Re: [asa] Global Warming Stats

The reason why you are an 'enemy of science' when you oppose global
warming is because the facts clearly show evidence of global warming
as to the meaningless statistics, the 40,000 or so names include any
kind of person willing to sign on to a list, the quality control is
miserable and there are few relevant scientists on the list.

Amongst the world scientists there is a clear majority who have come
to accept the science of global warming.

On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 11:09 AM, Lynn Walker <lynn.wlkr@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 5/25/08, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I was "discussing" global warming with someone and he threw a couple of
>> stats at me I hadn't heard:
>>
>> 1. The majority of climate scientists in major universities in the U.S.
>> reject anthropogenic warming;
>> 2. 40,000 scientists (or maybe it was 20,000, i forget) signed a document
>> denying anthropogenic warming.
>>
>> Does anyone know the source of these claims, and what the reality is?
>
>
> The correct number of scientist (does not include engineers) is found in
> this piece from last Monday:
> Cooler Heads
> Monday, May 19, 2008 4:20 PM PT
>
> Climate Change: Nearly 32,000 scientists sign a petition that says they
> reject the claim that humanity is causing global warming. .."
> http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=296089724469132
>
> Here's more you may find of interest:
>
> The New York Review of Books
> Volume 55, Number 10 ? June 12, 2008
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21494
>
> Two books reviewed:
>
> 1.) A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies
> by William Nordhaus Yale University Press, 234 pp., $28.00
>
> 2.) Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto
> edited by Ernesto Zedillo Yale Center for the Study of
> Globalization/Brookings Institution Press, 237 pp., $26.95 (paper)
>
> Excerpts:
>
> "..There is a famous graph showing the fraction of carbon dioxide in the
> atmosphere as it varies month by month and year by year (see the graph on
> page 44). It gives us our firmest and most accurate evidence of effects of
> human activities on our global environment. The graph is generally known as
> the Keeling graph because it summarizes the lifework of Charles David
> Keeling, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla,
> California. ...
>
> "..Keeling was a meticulous observer. The accuracy of his measurements has
> never been challenged, and many other observers have confirmed his results.
> ..
>
> "..When we put together the evidence from the wiggles and the distribution
> of vegetation over the earth, it turns out that about 8 percent of the
> carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is absorbed by vegetation and returned to
> the atmosphere every year. This means that the average lifetime of a
> molecule of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, before it is captured by
> vegetation and afterward released, is about twelve years. This fact, that
> the exchange of carbon between atmosphere and vegetation is rapid, is of
> fundamental importance to the long-range future of global warming, as will
> become clear in what follows. ..
>
> "..At this point I return to the Keeling graph, which demonstrates the
> strong coupling between atmosphere and plants. The wiggles in the graph show
> us that every carbon dioxide molecule in the atmosphere is incorporated in a
> plant within a time of the order of twelve years. Therefore, if we can
> control what the plants do with the carbon, the fate of the carbon in the
> atmosphere is in our hands. That is what Nordhaus meant when he mentioned
> "genetically engineered carbon-eating trees" as a low-cost backstop to
> global warming. The science and technology of genetic engineering are not
> yet ripe for large-scale use. We do not understand the language of the
> genome well enough to read and write it fluently. But the science is
> advancing rapidly, and the technology of reading and writing genomes is
> advancing even more rapidly. I consider it likely that we shall have
> "genetically engineered carbon-eating trees" within twenty years, and almost
> certainly within fifty years.
>
> Carbon-eating trees could convert most of the carbon that they absorb from
> the atmosphere into some chemically stable form and bury it underground. Or
> they could convert the carbon into liquid fuels and other useful chemicals.
> Biotechnology is enormously powerful, capable of burying or transforming any
> molecule of carbon dioxide that comes into its grasp. Keeling's wiggles
> prove that a big fraction of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes
> within the grasp of biotechnology every decade. If one quarter of the
> world's forests were replanted with carbon-eating varieties of the same
> species, the forests would be preserved as ecological resources and as
> habitats for wildlife, and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be
> reduced by half in about fifty years.
>
> It is likely that biotechnology will dominate our lives and our economic
> activities during the second half of the twenty-first century, just as
> computer technology dominated our lives and our economy during the second
> half of the twentieth. Biotechnology could be a great equalizer, spreading
> wealth over the world wherever there is land and air and water and sunlight.
> This has nothing to do with the misguided efforts that are now being made to
> reduce carbon emissions by growing corn and converting it into ethanol fuel.
> The ethanol program fails to reduce emissions and incidentally hurts poor
> people all over the world by raising the price of food. After we have
> mastered biotechnology, the rules of the climate game will be radically
> changed. In a world economy based on biotechnology, some low-cost and
> environmentally benign backstop to carbon emissions is likely to become a
> reality. ..
>
> "..In the history of science it has often happened that the majority was
> wrong and refused to listen to a minority that later turned out to be right.
> It may?or may not?be that the present is such a time. The great virtue of
> Nordhaus's economic analysis is that it remains valid whether the majority
> view is right or wrong. Nordhaus's optimum policy takes both possibilities
> into account. ..
>
> "..The last five chapters of the Zedillo book are by writers from five of
> the countries most concerned with the politics of global warming: Russia,
> Britain, Canada, India, and China. Each of the five authors has been
> responsible for giving technical advice to a government, and each of them
> gives us a statement of that government's policy. Howard Dalton, spokesman
> for the British government, is the most dogmatic. His final paragraph
> begins:
>
> It is the firm view of the United Kingdom that climate change constitutes a
> major threat to the environment and human society, that urgent action is
> needed now across the world to avert that threat, and that the developed
> world needs to show leadership in tackling climate change.
>
> The United Kingdom has made up its mind and takes the view that any
> individuals who disagree with government policy should be ignored. This
> dogmatic tone is also adopted by the Royal Society, the British equivalent
> of the US National Academy of Sciences. The Royal Society recently published
> a pamphlet addressed to the general public with the title "Climate Change
> Controversies: A Simple Guide." The pamphlet says:
>
> This is not intended to provide exhaustive answers to every contentious
> argument that has been put forward by those who seek to distort and
> undermine the science of climate change and deny the seriousness of the
> potential consequences of global warming.
>
> In other words, if you disagree with the majority opinion about global
> warming, you are an enemy of science. The authors of the pamphlet appear to
> have forgotten the ancient motto of the Royal Society, Nullius in Verba,
> which means, "Nobody's word is final." ...
>
> Lynn
>
>
>
>

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Received on Mon May 26 00:23:12 2008