Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Furcifer]

OK then, find me a single use of "20th century average" which includes data from before 1900 or after 2000. It doesn't have to be to do with temperature, it doesn't even have to be from a scientific source. Just one example of anyone anywhere using it the way you wrongly thought NOAA was using it.

I suppose you mean other than this thread?

You're the one insisting there's a specific definition. If you look at the first paper I believe they refer to the data set from 1900-1997 as the "20th Century Average". Will that suffice? Or are you now claiming the "scientific definition" can be less than the 100 year period from 1900-2000 but never more? I'm just trying to nail down these goal posts before I bother searching for something that's just going to be dismissed.

I never insisted anything of the sort.

It's the average of all the data that's available for the 19th century, as has been explained to you multiple times. It just so happens that, for global temperatures, that data begins in 1880.

The average given in the paper is for the "full period", which as I've explained numerous times I thought was what NOAA was referring to as the "20th Century Average".

For any quantity where data is available for the whole of the 19th century, the 19th century average would mean the average from 1801-1900.

That's just your opinion. It's probably the most logical opinion and I'm sure you'd be correct more often than not in assuming as much, but the notion that this is some sort of "scientific principle" is completely absurd.

It's the average of all the data that's yet available for the 21st century, as has already been explained to you multiple times. Prior to 2000, anyone who referred to the 20th century average would likewise have meant the average for the century so far.

There go the goal posts. You're just making this up as you go along.

Yes there is, it's the average from (x-1)01-x00 or, where the available data covers a period shorter than that, the average for the years for which data is available. It never, ever, covers a period of more than a century.

Again, this is just your opinion. I don't know why you think this is some universally accepted convention? I know you've convinced yourself, but I don't think anyone else is actually buying this. If you've got data from 1884-2002 and you take the average, what do you think is stopping anyone from calling it the "20th Century Average"? Especially when it's an indirect reference.

You thought very very wrong. Again: improvements to or extensions to the NOAA data set is never ever going to change the way they define "20th century average". Why should it? It's just a convenient, universally understood (by everybody but you) baseline against which to calculate temperature anomalies. For some things NOAA chooses a different base period, for example on the temperature anomaly maps they use a base period of 1961-1990. They're not going to change that one every time they improve or extend their data set either.

Nonsense. The base period is just a preference. I seem to recall from my reading the MLOST based period was just recently changed to the 1971-2000 period. Next year it could change to 1980-2010 just like that.

As it happens, this particular dataset only covers a few years either side of the 20th century, but that doesn't mean that it would ever have been correct to use "20th century average" to describe the average over the whole period. If NOAA had ever done so they would have been a laughing stock.

Again, this is just your opinion and has no basis in fact.

Edited by Gaspode: 

Edited for moderated thread.

Every time another full year's data became available all the previously published temperature anomalies would have had to be recalculated, which would be absurd.

You obviously didn't read the papers and follow the discussion if you believe that.

It makes sense to pick a fixed period in the past for which data is available and calculate anomalies wrt the average of it, and continue to use the same base period as more data becomes available, and improvements are made to the analysis of existing data.

No it doesn't and that's why they don't do it.
We use a variety of base lines. The 1961-90 period is most often used because it is the period recommended by the WMO (World Meteorological Organisation). This period is also used for UK data so that information for the UK is directly comparable to data from other parts of the world.

 

[Furcifer]

There is no '1979 Chaney paper':

1. It was a report from a committee.
2. This report did not caonatin any papers from Chaney on climate sensitvity from climate models.

MOre unsupported assertions.

Nonsense. Charney, J.G., et al., 1979: Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC,

That's the paper, you're wrong. I don't know what you're talking about.

 

[Furcifer]

This, is all, quite simply wrong and completely inaccurate. The single statement to approximate the truth is "The 21st Century average, which is also referenced in the Reynolds paper is the years 2000-2006," and that is because at the time Reynolds et al. was preparing their work the only years worth of data in the twenty first century were 2001 through 2006.

That's incorrect, the data is available monthly and the paper was written in 2008.

"xth Century Average" refers to the averaged data of all years in the xth century. Any other interpretation is simply wrong.

No it doesn't please see above for clarification.

You are mistaken and this mistake has not only been explained to you by members of this thread but by the authors of the study you are misquoting and attempting to distort.

That's a lie. The author of the paper isn't even a member of this forum, let alone explained anything. This is a gross misrepresentation of the facts and has no basis in science or reality.

 

[Furcifer]

It wasn't very hard to track down papers to refute this nonsense about the "20th Century Average"

Temperature and precipitation trends in Canada during the 20th century- Trends were computed for 1900–1998 for southern Canada (south of 60°N), and separately for 1950–1998 for the entire country, due to insufficient data in the high arctic prior to the 1950s.

An incomplete dataset referred to as the 20th Century average.

Here's a paper that uses the years from 2000-2006 in it's "20th Century Average" - A Significant Upward Shift in Plant Species Optimum Elevation During the 20th Century

Here's one that uses 1901-1996 Representing Twentieth-Century Space–Time Climate Variability. Part II: Development of 1901–96 Monthly Grids of Terrestrial Surface Climate

Here's one that uses a dataset from 1912-2002 as it's "20th Century" -20th-century glacier recession and regional hydroclimatic changes in northwestern Patagonia

There's no "definition" of the "20th Century", it's just a general description and not to be taken literally to mean the years 1901-2000. The fact that NOAA happened to use it was simply dumb luck in this particular instance.

 

[Reality Check]

Nonsense. Charney, J.G., et al., 1979: Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC,

That's the paper, you're wrong. I don't know what you're talking about.

Nonsense. Charney, J.G., et al., 1979: Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC,

That's the report, you're wrong - it is not a paper.
The National Academy of Sciences, is not a scientific journal where papers are published. It is an organization that issues reports.

You keep on accusing me of not reading papers - have you read the report, Furcifer? What does it say on its title page on the line below the title?

 

[Pixel42]

If you look at the first paper I believe they refer to the data set from 1900-1997 as the "20th Century Average". Will that suffice?

You believe wrongly, so no it won't.

In any case that paper was written in 1997, so that would in fact have been a valid use of "20th century average", as has already been explained to you.

The average given in the paper is for the "full period", which as I've explained numerous times I thought was what NOAA was referring to as the "20th Century Average".

They discuss many different averages in the paper. They don't mention the 20th century average, though, and there is nothing in the paper which would make anyone with any sense assume that the references to 20th century average on the website refer to the average over the whole dataset.

I don't know why you think this is some universally accepted convention?

Because it's a universally accepted convention.

If you've got data from 1884-2002 and you take the average, what do you think is stopping anyone from calling it the "20th Century Average"?

Elementary schooling in arithmetic.

The base period is just a preference.

Different base periods are chosen according to the anomaly which is being calculated. If you're publishing a monthly report, giving the same anomalies every month, you don't suddenly change the baseline against which one of them is calculated just because you've improved or extended your dataset.

It wasn't very hard to track down papers to refute this nonsense about the "20th Century Average"

I looked at the one link you gave and googled the other titles to find them and looked at them too.

None of them even mentions the 20th century average for any quantity, let alone calculates it and gives the data range it uses to do so. So I'm still waiting for an example of the use of "20th century average" which includes data from outside the 20th century.

 

[Reality Check]

It wasn't very hard to track down papers to refute this nonsense about the "20th Century Average"

Temperature and precipitation trends in Canada during the 20th century- were computed for 1900–1998 for southern Canada (south of 60°N), and separately for 1950–1998 for the entire country, due to insufficient data in the high arctic prior to the 1950s.

...

There's no "definition" of the "20th Century", it's just a general description and not to be taken literally to mean the years 1901-2000. The fact that NOAA happened to use it was simply dumb luck in this particular instance.

Wrong, Furcifer: The 20th century is defined to be the years 1901-2000.

It does not mean that mentioning the 20th century in the title of a paper makes the data include each and every year from 1901 to 2000. It means that the paper will be analysing data taken within the 20th century.

All of the papers yoiu cite are restricted to the years 1901-2000. They take "20th Century" to be taken literally to mean the years 1901-2000. They refute your claim that "20th Century" includes years outside of 1901-2000.

The first citation is especially bad: Temperature and precipitation trends in Canada during the 20th Century by X Zhang - 2000
It is obvious that this paper cannot include all of the 20th century since it was published in the last year of the 20th century!
It would be quite ingnorant to even think that it would include 1999 data since it takes time to write and publish a paper.

Ditto for your second citation (published July 2000).

The last one is better. The authors really sould have said '1912-2002' rather than '20th-century'. It gets worse!
20th-century glacier recession and regional hydroclimatic changes in northwestern Patagonia January 2008

This paper documents the occurrence of significant glacier and hydroclimatic changes in northwestern Patagonia during the past century. Drastic, widespread glacier recession is documented by repeat photography of some of the earliest glacier images from southern South America. Linear trends in regionally-averaged annual and seasonal temperature and precipitation records indicate significant warming and decreasing precipitation over the 1912–2002 interval.

(empahasis added)
The 'past century' would be 1908-2008 according to the publishing date.

How silly of the authors to use the data that was actually available and base the science on it rather than restrict themselves to a phrase in their title .

 

[Reality Check]

Wrong, Furcifer: The 20th century is defined to be the years 1901-2000.
....

I forgot about where you really went wrong in:

Originally Posted by Furcifer
It wasn't very hard to track down papers to refute this nonsense about the "20th Century Average"

(emphasis added)
None of your citations calculate a 20th century average!

 

[Furcifer]

Nonsense. Charney, J.G., et al., 1979: Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC,

That's the report, you're wrong - it is not a paper.
The National Academy of Sciences, is not a scientific journal where papers are published. It is an organization that issues reports.

Do you know what AR4 is? This report is the predecessor to that. Just because it isn't published in a journal doesn't mean it isn't a paper. I fail to see what distinction you're trying to make between a "report"and a "paper", especially since none exists.

You keep on accusing me of not reading papers - have you read the report, Furcifer? What does it say on its title page on the line below the title?

Report of an Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate

On page 7 it says: An increase of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere increases its absorption and emission of infrared and also increases slightly its absorption of solar radiation.

On page 16 it says: For comparison purposes, the convective adjustment parametrization was introduced into an H model with fixed sea surface temperatures and was found to reduce appreciably the penetration of water vapor and cloud to high levels.

page 18 and 19 are "References".

You do understand that reports are papers right? This report, just like AR4, is the combination of multiple papers and essays discussions and what not on the climate. I think you're confusing a briefing with a report. You've been implying incorrectly that this was some sort of verbal presentation. It wasn't, is was a scientific paper/report on the climate.

 

[Furcifer]

You believe wrongly, so no it won't.

In any case that paper was written in 1997, so that would in fact have been a valid use of "20th century average", as has already been explained to you.

So now you agree it doesn't necessarily mean the years 1901-2000. There go the goal posts, again.


They discuss many different averages in the paper. They don't mention the 20th century average, though, and there is nothing in the paper which would make anyone with any sense assume that the references to 20th century average on the website refer to the average over the whole dataset.

Because it's a universally accepted convention.

No it isn't. You keep making this up, it's NOAA's convention on that webpage but it's not universally accepted.

Different base periods are chosen according to the anomaly which is being calculated. If you're publishing a monthly report, giving the same anomalies every month, you don't suddenly change the baseline against which one of them is calculated just because you've improved or extended your dataset.

Now you're saying different base periods are chosen, before you said they stay the same.

None of them even mentions the 20th century average for any quantity, let alone calculates it and gives the data range it uses to do so. So I'm still waiting for an example of the use of "20th century average" which includes data from outside the 20th century.

Here's a paper that uses the years from 2000-2006 in it's "20th Century Average" - A Significant Upward Shift in Plant Species Optimum Elevation During the 20th Century

It's quite clear, they use the entire available dataset for the "20th Century Average". There's no such thing as a universally accepted convention on the definition of the 20th Century, you made that up. It's a colloquialism, in much the same way the "20th Century Man" didn't live from 1901-2000, it merely suggests the bulk of his life was during the 20th Century. In science it simply references the century where the majority of the data was gathered.

Again, you've been shown several cases and it's quite clear it's not meant to be taken literally.

 

[Furcifer]

Wrong, Furcifer: The 20th century is defined to be the years 1901-2000.

No it isn't, at least not as it's being used in these papers.

It does not mean that mentioning the 20th century in the title of a paper makes the data include each and every year from 1901 to 2000. It means that the paper will be analysing data taken within the 20th century.

No it doesn't. There goes the defitnition again, first you said it was the years 1901-2000, now it's just taken from those years.

All of the papers yoiu cite are restricted to the years 1901-2000. They take "20th Century" to be taken literally to mean the years 1901-2000. They refute your claim that "20th Century" includes years outside of 1901-2000.

More nonsense, none of them are.

The first citation is especially bad: Temperature and precipitation trends in Canada during the 20th Century by X Zhang - 2000
It is obvious that this paper cannot include all of the 20th century since it was published in the last year of the 20th century!
It would be quite ingnorant to even think that it would include 1999 data since it takes time to write and publish a paper.

I don't know what you're talking about. The author clearly uses the truncated dataset as his "20th Century".

The last one is better. The authors really sould have said '1912-2002' rather than '20th-century'. It gets worse!
20th-century glacier recession and regional hydroclimatic changes in northwestern Patagonia January 2008

(empahasis added)
The 'past century' would be 1908-2008 according to the publishing date.

How silly of the authors to use the data that was actually available and base the science on it rather than restrict themselves to a phrase in their title .

Indeed. Imagine not being shackled to some ridiculous premise predicated on by pendant people.

 

[CapelDodger]

Yes, NOAA uses a truncated data set for "conceptual simplicity", apparently thet feel comprehending full dataset is beyond most of their readers. That's been well established.

Gobbledegook.

Every summer.

When is summer for the world?

Every summer.

See above. Glaciers, ice-caps and sea-ice are retreating globally and have been for decades, with no sign of stopping.

Alarmist hyperbole.

No doubt it alarms you, but it's a fact. Droughts and floods are an increasing feature in the world, especially in the 21stCE (by which I mean Jan 1st 2001 to present, obviously).

What? I don't know what that means. What's the scientific definition of "twitch"?

It's a metaphor. Biological ranges are changing for many species, in an uncoordinated manner; add the fact that many of these are insect species of the flying variety and you get the flavour of a "twitch". You, of course, want the ecological impact laid out in exquisite detail before you'll even accept it's happening. I understand that.

By the way, what's the scientific definition of "alarmist"?

What's sad is the lack of skepticism and critical thinking when it comes to climate science.

I have to agree there.

It truly is the new cargo cult.

How? Is it not more like a Black Swan Cult?

Warmists preaching doom behind a thin veil of pseudoscientific garbage.

All the National Science Institutes in the world think AGW is scientifically sound and that it will have severely deleterious effects. You think otherwise. Guess who I'm impressed by. Guess who almost everybody is impressed by. Then guess again.

Mann's hockey stick a classic example of how confirmation bias becomes statistical bias.

Gobbledegook.

If you keep your view firmly fixed on that one man and that one analysis you can insulate yourself (intellectually) from what's actually going on. And you will, I have no doubt about it.

 

[Halsu]

Wrong, Furcifer: The 20th century is defined to be the years 1901-2000.

"the century from 1901 to 2000"
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/twentieth+century

"the century from 1901 to 2000"
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/twentieth+century

"The 20th century of the Anno Domini began on January 1, 1901, and ended on December 31, 2000."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_century

...for starters.

 

[Furcifer]

None of them even mentions the 20th century average for any quantity, let alone calculates it and gives the data range it uses to do so. So I'm still waiting for an example of the use of "20th century average" which includes data from outside the 20th century.

I decided to Google some more. Here's a good one about CIMP3 where they outline experiments for multi-model analysis.

1) Twentieth-century simulation to year 2000 (preferable starting from pre-industrial conditions in the late 1800s) with anthropogenic and natural forcings as modeling groups deemed appropriate

No distinction between 20th Century and 19th Century. Mainly because there's no need for one because there's no universal convention. What's universally accepted is looking at the dataset and understanding the years, not assuming it's any specific year.

Here's another: Trends in Twentieth-Century U.S. Extreme Snowfall Seasons
Trends in the 20th Century, obviously the universally accepted convention isn't being followed, they analyzed "1900–01 to 2006–07 for the conterminous United States". There's no mention of the twenty first century because it's understood the data in primarily focused on the 20th century.

Here's yet another: Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century
from the article: we compiled a quantitative estimate of annual global extraction of biomass, fossil energy carriers, metal ores, industrial minerals and construction minerals for the period 1900 to 2005.
The so called "20th Century" for purposes of the article includes the years 2001-2006.

Google Scholar lists thousands of papers in my search, there's at least 1 paper per page of results that uses the extended dataset beyond 2000 but still refers to it as the "20th Century". I can certainly find more, but there really is no need to prove there's no "universally accepted convention" when it comes the the colloquial term "20th Century".

 

[Reality Check]

No it isn't, at least not as it's being used in these papers.

Yes it is - the papers are using the phrase 20th centuyry as involving the years 1901-2000.

No it doesn't. There goes the defitnition again, first you said it was the years 1901-2000, now it's just taken from those years.

Wrong: I have never said that.
The definition of the 20th century is the years 1901 to 2000.
An average over the 20th Century ( your '20th Century Average") is an average over the years 1901 to 2000.

As mentioned before: None of your citations contain a 20th Century average.

More nonsense, none of them are.

More nonsense - read the papers. None of them have anything to do your mythical '20th Cenury Average': None of your citations contain a 20th Century average.

I don't know what you're talking about. The author clearly uses the truncated dataset as his "20th Century".

He does use a truncated 20th century for the simple reason that he wrote his paper before the end of the 20th century!

A pity that this citation has nothing to do with your '20th Cenury Average' since if has no average.

Indeed. Imagine not being shackled to some ridiculous premise predicated on by pendant people.

Imagine being able to read and understand a paper or even its abstract and seeing that the paper is talking about trends during the 20th century and does not contain any averages over the 20th century.

 

[Furcifer]

"the century from 1901 to 2000"
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/twentieth+century

"the century from 1901 to 2000"
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/twentieth+century

"The 20th century of the Anno Domini began on January 1, 1901, and ended on December 31, 2000."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_century

...for starters.

20th-century art

First line- 20th-century art and what it became known as — modern art — really began with modernism in the late 19th century

Apparently Art doesn't follow this universally accepted convention either. It's not meant to be taken literally and quite frequently it isn't. I'm not sure how this can be made any more apparent at this point.

 

[Reality Check]

Here's a paper that uses the years from 2000-2006 in it's "20th Century Average" - A Significant Upward Shift in Plant Species Optimum Elevation During the 20th Century

It's quite clear, they use the entire available dataset for the "20th Century Average".

Wrong yet again, Furcifer:
A Significant Upward Shift in Plant Species Optimum Elevation During the 20th Century

Spatial fingerprints of climate change on biotic communities are usually associated with changes in the distribution of species at their latitudinal or altitudinal extremes. By comparing the altitudinal distribution of 171 forest plant species between 1905 and 1985 and 1986 and 2005 along the entire elevation range (0 to 2600 meters above sea level) in west Europe, we show that climate warming has resulted in a significant upward shift in species optimum elevation averaging 29 meters per decade. The shift is larger for species restricted to mountain habitats and for grassy species, which are characterized by faster population turnover. Our study shows that climate change affects the spatial core of the distributional range of plant species, in addition to their distributional margins, as previously reported.

Once again a paper about a trend during the 20th century.

It's quite clear, there is no "20th Century Average" in the paper title or abstract. There is only "20th Century".

There is a decadal average mentioned in the abstract which explains why their datasets cover whole decades.

So this is your 4th failure with no mention of "20th Century Average":

1. Temperature and precipitation trends in Canada during the 20th Century by X Zhang - 2000
2. Representing twentieth-century space-time climate variability. Part II : Development of 1901-96 monthly grids of terrestrial surface climate (PDF)
   Monthly averages!
3. 20th-century glacier recession and regional hydroclimatic changes in northwestern Patagonia
   "regionally-averaged annual and seasonal temperature and precipitation records"
4. A Significant Upward Shift in Plant Species Optimum Elevation During the 20th Century

So where are your many citations to papers that calculate a "20th Century Average" temperature (or precipitation, etc.) for a period that is not 1901 to 2000?

So far all we have is the results of a Google search for "20th Century Average" restricted (hopefully ) to climate science. The failure to understand that you citations so far do not contain any averages over the 20th century (any "20th Century Average") is obvious to anyone here.

 

[Furcifer]

Gobbledegook.

None the less it's almost verbatim from the NOAA website.

When is summer for the world?

This is a nonsensical question.

See above. Glaciers, ice-caps and sea-ice are retreating globally and have been for decades, with no sign of stopping.

Incorrect, they have been for 18000 years. That's considerably longer than "decades".

No doubt it alarms you, but it's a fact. Droughts and floods are an increasing feature in the world, especially in the 21stCE (by which I mean Jan 1st 2001 to present, obviously).

None of which has anything to do with global warming. The change in weather is hardly "alarming". In fact it's quite comforting.

It's a metaphor. Biological ranges are changing for many species, in an uncoordinated manner; add the fact that many of these are insect species of the flying variety and you get the flavour of a "twitch". You, of course, want the ecological impact laid out in exquisite detail before you'll even accept it's happening. I understand that.

What?

By the way, what's the scientific definition of "alarmist"?

The definition would be "clinical" not "scientific" considering it's a behavioral condition.

How? Is it not more like a Black Swan Cult?

There's varying opinion as to why this has caught on as a description of "warmists". In my opinion it's because alarmists have an almost religious like fervor when it comes to climate change. Originally the term was coined by Albert Einstein Award Winner and Nobel Laureate Richard Fenyman to describe scientists, much like today's climate scientists, that don't give the information in the most objective or unbiased manner possible. realcrapclimatescience.com and crapticalscience.com are prime examples of what Fenyman was referring to as "cargo cults".

All the National Science Institutes in the world think AGW is scientifically sound and that it will have severely deleterious effects. You think otherwise. Guess who I'm impressed by. Guess who almost everybody is impressed by. Then guess again.

Nonsense. You're obviously confusing the National Academy of Sciences with all the National Science Institutes in the world.

If you keep your view firmly fixed on that one man and that one analysis you can insulate yourself (intellectually) from what's actually going on. And you will, I have no doubt about it.

Perhaps you misunderstood, Mann and his so called "hockey stick" aren't worth anyone's attention. It's garbage science from one of the more prominent figures in this "cargo cult". It should be very easily forgotten.

 

[Pixel42]

So now you agree it doesn't necessarily mean the years 1901-2000. There go the goal posts, again.

I have never disagreed that, when the data isn't available for a whole century, an average for that century can be based on the data that is available. In fact I've specifically spelt out that it can, though I was amazed I needed to do so.

Do I really need to remind you yet again that it's your assertion that data for more than century X can be used in the calculation for the Xth century average which is being disputed? That's the absurd mistake you originally made, along with others which we haven't even got to yet.

No it isn't. You keep making this up, it's NOAA's convention on that webpage but it's not universally accepted.

OK, why don't you ask them this time? Ask them if they chose 1901-2000 as the baseline for their 20th century average by luck (as you hilariously suggested earlier) or because it's the universally accepted convention. If you don't maybe I will, though I hate to keep bothering them when they've got so many more important things to do than correct your silly mistakes. Unfortunately for you, I don't have anything more important to do.

Now you're saying different base periods are chosen, before you said they stay the same.

I said that different base periods are chosen for different purposes but that, once one has been chosen for a particular purpose it isn't arbitrarily changed, especially when the anomaly it's being used to calculate is included in a report than is generated every month. Once again you seem to be having reading comprehension issues.

Here's a paper that uses the years from 2000-2006 in it's "20th Century Average" - A Significant Upward Shift in Plant Species Optimum Elevation During the 20th Century

Googled that and found the pdf for it: http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/home/files/les_plantes_grimpent.pdf

which I searched for "20th century average" and "twentieth century average". Nada.

Again, you've been shown several cases

Nope, still waiting for a single case.

 

[JFrankA]

You know, to be honest, I'm kind of in the middle about this issue. It does seem to me that we are causing climate change, (considering there are 7 billion people on the Earth, common sense says that we'd have to be, but I'm trying not to fall into confirmation bias).

But I'm sorry, both sides of the debate does have a feel of "look at how WRONG they are", it seems to me that the anti-Climate Change people are screaming that louder, to the point of making it a conspiracy, which turns on my "BS detector." However, at the same time, there are quite a few pro-Climate Change people who have pressed the "Panic Button" on this issue, making it seem like if we don't all drive hybrid cars and use the twisty light bulbs soon, the Earth will implode. Again, my "BS detector" is activated.

I'm being completely honest here. I'm putting all my cards on the table. If I am being dim, I'm sorry. This issue isn't like Evolution. That is pretty clear cut compared to this issue. This issue has so many finger points and loud voices I am at the point of wanting just the plain facts, written simply. Now, I'm no scientist, I've read what I can to a point of how I can understand it, but I can't quite wrap my head around a lot of the details. And to me, that's where the science and analogical thinking comes into play. But it seems to me that one cannot get any information without some kind of political-sided pleading going on.

I also find it amazing that this issue is really split between conservatives and liberals. I mean even more so than Evolution. It seems to me that this is literally like: "Conservative - ain't happening; Liberal - yes it is." The thing that leans me towards that this is true is the fact that NASA is on the side that it is, while organizations like The Heritage Institute is saying it isn't. To me, that adds credibility to the Climate Change is real side, but again, that could be simple confirmation bias. Because I trust NASA much, much more than the Heritage Institute.

Does this issue really come down to who you trust?

I'm sorry, I'm kind of venting here but I'm a little frustrated about this. I'm trying to start from "I don't know", but where ever I turn, I get a political view.