Global Warming To Be Put On Trial? 1100
Mr_Blank writes to mention that the United States' largest business lobby is pushing for a public trial to examine the evidence of global warming and have a judge make a ruling on whether human beings are warming the planet to dangerous effect. "The goal of the chamber, which represents 3 million large and small businesses, is to fend off potential emissions regulations by undercutting the scientific consensus over climate change. If the EPA denies the request, as expected, the chamber plans to take the fight to federal court. The EPA is having none of it, calling a hearing a 'waste of time' and saying that a threatened lawsuit by the chamber would be 'frivolous.' [...] Environmentalists say the chamber's strategy is an attempt to sow political discord by challenging settled science — and note that in the famed 1925 Scopes trial, which pitted lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan in a courtroom battle over a Tennessee science teacher accused of teaching evolution illegally, the scientists won in the end."
Absurd (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm pretty sick of people who won't listen to science. A judge? There no precidence afaict, wtf? Is there one single scientist who isn't employed by greenhouse gas emmitters who thinks global warming isn't real, and that we aren't contributing?
Re:The goal of the chamber (Score:2, Interesting)
I have yet to see a model which correctly predicts the consistent temperature declines from 2002-2009. Based on our ever skyrocketing emissions, where is the theory that explains the temperature behavior over the past 8 years (since publication of 'An Inconvenient Truth')?
Re:The goal of the chamber (Score:3, Interesting)
Is to try to overrule the verdict of the scientific community because that verdict is going to reduce many business's profit margins and put some of them out of business.
Let's not beat around the bush and cut straight to the chase: they want the court to rule in favor of either economic well being or environmental well being. It's no coincidence to me that this hand is being forced as our country comes out of a lengthy and somewhat painful recession and the people in power now many nod toward the environment unlike the people in power for the past eight years. It's not that the commerce people "don't like it" ... it's more so that it has a very measurable effect on them and everyone knows it.
Cimate change (Score:3, Interesting)
On a side note, regarding the AGW debate, a decent attempt at objectivity here, with a few interesting links in the info section: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVi0QSDcFQQ [youtube.com]
Re:The goal of the chamber (Score:1, Interesting)
maybe, but what about the Sun? Did you notice that we just had 45 blank sun days in a row? You global warming might have to fight it out with an ice age at this rate.
Re:Absurd (Score:2, Interesting)
Reason is as reason does (Score:1, Interesting)
The issue is not so cut and dry as a lot of people seem to think.
Even if people are contributors to global warming, should the EPA be given unchecked license to force the business sector to conform to strict rules that more often than not yields a product that the customer invariably doesn't want? Companies cannot stay profitable for long if they pursue that model, especially when they have foreign competition that doesn't have to abide by the same rules.
Unless a mandate is enforceable globally, it shouldn't be a law, because it puts localized businesses at a competetive disadvantage, and often forces them to relocate or go out of business.
Furthermore, since when has the debate been considered closed? It is a fallacy of pride to think that all angles of an issue are ever considered, or that an optimal solution has already been reached. For example, if an efficient and cost-effective (or even profitable) means to mitigate greenhouse gases is found that exceeds the rate at which they are produced, wouldn't the need for emissions regulation become moot?
Re:Takesies Backsises? (Score:5, Interesting)
What is 'Global Warming' crowd you're speaking of?
It's not like climate science consist of two scientists who decided to agree that there's a global warming.
On the other hand, 'No Global Warming' crowd is really a crowd - _almost_ _all_ anti-AGW publications can be traced to a few conservative "think-tanks": http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2008/06/ninety_percent_of_enviro_skept.php [scienceblogs.com]
So if you're betting on a global conspiracy, then which one is more plausible:
1) Thousands of scientists nearly unanimously coming to conclusion of AGW.
2) Several tens of writers (mostly NOT climate-scientists) funded by money directly linked to fossil fuels.
?
Re:Perversity of the Business Community (Score:3, Interesting)
I quietly wonder whether they think they can buy a new world with their money...
Anyone read the HR2454 Bill? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll tell you, there is a reason why this Global Warming or Climate Change is up for debate.
Never mind the fact that polar bears DO know how too swim or that this is the coolest summer on record. Temperatures have been cooling since 1998/99.
Never mind the fact the fact that this planet and other planets have warmed and cooled throughout the centuries.
Never mind the fact that The Inconvenient Truth is actually refuted by thousands of scientists throughout the world.
Never mind that Al Gore stands to make Billions if this Cap n Trade, Climate Change Bill HR2454 passes in the Senate and gets signed into law.
Never mind that this same Bill not only tax business but tax EVERYONE, from real estate restrictions on your home, to making you pay for renovations before you can sell your home.
Never mind that all this media spin is meant too whip support for the most invasive tax bill ever brought upon all the people of this country.
Never mind that they rushed this bill in the house, and did not even read through it, but still passed it anyhow.
All I will ask of YOU is too do the research behind the science of climate change and draw your own conclusions, before you are sway by ANY mass public opinion.
And please we have already taken such a huge debt with these bailouts, again please read the HR2454 Cap n trade Climate Change Bill. This is all incremental folks. The trial of Climate change/Global Warming and this HR2454 Cap n Trade Carbon Tax Bill is all relevant. Just trying to give a heads up. Tired of the "end of the world" fear mongering.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h2454pcs.txt.pdf [gpo.gov]
Question for the CC pundits (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not quite Scopes level (Score:5, Interesting)
We still can't predict [...] the weather, [...] with accuracy in a given year or a decade, let alone centuries.
I'm often reminded of an article I once read in which a scientist was discussing turbulence. He explained how if he poured some cold milk into a hot cup of coffee, without stirring, the currents and turbulence meant that it would be all but impossible to predict the temperature at a specific point, 30 seconds or a minute from now.
"Of course", he said, "we can very accurately predict its temperature one hour from now".
Not a direct analogy, but while I can't get an accurate prediction of whether it will rain in my garden one month from today, I have a much better chance of predicting the mean temperature of the whole planet, over the whole of 2012.
Re:Absurd (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm pretty sick of people who won't listen to science. A judge? There no precidence afaict, wtf? Is there one single scientist who isn't employed by greenhouse gas emmitters who thinks global warming isn't real, and that we aren't contributing?
Strangely enough, I am still convinced that the evidence behind the causes and effects of global warming is much less than watertight.
For one thing, there is abviously no chance to have a double blind experiment, since we only have one earth. Second, on the timescales we are arguing about, we are trying to extrapolate judgements from a very small data set. The EPA has squashed some internal opinions that went against the common belief, as has been reported on Slashdot (sorry, I could not find the link).
I am also concerned about the amount of public money being thrown about. the issue of wether what I would call "exotic renewable energy", like solar or wind, is likely to become viable in the future is obscured by the massive amount of incentive schemes, fiscal offsets etc. that cloud the issue. finding an honest assesment of energy costs per Kwh before incentive schemes is very difficult, and to my knowledge none of these calculations ever made the manistream media.
Having said that, i'd be content with the judge saying "not enough data", and relaunching the issue in the public domain.
I hate the word "consensus" (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ah Good 'ol United States (Score:2, Interesting)
If the US does not act to reduce the 'carbon footprint' of humanity, we are all going to be fucked.
Why? Who sold you a bridge?
One of the absolute facts that the media never bothers to mention is this: carbon dioxide has one primary role in the eco-system, more important than any other. It is plant food. Fertilizer.
If you were able to drop CO2 levels back to preindustrial levels, the single most noticeable effect would be a drop in crop yields of between 20 and 25%, depending on crop and climate. Grains growing in drier climates (Australia, much of the US midwest) seem to benefit the most. Fruits and vegetables somewhat less.
The fact is that CO2 levels are at or near historical lows, if you view them on geological time scales. For most of the earths history, CO2 levels were much higher. Not a wimpy 20% or 50% but dozens to hundreds of times higher. The contribution of mankind to CO2 levels is a sneeze on the breeze compared to natural changes. Mankind is just not that significant.
Re:Ah Good 'ol United States (Score:3, Interesting)
Because there are other benefits to reducing CO2 such as not having to rely on security of decreasing fossil fuel resources.
If a big country like the US can make the shift to renewable, green power and simultaneously cut unnecessary wasteful power usage it will have a competitive advantage in the world. Other nations like China will then have to follow or face getting left in the dust again. The green technology market in itself has the potential to be massive too, and nations like China will want their cut.
The problem is, to push for these advantages requires short term pain - it requires effort, it requires research and as such no major players are willing to really kick start the process at all, but again, rest assured when one does, the others will see what they're missing or find themselves fighting over scraps of fossil fuels and end up weaker nations as a result.
Europe seems to be ahead right now in leading on this, although it's still really a half assed effort, so long term the leader of the green technology market is still anyone's game.
Re:"Scientific Consensus Over Climate Change" ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Scientific opinion on climate change [wikipedia.org]
Note that the latest poll shows that all but a few actual climate experts (not just scientists in general) "believe that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures".
Re:Ah Good 'ol United States (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with the current regulations is that they put the penalties at point of production, not at point of sale, so the cheapest way of complying with them is to ship your manufacturing overseas.
Re:No... (Score:4, Interesting)
You're really playing criminally fucking stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a problem that involves international policy and science. Hence, you have governments sending their scientific experts to talk about it. Policy is done by governments, and science is done by scientists. That's what it's got to do.
And note that academies of science all around the world support the IPCC's finding. Do you think they know a bit or two about science? Or do you trust Faux News to get your "facts" instead?
Your denialism is about as misguided as that of truthers, birthers or moon landing denialists, with the difference than none of those risk killing millions by being stupid. They're just being stupid. You Heritage Foundation and AEI shills are criminally stupid. Or just criminally insane.
Re:Wrong question (Score:3, Interesting)
Who cares if global warming is caused by humans or not? Do we actually need to prove that to reach the conclusion that polluting its own environment is a rather stupid behavior for any living being?
That's flawed thinking. We pollute our environment because we do things that we consider more important than the damage we do to the environment. That is the benefits are perceived to be greater than the costs. It would be stupid to pollute to the point that the costs vastly outweigh the benefits (for example, to pollute the Earth to the point that humans can't survive unaided on its surface even for brief times). Similarly, it'd be stupid to treat the elimination of pollution as the sole purpose of humanity.
And to answer your question, yes, we do need to know a lot more about global warming, including how much of it is caused by humans.
Re:No... (Score:3, Interesting)
Bullshit. They found nine "errors", assertions were the facts were disputed - things like the snowcap on Kilimanjaro is disappearing due to human activity (no one argues that it is disappearing). The film can be released to schoolkids as long as those errors are clarified.
Much of "climate science" is turning out the same way. NASA's major climate "researcher" James Hansen has been repeatedly caught doctoring his data when it didn't support his predetermined conclusions.
In several minutes of searching, I am able to find no credible, objective evidence of this (no, Fox News is not credible or objective).
Re:Wrong question (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes. Any living being pollutes its environment, by converting substances it needs to live into wastes which it cannot use. It's unavoidable.
Misleading title. (Score:3, Interesting)
Global Warming is not being put on trial. We know it's happened, it's happened many times in the history of the earth, so has global cooling. What is being put on trial is the idea of humans causing it or contributing to it. Everyone is bitching about the corporations because they are about money, well let me tell you what, the scientists are trying to keep their funding too.
Re:Oh for goodness sake (Score:2, Interesting)
Politicians haven't decided the matter. Climate scientists, the people best qualified to do so, have decided the matter and provided reports to the politicians, who then decide that to do about it. They're elected, so there's your "representative government".
The only way for non-experts to make a meaningful judgement is to become experts. This stuff isn't trivial or it wouldn't have taken so long to come to the conclusion that the scientists have. Many statements by non-experts are full of stuff that *seems* reasonable to a layman but is in fact wrong for various subtle reasons that would only be apparent to an expert. While I have a background as a scientist it's not in climate science, so I wouldn't feel qualified to assess the evidence in depth without spending a lot of time studying it (months at least), certainly more time than the judge would have. And I have a head start in knowing about science in general.
I'd rather have a "dictatorship" by the intellectual elite than rule by corporate influence, populism or wishful thinking.
Re:They are NOT Denying Global Warming (Score:2, Interesting)
simple explanation of AGW for you (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a very simple explanation of AGW for you. No computer models, nothing about weather, very basic.
Imagine a sphere the size of the earth at the earth's distance from the sun with the earth's albedo (average reflectance). What will the surface temperature be due to solar radiation? Do the maths and you get a temperature about 33C lower than that we observe on the earth's surface today. In other words, the earth's atmosphere acts as a blanket trapping heat and raising the temperature by about 33C: the greenhouse effect.
What parts of the atmosphere are responsible for this 33C increase? By far the most important is water. As a gas and in clouds, it is responsible for up to about 90% of the effect. The remaining warming is caused by the so-called greenhouse gasses: CO2, Methane, O3, NO, etc.
If you examine the absorption spectra of these gasses and weight by atmospheric concentration, you'll find about 40% is due to CO2. So 40% of 10% of 33C is around 1.3C of warming due to atmospheric CO2.
Atmospheric CO2 has gone up by 50% since pre-industrial times, the increase is almost all due to fossil-fuel burning (you can tell from radioisotope ratios), so we would expect about a 0.5C rise in global temperatures due to human CO2 output.
Of course that's a very, very crude back-of-the-napkin calculation, but the result is approximately in line with the IPCC reports. Here's another version of the same calculation (but a bit more complex), with full references and some spreadsheets you can download and try out yourself:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing [realclimate.org]
Re:Question for the CC pundits (Score:2, Interesting)
The oscillation of the ice cap formation and overall weather cycles are the concerns. If we are changing the rate of global warming, even in just a small way, it is possible that our perturbations break the oscillation pattern of the system. That's what we need to determine.
That also leaves a big question mark as to what happens next. I mean one of the descriptions from the global warning namesake would be resonance leading to ever increasing temperatures. Obviously in the real world these ever increasing temperatures would have be asymptotic to some upper bound based on physical limitations of the system, but we have no way of knowing whether that upper limit is even life supporting let alone something we'd want to get accustom to. Not to mention no idea as to the longer term impacts on all of the planet's physical, bio, and eco systems in such an event.
Re:Ah Good 'ol United States (Score:2, Interesting)
they are building 100 new nuclear reactor within this decade [wikipedia.org]
They are also building hell a lot of new wind turbine as well [wikipedia.org]
Re:They are NOT Denying Global Warming (Score:1, Interesting)
It would classify CO2 under the same classification as Asbestos, Chloroform, and other dangerous toxic chemicals, attempting to effectively limit emissions by orders of magnitude. That's not cutting it in half, or even a third. It's cutting it down by a factor of TEN.
Why is this modded informative when it contains no information? It's just making a wild and inaccurate assertion without any evidence.
If you bother to actually read anything on the topic, Start Here [epa.gov], you'll notice that this only concerns greenhouse emissions of new motor vehicles and engines. And that the EPA is bound by Massachusetts v. EPA to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gases if they are found to contribute to global warming. And that this endangerment finding itself imposes no requirements on industry or any other entity, much less your ridiculous claim of an order of magnitude cut in emissions.
Re:No... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think global warming could be a good thing.
Instead of vast areas of Canada and Siberia laying fallow, we could plant crops there and feed the hungry. Both of those areas were once lush jungle during the time of the dinosaurs. Even the Sahara is likely to see more rainfall and become fertile (although that's not certain - just conjecture).
Re:Question for the CC pundits (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not about a particular temperature, it's about rate of change, which is much faster than we'd expect a natural cycle to be. If this were happening over thousands of years, there'd be enough time for society to adapt (would probably involve a reduction in population, which is possible to do "gently" over long periods). Massive migation due to rising sea levels, a collapse in available resources, mass extinctions having knock on effects in a century or so is sure to be disasterous (altho probably not the end of the world, or even humans, just the end of our current level of civilisation).