rainy the crops can't get ahead of diseases; our cities are partly underwater (not a linear affect of temperature, it is strue); our populations are in places that are too hot or (ironically) too cold.
It's all a matter of rates.
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:3, Insightful)
"You can't convince me of anything unless you present facts before my mind that makes me think like you do" ? (grossly paraphrased)
"I submit to no authority except Reason ?"
Facts are there, dig them. Trust no one, the truth is accessible to anyone with a brain, espiecially in the internet era. But nobody ever said it would come without efforts.
Yes, it will bring you to debates, to arguments, retort, counter-retort. But contrary to a popular belief, this is not an endless ping-pong game. This is not because there is debate that one must settle for a middle ground. When there are enough facts gathered, all assertions are either true or false. Famous people, fundings, politics don't matter, they don't enter into consideration. See the facts, see the claims. Evaluate their merits. Don't trust those who say you can't. You can.
Re:Enough is enough /.! We are better than this! (Score:5, Insightful)
When a politician lies, they get elected. And *maybe* impeached later on. (Bill Clinton)
When a corporation lies, they lose a tiny fraction of the income generated by the lie. (Enron, Big Tobacco, Microsoft)
When a scientist lies, they get about a year or two before they're caught. At which point they lose all standing among fellow scientists, get barred from all reputable journals, and often lose their university/institute jobs.
Summarized: when a scientist gets caught in a lie, their life is over. When a corporation is caught in a lie, they lose a small part of their illegitimate gains. Who has more incentive to lie?
Wrong...frikkin'....question!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is the same question I keep seeing get asked over and over again. Here's the answer: it doesn't freaking matter. Here are two questions that I think people should spend more time mulling over:
1) Do we, as a species, WANT global temperatures to reach levels not seen since the Holocene period ?
2) If the answer to the above is "No", is there anything that we, as a species, can do to help PREVENT that from occurring?
How we got here doesn't matter. What we do now does. Some think we're helpless and that the climate's gonna do what the climate's gonna do whether or not they buy an SUV, so they buy an SUV.
Personally, I disagree.
one millionth of earth history? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm quaking in my boots.
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:3, Insightful)
How can we evaluate all the data if it is not present in the article?
If no data is given for a study we can't evaluate the data and you can ignore it if you're following the scientific method.
A list of broad, sweeping, generalizations about the way the planet is changing is not data.
The article linked to the study, which does contain the numbers including error and sources.
I really disapprove of the way the article talks about how the seas are heating up and then segeways into OH MY GOD GLOBAL WARMING IS BAD, then back into how the world is changing followed by more OH MY GOD GLOBAL WARMING IS BAD.
That is why I usually spend no more than a minute reading the article before moving on to the actual study, which is often much more informative and less sensational than the "news" articles derived from it.
By the way, did you know that Saddam Hussein has Weapons of Mass Destruction?
This is actually a very good example. All these claims were made without providing any data to back them up. Thus, we can dismiss them as probably untrue. The actual reports from intelligence agencies that have been released and which these claims were supposedly founded upon turned out to show that the evidence pointed to the opposite conclusion. Also, reports from other nations in the UN that were published indicated the opposite. Look for the data and evaluate it. Then look at other studies and their data to see if it has been independently confirmed. That is science.
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:4, Insightful)
How can we evaluate data which is probably at least partially false. Several times studies like this have been caught ignoring data that didn't fit the viewpoint they were trying to advance. Several times studies have been discounted because big oil/tobacco backed them (even tho facts are facts, right?).
Ahh, but this data and the methodologies are presented and they are supported by hundreds of other studies that found the same.
Long term- science works- facts are facts. Short term- it is subject to group thinking, politics and even basically religious belief that certain concepts are right.
It has been several decades now that we've been looking at this issue and the community and studies do a good job of showing certain reliable facts, especially once studies that have been discredited when their results were refuted by dozens of people who tried to reproduce them are taken out. I think if you simply look at the studies and ignore all the press articles, it is pretty easy to see what is going on.
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:3, Insightful)
People like you are the reason everything sucks. "Both sides are corrupt" and "your vote makes no difference" are messages that are drilled into our heads relentlessly in this society and as more people fall for this garbage, democracy slowly dies.
Honesty is something you need to expect from the institutions in your culture. If you don't get it, you don't lower your expectations, you get mad.
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:3, Insightful)
"Perhaps historically, when the temperature goes up, Co2 is released into the atmosphere."
Yes, it can be self-reenforcing but you'd have to ask how did the temp go up in the first place? Unless the sun suddenly swelled for no known reason the only mechanism would be greenhouse gases. Methane could be blamed but they may have ways of eliminating that possibility so you are back to CO2.
One thing rising temps do that decrease CO2 is they increase the activity of carbonate formation in rocks that is encouraged by erosion. You'd have to live a few tens of thousands of years though to see that work.
Re:Historical Data Readings (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't actually believe there is any evidence of England's wine production threatening France. English wine has a long history [englishwineproducers.com], with the historical peak of English wine production occuring with the arrival of the wine loving Normans during the medieval warm period. The Domesday book, a census taken at that time, recorded 42 vineyards in England, all restricted to southern England, and mostly coastal southern England. It can hardly have been a threat to French wine production given that vast amounts of imported wine were available in England during that time. Wine production in England declined after that, possibly due to some climatic cooling, and possibly also due to changing cultural factors (such as an increasing taste for beer and ale), and was practically non-existent through to about the 19th century. Since then there have been various flirtations with wine growing in England, and a flowering since about 1950. There are currently far more vineyards in England than at any time in history, currently over 400 - about 10 times the number of medieval England - and extending further north than at any previous time. From this we can, at best, conclude that the medieval warm period was probably warmer than the 13th to 20th century, but then we knew that, and historical temperature reconstructions clearly show that [wikipedia.org] anyway. If you're going to consider volume of production and location of vineyards as a good proxy data source for climate, however, then you would have to conclude, given the vastly increased volume and more northerly extent of modern wine production in England, that it is warmer today than it was in the medieval warm period - again, as historical temperature reconstructions show. And let's be honest, wine growing is hardly a clear sign of a warm climate in the area the wine is grown. Canada has a large wine industry, and there are even vineyards in Alaska [denaliwinery.com]!
Re:Enough is enough /.! We are better than this! (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't you mean promoted or awarded a medal?
Lose income? Maybe in fairy land.
The problem in the US is the unholy cluster fuck of big media, fortune 500 companies, and the GOP political machine. The gullible maroons in this country don't stand a chance.
USA will be the Brazil of the new millenium--a powerful elite controlling huge resources while the majority of the population lives in ignorance and squalor.
USA #1... yes you are! Yes you are, you cute little thing! Those big bad scientists are all after glory, they don't care about real science, that's right! Come and snuggle up here between Big Tobacco and Big Oil, because we care and luv you!
Re:Enough is enough /.! We are better than this! (Score:1, Insightful)
Just because a person doesn't like dictatorships, it doesn't mean they are opposed to all forms of government. Academics may be less trusting of industry (and a whole lot of other things - organized religion, simple-minded patriotism, etc.) but that's their job. Academics are supposed to take a hard look at the world and figure out what makes sense and what doesn't.
You seem to be restating your previous point. An academic will have certain views. To the extent that it is possible to measure an overall trend, those views may coincide with views associated with "the left". One of the views associated with the left is a distrust of corporate leadership. But that's just a re-statement of your previous point.
Whether the publicity is free has no relevance. Furthermore, publicity is valuable only for generating a feeling of pride in one's work that would be completely undermined by involvement in a cynical conspiracy.If everyone already agrees (that is, they're on the "bandwagon") then there is no need for a conspiracy.
That would be a symptom of the conspiracy but not a cause. Furthermore, it would undermine the conspiracy by bringing people with false loyalty into the conspiracy.I doubt that either is "fun" but the ultimate satisfaction to a scientist comes from being correct about something important. Forming a conspiracy will not increase the probably that global warming is correct or that global warming is important.
You don't go into science for arbitrary personal power (that's what MBA's are for), the power comes from the correctness of your ideas. Anyway, the vast majority of academics have no more desire to dismantle all current industry than they do to dismantle all current government. There's a huge difference between wanting to dismantle something and wanting to subject it to checks and balances.
So far nothing you've mentioned makes it plausible that there is a large scale conspiracy among climatologists. Sure, it's possible but just about anything is possible. What you need to show is that it's probable. Maybe you've been listening to the right-wing religious conservatives too long to know the difference but, believe me, possible and probable are not the same thing.
Two victims of Intellectual apathy. (Score:3, Insightful)
"I would have to agree with this....[slashdotters] completely believe a scientific report on a political issue like global climate change"
How can people be so ignorant about the line between science and politics. In case you have trouble I will spell it out...Science informs Policy. The science is sound and if people like the above two posters actually understood the difference between scientific findings and the (sometimes dishonest) action taken as a response to the findings they may see a reason for hope. However I doubt it, it is much simpler to throw your arms in the air and shout "you are all money hungry liars" or "I'm too stupid to understand".
"- and yes, these days, it is a political issue"
There is nothing new about this, take a look at the political and legal shitfight between Edison and the Gas companies in the early 1900 or Galileo and the Pope if you want something older. The reason that it is a "political issue" is because the conclusion that mankinds CO2 emmissions are causing the globe to rapidly warm is scientifically very strong (much stronger than the economic models used as justification for political inaction). Certain powerfull groups are looking down the barrel of significant change to their profitable status quo (fossil fuels on one side, insurance on the other), of course there will be political dishonesty, psuedo-science and FUD but how is any of that a reason for joe-public to ignore genuine findings?
Those who argue against the conclusion that anthropogenic climate warming is occuring at an unprecedented rate are either ignorant, intellectually lazy or belong in the same camp as the creationists. The reason I say that is because the science does not back them up, not one single paper in the last 10yrs has dipsputed the basic fact that we are warming the planet via our emmissions. And yes, what governments and corporations do or don't do about that conclusion is by definition political. There are still plenty of things science doesn't know about the climate, studying these things will make our understanding (and thus our predictions) stronger, burrying ones head in the sand crying "it's all too hard, I can't trust anyone" is a pathetic excuse for intellectual apathy.
Never has my sig seemed so appropriate.