Wiki article. Pretty even-handed.
Wiki article on the Club of Rome, the last group I know of that tried to make a living off Malthusian scare theory. Do a search on them. A popular book from the 70s called
The Population Bomb had people believing in food riots in American cities. I think you'll see some parallels. Note especially that Malthusian theories have never been theoretically disproven although they have been falsified by fact.
that's all pop stuff though. speaking for myself, i'm not interested in pop stuff because that sort of thing would happen anyway, as it presses our instinctual buttons. it has no bearing whatsoever on whether the claims have anything to do with reality.
got more recent stuff? and are there science papers backing these people up? granted i wasn't there but i don't get the impression that these ideas were widely accepted and researched by scientists; looks more like a few outliers cashing in on our instinctual desire to thrill at being scared.
I believe you're seeing backlash of strict science vs trendy science. AGW has no falsifiable statement and the anti-AGW side cannot refute other than point out predictions that are not or have not come true.
the
appearance of the AGW
scientific debate to a layperson--as opposed to net fora, where the appearance is shrill loons coming out of the woodwork--is that it will come down to these models consistently making accurate predictions. that still may not be enough for strict scientific fact, but my impression is it would add considerable weight to the hypotheses involved. my impression, also, is that given that climate is measured in 30 year chunks, it will take a while for predictions yea or nay to reach a critical mass.
if strict science vs trendy science is really happening, string theory may be headed for a world of hurt, huh?
To be very frank, you're in the wrong place if you want a highly technical discussion. This is a skeptic's forum and as such what you'll find in response to most claims is "show me".
which is why i'm here. "show me." i'm not necessarily looking for a highly technical discussion, but i do need one rooted in science, and i'm hoping for more pointers to toward actual research papers. seems to me that any skeptic worth their salt would want to see the [scientific] case in matters of science, and at least
try to understand what's being said.
You will sometimes find someone in the crowd with a direct and succinct refutation of a claim but the claim here is AGW which, as I've pointed out, is pretty much based on faith at this point.
well here's the thing. i don't see where the AGW crowd have proved their point, but there DO seem to be more people publishing papers on it than publishing papers with alternate explanations, and papers tacitly accepting it. that doesn't mean it's 'scientific fact' of course.
I also believe you are being a bit critical of the anti- side while letting the pro- side ride with provenly false claims such as "the science is settled", "AGW is a theory", "AGW is proven", "you can't disprove AGW without falsifying modern thermodynamics", "a warming planet proves AGW", and so on. All these statements are bunk but they surface over and over again.
i've been critical of the other side, too--someone made the absurdly irrelevant claim that anti-AGW types need to "get out more" as if going outside and seeing your petunias bloom earlier every year would settle anything (disclaimer: i obviously know nothing about gardening).
i haven't seen too many of the kinds of statements you describe, mainly perhaps because of my timing in entering this board and because the shrill irrelevance of posters like "Tokie" drowns them out. i picked on MHaze not primarily because of the obvious sloppiness of his citations but because i expect somewhere in there are the resources to make a better case, and i'd like to see it. notice i haven't picked on this "Rodale" fellow as much because he seems rather lost in his own world and unlikely to provide the kind of transparency i'm looking for.
most of the statements you describe are obvious howlers, only ones that aren't are "AGW is a theory" and "the science is settled" (which are essentially the same claim, are they not?). and *my* forays into science papers have uncovered no stronger claim than a consensus amongst relevant scientists. the consensus seems demonstrable but that IN NO WAY to me implies the science is "settled."
most of the shrilly irrevant posters on both sides are howling like mad dogs because AGW IS what one generally refers to as "post-normal-science"---policy decisions attempted before the science is settled. by its nature it will attract more partisan loons on both sides than anything else. and most likely frustrate people who can understand the science involved so much as to drive them off (my vulcanologist friend, who spends the bulk of his time studying aircraft contrails rather than is/is there not AGW, doesn't bother with this sort of net bickering).
Other than that, I like your skeptical and open-minded approach.
i suppose my "science" position at present can be summed up as follows:
it is apparent to me that the science isn't settled. it appears, from the papers i've skimmed, that there IS an anomalous climate shift, that hasn't been easily explained away by the usual influences on climate. "global warming," in other words, appears to me to be happening, although "climate change" is a more apt term.
the permanence, cause and degree of this change are not settled as far as i can tell. AGW seems to my untrained eye plausible enough but NOT in any way "proven."
anyone, feel free to jump in and correct any of that, but anyone who wants to be at all persuasive, please offer links to science papers and transparent sources.
my "policy" position would be summed up:
it may be possible that as the pro-AGW crowd assert, that the problem is something we should start fixing before it is settled, but i'm frankly not sold on that yet at all. that said i'm inherently for alternative fuels as dependence on 'foreign oil' is a bad thing, i'm tentatively for nuclear power, "sustainable" architecture, fuel efficient transportation and clean rather than dirty coal technology regardless of AGW.
having clearly stated my position, i now expect both pro- and anti-AGW types to jump down my throat.
