Just passing through here, though I have posted here in the past. Is it just me or is the (new) information tracking a little intrusive/unnecessary? I've always been a big fan of privacy, but still see no reason why someone couldn't "opt-out" of this tracking...
Anyway, like I noted I have been a regular poster here years back (never in favor of big polluters or anything close), so I hope this thread won't elicit knee-jerk reactions such as implications that I am some oil-company shill for bringing this up...
Just recently I saw a review of this book http://www.amazon.com/Deniers-Renowned-Scientists-Political-Persecution/... regarding how some highly respected climatologists (noted bottom) seem to believe the current most popular model is highly suspect. From the page above:
Al Gore says any scientist who disagrees with him on Global Warming is a kook, or a crook.
Guess he never met these guys
Dr. Edward Wegman--former
chairman of the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics of the
National Academy of Sciences--demolishes the famous "hockey stick"
graph that launched the global warming panic.
Dr. David Bromwich--president
of the International Commission on Polar Meteorology--says "it's hard
to see a global warming signal from the mainland of Antarctica right
now."
Prof. Paul Reiter--Chief of Insects and Infectious
Diseases at the famed Pasteur Institute--says "no major scientist with
any long record in this field" accepts Al Gore's claim that global
warming spreads mosquito-borne diseases.
Prof. Hendrik Tennekes--director
of research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute--states "there
exists no sound theoretical framework for climate predictability
studies" used for global warming forecasts.
Dr. Christopher Landsea--past
chairman of the American Meteorological Society's Committee on Tropical
Meteorology and Tropical Cyclones--says "there are no known scientific
studies that show a conclusive physical link between global warming and
observed hurricane frequency and intensity."
Dr. Antonino Zichichi--one
of the world's foremost physicists, former president of the European
Physical Society, who discovered nuclear antimatter--calls global
warming models "incoherent and invalid."
Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski--world-renowned
expert on the ancient ice cores used in climate research--says the U.N.
"based its global-warming hypothesis on arbitrary assumptions and these
assumptions, it is now clear, are false."
Prof. Tom V. Segalstad--head
of the Geological Museum, University of Oslo--says "most leading
geologists" know the U.N.'s views "of Earth processes are implausible."
Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu--founding
director of the International Arctic Research Center, twice named one
of the "1,000 Most Cited Scientists," says much "Arctic warming during
the last half of the last century is due to natural change."
Dr. Claude Allegre--member,
U.S. National Academy of Sciences and French Academy of Science, he was
among the first to sound the alarm on the dangers of global warming.
His view now: "The cause of this climate change is unknown."
Dr. Richard Lindzen--Professor
of Meteorology at M.I.T., member, the National Research Council Board
on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, says global warming alarmists "are
trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were
right."
Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov--head of the space
research laboratory of the Russian Academy of Science's Pulkovo
Observatory and of the International Space Station's Astrometria
project says "the common view that man's industrial activity is a
deciding factor in global warming has emerged from a misinterpretation
of cause and effect relations."
Dr. Richard Tol--Principal
researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies at Vrije
Universiteit, and Adjunct Professor at the Center for Integrated Study
of the Human Dimensions of Global Change, at Carnegie Mellon
University, calls the most influential global warming report of all
time "preposterous . . . alarmist and incompetent."
Dr. Sami Solanki--director
and scientific member at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System
Research in Germany, who argues that changes in the Sun's state, not
human activity, may be the principal cause of global warming: "The sun
has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be
affecting global temperatures."
Prof. Freeman Dyson--one
of the world's most eminent physicists says the models used to justify
global warming alarmism are "full of fudge factors" and "do not begin
to describe the real world."
Dr. Eigils Friis-Christensen--director
of the Danish National Space Centre, vice-president of the
International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy, who argues that
changes in the Sun's behavior could account for most of the warming
attributed by the UN to man-made CO2.
And many more, all in Lawrence Solomon's devastating new book, The Deniers
Years ago I had come across the NASA-supplied information that our entire solar system (including most of its planets) is heating up, I had assumed that this might be a cause of global warming, perhaps the main cause. Out of curiosity tonight, I thought I would check out Google Video for the other side of this debate, and was interested in what I found, namlely some (apparently) very solid and well-presented scientific evidence that global warming is unlikey to be caused by human influences, if indeed it is happening at all to any significant (historical) degree. FWIW, I am wholly supportive of cleaner energy research and impementation, if only for the political and health effects of cleaner/more local energy.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=climate+change&hl=en&emb=0#q=globa... (Scientist Bob Carter speaks on the issue using climate graphs over varying periods of time, and some reasons why the data may be skewed. This is about 35 mins long, the most interesting stuff can be found in the first 10-15 mins or so. The rest is also interesting re. skewed science and politics in the presenters opinion.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=climate+change&hl=en&emb=0#q=globa... Something that ran on CBC last year "Global Warming Doomsday Called Off", most interesting part IMO re. how the more accurate means of measuring climate change (Satelites/weather balloons) seem to suggest little if any meaningful shift in climate over recent years. Most interesting parts IMO being about 6 mins in, about 20 mins in (*falling* sea levels), about 37 mins in, re. the general idea that climate is extremely difficult to model accurately via computer models and why politics may be at play in choosing computer models over human observations.
With appologies to those who wish to debate me on this issue, I claim no personal expertise and wont be sticking around, I present this mainly to (I hope) balance out the media reports which overwhelmingly focus on the pro-human-caused-warming side. I do however suggest that everybody truly interested in this subject look into the material above as it seems to me to be highly intelligent and relevant, and from respectd sources in the recognized scientific community.