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Many scientists argue that the use of fossil fuels and areosols, along with other human activity
is causing climate change, other scientists disagree, saying the warmin is a natural cyclical
change that will reverse itself over time.
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
The Obama administration may think climate change is so grim that radical technologies to cool the Earth’s air is necessary, but not so in Texas. Last week the Texas State Board of Education changed the language in a school textbook chapter to include the phrase 'analyze and evaluate different views on the existence of global warming'.
“In a last-minute assault on science and sensibility, the board appears to be supporting its own ideological views than those of proven science”, said Dr. Ramon Alvarez, senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund. “Experts around the country, including the tenured faculty of Texas A&M’s Department of Atmospheric Science, agree that our climate is warming and that humans are responsible”.
Although many scientists argue that the use of fossil fuels and aerosols, along with other human activity is causing climate change, other scientists disagree, saying the warming is a natural cyclical change that will reverse itself over time. And not only do scientists have different views, environmental concerns have also become an increasingly partisan issue. A Rasmussen Reports survey done earlier this year found, for example, that 59% of Democrats blame global warming on human activity, compared to 21% of Republicans.
“The tragedy of the Texas State Board of Education ruling is that it places Texas children at a competitive disadvantage in science education, thus failing them as they prepare to compete in the global market place”, said Jim Marston, regional director of Environmental Defense Fund.
But although many Texans may doubt that climate change is caused by human activity they still seem to be putting great emphasis on alternative energy and energy efficiency. Texas leads the nation in wind power generation and under a clean-air legislation that was approved tentatively by the Senate yesterday, new homes and appliances will have to use significantly less electricity.
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Comments
"Although many scientists argue that the use of fossil fuels and aerosols, along with other human activity is causing climate change, other scientists disagree..."
This implies that there is some sort of even division of opinion of the scientists which is not the case.
In 'Examining the Scientific consensus on Climate Change', Volume 90, Number 3, 2009; p. 22-23, 97% of specialists surveyed understand that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing the mean global temperature.
More information can be found at (with the normal http prefix).
www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/03/a-potentially-useful-book-lies-damn-lies-science/
tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
What do you expect from an oil state that also has George Bush? Probably a result of environmental poisons impacting brain health.
Of course... because it is a religion... you have misreported the statistic and it should read...
"97% of specialists surveyed BELIEVE that human activity..."
Because they don't understand the distribution behavior of CO2 in the atmosphere... hell they call it a "blanket"... there is NO BLANKET of CO2 in our atmosphere.
Now... if you would like to replace our energy systems with cleaner ones... use the free market. Make sense to people without the religious doom and gloom crap and people will by it. Make it cool... "Look how cool this energy system is." and people will say, "I want that."
Cap and Trade is BS.
Many believers in the Carbon Dioxide Warming theory claim that numbers are on their side, that allegedly more specialists support their position.
In reality, scientific issues are not decided by popular vote. The Law of Gravity was never put to a vote, nor was Einstein's Theory of Relativity. These scientific principles were decided by physically measuring, and experimenting the physical universe, not by polling scientists as to their opinions.
Essentially, research in the USA and in other countries is supported by government funding. Our government funds research based upon one theory, the idea that increasing consumption of fossil fueld will cause Global Warming and that the warming will be catastrophic. Other theories or points of view or approaches are not supported. As a consequence, only scientists representing one point of view can afford to practice their science.
What is the Carbon Dioxide Warming theory?
In a laboratory, Carbon Dioxide can act as a blanket, and trap some heat, in the form of light known as Infrared. Everyone agrees that this happens, at least in a laboratory, when no other compensating conditions are present.
The controversy is not about what happens in a laboratory, but about what happens in the outside world. The planet's weather system has many ways of dumping excess heat, absorbing it, and modifying the climate in many ways. It is self-adjusting in many different ways, and maintains itself in balance.
According to the Carbon Dioxide Warming theory, the slow increase in warming from excess carbon dioxide will gradually make the world warmer. Believers in this theory say that the planet's atmosphere will amplify the natural warming from carbon dioxide, itself relatively modest at about 1 degree, and triple or quadruple it to 3 or 4 degrees. Skeptical scientists deny that this will happen, that the rise in temperature will be minor and pose no threat to humanity.
What evidence is there for this multiplier effect? There is no physical evidence. We don't have a spare planet somewhere to experiment upon. And there is no way to examine a rise of one degree and measure what part of it was from any particular cause.
Scientists who do believe in this multiplyer effect do so because they have no other way to explain the warming of the 1980's and 1990's. They assume it was caused by Carbon Dioxide, but the effect of the carbon dioxide alone is too weak. Therefore, there must be a multiplier.
Other scientists say that the warming we have had in the past is just part of the Earth's natural cycles of heating and cooling, has happened before, and will happen again, no matter what we do about carbon dioxide.
Several times during the history of the earth, the earth has been a snowball ... covered with ice into the lower latitudes. It became a giant mirror that reflected the sun's heat from the earth's surface. These times were not ice ages as we know them but much more profound events.
So the question is: what geophysical mechanisms were responsible for pulling the earth out of this condition?
If you know the answer to this question, you have an insight into modern day geophysics.
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