Climate Contrarians Seek Leadership of House Science Committee 518
An article at Ars examines three members of the U.S. House of Representatives who are seeking chairmanship of its Committee on Space, Science, and Technology. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said in an interview, "My analysis is that in the global warming debate, we won. There were a lot of scientists who were just going along with the flow on the idea that mankind was causing a change in the world's climate. I think that after 10 years of debate, we can show that that there are hundreds if not thousands of scientists who have come over to being skeptics, and I don't know anyone [who was a skeptic] who became a believer in global warming." James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has a similar record of opposing climate change, as does Lamar Smith (R-TX). Relatedly, Phil Plait, a.k.a. The Bad Astronomer, has posted an article highlighting how U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), a member of the Senate's Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, has declined to answer a question about how old the Earth is, calling it "one of the great mysteries."
Richard Muller (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know anyone [who was a skeptic] who became a believer in global warming.
You mean like Richard Muller [slashdot.org] who quite famously denounced anthropogenic global warming [nytimes.com] only to come to the same conclusion by his own means? Yeah, that opinion piece by him opens with "Call me a converted skeptic."
Oh, I get it, after it turns out that his research didn't back up your "beliefs", he must never have been a skeptic to begin with, right? Or perhaps when you made that statement you meant that you just don't know Richard Muller personally?
Political word games have always been such a pain in the ass.
But you are right that while peer reviewed journals move one way, the population moves the other [yale.edu]:
The most striking result is the increase in the proportion of Americans who express strong doubt or rejection of the reality of global warming through their free associations. In 2003, only 7% of Americans provided “naysayer” images (e.g., “hoax,” or “no such thing”) when asked what thought or image first came to mind when they heard the term “global warming.” By 2010, however, 23% of Americans provided “naysayer” images.
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Insightful)
My analysis is that in the global warming debate, we won.
I'm not sure what he thinks the prize is going to be. But I'm willing to wager that it will indeed be a surprise. A big one.
Although it sounds rather inflammatory and is really, really stupid, the fact that the House has jammed up that committee with people having the intellectual prowess of fleas really doesn't change things. It's pretty clear that the US government is unable and unwilling to be particularly proactive about this. It's also not very clear that we CAN do anything substantive about climate change.
Hang on to your butts!
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Well that's the trick with republicans retaining control of at least one part of government. They can jam up the process on anything inconvenient. That was the point for them all along.
I agree that it's not clear what Obama and the democrats in general would do if given the chance anyway. We can all pontificate over what they think they might want to do, but I have no idea what they'd actually be able to wrangle their own party into given the opportunity.
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason our federal government is set up this way is PRECISELY for keeping the mob rule (House) or the aristocracy (Senate) from becoming a battering ram to shove whatever agenda they see fit through the process. The process is geared towards compromise. The Founders meant for it to be this way (ever wonder why it's so damn hard to amend the Constitution? Same logic.) If you read the Founders' writings (Jefferson and Adams in particular) you'll see that their purpose was not to create a "juggernaut" that trampled over anything in its path, but a slow tortoise that didn't rush into legislation and learned from compromise rather than intimidation.
Granted, there are exceptions to the rule, but the point being, we don't WANT a speedy federal government (remember the PATRIOT Act?)... we want a lukewarm slow moving behemoth that doesn't fuck things up every 2 years.
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Insightful)
Except R isn't interested in compromise.
For example, way back when Obama started with redoing health care, he invited the Republicans to participate and said "Lets start with the plan from one of YOUR people, John McCain." The response was that that plan was unacceptable and that they wouldn't participate AT ALL.
For every issue that actually matters, R largely is "Either you do what we say or we will block everything you want to do".
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
Obama had Plan A during the presidential campaign
McCain says Plan A is crap and he would do Plan B
Plan B was not rejected by the Republicans UNTIL it was presented to them as "Lets start with Plan B". Followed by "We will not take part in any way with any plan, and we will repeal any plan you may pass."
To me, that is not anywhere in the vicinity of compromise.
Hell, the current "compromise" by R w.r.t. tax increases is....let's hit poor people by killing the charitable giving tax deduction [which this tax deduction encourages]. But not even 0.01% tax hike for rich, they will just flee the US.
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Horseshit.
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Informative)
... we don't WANT a speedy federal government (remember the PATRIOT Act?)
So how come they're really fast to take away our freedoms when confronted with imaginary threats, but with *real, actual threats they act like a toroise with its fucking legs cut off?
* Like car crashes (PDF): [dot.gov]
In 2010, 32,885 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes in the United States - the lowest number of fatalities since 1949
That's ten times the number that were killed in 9/11, and that was the lowest year in a long time!
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And what do you expect Congress to do about people that can't drive worth shit?
Not much. On the other hand, there is heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and many other diseases which all kill far more people each year [cdc.gov] than were killed in 9/11, and which could probably all be reduced for far less money than we spent fighting the war on terror. Even suicide (over 36,000 deaths) could probably be greatly reduced with a little more money into our mental health system.
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The compromise to "indirect" election of the President (some delegates wanted the Congress to appoint a President), probably had a little to do with the State Legislatures picking Senators (because they get to pick the electors)... I don't know if that's significant or a coincidence... However, the direct election of Senators was a Progressive idea, because of all the trouble the State legislatures had at actually picking two senators. I forget which amendment changed it (and I can't find my damn pocket Con
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I'm going to play devil's advocate here : The way to debate this with republicans is simple : global warming is being used to massively expand government and regulation. It effectively regulates one of the few things nothing and nobody can do without : energy. I don't think anyone really denies that that is happening.
Which is also why this responsibility thing is so huge with them : they don't feel responsible for global warming. Their grandfather's grandfather had nothing to do with it, other than having k
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Muller was never a skeptic.
No skeptic I’ve met said that “ carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate.” (Richard Muller, 2003). So perhaps he became a skeptic later? Not so much. Richard Muller, 2008: “There is a consensus that global warming is real. it’s going to get much, much worse.”
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Insightful)
Muller was never a skeptic.
The minute he said something you disagreed with, he become "biased".
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Funny)
Muller was never a skeptic.
I think you mean:
skep-tic-tard /`skeptiktard/ Noun: A person inclined to question or doubt all accepted opinions, regardless of any and all facts. Sees a changing of the mind when presented with good solid evidence as a moral failing.
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know anyone [who was a skeptic] who became a believer in global warming.
It is a rather telling quote. If the skeptics are so entrenched in their beliefs that none ever change then they are not skeptics. They are deniers. If that term is deemed to be offensive, then they could choose disbelievers. But "skeptic" implies a willingness to be convinced, and this is obviously not happening.
It also ignores the real skeptics: scientists. These are the people who do studies that reproduce other studies to see if their data matches so they can confirm or deny the original claims. These are the people who do studies to test their basic assumptions (that seem so obvious that the public often laugh at them), just in case they were false truisms. These are the real skeptics.
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps it might help to point out that people are using "skeptic" with two rather different meanings in this discussion. The word means something different in common English than it does in technical/scientific English.
In common speech, a "skeptic" is someone who actively disbelieves something. And note that in common speech, "disbelieves" and "doesn't believe" are synonyms.
In technical English, neither of these is true. A skeptic is rather someone who believes that something should be challenged, even if there's pretty good evidence that it's true. There is a lot of scientific history showing the value of challenging accepted theory, and challenges sometimes turn up important exceptions or qualifications. The poster child for this is Einstein's Relativity, which was based on experimenters testing Newton's theories/equations/mechanics, uncovering a number of exceptions. Newton's mechanics are still taught in schools, with the qualification that they're only approximations that are useful under "ordinary" (here on Earth) conditions, but at high speeds or accelerations become inaccurate. Similarly, even the most "devout" believers in climate change will agree that a lot of further research is needed, and our understanding of climate is still rather limited. So there's a lot of room for skepticism withing the field of climatology, if skepticism is taken in its scientific sense of "needing further research" to improve the accuracy of the equations.
The "disbelieves" vs. "doesn't believe" dichotomy is also important. In common speech, everything is typically either true or false. But scientists live in a world where a lot of things are in an "unknown" state. Disbelieving something therefore doesn't mean that you believe it's false. To a scientist, disbelief means that you don't think we know all the facts, and further testing is needed before we accept something as "theory". It's not uncommon for a scientist to express disbelief in even their own results, and insist that further research is needed. (Funding organizations are very familiar with this phenomomenon. ;-)
One of the clear cases of a long-lasting state of disbelief was back in the 1980s, when as a result of recent paleontological discoveries, birds were finally reclassified as a branch of the dinosaurs. This wasn't a new idea; it was suggested back in the 19th century by none other than Charles Darwin, as well as by numerous colleagues. The similarities between those newly-discovered dinosaur fossils and bird skeletons couldn't be missed, and the discovery of the few Archeopteryx fossils in Germany just added to the suspicion that they were close relatives. But until the 1970s, no further ancient bird fossils were found. So scientists said "Yeah, it looks like a real possibility, but we need a lot more evidence." Most biologists expected that it would be found true, but they remained officially skeptics until more evidence turned up. Then Mao died, China opened up to field research, and several beds of ancient avian fossils were found there. After a few decades and a few thousand more avian fossils, the skeptics finally said "Yeah; we've got the evidence now", and what everyone suspected all along was made official theory. But this followed more than a century of skepticism on the part of most biologists.
Also, note that some biologists continue to express skepticism about the bird-dinosaur link. It's mostly of a pro-forma nature, but it's generally considered proper if done scientifically. Compared to other kinds of critters, birds still have a very sketchy fossil record. Their thin bones just don't fossilize well. So various biologists continue to challenge the details of the classification, with the hope that funding will be found to collect the evidence. Thus, recent DNA studies have verified that the ratites are birds and not a separate branch of dinosaurs. Other studies have shown that cockatiels really are close relatives of cockatoos, and not an independent early bra
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Good post, and exactly the sort of which there is not enough of on Slashdot these days. I was going to add however that I'd caution against reading into too much from taxonomic changes. Taxonomy is, in my opinion, rather a "dangerous" discipline in this respect when used as a basis for factual discussion.
The problem with taxonomy is that it tries to apply classification in a uniform manner, when the evolutionary tree is anything but uniform. As such, classification all too often ends up being nothing more t
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Insightful)
To be blunt, there's more money and power riding on proving AGW is an urgent problem than there is money against it from the fossil fuel side.
WTF? Care to elaborate or cite?
Re:Richard Muller (Score:4, Informative)
There's also big money to be had in the carbon trade markets. $180 billion worth [reuters.com] of carbon dioxide emission credits were outstanding in 2011.
Holy smokes thats a lot of money! Thats over a third of Exxon's revenue for 2011! It was $486 Billion btw. For one oil company. What got me is back when BP had that the oil spill in the gulf and everyone was reporting that they put $20 Billion in escrow, a few sources reported that's less than a years worth of profits (note profits, not revenue which is also in the hundred billions). If Germany is increasing its power exports with a $130B investment (http://cleantechnica.com/2012/02/09/clean-energy-loving-germany-increasingly-exporting-electricity-to-nuclear-heavy-france/), Imagine what they could do with $500B. As for political motherlodes, what do you call the 10's of millions the Koch brothers spend on lobbying every year?
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Insightful)
The scary thing is that even that may not be true.
As Brian Cox pointed out once:
"We have spent more money bailing out the banks in one year, than we have spent, on Science, in Britain, since Jesus."
The amount of money in big business, particularly the fossil fuel mega-corps, is just on a completely different scale to that in the science/research industries.
For what it's worth though I think there is a bigger problem than PR from the fossil fuel industries. I think the bigger problem is that people neither want, nor like change. Telling people they may have to change their ways a little is a far more difficult than simply proving the fossil fuel industries wrong. People are lazy and getting everyone to even do something simple like sort their rubbish and recycle more rather than mindlessly throwing stuff in the same old bin to be sent to a single landfill is far more of a problem than dealing with shills, the shills just make a tough problem tougher.
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Insightful)
The same ones who are just as skeptical as a Republican congressman, but just happen to be playing for the other side? Tell me more.
Happy to oblige. On one hand you have the scientists who joined a profession where being skeptical and wanting more information is their entire raison d'être. There are no right or wrong answers in science, only supported or unsupported theories.
On the other hand, you have a bunch of uneducated politicians who see that climate change is going to cost their supporters a lot of money. They didn't come to this debate with doubts about the science. They came with an agenda to discredit the science so their campaign contributors would not be forced to make costly changes to how they currently do business.
If it was not for the fact that there is a lot of money riding on this, there would not be any "sides" to this issue. Why is it that the two major scientific disputes that have now have one side with a huge vested interest in keeping science down? Big business hates climate science and religion hates evolution because both have a lot to lose from the science.
Scientists faced exactly the same forces in the past when they tackled the dangers of asbestos, as well as tobacco smoking. Even back then the motives of scientists were questioned to discredit the message. Who turned out to be right then? Your idea that there is more money in proving AGW is not backed by historical precedent. On the other hand, politicians doing the bidding of their wealthy supporters has a depressing amount of precedent.
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Funny)
"On the other hand, you have a bunch of uneducated politicians who see that climate change is going to cost their supporters a lot of money."
The answer appears to be giving the Republicans a way to make money from global warming and then we will see an instant turnaround. Probably so fast that we'd accidentally freeze the planet.
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, scientific grants clearly dwarf the money the oil companies have.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49399132@N00/6941179877/
See if you can follow along.
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Insightful)
The same ones who are just as skeptical as a Republican congressman, but just happen to be playing for the other side?
Are you really so naive that you genuinely believe scientists and politicians are playing the same game?
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"Oh, I get it, after it turns out that his research didn't back up your "beliefs", he must never have been a skeptic to begin with, right?"
Nor was he much of a Scotsman.
Re:Richard Muller (Score:4, Informative)
If you are concerned about global warming (as I am) and think that human-created carbon dioxide may contribute (as I do), then you still should agree that we are much better off having broken the hockey stick.
As far as I can tell, he's been concerned about global warming for a long time.
Re:Richard Muller (Score:5, Insightful)
he is just another person paid to read crystal balls.
Paid by the Koch brothers.
Follow the money -- science is a CONSPIRACY!!!!!
the claims were exaggerated, studies were forged, and statistics were manipulated.
And you know this because you read some conservative blogs? Gee, you must be really educated on the subject. Unlike those full-time scientists who have spend their life studying it. They're just a bunch of commies.
My two cents... (Score:2, Insightful)
I do believe global warming is happening, however, I am not sure mankind is responsible for a majority of it. However, I do believe we must cut pollution for the sake of pollution regardless of whether it puts a dent into the overall problem of global warming.
Re:My two cents... (Score:5, Insightful)
At all other times in the planet's history when there have been periods of warming, it's taken orders of magnitude longer than the current period. The difference? This time is post industrial revolution and the wide-spread burning of fossil fuels. How do we know? Ice cores. But don't let the actual facts get in the way of your skepticism.
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Don't let them wrap you up in a correlation game. Real researchers put together a model and compare it to past data - the science has advanced well beyond simple correlations. Everyone who has taken the time and effort to build a model has come to the same conclusion.
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Real researchers put together a model and compare it to past data
As a start, sure. Real researchers then use that model to make a prediction from their original hypothesis, and wait until reality has either disproven or not disproven the hypothesis.
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True - and that has been happening over the last 30 years or so. Since the mid 90s, the models have been looking pretty good.
It could be a fluke, though - which is why it is still good to look at thousands of years of historical data rather than putting too much weight on any single decade.
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You aren't going to try to tell me that the earth is a closed system, are you?
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What the heck? What is this nonsense? If it can't exist, why is it possible to measure it? Here's a paper that first did it back in 1954: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0469(1954)011%3C0121%3AAIDFMO%3E2.0.CO%3B2 [ametsoc.org]
How gullible does someone have to be to believe that back radiation is a violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics? Do you even know what the 2nd law is?
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Umm, what articles? There aren't any links in this part of the thread and it doesn't seem like it would be part of the article that started this. Your claim that back radiation violates the 2nd law is nonsense. And what's the AGW version of it? Your statement that the earth can't absorb the back radiation coming from greenhouse gases is just embarrassing nonsense. How would the earth even know what photons came from the greenhouse gases? Or is your argument that the earth is transparent to the infrar
Just trolling... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just asking.
No, you're "just trolling". If you were "just asking" you would listen to (or at least respond to) the answers you have been given in the past. But that's not what you do, you keep repeating the same discredited claims over and over again like a broken record. Another possibility is that you have a learning disability, but I doubt that since you seem like a rational human being on politically neutral subjects.
Re:Just trolling... (Score:4, Informative)
Earth is NOT an ideal black body, SB applies ONLY to ideal black bodies.
Now that I have given you the answer (again) I expect a thank-you, or at least a fact based rebuttal.
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According to the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law, unless the substance in question is an ideal "black body", which is a perfect absorber (and radiator) of energy, and which frankly does not exist, it's just impossible.
The Stefan-Boltzmann law is almost totally irrelevant to this discussion. It does not dictate which objects can transfer energy to which objects. (Hint: any body can transfer energy to any other body through radiation, as long as nothing blocks it.)
Warmer objects cannot, and do not absorb lower-energy radiation from cooler objects.
Warmer objects ARE REQUIRED BY THE LAWS OF PHYSICS to absorb radiation from ANY source, with some quantum mechanically determined probability that depends only on the momentum of the radiation and other properties of the absorbing atom. (Hint: that probabili
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Warmer objects cannot, and do not absorb lower-energy radiation from cooler objects.
Sure they do. If they didn't then equally hot objects in a vacuum would cool at the same rate regardless of their surroundings, and of course they cool at a rate proportional to the difference in temperature. Also, infrared lasers couldn't heat things to the point that they give off visible light. Microwaves wouldn't be able to heat things.
Please go back up this thread and read the articles to which I linked: "Yes, Vir
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You are referring to things that have higher radiative energy (microwaves, for example) than the things they are heating.
But they are the same kind photons given off by cooler objects. If "Warmer objects cannot, and do not absorb lower-energy radiation from cooler objects." then a larger, concentrated dose of those same photons shouldn't be absorbed either. If I stand under the night sky, either my hot coffee can absorb the CMB energy that hits it, or the microwave in my kitchen couldn't hove gotten it
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Boltzmann was one of those I was indirectly addressing. You missed that, eh? Did you even read the original articles?
I only had to read enough to see that his work was being misrepresented. Am I required to read every creationist/UFO/electric universe/William Lane Craig screed all the way to the end, or can I stop after I find a few painful distortions of other people's work?
Re:My two cents... (Score:5, Informative)
I think every mirror ever used in a high-energy laser experiment would disagree with you - *reflection* (such as from clouds) is a highly localized surface phenomena that does not require an ambient energy level sufficient to radiate. If it didn't those mirrors would all themselves melt when reflecting laser beams capable of melting through their glass backing. (Just one of the reasons that high-end laboratory mirrors are silvered on the *front*, so that the reflected beam never passes through the glass substrate).
As for actual radiation - any symmetric body above absolute zero will radiate energy in a symmetric pattern - the upper atmosphere doesn't somehow "know" that the Earth is warmer and not radiate in that direction, it radiates fairly uniformly in every direction - i.e. half of it goes downwards again, and *something* will absorb it (unless it gets reflected) Of course the *net* heat transfer will still be from the Earth outwards because the Earth is much warmer and hence radiating more energy. The problem is just that forcing even a tiny extra percentage of the heat radiated by the Earth to make an "extra bounce" before it escapes means the total energy within the atmosphere increases similarly - and even that tiny percentage translates to a truly staggering number in absolute terms.
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He, you're the one who mentioned clouds, which unquestionably DO act as reflectors.
so... you're trying to convince me that an argument against back-radiation has nothing to do with radiation.... okay, I think I begin to see the problem. As for the articles you mention - I just skimmed back to the beginning of this thread and saw not one reference, perhaps they were in one of the other branches? I'm not going to go back to the original article and dig through the entire conversation tree, but I'd be happy
Re:My two cents... (Score:5, Informative)
At all other times in the planet's history when there have been periods of warming, it's taken orders of magnitude longer than the current period.
No.
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html [ornl.gov]
How do we know? Ice cores.
No.
http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~stocker/papers/bereiter09grl.pdf [unibe.ch]
My two cents... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's interesting to see how fragmented the anti-science people are.
That 23% of people who express doubt, are actually a bunch of different doubters. People who think it's not happening and lah-lah-lah (fingers in ears).
People who believe it IS happening but its natural.
People who believe it's man-made , but there's nothing we can do about it.
If you watch Fox (it's the only US news I see on my cable), they can't keep their story consistent between which of these they are. I suspect all they really care about is that you use fossil fuels as wastefully as possible at as high a price as possible. Whenever energy efficiency comes up, they're all screaming 'unAmerican' as if anyone would be against doing the same thing for less money!?
But it does show that you don't actually have 77%-23%, you have a more fragmented 77%-10%-10%-2%
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It's not that they are "anti-science." It's that they don't value things they don't understand and more importantly, aren't as interesting as other things.
In a way, these types exhibit unreal amounts of arrogance. They know that without the sciences, their comfortable lives could not be what it is today. (Though in their prayers, they thank god for things other people did... even for things they did themselves.) They know the things they don't understand have a profound impact on their current lives. I
I think it's worse than that. (Score:4, Interesting)
You wrote: "They know that without the sciences, their comfortable lives could not be what it is today."
I suspect a large fraction doesn't know that. I doubt these are people who, when they flip a light switch or run hot water in their kitchen or flush a toilet, even occasionally think of the infrastructure that lets them do those things. They not only don't know what they don't know, they aren't curious about it. Much less capable of changing their minds in light of scientific evidence that conflicts with their faith/beliefs.
Re:My two cents... (Score:5, Insightful)
Serious failure of Occams razor going on here AC.
Lets take three things we know;-
1) You say climate change is happening. Well we agree on that. Lets put that into "Known knowns".
2) We know CO2 significantly traps infra red radiation. This was known since the 1800s when researchers first started putting alarm bells out about climate change after Fourier first demonstrated CO2s effect on IR spectrum light in the laboratory.
3) And we are putting staggering amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Something in the range of 35000 teragrams per year.
Yet.
4) You dont think humans are responsible for most of the climate change.
The question I ask then, is what mechanism are you proposing that is stopping physics from doing its thing here.
This is the thing the "Humans are not having an effect" people seem to miss here. Thats a huge claim which breaks a tonne of very old and very established physics, and for the "we are not causing climate change" thing to be true, novel physics needs to be proposed to provide a mechanism that causes CO2 to stop absorbing IR light.
I should note some caution here. If a mechanism is proposed, a LOT of things break. Huge amounts of our knowledge of chemistry , astronomy (absorbsion lines, etc) , and so on are dependent on our understanding of how gasses absorb light, and we'd be throwing out perhaps entire fields of science, because holy crap have we got a lot of things wrong? All that stuff we learned from staring at black lines on rainbows shitting out of our telesopes? Wrong wrong wrong. All the whacky stuff we've learned bouncing light through gasses in laboratories? Wrong wrong wrong. Chemistry wrong, physics wrong, astronomy wrong, biology wrong, its exaustive.
To wit;- Big claims require big evidence.
And I'm not seeing that evidence, instead I'm seeing frauds like "lord" monkton, a guy whos entire scientific/mathematical education was finishing highschool, being paraded around by right-wing think tanks as a "renowned mathematician". I'm seeing incredibly detailed frame ups of researchers involving multiple right-wing thinktanks pushing campaigns of deliberate misrepresentation of peoples emails. I'm seeing polls of scientists, in such dead-on fields as "political science" and "marketing" denouncing basic observational physics and not a single damn qualified climate scientist in sight.
I'm actually not seeing shit. Theres almost no legitimate reason left to doubt climate change and our role in it anymore. Its happening, its real. That debate ended 150 years ago in Fouriers laboratory.
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Negative feedback either places limits on an external forcing mechanism serving to reduce the deviation from a natural state (b
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"You may want to recheck your usage of "Dr Roy Spencer" as any kind of legitimate argument, before you further humiliate yourself."
Pardon me? I referred to the original article which Dr. Latour was REBUTTING. And I did not add the "dr" to Spencer's title, that's from the name of the website, which Slashdot adds to links and over which I have no control.
So please explain again how I am humiliating myself. Because I made no argument whatever on Spencer's behalf. On the contrary; it looks to me as though your own lack of reading comprehension is making a rather glaring spectacle.
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Just for reference"
"In TCS Daily, Spencer wrote, "Twenty years ago, as a PhD scientist, I intensely studied the evolution versus intelligent design controversy for about two years. And finally, despite my previous acceptance of evolutionary theory as 'fact,' I came to the realization that intelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionism. In the scientific community, I am not alone. There are many fine books out there on the subject. Curiously, most of the books are w
Re:My two cents... (Score:5, Informative)
Latour is a chemical process engineer trying to explain thermodynamics to a climate scientist. His "rebuttal" is full of basic misunderstandings and laughable examples (that headlights example still makes me grin). He flatly declares (without backing evidence of course) that warmer bodies cannot possibly absorb any energy from cooler bodies (guess what? it slows cooling!), which directly contradicts nearly two centuries of well-established greenhouse theory and countless observations (starting with Fournier in 1824). He does not even try to address the primary issue of disparate absorption of thermal radiation from the Sun and Earth. And he then has the gall to accuse climate scientists of not understanding the difference between radiation and convection.
When (to cut through the misunderstandings) Spencer offers him a simple observational experiment he can do himself to prove the theory, he dodges it and accuses Spencer of shifting the goalposts. It's no wonder Spencer (a practicing climatologist with better things to do) didn't bother to engage further.
If you still think greenhouse theory is nonsense, read this [skepticalscience.com]. If you think greenhouse theory somehow violates thermodynamics, read this [skepticalscience.com].
Re:My two cents... (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe I should've linked to the Basic page [skepticalscience.com] instead. The Intermediate page seems to have bounced off you.
Stefan-Boltzmann [slashdot.org] still applies, of course - warm bodies radiate energy - but it says nothing about a warm body's ability to absorb radiant energy, even if produced by colder bodies. This is where you're going wrong. Warm bodies radiate faster than cool bodies (that's thermodynamics), but cool bodies still radiate some energy, which can of course be absorbed by the warm bodies, slowing their rate of cooling. Is this not intuitively obvious? It's certainly long-established science.
Let me break down the atmospheric situation for you, in simple language: Greenhouse gases reflect & absorb certain IR bands of sunlight,but pass higher bands, like visible light. The sunlight that gets through warms the Earth, which radiates it back in the IR bands, according to Stefan-Boltzmann. Those same greenhouse gases now reflect & absorb the IR coming from the Earth as well - trapping much of the heat that would otherwise have radiated into space.
This process is in complete accordance with thermodynamics, and has been observed and proved to virtually everyone's satisfaction long, long ago. If Latour still labours under the belief that he can challenge this, he can attempt to publish a paper, but I predict his methodology will be torn to shreds by reviewers far more capably than I could manage.
Re: (Score:3)
By the way: Latour is a process engineer with particular expertise in thermodynamic control systems.
If I were in a room in which you challenged him over thermodynamics, I'd probably want to go outside to avoid the bloodbath.
Good luck with that whole argument. To say it's weak is just... well... weak.
Remind me to never be near any "thermodynamic process" he has had a hand in designing "expertly".
If he believes that objects selectively absorb radiation based on the the origin of said radiation like some sort of "radiation absorption door man" then I'm sorry, the only bloodbath would be the wails of the person who viva'ed his PhD.
Re: (Score:3)
Your linked articles are essentially a strawman, dissecting a poorly contrived and oversimplified example, since "back radiation" (or as AGW scientists call it, "downwelling radiation") isn't so much causing an increase in the temperature of the planet as it is decreasing the cooling rate of the planet. Radiation that would normally have gone through the troposphere into the stratosphere/space has to bounce around more in the lower layers of the atmosphere and surface, during which period there is more cha
Re:My two cents... (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently unlike you, sir, I have a basic understanding of math and physics. Please explain to us all where the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law is in error.
Hilarious. My Ph.D. is in statistical thermodynamics. The Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law is not in error. Nor does it disprove the greenhouse effect or any other well known result in radiative transfer physics.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I can recommend the Wikipedia article as a place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere [wikipedia.org]
In the Sources section, it states that humans release about 29,000 megatonnes (= 29 gigatonnes), compared to natural processes that release about 439 GT annually. That would make the human contribution about 6.6% of the "natural" contribution.
Re:My two cents... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, the Earth "regenerates" itself remarkably well - but it doesn't do so on a human timescale so it's not much use to us. The real question with global warming is, what will it cost us to deal with it - if we had started 50-100 years ago it would have only taken a fairly minor shift in culture and which technological areas were getting funding. If we start today it will take slashing fossil fuel consumption and pouring some serious R&D dollars into developing and deploying alternatives - and there are actually many technologies that are ready to start taking up the slack, even if they're not quite ready to take over completely. If we wait another 50-200 years to start doing anything (depending on which projection things follow - so far we've been trending worse than the worst-case scenarios) we'll have *real* problems on our hands - global famines and wars, massive unilateral geo-engineering projects with similarly massive potential unforseen side effects, not to mention the cost of deploying any fixes we come up with "today" instead of over many decades because we're out of time.
As for keeping the price of fossil fuels artificially low (which they are in the US) - that actively makes things worse. Solar (for example) is already roughly cost-competitive with coal, so why don't we see it being deployed everywhere it's viable? Well, you're not actually *gaining* much, and you have to pay for all that energy up front as installation costs. Now imagine that electricity cost 3x as much - don't you think more people would start installing solar (and/or getting more efficient), even if they can only afford a low-power installation that just takes the edge off their bill? Does it hit the lower-classes harder? Yes, definitely, and that sucks, but if we want to move our society in the direction we need to go it has to happen, and there are options to make things fairer - for example tax fossil fuels to reflect the non-market costs and dedicate the revenue to subsidies for personal solar energy/efficient appliance/etc, which will also disproportionately benefit the lower classes. For that matter we could just turn around and give all that tax money back to the population equally - that way "average" consumers don't suffer at all, and efficient users end up with a nice fat wad in their pocket to spend on whatever they like, courtesy of the rich folks who don't want to bother with plebeian measures like using public transportation when possible or wearing a sweater instead of cranking up the thermostat.
More to the point if coal/gas/etc. were 3x as expensive you can bet the energy companies themselves would start getting serious about investing in alternative generating capacity to bring down their generating costs and thus increase their profits. And as alternative energy starts getting deployed on the large scale it both drives down costs for the technology and drives innovation in the technology, bringing it within reach of even more people/communities. How else do you expect alternatives to catch on? These technologies won't get deployed until it's cost-effective to do so, and that won't happen while we keep fossile fuel prices artificially low.
artificial prices (Score:3)
The lack of tax is artificial because there are many external costs to oil that are not reflected in the market, for example the military costs of maintaining a semblance of stability in the Middle East to keep oil prices down, the environmental costs of pollution (in terms of reduced crop yields, increased medical costs for people exposed, etc.), and the long-term costs of global warming which will incur phenomenal costs on the whole planet as we're forced to abandon or massively fortify all our coastal ci
F this (Score:2)
If you can't beat scientists on the F of Facts, then go by the F of Funding..
Just like the 80's: "We won." (Score:5, Insightful)
Holy disingenuous. (Score:3)
Re:Holy disingenuous. (Score:4, Insightful)
and this undoubtedly involves a shake up in the economy,
This is economic scare-mongering that is not born out by real-world evidence. Germany is doing it. China is doing it. Heck, 20% of the US economy is doing it (the greater New York area), and their economy is /growing/ relative to the rest of the USA, despite the apparent "burden" of a carbon tax. In fact, eletricity bills have come down for residents and businesses.
Alarmists indeed.
And it isn't the first time the economic scare-mongering was used to stave of regulation. Same happened with acid rain, and the ozone hole. Regulation was going to ruin the economy (esp. on acid rain). It was all baloney, of course.
Barack Obama agrees with Marco Rubio (Score:5, Interesting)
Senator Barack Obama in 2008:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/11/rubio_and_obama_and_the_age_of_earth_politicians_hedge_about_whether_universe.html [slate.com]
These guys are politicians. Part of being a politician is to not annoy anyone who might vote for you, unless you have a really good reason. Privately, both Rubio and Obama might well believe the science is settled and that the literal word of the Bible is just wrong... but why would they say so? Why not just give a non-answer that annoys the fewest number of people?
So, is it stupid and wrong when Rubio does it, but okay when Obama does it? If you have that kind of double standard, then shame on you.
Re: (Score:2)
Someone should ask them if Jonah really lived in a fish/whale for 3 days and 3 nights.
Allow me to raise my hand... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hi. Nice to meet you, Dana. I go by the name Sarten X, often represented with a hyphen.
When The global warming concerns were first being voiced, I was skeptical. Surely humans' influence couldn't be that severe? Then I started learning. I learned about how CO2 traps heat. I learned how human CO2 production has been increasing exponentially. I learned how small shifts in ocean temperatures put far more moisture into the air, producing more severe storms.
I learned too much to doubt. Even if half my knowledge turns out to be wrong, the other half still leads to the same conclusion: Our society is royally screwed because of global warming, and we're making it worse every day.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope that we've been terribly mistaken in our analysis. I hope the solar system drifts into a previously-unknown dust cloud, and the greenhouse gasses save us. Hope, though, will not explain to my great-grandchildren why they can't leave the tunnels during storm season.
At this point, I am still skeptical of many of the claims. A world covered in poison ivy by 2015? I doubt that. The east coast of the United States submerged in a decade? Probably not. Regardless of what preposterous scare-tactic forecasts are made, there is still too much evidence for me to ignore. Though the outcome is uncertain, the trend is clear. We, as the current dominant species on this planet, should do what we can to reduce the approaching threat of a warming planet. We should strive to make our pollution as harmless as we can, and keep our industrial processes as flexible as we can to allow future change if similar problems are discovered. We should have been more cautious in our designs over the past century, and we may not even have another century to live if we do not change our ways now.
I am Sarten X. I was a skeptic of global warming, and I now support the efforts to fight it.
Re: (Score:3)
You are on the same track as me. The next step is to realize that you can't fight it any more than you can convince locusts to peacefully leave a field alone. Currently, I want politicians to talk about mitigation... can we try to predict what will happen and what we can do about it? For instance, New Jersey and New York just got walloped by a hurricane that wiped out thousands of houses in low lying areas. It would be nice to have some idea whether it is cost effective to rebuild and wait for the next 100-
I don't believe (Score:5, Insightful)
Beware All Politicians (Score:5, Insightful)
However this is not what he (and his accomplices) actually mean.
Despite what the words say, the underlying intention is radically different.
- not "parents should be able to teach..." but "schools must be forced to teach"
- and not just teach, but with every word imply ABSOLUTELY equal standing with science (eg Intelligent Design, which is nothing more than christian creationism with SCIENCE branded all over it)
And, of course, the WORST part of their hypocrisy is that they want THEIR religion mandatorily taught everywhere, but not any OTHER religion.
You want the worldview of your religion taught in schools, sure - GO AHEAD - as long as EVERY other religion also gains equal airtime and equal status.
For Example:
- Hindus
- Buddhists
- Mormons
- Zoroastrians
- and yes, even Scientologists.
It's called having a secret agenda and they're doing the same thing with Global Warming.
The entire "debate" has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with MONEY.
Bill Nye said (Score:2)
I guess the sane people get the last laugh (Score:5, Insightful)
Dana Rohrabacher is clearly delusional (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a pity when insane people are allowed to embarrass themselves in public so.
For all you "skeptics" (Score:4, Insightful)
Watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gE6zipFWmo [youtube.com]
and you'll know why you're a "skeptic."
Re:For all you "skeptics" (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who call themselves skeptics are the deniers.
Real scientists are the biggest skeptics. Skepticism is the basis of all science.
Do you have to be stupid to be Republican? (Score:5, Funny)
Political issue (Score:2, Troll)
If AGW exists and it will negatively impact my quality of life if new legislation is enacted, then it only makes sense that those people will deny that AGW exists, irrespective of the evidence for or against AGW.
If AGW doesn't exist and it will negatively impact my quality of life if the government doesn't do something (for example, if they don't subsidize "alternative" energy and you've got a large
Antisocial and Omnipotent (Score:2)
I believe the universe was created by an omnipotent, antisocial hedge-maze 3.5 years ago. Science can do nothing to prove me wrong. You actually *can't* know the truth in these types of questions, which is why it's called faith. Please stop confusing the two.
Oh, and when religious types can't define their faith in non-disprovable ways they are rank amateurs, and should be ridiculed for their ignorance. Attack ignorance, not faith. We'll all just get along better.
-Your friendly neighborhood theological
A 12 year old me would never have believed this. (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole business is a large part of why I can not vote for a Republican, at least in national races. Between the people mentioned in this story, and we all remember Todd "In the case of a legitimate rape" Akin and Paul "Lies straight from the pit of hell" Broun, both who were/are also on the House Science committee. I mean, a Republican can say, "Hey, yeah, that is looney, but we're not all looney!". But I have to ask, "Who let these people serve on the science committee, and what does that say about... their concern for the nation?" Its this unbelievable horror story that these people are in an elected office, just utterly baffling. Sometimes I expect Rod Serling to step out from around a corner and tell us all that this was all just an odd trip into the Twilight Zone.
Re:A 12 year old me would never have believed this (Score:5, Interesting)
It's sad you have to make sure you say that so people don't mistake you as the typically wrong thinking (in this aspect and much more) republicans.
He's a Mormon but he also created Dream Theater day in Utah when governor and is the ambassador to China. Funny thing is if he had been made VP you would alinate the far right but gain so much at the middle. Instead their strategy was to alienate not just a political spectrun but 47% of Americans which includes a large part of Republicans. Maybe they just didn't want to vote after that.
Funny thing, Paul Ryan maintained he loved Rage Against the Machine and it was funny how Tom Morello called him out and basically told him he was a hateful ass they didn't want as a fan. Bitch slapped by your favorite band, and a guy with a Harvard education.
Science test requirement (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do we still pretend it is okay for uneducated people to make policy decisions?
Before politicians are elected (and particularly before they get into any committee with science in its name) they should have to pass a written examination.
Re:Batshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed.
"Look at all the skeptical scientists (that we retained as hied shills)! CLEARLY our side of the debate has won! (Nevermind that the basis of the global climate change scenario is firmly rooted in uncontested scientific principles and repeatedly documented characteristics of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane gasses. We assert that because humans are magical, that humans can release all of those gasses that they want, and NEVER release enough into the atmosphere to upset anything at all! Sure, we are releasing it faster than nature can re-sequester it, and the effects are sustained and cumulative, but damnit, a volcanic eruption spews out more "greenhouse gasses" in a few hours than mankind does in a year! Nevermind that volcanic eruptions are not a constant and growing emission source like human activities; and therefor our comparison is lopsided and specious-- don't think too much about that, it's our story, and we're sticking to it! No, those aren't the icebergs you are looking for! Move along!)
Admittedly, that *is* a rather shameless strawman I just thrashed, but the likeness of that scarecrow to the real thing was alarming.
Seriously, is this woman simply delusional, or does shw think she can bribe the weather when shit comes apart at the seams?
Re: (Score:2)
If the choice is between having an iDevice and cheap transportation, and having a world outside that I don't need an environment suit to survive in, I will take the latter one.
Re:Profits will suffer (Score:5, Insightful)
If the choice is between having an iDevice and cheap transportation, and having a world outside that I don't need an environment suit to survive in, I will take the latter one.
Unfortunately, that's not the choice most people are confronted with. Instead the choice is (1) have cheap tech, transportation, be able to waste resources, etc. NOW, or (2) have a world where your grandchildren or great-grandchildren might have to wear environmental suits many years from now.
I think the general pattern of the debt crisis, people unwilling to plan for paying their mortgage next month, let alone planning for retirement or grandchildren, gives a general sense of where most people's priorities are. "If it makes my life easier or just more fun today, I'll worry about that other stuff later..." even if that othet stuff means complete financial ruin or disaster.
If people are willing to gamble in these ridiculous ways with their futures just to buy the slightly larger sunmer house, you really think they're motivated to worry about the quality of people's lives a century in the future? A lot of people say stuff like how they don't want to ruin things for their kids or grandkids, but few of them seem to really do much about it other than buying a more energy efficient light bulb or recycling a tin can.
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While I haven't been saving for retirement like I should, I have no problems with the mortgage. I have been unable to save for retirement, because every creditor and insurance company on the planet has been hiking rates for my demographic like I am made out of 100$ bills. (No seriously. I make about 30k a year, and live fairly comfortably, and cyclically manage to save up around 2 to 3k each year, only to have it vaccumed up by homeowners insurace (1.5k), and property taxes(500$).)
I MIGHT be able to finally
Re: (Score:2)
.... do you not comprehend the wild swing that a 4c global temp increase would cause in global climate, or that CO2 levels will CONTINUE to rise during that time, unless we alter our behavior, and will continue to rise afterwards?
It won't "stop at 4c". It will go PASSED 4C, and get hotter each decade.
In 200 years, the earth will be a fucking sauna. But what do you care? You'll be dead by then!
Re: (Score:2)
There is if you happen to own coal or petroleum companies.
Re: (Score:3)
I think we can fix both. Say all those oil/coal subsidies we give to that segment of the population... save it and use it to give incentives when the market moves towards alternative fuels/solar/wind/nuclear. The sticking point with most rational people (people who aren't of the 6,000 year old earth variety) isn't whether or not we should do something about it, but whether or not we use a stick or a carrot. I vote carrot, because in the area of new technology, the United States still kicks major ass. We can
Re: (Score:2)
Waste is nothing more than an untapped resource stream. The light fractions burned off at refineries for instance. Instead of burning it off at the stack, pipe it under low pressure to a power plant made to run on methane and natural gas.
Municipal waste is a veritable gold mine for rare earths in reasonably pure form, as well as other heavy yet valuable metals. (Like mercury.) Not to mention as a source of refinable plastic.
Sewerage is a few stones throws away from being usable like brown coal or peat in po
Re:Profits will suffer (Score:4, Informative)
and removing TSP (trisodium phosphate) removed an antropogenic source of phosphorus that was aggravating eutrophication of lakes; see, for example, http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/nonpoint/phosphorus/HSphosphatepresent.pdf [wa.gov] Lowered oxygen->fewer fish, etc.
and removing sulfur from diesel reduced the amount of SO2 in the atmosphere, which reduced the amount of SO3 -> H2SO4 production, which reduced the acidity of rainfall, which has a number of beneficial effects which you can explore if you're interested.
The price rises for consumers simply indicate the fact that the full costs weren't being accounted for in the first place. As we learn more about the various complex processes that sustain our lives, we're better able to determine what it actually costs us to live. Don't expect those data to be especially comforting.
Re: (Score:3)
so while I may be "polluting less" in the short term, i need to buy a new car sooner (along with hundreds of millions of other humans
so, I ask you this. What is the cost/benifit/polution ration of using a fuel that will kill your car faster, gives you less power per gallon of gas (some 20%less efficient than regular unleaded) and therefore a car that runs for 100K miles, will u
Re:Age of Earth is Mystery, assumptions are used (Score:5, Interesting)
Rock and minerals are mosly recycled by our active planet. The oldest rock is 4.03 billion years old (gniess from NW Canada), and oldest mineral is 4.3 billion years (zircon crystals from west australia). But neither tells us the age of the Earth. That is done by assumption from meteorites and moon rocks.....true age of Earth is honestly a mystery.
Actually there's a reason for most of the rock being not much over 4 billion years old. I think it was around 4.5 billion years that Earth was impacted by a body that was maybe as big as Mars. It's what caused the Moon to form. Most of the surface went back to being molten for a few hundred million years so the oldest rock was after that impact. In truth it's hard to give an exact date because it cooled for so many years that it's hard to given a specific date when you can call it a planet. The material collected and solidified over hundreds of millions of years then it was still hot for hundreds of millions of years and once it became liveable there was the impact event. There's even a debate if life evolved twice on earth both before and after the impact.
Re:Age of Earth is Mystery, assumptions are used (Score:5, Insightful)
By that reasoning almost everything is a mystery because very little can be isolated to perfect accuracy and precision. Consider, "how long does it take you to bake chocolate chip cookies?" "Well," I reply, "it's a mystery: last time it took 14 minutes plus or minus approximately 20 seconds, so I can't say."
Things we know are, outside the bounds of mathematics and pure logic, generally known only within reasonable bounds. If the earth is 4,540 million years old, a senator needn't stumble over the +/- 10 million error bars. What he means is that the age of the Earth is either a mystery to him because he's ignorant of such things, or just as likely isn't sure how to answer the question without fear of pissing someone off, so he chickened out. Maybe he believes the earth is 6000 years old but didn't want newspaper headlines the next day pointing out his conflict with all available scientific data suggesting this is wrong by approximately 4.54 billion years. Or perhaps since he's a Republican he didn't want to piss off his party's large fundamentalist wing by noting the scientifically indicated age of the Earth. It's a mystery.
What's not a mystery is that the Earth is quite surely about 4.5 billion years old. Saying it's a mystery does a serious disservice to the overwhelming amount we do know about its age.
Re: (Score:3)
That's all well and good, but if you read the full quote, Senator Rubio was suggesting that the world was made in seven days:
Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries.
Re: (Score:2)
Rock and minerals are mosly recycled by our active planet. The oldest rock is 4.03 billion years old (gniess from NW Canada), and oldest mineral is 4.3 billion years (zircon crystals from west australia). But neither tells us the age of the Earth.
Well, they do tell us for sure that the Earth is > 4.3 billion years old, which is 95%+ of the way there. If you want to argue at the few per cent level, I'll be glad to listen.
Re: (Score:2)
Link [rationalwiki.org]
These wingnuts are just looking for a reason to convince themselves that they are relevant to the darkside in an attempt to cut funding even more for NASA and other programs.
They will likely never be re-elected.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How much longer did this nonsense have to continue?!
How long can you tread water?