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Cleaner Air Adds To Global Warming 751

Posted by samzenpus from the catch-22 dept.
shmlco writes "In the "You Can't Win For Losing" department, an article on the BBC web site is reporting that reduced air pollution and increased water evaporation appears to be adding to man-made global warming. Research presented at a major European science meeting adds to other evidence that cleaner air is letting more solar energy through to the Earth's surface. Burn fossil fuels, you make things worse. Clean up your act, and you make things worse. Is it time to set off a few nukes and see if nuclear winter can cool things down?"
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Cleaner Air Adds To Global Warming More

Cleaner Air Adds To Global Warming

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  • Didn't jerry pournell explain how the world escaped an ice age in the appendixes to his book, "Angels Down"?

    Mike
    • no.

      he referred in that book to a world that was suffering from an ice age,
      but that was not the issue, and it was not solved it in the text...

      a solution was discussed/not implemented...

      • Re:Angels Down? (Score:5, Informative)

        by JasonKChapman ( 842766 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @12:06PM (#15085563) Homepage
        he referred in that book to a world that was suffering from an ice age, but that was not the issue, and it was not solved it in the text...

        Acutally, the book was Fallen Angels [baen.com] by Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn, and it went a little further than that. The ice age had been held off by pollution-related greenhouse warming. It was only after the world cleaned up its act that the ice age came on.

        It's a great book. The heroes were SF fans.

        • Re:Angels Down? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by techno-vampire ( 666512 )
          I think, if you check, you'll find that Larry Niven had something to do with it. In fact, if you check carefully, you'll find that Larry and Jerry called in Mr. Flynn (I don't use his first name because I don't know him personally, unlike the other two authors.) because they were having problems make it jell.
  • I think I speak for most of humanity when I say, ahem, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING?"

    This message brought to you by the Upright, Sensible People Department.

  • Bad idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jordan Catalano ( 915885 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @11:51AM (#15085356) Homepage
    Is it time to set off a few nukes and see if nuclear winter can cool things down?"

    Uh-uh. Last time I tried that on Sim Earth, my planet was overtaken by sentient robots. Of course, the robots eventually get taken out by carnivirous plants, but is that really much of an improvement?

    • So I set off a few planet busters (Score:5, Funny)

      by arcite ( 661011 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @12:40PM (#15085982)
      And then my cities were surrounded by mind worm boils! They were everywhere! Where did they come from? Did they not like me replacing their fungus with my pretty tree farms? I don't know, but they were pissed off. So I convened a meeting with the planetary council and got the vote to um raise sea levels and uh... Um, sorry what were we talking about?

  • Must be due to the (Score:5, Funny)

    by ThatsNotFunny ( 775189 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @11:51AM (#15085365)
    Marked increase in SMUG. Damn you, George Clooney!

  • Surely that doesn't change things? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cliffski ( 65094 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @11:52AM (#15085372) Homepage
    Air pollution kills people anyway, so its not exactly a 'solution' to encourage air pollution surely?
    Cue lots of 'hilarious' ironic tabloid newspaper columinsts suggesting that we all fill up the SUVS to 'do our bit' though.

  • not that far off (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Goldsmith ( 561202 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @11:52AM (#15085374)
    I've seen a (semi) serious suggestion that the best way to deal with global warming is to put a thin film of dust in between the earth and the sun. This wasn't from some internet hack either, but a rather senior physicist.
    • Given that it's extremely unlikely that we'll see global CO2 emissions controlled anytime in the near future, I suspect it's probably time to start looking for alternative answers for how to control the overheating problem that we're encountering.

      That said, I'd rather see something a little more organized like, say, a large solar shade positioned between the sun and the earth. It would be harder to implement, sure, but it would also be vastly easier to fine-tune -- if the scientists were a little bit off

      • Space based solutions sound pretty neat but considering the outlandish costs of getting something out of our gravity well, I think surface based solutions are a better approach. After all, land in the middle of nowhere is cheap, reflective material is also cheap (or free if you scavange) and you can bounce sunlight back into space at 1kW per square meter.

        So you can spend $1 to bounce a kilowatt or you can spend thousands to do it in space. Seems obvious to me. Isn't Navada mostly federal land anyway?
      • That said, I'd rather see something a little more organized like, say, a large solar shade positioned between the sun and the earth.

        I keep trying to get "Launch Solar Shade" passed, but I can't get the votes - I have the energy market cornered and Lal, Santiago and Zakharov have decided that they don't want to trade with me.

        I am going to nerve staple those bastards if I ever get my hands on them.

    • Senior enough to have alzheimers ?

      The simple amount of pollution that would be generated HERE on earth to accomplish this would be far worse than the benifits

      Think about it.
      Factory to Produce umpteen rockets
      Factories to produce umpteen electronics for said spaceships
      Power generation to produce fuel for umpteen rockets
      Water vapor from launch of umpteen rockets

      And on and on and on.

      This is probably the same guy that says drive an electric car save the enviroment, when you boil it all down to generat
      • Electric cars pollute twice as much? Seriously? Do you have a link to back that up? I'm asking because it would be terrific fodder to use against my hybrid driving yuppy friends.
      • volcanoes put ash into the atmosphere without rockets. so do non-air-burst nuclear bombs. so, infact, does MOAB albeit to a lesser extent. Think the weapon the Russians had in Dr. Strangelove.

      • Re:not that far off (Score:5, Insightful)

        by DuckDodgers ( 541817 ) <keeper_of_the_wo ... 5926com minus pi> on Friday April 07, 2006 @12:25PM (#15085807)
        This is probably the same guy that says drive an electric car save the enviroment, when you boil it all down to generation losses, power generation polution, and envirmental damage from toxic chemicals used in the batteries an electric car is about TWICE as polluting as a modern compact.

        That's a commonly held misconception.
        1. Modern batteries for hybrid cars are recyclable.
        2. Power generation from most current power plants, even coal burning ones, are less polluting per watt of power output than an internal combustion engine. The automotive combustion engine trades a lot of efficiency for the ability to be mobile, quick to start and stop, and run at a broad range of RPMs.
        3. As more solar/wind/geothermal/tidal/whatever else environmentally friendly power generators are used, the electric car can use the power they generate without modifications.

        The real problem with electric cars is the same problem we had with them at the beginning of the 19th century. Battery tech just hasn't improved enough to give them a long range.

        • Re:not that far off (Score:3, Informative)

          by MajorDick ( 735308 )
          OK, here goes "Power generation from most current power plants, even coal burning ones, are less polluting per watt of power output than an internal combustion engine".

          At the powerplant Yes , at the Wheel NO, not even close.

          Average loss in transmission is around 25-30% , Right there is enough, to make them equal.
          And thats just on the high side, then look at step down transformer loss at around 5%

          Ok, now on to transforming AC to DC and Charging the batteries. Here loss is around 20% depending on whos

          • Re:not that far off (Score:3, Informative)

            by locofungus ( 179280 )
            Your calculations are wrong. (using your figures)
            Transmission efficiency * transformer efficiency * charging efficiency * storage to motor efficiency * drivetrain efficiency = .7*.95*.8*.85*.95 = .43 (57% loss)

            This is better than pump to wheel for an IC engine powered car.

            I don't have, and can't find, the figures for refining crude but I've seen claims that the cost of refining a barrel of oil in 2004 was $10 so I'll assume 25% loss.

            Gas fired electricity plants say 50% efficient. (probably can do better) .4
    • I've seen a (semi) serious suggestion that the best way to deal with global warming is to put a thin film of dust in between the earth and the sun.

      Would you want to risk missing out on first contact with an advanced race because Earth didn't pass the white glove test?

    • Re:not that far off (Score:5, Funny)

      by Keebler71 ( 520908 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @12:19PM (#15085734) Journal
      oh! oh! Can I suggest a name?! Can we call this new innovation an "atmosphere"?

  • I agree (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MajorDick ( 735308 )
    "set off a few nukes and see if nuclear winter can cool things down"

    By the time my kids are my age that may be the only option.
    And it may not be a bad one
    The U.S. has some nice large yield hydrogen bombs that are "clean" well as "clean" as a thermonuclear device can be.

    Where is the question, would sea level blasts in the arctic work ? or maybe mid atlantic, shit Bikini Atol is still crapped up from last time maybe thats a good place

    A "PURE" fusion device would be ideal.

    Maybe we could create a "Du
    • By the time my kids are my age that may be the only option.

      Wouldn't it be easier to paint the entire Sahara and Gobhi desert in white reflective paint to send more sun back into space?

      I know nuclear weapons are kind of cool, but I still have a could more years before I can afford that fallout bunker.

    • Re:I agree (Score:3, Insightful)

      by shotfeel ( 235240 )
      Wouldn't it be a whole lot cleaner to build a bunch of nuclear power plants?

  • How to solve global warming (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Poromenos1 ( 830658 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @11:55AM (#15085407) Homepage
    1. Create huge heat-powered laser
    2. Shoot the beam to outer space
    3. Profit!

  • New Ice Age will take care of it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FatRatBastard ( 7583 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @11:55AM (#15085411) Homepage
    Have no fear, global warming that this generation of scientists are sure is happening will meet head on with the new global ice age that the previous generation of scientists were sure was happening and the net effect is we'll all have weather like San Diego.

  • Change != Worse (Score:4, Interesting)

    by notnAP ( 846325 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @11:55AM (#15085421)
    Burn fossil fuels, you make things worse. Clean up your act, and you make things worse
    s/make things worse/change the environment/
    Maybe we should just realize that we live and therefore we affect the world around us, and that the environment is ever changing. Oh, and things evolve. And it's not a good idea to build a dream home on a sand dune.

  • No, no, no... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Cally ( 10873 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @11:57AM (#15085437) Homepage
    The story submitter has profoundly misunderstood the BBC story.
    "> reduced air pollution and increased water evaporation appears to be
    >adding to man-made global warming.

    Actually, the pollution was (or 'is', in southern Asia and China) *masking* the effects of increased warming at ground level. Cleaning up the air doesn't add additional forcing; it merely keeps it elsewhere.

    I don't think I can bear to read the following hundreds of ignorant "I've heard it's all due to the sun getting hotter" crap we always get on Slashdot AGW stories. If you think that, you don't know what you're talking about. Go away and read Real Climate [realclimate.org] or, for a comprehensive refutation of all the trolls we can expect to see attached to this story, please refer to this excellent debunking of so-called 'sceptic' canards, lies and deliberate mis-statements of facts [blogspot.com].

    • Re:No, no, no... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jmorris42 ( 1458 ) *
      > I don't think I can bear to read the following hundreds of ignorant "I've
      > heard it's all due to the sun getting hotter" crap we always get on Slashdot
      > AGW stories.

      Right, your religious faith sustains you through anything, especially anything as puny as logic or facts that don't support your beliefs. Dude, anybody that belives Global Warming is both a) established as a fact beyond debate and b) that the CAUSE of such warming is also established beyond debate is an ignorant savage deserving of e
      • The sun IS burning hotter. NASA is detecting upward temperature trends on Mars and I really don't think that is amendable to human intervention. The temprature on Mars doesn't depend on our CO2 emission levels, whether or not you drive a hybrid car or if we ratify the Kyoto Treaty.

        uh, mars has some very complicated warming/cooling trends due to it's wacky rotation. you can't just point to mars' weather getting warmer as proof that its the sun's fault.

      • Re:No, no, no... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sarlos ( 903082 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @01:00PM (#15086188)
        You are spot on. Whether you believe we are inducing unnatural global warming or not, the proper answer is not to overreact trying to fix it! What this article tells me is there is much of the equation that we still do not fully understand.

        We've seen time and again that messing with the environment can have devastating repurcussions. A smaller scale example of this is the attempt by the US Army Corps of Engineers to drain the Everglades. Now huge amounts of money are being invested trying to fix what was done. And this is minor compared to the implications of trying to modify, one way or the other, the global climate.

        It's good to clean up our environment and be good stewards of it, but at the same time, we can't halt industrial progress, nor should we. What happens if, a hundred years down the road, we discover global warming really was only a natural cycle of the Earth's climate? Now, what happens if current industrialized nations have strangled the ability of their economies to produce goods in an attempt to divert a coming 'disaster' that never materialized?

        Already, punitive regulations and taxes are in place on industry making it very hard to profitably do business in the United States. This is a primary factor behind the outsourcing that people wring their hands over. As I said, behaving responsibly toward the environment is good, but we have to also balance the needs of being an industrialized society and not overreact against a threat we don't really undesrand.
  • What this really means is that global warming is already even worse than it appears, because it is being offset somewhat by temporary smog.

    As for the water vapor, water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas. When the earth gets warmer more water vapor is in the atmosphere. The reason we don't know exactly how warm it will get is because we don't know exactly where the water vapor sits in the atmosphere yet. However, just because water vapor is a greenhouse gas doesn't mean that humans aren't causing glo
  • ... in laymens terms:

    YOU CAN'T WIN

    so sit back an enjoy the ride. Be true to yourself. Do what you need to do to sleep at night, and dont give a f*ck about what they say about global warming. Its been hot, its been cold, and we only have accurate weather data spanning about 100 years. If you think we can make accurate preditions based on 100 years of data (a piss in the bucket compared to the thousands or millions or billions of years this world has been in existance, depending on who you asked) then
    • I have oceanfront property to sell you in Wisconsin

      Did you buy it on the Future's Market?

    • What an amazingly short-sighted view you have! If you're right, I suppose that means I should just go step out back and burn some plastic.

      Even if you don't believe in a human contribution to global warming (hint: even the bush administration is admitting a link now, although they seem to think we shouldn't do anything about it) you must realize that things are getting worse for the humans. The majority of our oxygen comes from oceanic algae (the rainforest consumes almost as much oxygen in decomposition

  • we cannot affect the earth's climate. we can pollute it, clean it up, do what we please, and we havent' the power to alter it. an ice began in the early 14th century and lasted until the 19th. it wasn't started because of man, it didn't end because of man. the earth is warming (or so some claim) on its own, and in time, will cool, again on its own. nothing we can do will stop it, slow it down, or reverse it.

  • Heh (Score:4, Funny)

    by Moby Cock ( 771358 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @11:59AM (#15085465) Homepage
    Is it time to set off a few nukes and see if nuclear winter can cool things down?

    I nominate Idaho for Nuclear Whipping Boy
  • Look - while the Bush Administration may think Global Warming isn't happening, it's pretty obvious it is. BUT, the scientific debate about what's causing it, and how much of that causation is manmade still goes on. The Earth has cycles of its own, and we seem to be caught at a time when it would be warming up, anyway (and also getting drier in certain parts, unfortunately for those of us who depend on hydropower for cheap electricity).

    The important part of the debate -- for me -- isn't so much global warmin

  • Clearly affecting global warming is the wrong goal (Score:3, Insightful)

    by susano_otter ( 123650 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @12:00PM (#15085488) Homepage
    I say we carry on as before. Clean up the environment, sure, but for more immediate reasons of beauty and health: nobody likes to walk a littered beach, or suck down the smoggy L.A. air, after all.

    In the 70s, scientists were absolutely convinced that they'd mastered the complex climate change models, and confidently assured us all that an Ice Age was imminent.

    Nowadays, global warming is the new scientific fad. And not only does it appear that global warming is much greater in scope than any amount of anthropogenic factors can account for, it also appears that there's not much we can do about it anyway.

    On top of all that, I suspect that the smarty men, for all their expert and well-intentioned efforts, still haven't mastered the climate change models to the extent some of us would like to think.

    So I say we carry on as always: sometimes building, sometimes tearing down. Sometimes exploiting, sometimes preserving. Sometimes making a mess, sometimes cleaning it up. And always refining and improving our methods and priorities, not based on the current socio-scientific fads, but based rather on the traditional motivations: the ebb and flow of human desire, expressed individually and collectively by various means.

    I mean, if we don't even properly understand climate change, and can have only a measurable but insignificant effect on it, then how can we possibly make good decisions about what sacrifices to make and what goals to pursue in relation to climate change?

    There are plenty of other more sensible, more practical, and more meaningful reasons to change some of our behaviors. I, for one, would like to see more arguments for ecological responsibility based on those, and less arguments based on voodoo climatology.

    • Re:Clearly affecting global warming is the wrong g (Score:4, Informative)

      by hawkfish ( 8978 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @12:06PM (#15085560) Homepage
      In the 70s, scientists were absolutely convinced that they'd mastered the complex climate change models, and confidently assured us all that an Ice Age was imminent.
      No they didn't [realclimate.org].
      And not only does it appear that global warming is much greater in scope than any amount of anthropogenic factors can account for
      No it isn't [realclimate.org].
      it also appears that there's not much we can do about it anyway.
      If we can cause the problem, we can fix it. The only question is, will we?

      • Re:Clearly affecting global warming is the wrong g (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dpilot ( 134227 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @12:52PM (#15086113) Homepage Journal
        >If we can cause the problem, we can fix it.

        Boy, I'd like to be able to agree with you on that one. But I can't.

        Aside from the question of unified will, which is big enough, we get to the point of physical possiblities. We're learning a lot about climate, weather, modeling, etc. But I suspect that the experts will be the first to admit that they're not experts. Engineering a climate is a far different thing from trying to decypher what is happening with one. We also know that some of these processes are very-long scale, certainly longer than quarterly profit reports or even election cycles, which only compounds the unified will problem.

        What if the North Atlantic Conveyer stops? (for a theatrical example) Let's presume we want to restart it. How do we do that?
        What if defrosting permafrost releases CO2 that dwarfs what we've released? How can we possibly compensate?
        What if the Earth really WAS headed back into an ice age before we got going with the industrial revolution? What if global warming is what's keeping the climate friendly?
        What if this is all so danged nonlinear? What if a friendly climate is NOT the norm? What if the Earth is *normally* encrusted with ice, or a hot jungle? What if our entire development as an intelligent species has been during an unusually friendly inter-ice-age?

        Enquiring minds want to know.

      • In the 70s, scientists were absolutely convinced that they'd mastered the complex climate change models, and confidently assured us all that an Ice Age was imminent.

        No they didn't.

        Yes, yes, they did. Perhaps you're too young to remember the scare, but I very clearly remember being terrified after listening to a scientist explaining to the viewing audience that we were all going to starve to death in the near future. Your link is quite convincing, and I'd probably believe it if it weren't for the fa

      • Re:Clearly affecting global warming is the wrong g (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jmichaelg ( 148257 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @01:28PM (#15086444) Journal

                In the 70s, scientists were absolutely convinced that they'd mastered the complex climate change models, and confidently assured us all that an Ice Age was imminent.

        No they didn't.
        Don't know how old you are hawkfish, but I distinctly remember that they did. The phobia of the 70's was distinctly the other way. I remember my parents arguing about climate cooling at the dinner table. My mother was convinced that an ice age was imminent. My father was very skeptical. The argument revolved around how well science could predict climate. My father was convinced that since he couldn't get accurate weather forecasts, that climate forecasts were even more suspect. Here we are, 35 years later and the same arguments are still playing out.

        • Re:Clearly affecting global warming is the wrong g (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          So your parents were scientists or they got their info from the media?

          If it's the latter, then that is exactly the parent posts point (if you bothered to even glance at the links).

          The media reported an Ice Age was imminent. Peer-reviewed scientific journals did not.

          Contrast that with today, when after a review of 981 ISI science journals, 75% of them were found to either explicitly or implicitly accept that global warming is occuring and that it is the result of human processes.

          None of them were found to s
  • Is it time to set off a few nukes and see if nuclear winter can cool things down?

    Wasn't this the plot of the Dinosaurs series finale?
  • Seems to me the best route would be to build very large (i.e. scalable) radiation filters that can also insulate. Eventually, farms will only exist inside massive greenhouse like enclosures, and people will spend very little time in the real outside. Even "outside" will actually be "inside". Perhaps the technology developed in helping us live on our current planet would help create side effect technologies that would help us live in less friendly environment, such as the moon or mars.

    Not to mention that the
  • On this news, I have changed my mind... I think it's better to buy that Escalade, and reprogram the fuel mixture to run rich all the time. For the good of the planet.
  • Don't worry about ANYTHING ANYMORE! Not the environment, not the government, and not the virii.
    Trust me, you will live a happier, longer life.

  • Burn fossil fuels, you make things worse. Clean up your act, and you make things worse.

    Kyotoists state both the reasonable and ridiculous with equally fanatical conviction. Truth is not their goal but the rejection of modern consumerism. Ask yourself is such people should have influence over global politics and economy.

  • Let's see. Scientists seem to have a pretty good idea that heating and cooling of the planet has been cyclical, even before man burned his first lump of coal. Why is it surprising to anybody now? We blame farting cows and SUV's, maybe this would have just happened from forest fires, pine trees and volcanoes?

  • Thats because water vapor is a greenhouse gas. (Score:5, Informative)

    by code shady ( 637051 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @12:13PM (#15085641) Homepage

    No, really, it is.

    Each gas that comprises the atmosphere has the capability to act as a greenhouse gas, and each one blocks different wavelengths of infared radiation. Some of then trap it when the sunlight passes through the atmosphere, some of them capture it when the radiation bounces off the earths surface back into the atmosphere.

    C02, Methane, and *gasp* water vapor all contribute to heat retention in the atmosphere. It's basic Geography 101 shit that everyone learns.

    However, since water vapor is, you know, an integral part of the atmosphere and several cycles on earth, we really can't do much about that. Better to worry about all the other gasses we up dump into the atmosphere that we can control.

  • Seee... Everything we eat is bad for us. What once was good becomes bad. Everything we do, causes cancer.

    This isn't news! Its expected! But oh well.
  • "The conclusions presented here present two major challenges to the research community.

    "One is to find ways of extending experimental investigations into the oceans and the developing world.

    "The second is to integrate them into computer models of climate, something which is only just beginning to happen. "

    So when someone says that we need "more research" into climate change, they may not just be a lackey of the oil companies, but they may actually be concerned that the science on this isn't really done yet.

  • No Surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Astin ( 177479 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @01:07PM (#15086244)
    A Chemistry Prof of mine back in the day brought something along these lines up. His argument went something like this (I've shorthanded it for those who don't like to read paragraphs):

    Pollution = Greenhouse Effect
    Greenhouse Effect = Increase in global temperature
    Increase in temperature = More water evaporating
    Vapourous water = Clouds
    More clouds = Less sunlight getting through
    Less sunlight = lower temperature

    The point being that there is a sense of balance in place. Yes, we're messing things up, but there are some checks and balances that lessen the impact. That's not to say we should keep on polluting, but that the situation IS reversible if given time.

    His other big environmental statement was that he'd wish the "Save the Rainforest" people would spend more than 5 seconds looking at their arguments. The fact is (again, according to him) that the rainforests are NOT the "lungs of the Earth." They actually do a small minority of the CO2->O2 conversion compared to what the oceans and seas do. Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3 = Limestone) in the oceans does much more. Plant life in the major bodies of waters (ie.- algae) also is a significant contributor (in relation to rainforests). But there is almost no major coverage of the damage we've done to the oceans through shipping, dumping and other pollution.

    Interestingly, the tie-in between the two lies in the algae and plant life. An increase in temperature can lead to an increase of plant life that can convert the polluting gases into O2... as well as other pollutants.

    The problem isn't necessarily that we're polluting the environment, it's that we're doing it faster than nature can balance it. This used to be due to ignorance, but now it's willful and due to monetary pressures and laziness.

  • They'll never believe it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Syberghost ( 10557 ) <syberghost@@@syberghost...com> on Friday April 07, 2006 @01:23PM (#15086392)
    From the article:

    Between the 1950s and 1980s, the amount of solar energy penetrating through the atmosphere to the Earth's surface appeared to be declining, by about 2% per decade.

    then later:

    "During the solar dimming we had really no temperature rise. And only when the solar dimming disappeared could we really see what is going on in terms of the greenhouse effect, and that is only starting in the 1980s."

    Every single time I've ever pointed out the global temperature drop from 1942 to 1975, a number of liberals jump at my throat and claim I'm making it up. Now here's a climatologist making the statement that temperature didn't rise from '50s to the '80s. The liberals will never buy this; that one statement of his invalidates the entire study in their eyes.

  • Does this not raise red flags for anybody else? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stlhawkeye ( 868951 ) on Friday April 07, 2006 @01:52PM (#15086664) Homepage Journal
    reduced air pollution and increased water evaporation appears to be adding to man-made global warming. Burn fossil fuels, you make things worse. Clean up your act, and you make things worse.

    If both polluting and not polluting are correlated to global warming, is it not sensible to investigate whether or not NEITHER is causing global warming, and the correlation is indeed a false correlation? I mean, if A -> B and !A - > B, then one is tempted to conclude that B happens regardless of whether A happens or does not happen. And if that's the case, B is going to happen no matter what A does, which further means that B isn't influenced by A's behavior.

    Now, I'm not so naive as to think that it's really this simple. I've long held that enacting crippling policies to "combat global warming" at this point is silly, and that more research and data collection is necessary before we can even set realistic and helpful goals. When research like this comes out, I feel that it bolsters that stand. But research like this also bears further investigation before we accept it at face value.

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