Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Explaining climate change


1 climate, originally uploaded by tallguydraws.

This is very well done; follow that link to see the entire thing. I find this sort of thing very useful, especially during the winter months when I start to hear all kinds of variants on the "It's cold in Buffalo! Al Gore's a fat poopyhead!" argument.



(via)

5 comments:

M. D. Jackson said...

Well... Actually that's another subject you'll probably think I'm a loony about but Global Warming is also a bit of a non-event. There was a period of warming but that has stopped and it seems the globe is heading into a cooling phase. Don't take my word for it. Call me a looney if you will but look into it yourself. You will be amazed at what you will discover.

Kelly Sedinger said...

What on Earth makes you think I haven't looked into it myself? The notion that we're now cooling (I assume you're referring to the classic "Warming stopped in 1998" argument, very popular among denialists) is nonsense, and the efficacy of the argument isn't helped by preliminary indications that 2010 was hotter even than 1998.

I'm not really interested in "debating" this issue, any more than I'm interested in debating evolution or whether the Earth is a sphere. Rejecting the overwhelming scientific consensus, which is bolstered by decades of observational data, is not only foolish but it could be downright dangerous.

M. D. Jackson said...

To be perfectly honest I assumed that you hadn't looked into it because your opinion was different from mine. I guess that was hubris on my part.

That being said, it is a fact that there hasn't been any significant warming for the last ten years. Even Phil Jones, the head of the CRU has admitted to that fact.

The consensus to which you refer is not as overwhelming as most people think.

Besides, why is it "dangerous" for me to hold this opinion? I'm not a policymaker. I don't even live in the US. Why does my holdiong a different opinion regarding this seem foolish or dangerous? Dangerous to whom?

??? said...

I love those comics, they are always worth reading.
It's amazing how simple many people think the world is. They just don't realize what a complicated system the Earth's climate is and just rely on stuff they can see.
Living in a city that will disappear under the sea if global warming continues, I do hope that the denial will stop very soon.

Kelly Sedinger said...

No, it's not a fact that we've been cooling for ten years. Sorry, but it just isn't. As for Dr. Jones, well, that's just not what he said. And frankly, the consensus looks pretty overwhelming to me. Sure, you can find scientists who deny things like global warming -- especially when you have the Exxon-Mobil's of the world who spend tens of millions of dollars yearly in efforts to discredit the notion that their main product may not be good for humanity's longterm future on this planet.

As for why it's dangerous: maybe you don't live in the US, but unless you live in some dictatorship someplace, you're part of a citizenry of some sort, and in most democracies, public opinion tends to shape public policy. When public opinion is "Global warming's just a giant hoax that almost 100% of climate scientists are partaking in", it doesn't take a genius to see what can happen with public policy.

With that, I'm now closing comments on this entry.