DIYbanter - View Single Post - Where is that Global Warming Al Gore? (Need help on house.)

Mike Hartigan

In article ,
says...
Hi Mike,

On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:46:59 -0600, Mike Hartigan
wrote:

So the Left misinterpreted what the scientists were saying (that's
called 'lying', in the political arena today) and crammed it down our
collective throats in order to further a political agenda. Perhaps,
had I single-quoted 'scientific consensus' in my comment regarding
global cooling, it would have been more to the point.

I don't follow what you're saying here. What exactly did the "Left"
misinterpret and what lies did our [politicians?] tell us?

The article cites the faulty conclusions based on the evidence that
was (or was not) available at the time. The global cooling version
of 'the sky is falling' was the result. The 'lying' comment was a
reference to the reasons for our current foray into Iraq.

There's a curious statement made in that article:

"[...] they recommended more research, not action. Which was entirely
appropriate to the state of the science at the time. In the last 30
years, of course, enormous progress has been made in the field of
climate science."

In other words, "Last time, were didn't know what we were talking
about. This time, we're really, really sure!"

(that doesn't sound just a little bit arrogant to you?)

Sorry, I disagree. I read this to be "there's a strong possibility
the earth is entering another cooling phase (perhaps not an
unreasonable assumption given what climate scientists then knew about
the earth's natural temperature cycles), but until we do more
research, we really don't know for sure". That really doesn't strike
me as arrogant at all; to the contrary, it strikes me as being humble,
truthful and prudently cautious.

The implication that 'this time we got it right' is where I see
arrogance. There's no need for more research - we've already nailed
it.

I think it's fair to say our understanding of global climate has
evolved considerably over the past thirty years and certainly the
tools available to scientists are far more rich and diverse. In terms
of computing power alone, my laptop is far more powerful than any
supercomputer available thirty years ago. And look at how information
is shared today; with the internet, it's immediate/real time. Thirty
years ago, this type of information would have been shared largely by
printed journals, with perhaps four to six months lead-time.

We've come a long way in thirty years, to be sure. That's what we
were saying back then, too. And we were just as confident (arrogant)
in our predictions then as we are today. We'll be saying the same
thirty years from now and we'll be smug because we'll finally know
everything. But the sophisticated computer models that are making
these dire predictions today still can't accurately 'predict' what's
happened in the past. Yet we're trying to set policy based on what
they're telling us about the future. Consider the most recent
hurricane season. We were told to prepare for a record season in
terms of both number and intensity. (oops!)

These are very different worlds. Back in 1977, I would be driving a
Plymouth Volarie. Do you think anyone would be driving a car like
that today?

I wouldn't have been caught driving one even then ;-)

Note, I'm not saying that global warming is a myth. Indeed, the
controversy is not over the warming, itself, rather it's over its
causes and what, if anything, we should do about it. I'm merely
pointing out that the skepticism is not without just cause.

Cheers,
Paul