aphar

Semka, c'mon. Point me to one thing from a respectable scientific source that gives a reasonable alternative to the human activity explanation of global warming.

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first, there is no major global warming - just ordinary fluctuations that have always been with us.
http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm
second, the currently observable minor warming is mostly due to the Sun's activity, not humans.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA203.html
third, the ROI for any effort to reduce greenhouse gazes is absurdly low (the Copenhagen consensus - which is not without its own problems - gave it the lowest priority). aiming low - at replacing imported fossil fuels with, e.g., bacteria-grown alternatives - has a better chance to develop into a long-term solution than huge national endeavors like carbon sequestration etc.
fourth, it is not clear that the warming is going to be universally harmful - some regions will suffer, some will benefit. e.g., perennial grasses will become a viable crop alternative in the US.
finally, global warming is a global source for money and publicity (just like the nuclear winter was in 1970-ies), so I am extremely skeptical about any research financed by the UN global warming committee (just like I am skeptical about anything coming from the UN).
It's like the recently founded anti-corruption committee in Russia - you have to give a $1 million bribe to be a member.

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Semka, I am not an expert on global warming. What I know is that it is very hard to find a climatologist who does not believe that it is real and produced by human activity. It's like with Darwin's theory of evolution - the vast majority of serious scientists in the relevant field agree that the evidence is overwhelming.

I don't have the knowledge to judge that evidence. But looking critically at the two link you send me, this is what I see. The first talks about one winter (!!) of temperature drop as the evidence of "global cooling" (nu c'mon) and shows the graph that ranges over 20 years. Such a small range is likely to obscure any significant long-term trends and exaggerate local fluctuations. Gore shows a graph that covers a much longer range, if I remember correctly.

The other place claims to be a "national center", while sporting a dot-org rather than a dot-gov domain. You and I can get together and open such "national center" in your garage, if you have some spare time. So, I choose to trust the climatologists, who have Gore a B+ for the scientific accuracy of his movie.

As to the ROI - I don't think that 's relevant at all.
And regarding it being a global source of publicity - still, I don't believe in conspiracies in science, because science is driven by curiosity and human vanity to be the first to discover the truth.

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Alka, you might enjoy this: http://igorbor.livejournal.com/74604.html#comments
(I don't argue with either you or S. just plain funny).

btw, in Stony Brook I took geology, and our professor was fully convinced that greenhouse effect exists, and the consequences will be dangerous for humanity.

He listed all bunch of possible reasons for it (Vulcanic activity, solar activity, even platforms' movement could be a contributor), but from what I see, all these reasons existed in 1995 when I was a student. They all died since then, and we are left with human activity.

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Алкин, я тебе скажу как климатолог климатологу, что на земле был ледниковый период, а потом хренак, и динозавры вымерли.
кстати, на той же гелогии мне рассказали, что когда-то давно на земле было ровно два материка, не помню как назывались но одно из слов было похоже на гондон, а потом бах, и их у нас теперь целых шесть.
и все-это до того, как сей бренный мир посетила нога человека.

эти исторические факты мешают мне поверить, что новый хренак так уж действительно начался в 1979 ((а не шел подспудно веками, как вышеперечисленные явления, а данных у нас про то, что было до двадцатого века очень мало), и так уж сурово связан с людьми.

вот хороший сайт, где ББЦ сурово обьясняет скептикам, типа моего реакцинного мужа, что парниковый эффект есть, и люди в нем виноваты.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/629/629/7074601.stm

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ok, i found you one climatologist, but he made a big statement in the senate :)

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927B9303-802A-23AD-494B-DCCB00B51A12

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because science is driven by ... human vanity
yes, and what can be more satisfying in this respect than testifying before a Senate panel!

It's like with Darwin's theory of evolution - the vast majority of serious scientists in the relevant field agree that the evidence is overwhelming.
Biologists do not receive funding just for supporting Darwin.
Climatologists do.

at any rate, as I said before, the right way to select priorities is by considering ROI, probability, and discounted consequences.
global warming does not fair well on all 3.
(it is probably slightly more important than asteroid collision, but not by much).
overpopulation is a much bigger problem.

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Jen'kin, Semka, the irony of this argument is that of course I want Semka to be right!!! :)
I think Gore was giving a good explanation about the dinosaurs and why this is not equivalent to that, but I've watched so many movies since Inconvenient Truth, that it's all a blur by now... Like Likvidaciya, three nights in a row till 2 am - still don't understand who the enemy was (ili eto u menya krysha edet, ili u rezhissera, no hto eti podpol'schiki posle voiny??? Dazhe u nas na Zapadnoi Ukraine takih hlopcev ne bylo.)

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but Alka, I actually don't care about greenhouse at all.
It may very well be occurring (for all I know) .

I mostly hate propaganda (on both sides).
I just wish both oil-diggers and alarmists would shut up for a year, remove all their money from this project, and let the scientists speak.
Thank, I think, most scientists will say that they need another hundred of years to collect more data (and this would be the most reasonable thing to do).

Likvidaciya-Alkin, eto zh UPA. Ukranian National Army, or whatever it was called :)

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Jenechka, what project, the Opera? :)
Seriously, I am now talking about any specific political happenings, just the climate (and what world are we leaving to our kids, of course). And I actually sense it outside the US much more sharply than inside. Last summer I was flying Icelandair to Norway, and the brochure in the seat pocket said that Icelandic glaciers are a must-see wonder, but hurry to book your Icelandic vacation now, because they are disappearing at the speed of x per year. It felt absolutely chilling. And then in Norway we were in a small town in the very North, and they had an Arctic museum with a big section on the effects of global warming on the Arctic region - oh, man. Again, I am no expert, but from whatever they were covering in their exhibit, it seemed absolutely non-controversial from a scientific perspective, and was not presented as an opinion or one of many possible explanations. And Iceland and Norway are far from politicized hysterical countries, they just happen to be in the climate zone that is getting the first blow. I am afraid that in another 20 years the data will obvious to the naked eye. :(

Ok, da nu ee pered snom, etu temu. What on earth is UPA??? All right, I am calling Jay to ask, his Ukrainian history is much better than mine.

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Ne, Semka, an article in "Nature" or "Science" beats the hell out of testifying before the Senate, zub dayu. :)

ROI is crucial in figuring out what to do, I agree completely.
Probability - comparable to the probability of asteroid collision?? Man, I hope you are right, but I fear it's more like the probability of colliding with an asteroid that's 20 feet away.
Discounted consequences - don't know the term. But overpopulation is a huge problem that directly feeds into global warming (if we agree that it exists), no?

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yep, pretty funny (chtoby korovy men'she eli i davali bol'she moloka... :))

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Слушай, дошло - так то ж ОУН, наша западенска краса и гордость???!! Я з переляку не впизнала. Так то ж наши львивськи хлопцы (ну и Волынь там ещё с Закарпатьем), в жизни их не было под Одессой, и с одесскими бандами ничего общего у них не было. Ну ладно, жизнь отказывается подражать искусству, это бывает.

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What on earth is UPA???
Украинская Повстанческая Армия.
Воевала на три фронта:
1. против "жидов" (погромы)
2. против вермахта
3. против РККА.

hurry to book your Icelandic vacation now, because they are disappearing at the speed of x per year.
what did you expect? "no hurry, the glaciers are millions of years old and will be here long after the humanity is gone"?
come on - this is a travel brochure!

The bottom line is:
"The UN-paid human rights activists say that the Jews are murders and rapists".
"The UN-paid scientists say that the global warming is real and caused by humans".
"same difference".

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Discounted consequences
losing $100 in 10 years is the same as losing $100*exp(-10r) today, where r is the annual risk-free interest rate.

overpopulation is a problem which feeds into everything - war, poverty, hunger, thirst.
it is caused by irresponsibility on an astronomical scale - people who cannot feed their existing children are having more children.

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Alka,
Iceland and Norway benefit from all this hype and travel directly.
I completely disagree with Semka's bottom line. I don't think it's "same difference", although I do have a general mistrust in the UN. I also have general mistrust in oil diggers. Everybody has their own agenda.

But the "consensus" hype benefits several important players within the UN and it's not true. there are plenty of sceptics among scientists, but now that so much money is invested into it, and propaganda is active on both sides, I have not clue who to trust.
"Consensus" or no "consesnus", GW maybe happening. or not.

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what I mean is that the association with the UN taints the source, just like for others association with "oil diggers" does.

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Semka, no.
it's not "same difference".
I wish you stayed with the issue at hand, and didn't bring up other issues that are not linked with this one.
Scientists who receive the grant are still honest experts in the area and their opinion should be trusted. Btw, these scientists might very well be jews (or spaniards) pro or against israel, love or hate gays, pro-choice or pro-life, none of this matters. The is an empricial question.
There are poeple who know how it should be studied and they study it.
there is no reason not to trust their investigations, regardless of the monetary source (this goes for both the alarmists and the sceptics).

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as I said - for me, taking money from the UN is just as dishonorable as for the leftists taking money from big oil.

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aga.
your sourse should be experts.
check the name of the scientists who are pro-GW, check if you trust their credentials, check if they publich in p-reviewed journals etc, etc.
do the same for the sceptics.

funding can come from Bill Gates or the Big Blue Bird, just diregard it for now.

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i learned about GW from my professor back in 1995. I don't think the grant existed then. seriously, scientists (correctly or wrongly) were worried about it long before UN or Gore.

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and my reply to you is exactly the same as to

azazzela,
monetary source is of secondary importance.

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agreed.
my point only was that the sources are dubious on both sides.

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