As class ended on Monday, we were presented with a hypothesis about the nature of the scientific consensus about anthropogenic climate change: many scientists feel that humans are the main cause behind recent global warming, but many scientists do not, and a large number are in the middle. (Jerry, please correct this hypothesis, as necessary: this is my paraphrase of what you stated ..) Please come to class with evidence that either refutes or supports this hypothesis.
True. I believe that there is obviously an majority that believe that global warming is man made but at the same time I think that there are huge numbers of scientists that are against it and also some that are simpy unsure.
I used to think that CO2 was one of the main factors in Global Warming, but after reading Part 1 of Dire Predictions, and watching the video, im sort of in the middle. Both sides of the argument have enough evidence to back it up.
My biggest impact came from the video…when I heard all that was said about temperature changing before carbon emissions, it really forced me to question the legitimacy of all I had heard from previous scientific perspectives. I do not doubt that global warming is occurring or that humans are affecting it, but could it be possible that it is not only human induced and is inevitable in its own natural way? Just a thought =)
Before this summer, I was a climate contrarian. This was mainly because I didn’t know much about Global warming. However, as I did more research and progressed through this class I have become more of a believer in that humans are the main cause of global warming.
I believe that the people in the middle are the ones that do not understand enough about global warming. I think that more and more people are starting to believe that humans are the main cause. The people who contradict this claim are mainly people who have dedicated their entire lives to their opinion of the subject.
I am beginning to believe, more strongly, each time I hear an argument for or against the anthropogenic roots of climate change, that one of the biggest obstacles we face when we are attempting to reach a consensus is the categorization of scientists, politicians, media and even your next-door neighbor into categories like “climate contrarian” etc. As I once mentioned in class, categorization narrows the avenues for scientific or even politic freedom of thought and transmissibility of specific ideas along the scientific spectrum, it eventually may even cause people to think in particular ways and not let them be open to “contrary” ideas.
Thus to answer the question, no, I do not think there is consensus on anthropogenic climate change, and neither should there be until the scientific community is devoid of categorization. I know this all sounds utopian and it is probably unachievable, but I have answered the question and given my views only keeping in mind my views on the theoretical nature of the scientific debate.
Just like Rachel, I found the video to be very persuasive. It brought up some key ideas that have not yet been mentioned in anything that we have read (except for the new web article); and therefore, I think its great that we get another perspective on this issue.
Nevertheless, I still think that we have an obligation to be critical of what we are seeing. I know we have not seen the film an “Incontinent Truth”, but maybe it would be good to compare that video and the one we just watched, later in the semester. The messages in each film are very different, and perhaps in viewing both, we can find truth, because as Jerry pointed out in class, we have scientists telling us all sorts of things!
I think Jerry raises an important point, one that needs to be raised, which is that, even if global warming was affected by humans, we aren’t figuring out how to reverse our impact, merely reduce it. Without critically skeptical people to ask those questions, we would never realize the importance of focusing on carbon-reduction technologies, but also technology with no carbon and even hopefully (not sure if there is much work on this) technology that can use up carbon.
Also, I think the simplest and most effective way to respond to Jerry’s point is by saying that whether even if there is a 50/50 chance that global warming is happening and is affected by humans (even though the majority of scientists seem to believe the scales are much more imbalanced than that) we still have a responsibility to act. Instead of making global warming a political issue of right and wrong, we need to portray it as a transcendental issue that has the potential to be the end of humankind.
Agree. The climate change, i mean if we just focus on the recent decades and the warming weather, is mainly caused by human’s activities. There are many evidences to support this theroy on the chapter 2 of “Dire Predictions”. And I also believe that the scientific consensus about anthropogenic climate should build on the climate models that with the estimated impacts of both natural and human forces.
I googled “anti-global warming” in the hopes of finding more evidence that global warming is not anthropogenic. I found most of the articles with anti-global warming hits were people commenting on how anti-global warming claims were invalid.
Then I googled “Global Warming Consensus” and found many articles arguing that there was no consensus and many still believe global warming is not caused by humanity. The Discovery of Global Warming mentioned that the IPCC had come out and stated that Global Warming was anthropogenic. Perhaps it was a result of my previous environment but I had always thought the vast majority of scientists, and people, agreed with this. After watching the movie, reading about some of the skeptics featured in The Discovery of Global Warming and sorting through many angry editorials on google, I am no longer as certain as I once was.
I’m taking a minute or two out of my busy schedule to intrude in this thought provoking conversation. I can’t help it.
I luv it.
In as much as I agree with the controversies surrounding GW (just like any other controversial environmental phenomena), I think we (people) should spend more time and resources discussing and devising solutions to this problem (that we know is happening beyond every reasonable doubt) facing mankind today.
Given the little we know about our universe and the minute position we occupy in it, we will not be able to provide answers to every questions – root cause of everything although we’ll do our best, which is good. But the fact is that, the GW crisis (you give it whatever name) is unfolding and that there’s something we can do to minimize the effects, and it is easy to do.
Here’s an analogy: If a patient approaches a doctor with a very complicated disease and the doctor can clearly see the effect of this disease but not quite sure about its cause. He (the doctor) does however know some easy ways to minimize the effect of the disease…so what? Think about it.
This is the best FYSE. Really. Why? Have you ever asked yourself why you are in school? Not what are the incentives for being in school… but why? Think about it
Would luv to join your conversation in class at some point this semester.
peace
your DM tutor
While I was researching for our paper, i found a startling statistic that has to do with Nick’s quote “I believe that the people in the middle are the ones that do not understand enough about global warming,”
According to the article, a “survey of more than 25,000 Internet users revealed that 90 percent of respondents were aware of global warming, though only 57 percent considered it to be a ‘very serious’ problem. Awareness was highest in Europe and Latin America and lowest in North America. In the United States, 13 percent of respondents had never heard of the problem, despite the fact that the country is the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases.” The last statistic really stuck out to me. How have 13 percent of Americans never heard of global warming?? Although it is important to have a consensus on the issue of anthropogenic climate change, I still think it is incredibly important just to get the word out there so people can actually have an opinion on the issue! It all goes back to Stephanie’s idea about telling 3 random people about the issue…
Like everyone else has said before here, I also agree with having to not only look at, but consider both sides of global warming. Before Jerry’s explanation in class last week, I have never considered past climate warming issues, before CO2 and greenhouse gases became a large factor in contributing to global warming. While reading Dire Predictions and listening to Jerry’s alternate view, I really began thinking about human’s contribution to global warming, but also nature’s contribution, and natural things that we cannot prevent. As average citizens, it is really hard to know exactly what is going on with the climate change issue, especially when expert scientists can’t even all agree.
The key citation for this comes from Naomi Oreskes: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686 And see the papers that have cited her …
For me, I find the charts on page 71 of Dire Predictions particularly important. The correlation between the temperature predicted by models and the temperature observed from 1900-2000 legitimize the models in my opinion. The similarity between the predicted with and without human influence from 1900-1950 also shows that the models can effectively gauge the human influence (because human influence warming was relatively insignificant and undetectable until the past couple of decades). The charts show the observed temperature staying with the predicted temperature with human influence, but both take off from what was predicted without humans effecting the environment. I would be interested hearing about how others read these graphs and if they think I am putting too much trust into them.
I know this doesn’t really address the consensus issue, but the blog has kinda drifted away from that, and I wanted to throw this in.
After (re)watching an inconvenient truth last night, I thought I would revisit this blog post. It seems clear to me that there is a whole lot of science out there, and that the trustworthy science (not funded or affiliated with a natural gas lobbying firm) reaches a clear consensus of anthropogenic global warming. The graphs that Al Gore shows are mostly ones that we have already seen in class or in our reading, but he presents them with comprehensive explanation, and puts them in a context that is easy to understand. The figures he shared that really hit home for me were the sampling of scientific articles, of which ZERO percent disagreed with the consensus of anthropogenic global warming. He then cited a sampling of public media articles of which upwards of fifty percent questioned the same fact. Somewhere along the communication chain between science and public exposure there is a break, and whether it is purposeful or not, it needs to be remedied.