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Home Front: Culture Wars
Real Climate Scientists Tell The Very Inconvenient Truth
2006-06-15
"Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it," Al Gore sensibly asserts in his film "An Inconvenient Truth", showing at Cumberland 4 Cinemas in Toronto since Jun 2. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie?

Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."

But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites?
Posted by:Angolung Thoter3849

#22  interesting posts. But don't think that Al and his snake oil selling buddies will let facts get in the way. There's money and votes to be made whipping up a good ol' witch burning hysteria over whatever ails ya. I'm surprised they haven't found a way to blame Bush and the GOP for baldness, small breasts, warts and bad breath. All in due time, I suppose.
Posted by: 2b   2006-06-15 23:29  

#21  Here is a link to graphs showing estimated temperatures over various time periods. It's still not as warm as it was during the Medieval warm period.

I'm so sick of this debate because there isn't one. It's like the damned "ozone hole." Nobody knew there was one until Skylab spotted it. Then without any research at all, the greens pinned it on human activity. I'm willing to bet that the damn thing has always been there and always will.
Posted by: 11A5S   2006-06-15 16:24  

#20   One of the areas I found very intriguing was the Midieval Warm Period, from about 1100 to 1400AD.

IIRC, it was also that warmer period which allowed better harvests in Europe, population growth, and consequently the building of the cathedrals, titanic construction undoable without that climate change.
Posted by: anonymous5089   2006-06-15 16:21  

#19  One of the areas I found very intriguing was the Midieval Warm Period, from about 1100 to 1400AD.

Curiously, that time period was also the peak of the Mississippian culture AND the Anasazi. Earlier warm periods coincide with the peaks of other pre-Columbian cultures.

But LH has already said he thinks "this time it's different". Not that he's put forward any evidence of that, but, hey, what's evidence matter when you're talking SCIENCE.
Posted by: Rob Crawford   2006-06-15 16:17  

#18  I'm no climatologist, but I DO read a lot. One of the areas I found very intriguing was the Midieval Warm Period, from about 1100 to 1400AD. Part of my interest was aroused by working on a couple of archeological excavations as a volunteer in 1986-87 (the Raunds Area Project- available online, but I don't have the URL). Average temperatures were several degrees higher during this period than they are now - as much as 10-12 degreed F. The estuary of the Nene River was nearly twice as large, allowing the establishment of a Danish trading post nearly 20 miles inland from The Wash. We found seeds of plants that don't exist in that part of England today because the climate is incompatible with it.

Global warming may exist, but my bet would be on periodic fluctuations of solar output, not Man's 20% increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. BTW, ice cores from both Greenland and Antarctica show levels almost twice as high as they are today, yet the ice caps in Greenland and the Antarctic still existed. I have some links on my website to global warming links. Some of them are actually quite interesting, even the "proponents" group.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2006-06-15 15:52  

#17  we are in a warming cycle that spans thousands of years. The ice ages expand and contract. REAL scientists will agree that temperatures are currently warming and that man may contribute in the way that one stream feeds the ocean. It's all politics, LH. Stick to what you know.
Posted by: 2b   2006-06-15 15:18  

#16  I'm no climate expert, but I do know that my weatherman's five-day forecast is usually crap, so I'm not impressed with his buddies' hundred year computer models. Let me also add that I took advanced fluid mechanics and heat transfer in graduate school and that may bias me a bit towards believing that most computer models are crap, especially so when they are extrapolating.
Posted by: Darrell   2006-06-15 15:09  

#15  LOL, SteveS.
Posted by: Seafarious   2006-06-15 14:55  

#14  LH, part of your problem is that you try to reason on this issue from general principles without having either the specific research skills or the data to draw well-founded conclusions. And that's being done by people on ALL sides of this, unfortunately.

The point of citing people who DO have those skills and ARE collecting and analyzing directly relevant detailed data is tro come to informed conclusions. You are not, so far as I can tell, in any position to do that yourself. Nor are most of the other readers and commenters here, including me. A little humility is prudent on our part on so complicated an issue IMHO.
Posted by: lotp   2006-06-15 14:52  

#13  I don't know why you guys keep going on about the climate. If you read the Club of Rome reports and Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb, you will know that by 1980 the world will be out of resources, over-populated and we will be totally *bleep*ed. That reminds me, I need to take that book back to the library.
Posted by: SteveS   2006-06-15 14:43  

#12  Do you really mean to say the hard science faculties at the top universities are as politized as say, the literature faculties.

"as politicized", maybe not.

"politicized to a distorting degree", unfortunately there's reason to believe this is true in far too many cases.

Note also that the experts being quoted are actually studying climate in specific areas about which Gore has made false or misleading statements. And before you reject the value of U. Alabama at Huntsville on weather issues, consider who has major facilities in Huntsville (i.e. NASA and the military, including the Army's Missile and Space Command and the Army's Strategic Missile and Defense Command). Spencer is well known as a NASA researcher who happens to be located there.
Posted by: lotp   2006-06-15 14:40  

#11  Think about the smartest people you knew at school.

Any of them went on to become "climatologists"?

'Nuff said..

Posted by: john   2006-06-15 14:34  

#10  "Climate has been in a warming cycle long before your buddies realized they could find a way to put political blame on every storm. Your always willing to suck up whatever they throw your way aren't you?"

Uh, seeing as the industrial revolution began well before the discussion of climate change began, to you understand that the sentence of yours ive quoted does not contradict human caused global warming?

Or did you mean to say that the climate has been warming since before the industrial revolution, but you couldnt resist tossing in an irrelevant political remark. Cmon, if I have to conduct BOTH sides of the debate, it really isnt worth it.
Posted by: liberalhawk   2006-06-15 14:23  

#9  see look at 7.

Do you really mean to say the hard science faculties at the top universities are as politized as say, the literature faculties. Ive never heard that, and quite frankly, I think its absurd.
Posted by: liberalhawk   2006-06-15 14:20  

#8  Im not gonna conduct an in depth debate here. Im not a climate expert, and its gonna be all of y'all against just me, this aint exactly a balanced forum. But I know that if somebody had posted something like this in favor of a position you disagreed with, youd dismiss it casually.
Posted by: liberalhawk   2006-06-15 14:19  

#7  LH, are you trying to be cute?

When "1st rank" universities are involving themselves in politics and grants securing expediencies, by following the fashionable paradigms, it may be the 2nd and 3rd rate universities that have to step up as science is concerned.

However, that you've never heard of some of the universities does not mean that they are 2nd and 3rd rate. Many a prestigious university today became the PC BS indoctrination facilities.
Posted by: zazz   2006-06-15 12:53  

#6  Be honest Liberalhawk, how many real people who are scientists actually working in real fields that study the climate?
Let me guess. None?

I know hundreds of real scientists who all think global warming pure politics for wanna believers just like you. Climate has been in a warming cycle long before your buddies realized they could find a way to put political blame on every storm. Your always willing to suck up whatever they throw your way aren't you?
Posted by: 2b   2006-06-15 12:19  

#5  LiberalHawk are you ready to recant 'water vapour isn't the most important (or even a) greenhouse gas'?

You ducked out of the last debate after your ignorance was exposed.

I could give you a litineny of facts that prove global warming just aint happening. Record cold temperatures across Australia and New Zealand recently and our winter has just started. But it doesn't matter because GW has now become a matter of religous belief and you are a believer.
Posted by: phil_b   2006-06-15 12:08  

#4  I, for one, think global warming is a fact, sure fact.... I mean, just one example, this morning I was all hot and sweaty, grunting, even, while staring at the Julie Newmar pic.

Co2, obviously.
Posted by: anonymous5089   2006-06-15 11:13  

#3  wow somebody combed the world, and got some folks from 2nd or 3rd rank universities (one of who is an Emeritus prof - IE not really active any more) to deny global warming.

Way to go guys.
Posted by: liberalhawk   2006-06-15 10:57  

#2  Not all of it. Canadian conservatives are beginning to come out of the closet.
Posted by: lotp   2006-06-15 09:46  

#1  Got this yesterday on DRUGE. Amazing though,as LIBERAL as the Canadian press is.
Posted by: ARMYGUY   2006-06-15 08:19  

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