Winters of the Future

[peakbagger]

Back when I was at University of Maine, the Insitute of Quaternary Studies came out with the Global Cooling crisis. It was not as politicized as the current issue but their contention was that the current warm stretch between Ice Ages, is past the average stretch between ice ages. Therefore at any "time" (geologically), the earth was going into an ice age covering a large amount of North America in ice. At the time there were various schemes being discussed on how to artificially warm up the earth by various technical alterations on a planetary stage. For some strange reason, I dont see much PR lately on this.

 

[Kevin Rooney]

An observation - it's not uncommon for trained, educated, intelligent people - adhering to rigorous scientific protocols - to arrive a different conclusions. It may be regrettable because we desire clarity, but it happens.

As a mostly apolitical example of this - look at all the studies which have been done on the impact of eating eggs on our cholesterol levels. There have been countless studies done, some arriving at one conclusion and others arriving at an opposing view. Granted, a few of them may have been funded by the poultry industry, but mostly they were done by impartial individuals. This is but one example, and it happens frequently which is one of the reasons that the same subject area is studied repeatedly.

I heard a line from the medical soap opera Grey's Anatomy - "science is a belief system" - and it has stuck with me. It seems there are many ways of arriving at "truth", and science is but one of many.

Edit - after posting the above, a few hours later I was listening to a local NPR station interview Jonah Lehrer who wrote an article for the New Yorker titled "The Truth Wears Off - Is there something wrong with the scientific method?" There's even a name for it - the "Decline Effect".

 

[adamiata]

"Denier" is just a euphemism for politically unfashionable.

 

[forestgnome]

Here's an example of why so many of us just lost interest or faith in AGW.

http://www.keepwintercool.org/

As recently as last year this program was presented to those of us working in the ski industry. Bottom line: AGW means deminished snowfall.

I was "ignorant" for not believing that we were going to get less snowfall due to carbon dioxide, or any other act of humans.

Now I'm ignorant if I don't believe that human activity will cause more precipitation.

 

[brianW]

Climate change has always happened. The Earth is not static.
Here is at least one positive outcome of "global warming"
http://msucares.com/news/print/fwnews/fw10/100520.html