[LINK] the weather makers

[Stewart Fist]

Kim writes:
> 
> I have a question for you: what would it
> take for you to believe that global warming is actually happening?

You've missed the whole point Kim.

I do believe that global warming is happening -- because that is the one
measurable change that scientists agree upon

But global and regional temperatures change all the time.  It warms then it
cools. It warms here, while it cools there.

It's not easy to measure temperatures on a global scale -- and its not sure
that the measurements we take today are comparable with those that were
taken 100 years ago with glass-and-mercury thermometers.  But while the
scientists say they can measure this warm change, I have to accept it.


When it does warms (even in the remote past) apparently the levels of CO2 in
the atmosphere increase -- and when the levels of C02 increase it apparently
gets warmer.  So this is a reinforcing system.  But if this were an isolated
cycle (with nothing counteracting the heating), then the world would head
off into an irreversable episode of every-increasing global heating.  But
there's no evidence that this has happened in the past.

I think Flannery is a good science promoter and museum administrator, and an
excellent popular science writer.  But he is only acting as a science writer
when he writes outside his own field, and therefore shouldn't be elevated
into unquestioned secular sainthood.

I also agree that many professional climate deniers owe their public stance
to the generous funding of the energy industry.  But that doesn't make every
'denier' automatically corrupt.

Despite the fact that scientists and lay people holding unpopular sceptical
views on this, constantly get told they are idiots - there are plenty of
top-class independent scientists who hold a position very similar to mine.

1. I agree that if the consensus of metereological opinion is that the earth
is warming, then we have to accept their evidence and act on it.  But we
have the right to ask: Ddo they really know?  Have they measured in a
consistent and accurate way?

2. I don't agree that this means they know what has caused the temperature
increases -- this is opinion or speculation, based on some good evidence
probably (but not overwhelming).  I want to know how they define what are
the proportional contributions of man-made and natural causes.  I don't
think this is anything more than educated opinion -- and some good scientist
disagree with the majority.

If they did know how to apportion this, and what caused the natural
component, then they could explain the history of climate change. They
can't.


3. Just because a theory becomes fashionable, doesn't mean it is right (nor
does it mean that it is wrong, either of course).  It just means that those
who disagree and still want study grants, tend to keep their heads down and
keep silent.  Popular science often acts as a suppresser of open inquiry.

In the case of climate change, a number of scientists have kept their heads
down for years -- ever since the 1962 Rio Summit made this a political and
economic issue in scientific circles.


4. The secondary projections that arise from this warming -- sea-level
rises, ice-cap collapse, long-term droughts, starvation, extinctions of
species, islands disappearing, etc. etc, -- are yet another level removed
from the science, which is itself in dispute.  All this is even further
abstracted from any real evidence.


5. And my main point, is that computer processing of massive amounts of
contemporary data is not a substitute for real evidence and logical argument
arising from provable events in the past.


-- 
Stewart Fist, writer, journalist, film-maker
70 Middle Harbour Road, LINDFIELD, 2070, NSW, Australia
Ph +61 (2) 9416 7458