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Politics : New FADG. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (1646)	6/11/2007 11:00:58 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4152

The evidence for anthropogenic global warming is in many ways better than for biological evolution, because we can measure it today, rather than just infer it. We can? How? We've been in a warming trend since the end of the Little Ice Age, which ended before the Industrial Revolution even started. How can anyone "measure" how much of the 0.8 degree C warming that has happened in the last 100 years is anthropogenic? Everytime I ask this question, the response concerns the percentage of CO2 with isotopes tagging it as coming from fossil fuels. But this is a circular answer, because it the depends on proof for the very models it is trying to provide evidence for. BTW, we can measure evolution at work. There is a large set of reproducible experiments with fruit flies which is quite standard. Can I do an experiment that will show anthropogenic warming of the climate? How do you reproduce the climate? Sure there is debate as to how much of that the system might absorb, but as long as CO2 keeps going up, so will temps There are many well credentialled climatologists who say that your statement is backwards, that rising CO2 lags temperature rises, and does not preceed them. All we know for sure is that there is a correlation. Correlation is not causation. Again one depends on the models. It is your answers that are starting to sound religious, I must say. But then you turn around and claim that since there is uncertainty, what?? We can't know for sure? We shouldn't do anything? If we do not in fact have confidence in the predictive power of the models (and all we seem to have is the models), then we should choose carefully what we do. We should do things that are beneficial whether or not the models turn out to be accurate. We should develop less polluting energy sources than fossil fuels (I mean polluting in the old-fashioned sense, spewing poisons into the air and water). We should work on adapting to changes, since even if the models are right, it is unlikely we will be able to make much of dent in the changes that are coming. We should certainly not waste hundreds of billions of dollars on Kyoto when according to the treaty's own supporters, its effects will be nearly negligible. In practice, they are less than negligible since China and India are not included, and all the signatories are only using it for political cover.