TheBitcoinChemist,
Please share with me exactly where you have received your information on climate change. Because while it appears that you do have some understanding of climate science and its effects, there are certain distinct gaps in your knowledge, and a lot of it sounds like it came right out of a libertarian playbook, which naturally raises suspicions.
If you could share specific books you've read, or specific websites in which you collect information from, I would appreciate it.
It's easier to refer them to
this. If they don't bother reading it, don't bother arguing. People oblivious to science will remain in their religious bubble no matter how much persuasion attacks them.
This entire site is well written bunk. Let me just address the first 20...
"Climate's changed before" Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.
Based upon what assumptions? Their links don't really say, the larger link is just more conjecture.
2 "It's the sun" In the last 35 years of global warming, sun and climate have been going in opposite directions
Again, they produce no evidence for this statement, and it's provablely false. Long distance IR measurements of Mars by NASA says that the surface of Mars has warmed over the past 30 years or so also. Did we do that too?
3 "It's not bad" Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any positives.
"The economic impacts of climate change may be catastrophic, while there have been very few benefits projected at all. "
Yes, the impact of climate change
may be catastrophic, but very few scientists consider the effects of climate change on the economy. It's simply not their field. So the reaosn that there hav been very few benefits projected is actual economists consider predicting the effects of warming over a century to be futile, so very little has been published on the matter at all.
4 "There is no consensus" 97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.
To be precise, 97% of climate experts
do not contest that humans are
a cause of global warming. That does not conclude that they all agree thathuman activities are the predominate cause. Furthermore, the idea that a scientific consensus, even if true, represents reality is historically false. This is just a short list of the crackpots who truned out to be correct, contrary to the scientific consensus of the age.
http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html5 "It's cooling" The last decade 2000-2009 was the hottest on record.
I won't contest this, but that data point isn't actually an argument for human caused global warming.
6 "Models are unreliable" Models successfully reproduce temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean.
While it's true that the models were tweeked until they could accurately reproduce measurements we have seen in the past, it's not true that those same models were able to predict the warming over the next several years, much less decades. This is the great failing of the models, they simple arien't good enough
7 "Temp record is unreliable" The warming trend is the same in rural and urban areas, measured by thermometers and satellites.
Yes, and they don't agree with each other. Traditionally, the surface measurements are used in the computer models because there is simply more data than sats, but the surface monitors can be screwed with by changes in the immediate environment they reside, which is why they are the unreliable set to use. Sat data does not, and has not, reported the same degree of warming, although they have reported some warming.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/29/press-release-2/8 "Animals and plants can adapt" Global warming will cause mass extinctions of species that cannot adapt on short time scales.
Says who? Who has the expertise to say that animals cannot adapt over a century by migration? And so what if they can't? More species go extinct yearly than we have ever caused.
9 "It hasn't warmed since 1998" For global records, 2010 is the hottest year on record, tied with 2005.
No contest here.
10 "Antarctica is gaining ice" Satellites measure Antarctica losing land ice at an accelerating rate.
Sure, does not mean that climate change is human caused.
11 "CO2 lags temperature" CO2 didn't initiate warming from past ice ages but it did amplify the warming.
CO2 didn't initiate this trend either, since records show that the warming trend began well before the Industrial Age.
12 "Ice age predicted in the 70s" The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming.
The vast majority of the climate papers in the 1950's predicted cooling, which wasn't a bad bet since even at the time the global average was over teh long term mean.
13 "Climate sensitivity is low" Net positive feedback is confirmed by many different lines of evidence.
And contradicted by many others.
14 "We're heading into an ice age" Worry about global warming impacts in the next 100 years, not an ice age in over 10,000 years.
The Little Ice Age, while not technically a true ice age, dropped the average temps by half a C in under that time frame. Tens of thousands died of starvation directly, or due to complications of desiese related to malnourishment as a direct result of the fall in agricultural productivity during this time frame.
15 "Ocean acidification isn't serious" Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains.
Sure, and so did Acid Rain when I was a younger man. Didn't really pan out, did it?
16 "Hockey stick is broken" Recent studies agree that recent global temperatures are unprecedented in the last 1000 years.
But not over the past 10,000 years. Again, roots have been found on islands north of Canada under several feet of permafrost.
17 "Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy" A number of investigations have cleared scientists of any wrongdoing in the media-hyped email incident.
Some scientists, others have lost their jobs.
18 "Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming" There is increasing evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger due to global warming.
No contest here.
19 "Glaciers are growing" Most glaciers are retreating, posing a serious problem for millions who rely on glaciers for water.
Most being the oparative word.
20 "Al Gore got it wrong" Al Gore book is quite accurate, and far more accurate than contrarian books.
According to whom? The movie "An inconvient truth" was so full of provablely false data points that a court ordered that it could not be shown to public school students because it might ingrain falsehoods into their education.
