Global Warming...Fact or Fiction?

[JAD_333]

Doesn't that sound like "faith" to you?

I have no problem if those who believe in global warming call it what it is, faith.

The problem I have is those who call their faith "science" and then ridicules those who challenge their faith.

Science is to be challenged. Faith is settled.

Faith is a little more esoteric. It doesn't rest on proof one way or the other, e.g. religious faith. Trust, on the other hand, does involve proof, but proof the trusting person can't verify himself due to lack of scientific expertise. I think it's best not to label belief in AGW as a religion or adherents as the faithful. Doing so clouds the debate. It's better to challenge people's trust in scientific data which they themselves have no way to verify. On the other hand, I can understand a politician's reaction to a consensus upholding the AGW explanation. One, he doesn't want to alienate the majority, and two. he doesn't want to take a chance that they might be right. I think the debate is completely out of focus. There are so many groups working on the issue, so many different data sets, and so many different ways to interpret the data that someone really wanting to form a sincere opinion can't. I'd like to see them all brought together, pro and con, to work it out without recriminations and accusations of personal motives. Afterall, we live in this thin little band of atmosphere around the globe. We can't say human activity doesn't have some impact on it, but we seem incapable of figuring out what the impact is and what to do about it, if anything. It's easy to skewer climate data, but much harder to skewer the whole notion of AGW because only time will tell.

[gunnut]

One question. Are they (international/US organisations) measuring water temperature to prove Global warming? If the ocean's temperature increase then Global warming is happening otherwise not? (Most of the datasets here are confusing)

Global warming is happening and we're gonna find proof for it, be it an increase in water temperature or increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration or polar bear taking a long swim in summer.

[gunnut]

Faith is a little more esoteric. It doesn't rest on proof one way or the other, e.g. religious faith. Trust, on the other hand, does involve proof, but proof the trusting person can't verify himself due to lack of scientific expertise. I think it's best not to label belief in AGW as a religion or adherents as the faithful. Doing so clouds the debate. It's better to challenge people's trust in scientific data which they themselves have no way to verify. On the other hand, I can understand a politician's reaction to a consensus upholding the AGW explanation. One, he doesn't want to alienate the majority, and two. he doesn't want to take a chance that they might be right. I think the debate is completely out of focus. There are so many groups working on the issue, so many different data sets, and so many different ways to interpret the data that someone really wanting to form a sincere opinion can't. I'd like to see them all brought together, pro and con, to work it out without recriminations and accusations of personal motives. Afterall, we live in this thin little band of atmosphere around the globe. We can't say human activity doesn't have some impact on it, but we seem incapable of figuring out what the impact is and what to do about it, if anything. It's easy to skewer climate data, but much harder to skewer the whole notion of AGW because only time will tell.

Global warming is a religion because it's faith. All the "proof" is to fool those sitting on the fence.

The church proves the existence of god the same way, make up some shit.

At least the church comes out and says it's a religion. The "consensus" tries to pass itself as "science" and calls anyone who questions "science" a "denier."

[popillol]

Global warming is happening and we're gonna find proof for it, be it an increase in water temperature or increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration or polar bear taking a long swim in summer.

I really can't figure out whether it is a sarcasm or not! LOL :P

I asked that because of a very basic scientific term called Latent heat. Even if we put an ice on a burner at 0 degrees Celsius, its temperature won't rise until it is "completely" converted to water (Energy is required to break the H-bonds in ice). After it has converted to water, its temperature starts to rise if the burner is still on. Same can be said of Global warming. The glaciers are absorbing the excessive heat. Hence their melting at a faster pace, once they melt, ocean's temperature will start to increase. What NOAA does (I just had fleeting look in the data sets mentioned here) is it records the ocean's temperature and doesn't find any increase in temperature. I don't know why that goes on to infer that there is absolutely no global warming. Maybe this inference that no rise in ocean's temperature means no global warming is actually not given by NOAA, it only gives the temperatures recorded. (Because Latent heat is a very basic concept). Wrong inference is derived by people other than expert institutions and circulated in public. (I think there is something wrong here with my inference that latent heat is not incorporated in studies, so if anybody could clear my doubts, that would be great)

[gunnut]

I really can't figure out whether it is a sarcasm or not! LOL :P

I asked that because of a very basic scientific term called Latent heat. Even if we put an ice on a burner at 0 degrees Celsius, its temperature won't rise until it is "completely" converted to water (Energy is required to break the H-bonds in ice). After it has converted to water, its temperature starts to rise if the burner is still on. Same can be said of Global warming. The glaciers are absorbing the excessive heat. Hence their melting at a faster pace, once they melt, ocean's temperature will start to increase. What NOAA does (I just had fleeting look in the data sets mentioned here) is it records the ocean's temperature and doesn't find any increase in temperature. I don't know why that goes on to infer that there is absolutely no global warming. Maybe this inference that no rise in ocean's temperature means no global warming is actually not given by NOAA, it only gives the temperatures recorded. (Because Latent heat is a very basic concept). Wrong inference is derived by people other than expert institutions and circulated in public. (I think there is something wrong here with my inference that latent heat is not incorporated in studies, so if anybody could clear my doubts, that would be great)

Ocean is not a monolithic body. Cooling or warming on one end doesn't do anything to the other. We really have no understanding of how this planetary system interacts with dozens of factors that we can't foresee. If we did, our weather prediction would be perfect. Alas, nature always throws us a curve just when we think we have her figured out. Kinda like women....

[JAD_333]

Global warming is a religion because it's faith. All the "proof" is to fool those sitting on the fence.

The church proves the existence of god the same way, make up some shit.

At least the church comes out and says it's a religion. The "consensus" tries to pass itself as "science" and calls anyone who questions "science" a "denier."

That "denier" label does bother me. Does smack of religious fervor. I'm agnostic, neither one way or the other. I suppose there's nothing to do but run my own tests. As for the existence of God, I'm not going there here.

[dalem]

One question. Are they (international/US organisations) measuring water temperature to prove Global warming? If the ocean's temperature increase then Global warming is happening otherwise not? (Most of the datasets here are confusing)

Yes, there are.

No, it's not.

-dale

[gunnut]

That "denier" label does bother me. Does smack of religious fervor. I'm agnostic, neither one way or the other. I suppose there's nothing to do but run my own tests. As for the existence of God, I'm not going there here.

I don't have a problem with god or global warming.

God is above men, just like nature. In a way, god is nature and nature is god. The problem is when men form an organization in the guise of god/nature and start to apply brute force upon other men who do not share their view of what god/nature should and shouldn't be.

This is what we have with the green cult today.

[JAD_333]

I don't have a problem with god or global warming.

God is above men, just like nature. In a way, god is nature and nature is god. The problem is when men form an organization in the guise of god/nature and start to apply brute force upon other men who do not share their view of what god/nature should and shouldn't be.

This is what we have with the green cult today.

I like your definition of God--BTW it's ok to capitalize God. It helps to know you aren't referring to the god Neptune or Zeus. I won't get into your characterization of organized religious organizations, except to point out that their primary function is to convey original teachings down through the centuries. That they sometime fall into the hands of men who use them to persecute non-believers is one of those fundamental contradictions that obscure their true role. Religion serve a valuable social function. You don't burn down the house because criminals once inhabited it.

The parallel between corrupt religious organizations and the so-called "green cult' is biased. We can draw the same parallel with any number of secular organizations promoting a point of view. Why pick on religion?

[gunnut]

I'm not picking on religion.

Religion is faith. Global warming is faith. Therefore global warming is a religion. Except people don't recognize it as such, and that is the danger.

[SteveDaPirate]

I'm not picking on religion.

Religion is faith. Global warming is faith. Therefore global warming is a religion. Except people don't recognize it as such, and that is the danger.

Dogs are mammals. Cats are mammals. Therefore dogs are cats.

I'm not buying your logic here. Religions try to pass down teachings of objective truth. Climate science is about trying to find out what the truth is, or a model that approximates it close enough to forecast outcomes.

[gunnut]

Dogs are mammals. Cats are mammals. Therefore dogs are cats.

I'm not buying your logic here. Religions try to pass down teachings of objective truth. Climate science is about trying to find out what the truth is, or a model that approximates it close enough to forecast outcomes.

Climate "science" is not about trying to find out what the truth is. Climate "science" as of now is about "saving the planet from humans."

What do "global warming" believers call those who do not believe in what they believe? There is so much hate coming from the green cult it gives real cults a bad name.

[JAD_333]

I'm not picking on religion.

Religion is faith. Global warming is faith. Therefore global warming is a religion. Except people don't recognize it as such, and that is the danger.

No; religion is not faith. It's a system of belief that cannot be proved or disproved. Therefore, you must always have faith to believe in it, whereas the global warming faithful believe in postulations that can be proved or disproved. Their faith will eventually be borne out or shattered.

But accepting some testament wholly on faith isn't uncommon; take history and news journalism. Would you call them religions?

It is, however, perfectly acceptable to describe the behavior of some global warming activists as marked by religious fervor.

[Wooglin]

No; religion is not faith. It's a system of belief that cannot be proved or disproved. Therefore, you must always have faith to believe in it, whereas the global warming faithful believe in postulations that can be proved or disproved. Their faith will eventually be borne out or shattered.

But accepting some testament wholly on faith isn't uncommon; take history and news journalism. Would you call them religions?

It is, however, perfectly acceptable to describe the behavior of some global warming activists as marked by religious fervor.

Sorry JAD, but the lack of falsifiability is exactly why AGW is referred to as faith rather than science. How wrong do the models have to be before it's disproven? How many times can the goalposts be moved?

The NOAA recognized a decade long lack of warming back in 2008.

ENSO and non-ENSO contributions can be separated by the
method of Thompson et al. (2008) (Fig. 2.8a). The trend in the ENSO-
related component for 1999–2008 is +0.08±0.07°C decade –1, fully
accounting for the overall observed trend. The trend after removing ENSO (the "ENSO-adjusted"
trend) is 0.00°±0.05°C decade–1 implying much greater disagreement with anticipated global temperature rise.

Their report at the time said 15 years of little to no warming would be needed to invalidate the models.

“Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/c...008-lo-rez.pdf

And that is what happened... 15 years and more came and went. The first response was to deny it, despite dozens of studies documenting "the pause". Then the goalposts kept moving....it's needs to be a 17 year trend, a 20 years trend, etc etc. Then ONE study comes out which merely adjusts data to remove the pause and it's hailed as "truth" before it's really even vetted. And that's really all it is, data adjustment. There's no new data. Those who doubt are filthy "deniers". Conflicting data is ignored. That's not science JAD. It cannot be disproven when the data is constantly adjusted and the goalposts keep moving. When any weather event "is consistent with" AGW there is no falsifiability. That's a belief system at work JAD, not science.

[JAD_333]

Sorry JAD, but the lack of falsifiability is exactly why AGW is referred to as faith rather than science. How wrong do the models have to be before it's disproven? How many times can the goalposts be moved?

The NOAA recognized a decade long lack of warming back in 2008.


Their report at the time said 15 years of little to no warming would be needed to invalidate the models.



http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/c...008-lo-rez.pdf

And that is what happened... 15 years and more came and went. The first response was to deny it, despite dozens of studies documenting "the pause". Then the goalposts kept moving....it's needs to be a 17 year trend, a 20 years trend, etc etc. Then ONE study comes out which merely adjusts data to remove the pause and it's hailed as "truth" before it's really even vetted. And that's really all it is, data adjustment. There's no new data. Those who doubt are filthy "deniers". Conflicting data is ignored. That's not science JAD. It cannot be disproven when the data is constantly adjusted and the goalposts keep moving. When any weather event "is consistent with" AGW there is no falsifiability. That's a belief system at work JAD, not science.

\

I never said AGW isn't a belief system, I said that it can be proven right or wrong as compared to a religious system which can't. We really aren't that far apart. I just don't go along with calling AGW a religion, regardless of the fanaticism of its believers. It's semantics perhaps, but the distinction is important because labeling it a religion implies it is beyond the reach of classical proofs, which it is not. The earth was not flat...as it turned out. ; )