The Alaska Wildlife Alliance will host a forum on polar bears at 7 p.m. Friday and the University of Alaska Southeast’s Egan Lecture Hall. Panelists include University of Alaska Fairbanks Wildlife Biology Professor David Klein and Kari Norgaard, World Bank Consultant on the Phenomenon of Global Warming Denial.
Comments (10)
Add comment"the Phenomenon of Global
"the Phenomenon of Global Warming Denial"
LMAO
"In the U.S. temperatures cooled in five of the last seven decades even though CO2 levels increased steadily throughout this period. "
http://www.isthereglobalcooling.com/
"No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously."
http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Widescale+Global+Co...
http://www.climatecooling.org/#Fact
I do expect the resident "watermelons" to come out frothing at the mouth, but hey, that's half the fun!
...That word, I do not think it means what you think it means
Temperatures have been rising steadily over the last century and a half, along with CO2 levels. This is undeniable. Simpletons like yourself who can't differentiate between trends and yearly changes, or local weather patterns and global climate, are the problem here.
The earth has warmed, and this is undeniable. The current debate centers around whether the warming is caused by humans or not, and even then, that "debate" is mostly political, as there isn't much of a controversy in the scientific community.
Do two panelists a forum
Do two panelists a forum make? Please!
PP, "there isn't much of a controversy in the scientific community." Well, there is controversy, however, the loudest and shrillest and most well funded have silenced or destroyed the careers of the "deniers".
Dust, where are you? Here's a loooong article that I'll let you dissect and report back on!
http://www.isthereglobalcooling.com/about_the_author
Facts have destroyed their
Facts have destroyed their careers, too. In science, when you ignore reality, you lose credibility, and usually your job. Climate change is a very real phenomenon, and it's happening faster than ever in our planet's geological history, so far as we know. There is a real possibility of a mass extinction event in the near future as species find themselves living in areas too warm, wet, or dry, and don't have time to adapt. We're already seeing this with coral bleaching events, the colonization of Antarctica with new and more species, massive krill death rates (which is a big effing deal, because krill is INCREDIBLY important in the ocean's food web), earlier and out of sync migration, mating, and birthing cycles, and so much more.
Michael Crichton is partly to blame. "State of Fear" is a convincing book. It even convinced me when I was younger and more impressionable. But it's full of half-facts and omissions. The reality is that this is a real phenomenon and we are likely to blame, and it's not likely to be pretty, because whether you believe in it or not, we depend on the earth's ecosystems to sustain us, and when they become damaged, we will suffer.
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Lol @PP Are you a scientist?
Lol @PP
Are you a scientist? Have you done research? So your relying on reports from whom? Actual science based information? Then yes form your opinion. There are many people out there that have read scientific based info that show different scenarios then you. Both could be true to an extent. One thing has been admitted by many scientists, not organizations, global climate change has been changing forever, all the land masses were once one...multiple times. Point they were making? Global warming had been blown WAY out of proportion for the actual level of understanding. proof? It's not global warming any more is it? It's climate change, because we are still guessing. Floridas still around isn't it? Didn't gore predict that swamps and beaches would be on the move?
Fact: stating a fact doesn't make it true.
(I do believe we are effecting the world in a negative way, obviously, and need to change things. For the right reason, it's the right thing to do.)
State of Fear was a great book and I've personaly read a few books that he cited as references in his fiction book. Those books scared me more then what I've read in the tabloids (news)
Lol @PP Are you a scientist?
Lol @PP
Are you a scientist? Have you done research? So your relying on reports from whom? Actual science based information? Then yes form your opinion. There are many people out there that have read scientific based info that show different scenarios then you. Both could be true to an extent. One thing has been admitted by many scientists, not organizations, global climate change has been changing forever, all the land masses were once one...multiple times. Point they were making? Global warming had been blown WAY out of proportion for the actual level of understanding. proof? It's not global warming any more is it? It's climate change, because we are still guessing. Floridas still around isn't it? Didn't gore predict that swamps and beaches would be on the move?
Fact: stating a fact doesn't make it true.
(I do believe we are effecting the world in a negative way, obviously, and need to change things. For the right reason, it's the right thing to do.)
State of Fear was a great book and I've personaly read a few books that he cited as references in his fiction book. Those books scared me more then what I've read in the tabloids (news)
Umm, yes, I have read
Umm, yes, I have read scientific papers about climate change. Your argument is fallacious--climate has been changing forever, but we're talking geological timescales here. The rate at which the climate is changing today is NOT natural. Nor has it been blown out of proportion. At least not by scientists. We're going to see a worldwide ecosystem SNAFU of epic proportions. Sure, some people say it might be beneficial to us. Certainly it will open up new land to agriculture or different kinds of agriculture, but diseases will also become more widespread (can't wait for Lyme Disease to come here!); weather extremes will become more common; dieoffs of aquatic species will become more severe and more common due to the changes in the ocean's Ph, temperature, and salinity; terrestrial species will also experience severe dieoffs as migrants find their food source has already come and gone, as temperature rises to intolerable levels, as rainfalls increases or decreases, and even sex-ratios can change--some reptiles, for reasons we don't understand, alter their sex-ratios in different temperatures; and so on.
Organisms adapt to their environments, until they reach a near-optimal state. To adapt again, in such a short time, will be impossible for many, and there will be a large number of extinction events. This doesn't sound like it's been blown out of proportion to me. In fact it seems as if the response has been underwhelming as people shrug and say, "it's too cold here, anyway" or "it's good that we can take a shortcut through the Arctic ocean, now."
Also, despite his apocalyptic rhetoric, Al Gore is mostly correct, and I find it interesting that so many people despise him because of it. As you may recall, he was trying to do something about global warming back in the late 80's, before it became a political thing.
I really should have steered
I really should have steered clear of this one as over the past decade I've gotten into too many debates that just end up with two people thinking the other is an ignorant fool. I have kids waking up :)
Do yourself a favor and research the sun and it's effects on our planet. If you look enough you can find some very interesting papers done by independent scientists with no political agendas or ties.
I have. The sun goes through
I have. The sun goes through periods of increased and decreased output, and the last solar minimum, despite being very low, didn't change the earth's upward temperature trend. I again reiterate, the rate of change we've seen over the last 150 years is more extreme than anything in the earth's geological history (that we know of so far).
Cite your sources
Alaskastu - if you are advising research into solar forcing, what papers would you recommend? Do you have any specifically in mind? Solar forcing is precisely the place to begin when examining climate.
But to be honest, very few people appear to be really interested in science, only platitudes and defending world views.
Solanki, Sami K.; Usoskin, Ilya G.; Kromer, Bernd; Schüssler, Manfred; Beer, Jürg (2004), "Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years" Nature 431: 1084-1087
Solanki, Sami K.; Krivova, Natalia A. (2003), "Can solar variability explain global warming since 1970?" Journal of Geophysical Research 108 (A5)
A summary of a Harold Jeffery's lecture presented by Solanki in 2002.
http://noorderlicht.vpro.nl/attachment.db/18258097/Solanki.pdf
Bard, Eduard, and Frank, Martin. 2006. Climate change and solar variability: what's new under the sun?Earth and Planetary Science Letters Volume 248, Issues 1-2
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/BardPapers/Bard06EPSL.pdf
Lockwood, Mike, and Frohlich, Klaus. 2007. Recent oppositely directed trends in solar
climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature. Proceedings of the Royal Society A
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2009Q1/111/ReadingsLockwood2007_Recent_o...
Scafetta, N., and West, B.J. 2006 Phenomenological solar signature in 400 years of reconstructed
Northern Hemisphere temperature record. Geophysical Research Letters
http://www.acrim.com/Reference%20Files/Sun%20&%20Global%20Warming_GRL_20...
And a very new piece of work that appears excellent - examines a previously unobserved decrease in solar ultraviolet spectral output, affecting ozone construction/destruction in different atmospheric layers and correlates a 90-degree phase-shift between output and effect. While still early, the models used in the work suggest that solar input played a greater role in climate variability between 2004 - 2007, although it cannot account for the totality. If shown accurate, older data on solar variability should likely be re-analyzed with an eye towards this correction.
Haigh, J.D., Winning, A.R., Toumi, R., and Harder, J.W. 2010. An influence of solar spectral variations on radiative forcings of cliimate. Nature 467: 696 - 699
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7316/full/nature09426.html
Evaluating climate change claims
In order to know what is normal, it's helpful to know what is abnormal. If I were to jump into the layman climate change debate around the office cooler, the first question I would research, for myself, is how would I know what constitutes evidence for climate change? In other words, what would convince me that climate change is real? If your answer is, "nothing can convince me" then there little reason to continue a discussion. Likewise, if you claim Jesus holding a copy of the Constitution spake unto thee, well, that's a conversation stopper too.
Would the evidence need to be visible, such as icebergs moving up Gastineau Channel? Would microscopic evidence such as C02 levels in Antarctic ice sway me? How about invisible radiation? How about a "hockey stick" temperature graph? Then I would ask myself, what am I missing since I am not a climatologist or planetary scientist? Should I possibly take into account their formulas for deciding evidence or should I rely only on talk radio hosts, TV anchors, or the clergy to give me scientific advice? I know there are people who fit in the latter category yet wield formidable political power.
There's a neat app (it's free!) called "Skeptical Science: getting skeptical about global warming skepticism" that neatly addresses at least the top 50 "concerns" used by those who are skeptical about global warming such as: "we're heading toward cooling," "Greenland is gaining ice," "temp records are unreliable," "1934 hottest year on record," "Arctic ice melt is natural cycle," "there is no consensus," and just about every other challenge addressed. If anything, it will help a layman consider what questions to think about when discussing this complex subject. Enjoy.
Mike