Comment We need open source science (Score 1) 547
Face it. You can't trust anything published on the internet or other media. Trying to dig to get the actual data is about hopeless. Most of the papers on global warming refer to other papers refer to other papers refer to papers by the same author based on a computer model. Scant attention is paid to validating the models against history. Actual data collected from the field gets locked behind for-pay firewalls. I've been tracking the CO2 issue since the 1970s when I was told we needed to solve the CO2 problem by 1980 or else its all over. I've witnessed reports on the internet reporting volcanic CO2 production revised to lower the production estimate by an order of magnitude without explanation and without acknowledgement it was altered. Much of the data you see on the Web is a lie on both sides of the issue.
We all have computers or else we wouldn't be reading
Global warming is probably happening, but probably not for the reasons we suspect. One eruption in Africa released more CO2 than the entire annual industrial output of the United States. In the 1980s most CO2 came from "land use change" -- the burning of rain forests. The pollution of the ocean was still unevaluated so we have no idea how much CO2 is no longer absorbed into the ocean. We're stilling coming out of the last Ice Age so Earth is going to get warmer. Perhaps it is stupid to dump more CO2 when we're already getting warmer, but is that our only global warming problem? The science has become so politically obscured that I'm afraid we're missing other real dangers.