Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate

http://www.dailytech.com/Myth+of+Consensus+Explodes+APS+Opens+Global+Warming+Debate/article12403.htm

by nickb • 18 years ago

13 34 18 years ago

overreact• 18 years ago

This is a forum posting by some editor -- a single person -- of the APS. The official stance[1] says that evidence of global warming is "incontrovertible".

Besides, it seems to go on to say that there is usefulness in finding alternative fuels anyways. Of course, we all know what the OP's statement will be used for and alternative energy is certainly not it.

1 - http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm

ajross• 18 years ago

How about linking to the actual source instead of a flamebait media piece? Good grief:

http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/editor.cfm

I'm having a little trouble finding the "explosion" in that text. They're publishing one paper by a presumptive skeptic, and are (ZOMG!) open to debate. Yeah, that's blown the consensus thing wide open, it has...

llimllib• 18 years ago

Also, whoops, let's keep this in small print:

> Update 7/17/2008: After publication of this story, the APS responded with a statement that its Physics and Society Forum is merely one unit within the APS, and its views do not reflect those of the Society at large.

thaumaturgy3• 18 years ago

Let's also take a closer look at the two groups being asked to write the opposing opinions.

On the dissenting side, we have Christopher Monckton. Mr. Monckton is not a scientist by trade; he is, first and foremost, a politician, and a businessman next. He has recommended that the AIDS epidemic be dealt with by forcefully quarantining all individuals in the U.S. and U.K. who are infected. His policies and positions are similar to those of the current U.S. neo-conservative; you might imagine that Dick Cheney wrote an article critical of anthropogenic climate change, and you wouldn't be far off the mark.

On the supporting side, we have David Hafemeister (I didn't bother Googling "Peter Schwartz"). David holds a PhD in physics from the University of Illinois, and is currently employed at CalPoly. He has authored or coauthored a ... well, shall we say, "respectable" number of books, and an even larger quantity of papers. Peer-reviewed papers, no less. The next time you're feeling lazy, you might want to read his c.v. [http://www.calpoly.edu/~dhafemei/dh_cv_1107.pdf].

Disclaimer: I am not a fan of arguing by appeal to authority, and I do happen to think that some aspects of human impact on global climate have been politicized and blown out of proportion -- somewhat. I have always advocated the approach that we should try to live as efficiently as possible, leaving as small of a footprint on the planet as possible, even while continuing to understand all of the mechanisms involved in global climate patterns. That said, I think it's just silly to lend any credence whatsoever to the dissenting opinion in this case, and it's certainly ridiculous to claim that the "myth" of global warming has been "blown wide open".

1gor2• 18 years ago

Why do you need to focus on personalities? Is it because the arguments are too persuasive to discuss?

sanj• 18 years ago

Isn't the point of science to debate? Ideally based on data?

jerry59• 18 years ago

Probably a a good time to remember that nickb = pg (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152361), which also explains the spate of climate change denialism which swamps this otherwise largely sane site (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=242215).

thaumaturgy3• 18 years ago

nickb != pg; that little bit of confusion stems entirely from a silly April Fool's Day joke this year [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152464].

Unless you really think pg would have gone to the trouble of accessing his sock puppet account to congratulate himself and Jessica on their wedding day [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=205946].

jerry59• 18 years ago

With all the ventriliquists that I have seen that's exactly the sort of thing their sock puppets do.

davidw• 18 years ago

Climate change - "for" or "against" - is not hacker news and that should be pointed out any time someone posts something about it.

axod2• 18 years ago

Do people deny climate change? I don't think so. People are however very skeptical that it's all down to us humans. I'd say that's a sane viewpoint.

jerry59• 18 years ago

Some people do deny climate change. You will find plenty on the Internet. I for one found one in today's local newspaper, circulation ca. 1 million. The linked article stopped just short of explicitly denying climate change by calling climate change a "myth" and instead calls the consensus on climate change a myth. That people are skeptical is indeed down to us humans, and especially so to scientists like me who only come to a verdict after performing a lot of observations and pondering. In climate change politics however "climate change skeptic" is a euphemism for denialist.

m0nty3• 18 years ago

Hmmm, let's leave global warming aside for a few moments and consider the other reasons to stop polluting:

* We're running out of oil.

* Oil costs too much.

* The oil we do have comes from unstable parts of the world with political regimes we might prefer to avoid providing money to.

* We face increased competition for fuel from developing nations like India and China.

* There are other environmental effects of pollution in addition to global warming.

* Our current reliance on "dirty fuels" is (quite probably) leading to an increase in respiratory diseases like asthma in developed countries.

* Our activities in general are leading to species and habitat loss at an unprecedented rate -- effectively, we are an extinction event.

I think too many "global warming sceptics" are motivated either by a desire to carry on as normal, or (as Homer Simpson put it) not letting "the environmentalists win". But clearly, we need to find alternative energy sources regardless of global warming, and we need to do it now.

byrneseyeview• 18 years ago

Aren't those all things that will cause us to stop polluting, not reasons to stop polluting? If the price of a polluting fuel goes up, because it's scarce, it acts as a tax on pollution.

And the density of dangerous particles in the air has gone way, way down over the last few hundred years in large cities. So that seems like less of a concern.

m0nty3• 18 years ago

I agree that recent events have caused people to look for alternative fuel sources, but there's no guarantee we'll end up with clean alternative fuel sources. That should be made a priority. Biofuels, for example, have clearly been a disaster in broad terms (food supply and expense, etc) and there's been some doubt about how clean they really are.

Re. your second point: we don't have smogs in most western nations today, but there are other effects specifically from motor fuels, particularly diesel, which creates more particulate matter than petroleum. This has been implicated in the increased incidence of asthma in western nations, and is also thought to exacerbate hay fever.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18280198?dopt=AbstractPlu...

hugh4• 18 years ago

All (mostly) true. I don't think any sensible person could deny that we need to be finding better alternatives to fossil fuels as soon as as possible.

There is, however, room for some disagreement on exactly how large and how urgent the problem is. If the only problems are as you suggest, then we can pretty much afford to sit back and let research progress as normal, safe in the knowledge that market forces and the natural advancement of technology will mean that renewable CO2-neutral energy sources will become economical in the coming decades.

On the other hand if, as some of the more alarmist global warming advocates would have us believe, a few more years of current CO2 emissions will suddenly put us over some kind of tipping point causing the melting of Antarctica, the stopping of the gulf stream, a neverending drought and the end of all life on Earth (and I'm only exaggerating their predictions slightly) then we'd need to take more severe actions -- like severely cutting energy consumption right now instead of waiting to develop better energy sources.

Right now we have all sorts of people using scenarios on the Al Gore doomsday end of the scale in order to justify policies such as cap-and-trade and carbon taxes. In the end these sorts of policies, as well as causing hardship to everybody, might wind up being counterproductive, since they'd slow down the economy and hold up the development of the alternative energy sources which are the real long-term solution.

It doesn't help that most of the people who are pushing for, say, increasing taxes on CO2 are exactly the same sort of people who are always calling for increasing taxes on something.

Like I've been saying for years, global warming is a technological problem, and we should always beware of people trying to push sociological solutions to technological problems.

m0nty3• 18 years ago

"we should always beware of people trying to push sociological solutions to technological problems"

I'd go along with that. I think ideas like carbon trading are clearly designed to subsidise poorer nations, without actually reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Someone eloquently described such trading systems as "carbon indulgences", in that it makes people feel better about the pollution they produce while actually doing precious little about it in real terms.

http://www.carbontradewatch.org/pubs/carbon_neutral_myth.pdf

My main point is that arguing about global warming is a big waste of time, and we should concentrate on finding efficient, clean and sustainable ways to live as we want to.

Anon84• 18 years ago

"Whether or not human produced carbon dioxide is a major cause of impending climate change (as is being debated in the two articles of this issue), the issue of energy “production” by our Earth-bound societies must be faced. Fossil fuel supplies may become unavailable in this century – or the next – but in a finite system, obeying the laws of thermodynamics, non-fossil energy sources will have to become available to mankind, sooner or later (within the foreseeable lifetime of our planet)."

-- From the original APS article http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/editor.cfm

dominik• 18 years ago

Suppose climate change is real.

What do we do about it?

Massive centralization and government control?

Or free-market based solutions, based on: 1. restoring individual property rights, 2. re-classifying pollution as trespass rather than nuisance, 3. providing legal remedy?

jerry59• 18 years ago

Mister, property rights and the legal system are entirely functions implemented by a centralized government. So it's not either/or. It's just a question of which centralized government mechanism we want. Trespassing laws and the legal system were created to keep my neighbor from building the extension to his house onto my lawn. I don't see how I can sue someone from the other side of the world that's polluting my air with their CO2 under the same system.

jerry59• 18 years ago

P.S. This seems right out of the mouth of Ron Paul, who to my amazement seemed to have developed some following on reddit. 'Amazing' because his ideas don't even withstand superficial scrutiny, the kind of scrutiny that forums like this apply to ideas.

Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate

Related Stories