Tuesday, October 24, 2006

By George, I Think We're Right. This Time

Newsweek is admitting that their story they did 30 years ago about the planet cooling was wrong. Now their sure it's warming. I posted something about this. It was from Time magazine rather than Newsweek, but same story. You'll have to forgive me if I don't get my panties in a bunch over this, but...

*CLICHE WARNING*
If weathermen can't even give us an accurate forecast for week ahead, how can they do so years in advance?

8 comments:

Opinionnation said...

First vitamin supplements are good then vitamin supplements are bad for you

First we were descendents of Neanderthals but now they are a separate species from what led to modern day humans.

First we were sure the earth was freezing now the earth is warming. Everything is everything until the next decade new evidence proves it wrong.

Anyone sure that global warming is happening and caused by man should be taken as serious as people who believed that Neanderthals were our direct ancestors.
LONDON (CNN) -- For more than a century, scientists believed that Neanderthal man, a hulking ape-like creature who lived in Europe and the Middle East some 300,000 years ago, was the direct ancestor of human beings... Instead, the results bolster the hypothesis that our ancestors, the first homo sapiens, emigrated from Africa about 100,000 years ago and lived side-by-side with the Neanderthals.

They were all sure, weren't they

Christopher Lee said...

Wait, wait, wait, wait...WAIT. You mean to tell me that vitamin supplements aren't good for you any more? You mean my One A Day is killing me? Damn.

Anonymous said...

So let me get this straight Opinion..

The fact that the artic ice cap has been steadily melting at an increasing rate means nothing?

The fact that Australia is slowly experiencing worse and worse droughts every year... even though we're not getting a consistent El Nino effect to bring the hot air down to us (thus ruling out any normal explanation for the heat) means nothing?

The fact that the upper atmosphere is heating up while the total amount of light getting to the dirt is decreasing means nothing?

What you're saying is, that because our knowledge of biology has advanced, and because we've reclassified some fossils (two things utterly irrelevant to the study of climatology), that our conclusions about the climate must obviously be wrong?

Here's an article from a few days ago for you. Our conservative Prime Minister, who has officially declined the Kyoto Protocol and says that global warming is a load of hooey is putting AU$500m (US$379m) into clean energy research - but he refuses to actually give a reason why he's doing it, because he still maintains that global warming isn't real. That say anything to you?

Oh, and Chris - the reason they're not good for you is because they're not naturally produced. Naturally occuring vitamins are more complex chemical structures.

Anonymous said...

Ah, one more thing - Bush himself came out and said global warming was occuring and did need to be countered, but he had the statement retracted after Limbaugh called him "George W. AlGore".

I invite you to google it.

Opinionnation said...

Dumbshit... I didn't say Global Warming was not happening, now did I?

I think the point was lost on you

Anonymous said...

Anyone sure that global warming is happening...

Perhaps you should have been a bit clearer then. Specificity is useful when discussing something. If the point you were making was that global warming is not human induced, then you should have said:
"Anyone sure that global warming is caused by humans", rather than dividing it into two points.

Opinionnation said...

You have to be an idiot to not understand my comment...

Anyone sure that global warming is happening...

Keyword: Sure

Followed by: should be taken as seriously as those who believed (or were SURE) of other scientific arguments in the past that have been proven to be false.

It is (keyword) -likely- Global warming is happening but obviously, as pointed out, things change in science decade by decade and sometimes year by year. Especially in science based largely on computer models, assumptions, and on a general lack of knowledge in regards to the complexity of climate changes that have occurred over millions of years.

Anonymous said...

Dumbshit... I didn't say Global Warming was not happening, now did I?
---
You have to be an idiot to not understand my comment...

Anyone sure that global warming is happening...

Keyword: Sure

So what you're saying is that it's not not happening, but it's also not necessarily happening either?

For someone who's so good at calling other people idiots and dumbshits, you don't seem to be able to formulate a stance in any direction; except perhaps, that everyone with an opinion is an idiot.

It is (keyword) -likely- Global warming is happening but obviously, as pointed out, things change in science decade by decade and sometimes year by year. Especially in science based largely on computer models, assumptions, and on a general lack of knowledge in regards to the complexity of climate changes that have occurred over millions of years.
It's not based on computer models - it's based on observable data (which you'd know if you'd looked into it).

This is why Chris' cliche demonstrates a patent lack of knowledge about what's involved. It's actually much harder to predict tomorrow's weather than it is to predict overall global trends. Weather forcasting is based on air pressure zones, temperature trends and cloud shifts. You don't need to track any of those in such fine detail when it comes to global climate, you just need to track overall trends. Hence why meterology and climatology are separate subjects.

Here's the facts:
- The oceans are getting warmer each year.
- The artic icecap is steadily decreasing in size (note that the antarctic icecap has a continental shelf under it, which protects most of it from ocean temperature influence, hence why we're not seeing the same effect there).
- global temperatures are rising, however this is distributed unevenly: overall temperature is rising in the southern hemisphere and the central region of the northern hemisphere, whilst the regions along upper Europe are getting remarkably colder (hence the increasingly worse winters there).
- The upper atmosphere generally is getting hotter, whilst the lower atmosphere is getting less light (the pollutants in the atmosphere are slowly and increasingly blocking out the sun, causing the heat to mostly build up higher up in the atmosphere).

And the facts are pretty conclusive. The only people in politics who don't want to acknowledge the problem are the people with vested interests.