It’s virtually impossible to find a Global Warming debate wherein “scientific consensus” isn’t brazenly thrown down on the table (so to speak) as a supposed trump card. Now… PLENTY of people have questioned the claim that there actually is a “consensus” about AGW. I’m sure that if you type “is there a global warming consensus” into a google search, you’ll find plenty of people arguing that there is NOT a consensus (depsite popular belief). The reason I’m NOT going to go over such arguments, is because I frankly don’t CARE if there’s a “scientific consensus” or not. There are three main reasons for this:

A) As wikipedia notes, a “scientific consensus” is niether an argument, nor an aspect of the scientific method. It merely gauges OPINION.

B) Real science speaks for itself. I don’t care what scientists think ABOUT the science (data). It is what it is. I have no reason to believe that scientists are better at INTERPRETING data than anyone else who posesses a firm grasp of logic. IN FACT, since my background has more to do with philosophy, I consider my own understanding of logic to be greater than the average scientist’s. Most scientists (as far as I can gather) really don’t even understand the philisophical basis for the scientific method itself. Their job is really a lot more “hands on”, and less about understanding the “big picture”. You can point out the fact that I’m NOT a scientist all you want, but… I AM a competant philosopher, and this allows me to understand concepts like “conflict of interest” (which the average science buff fails to comprehend/acknowlege), which brings us to my next point.

C) “Special interests” have pumped BILLIONS of dollars into Global Warming research. If you gave ME billions of dollars, I could get a bunch of scientists to claim that telepathy is real. It’s no secret that people need to pay bills. We’re dealing with humans, people. At any rate, if you HONESTLY want to understand this issue, you have to LOOK BEYOND the influence of special interests, and focus on the science itself. In my book, the veracity of a position is INFINITELY more important than how many people were paid to promote it.

Ok… I’m going to pwn the following web page (see link below). I’ll be quoting it directly, and responding to those quotes. Unfortunately, the comment thread on the page itself is LOCKED, so… I can’t comment on the page itself. I apologize if this is a bit disorganized. I’m doing this on my phone.

http://www.grist.org/article/there-is-no-proof-that-co2-is-causing-global-warming

“Objection: Correlation is not proof of causation. There is no proof that CO2 is the cause of current warming.

Answer: There is no ‘proof’ in science — that is a property of mathematics. In science, what matters is the balance of evidence, and theories that can explain that evidence. Where possible, scientists make predictions and design experiments to confirm, modify, or contradict their theories, and must modify these theories as new information comes in.”

Ok… just because something can’t be proven 100%, doesn’t mean you don’t have to provide sufficient evidence to make your case. The question then becomes: “is correlation SUFFICIENT evidence in this case?” The answer is CLEARLY “no”. Why? Because it doesn’t tell us what we need to know. We KNOW that temperature rises increase CO2 levels (I’ll explain that later). What we don’t know, is if rises in CO2 levels increase temperature. If rises in CO2 PRECEEDED temperature rises, then the correlation in question would lend far greater support to your hypothesis, but… the fact that they don’t, means that you have a lot more work to do. The evidence COULD mean what you THINK it means, but… it simply isn’t clear. On the surface of it, you APPEAR to be wrong. The cards just aren’t stacked in your favor. Sorry, but… that’s the way the cookie crumbles. In THIS case, the correlation does NOT tell us what we need to know, and so it’s NOT SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE.

“In the case of anthropogenic global warming, there is a theory (first conceived over 100 years ago) based on well-established laws of physics. It is consistent with mountains of observation and data, both contemporary and historical. It is supported by sophisticated, refined global climate models that can successfully reproduce the climate’s behavior over the last century.

Given the lack of any extra planet Earths and a few really large time machines, it is simply impossible to do any better than this.”

Notice how the author changes the subject (from CO2 to AGW in general). The result of this slight of hand, is that we have no idea if anything stated in the above quote is relevant to the discussion. Were people REALLY talking about CO2 raising global temperatures 100 years ago? I seriously doubt it.

“Aside: It is usually interesting to ask just what observations or evidence your skeptic would consider “proof” that global warming is caused by rising CO2 levels. Don’t be surprised if you get no answer!”>/em>

Heh… why are you asking us skeptics? According to you, there’s a “mountain” of evidence. You should be telling US what that evidence is. You’ve mentioned POSSIBLY relevant computer models (that magically predict the past), but that’s it (and everyone knows computer models are bullcrap anyways, and would only be impressive if they predicted the FUTURE). At any rate, the answer to such a question would be “EXPERIMENTATION”. That’s what science USED TO be about before Global Warming came around. Why don’t you demonstrate that X% of CO2 has effect Y on laboratory environment A, in order to show that X% of CO2 should therefor have effect Y on environment B (the Earth)? Is it because it’s already been done, but… didn’t yield the results you wanted? Just curious…

We’re going to talk about the relationship between CO2 and temperature. Let me preface this however, by acknowledging that CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas in the universe, nor does the ENTIRE Global Warming debate revolve around it. However, CO2 is certainly a primary issue, and a prime target of legislators.  

AGW advocates are extremely fond of pointing out that there is a “correlation” between CO2 and temperature. Here’s what’s funny about that: IT’S NOT REALLY A SUBJECT OF DEBATE. Pretty much everybody (on BOTH SIDES of the debate) acknowledge this fact (AGREE about this). Anyone who pretends that THIS is an/the issue, is simply being disingenuous (unless they’re actually retarded). Here’s the deal:

There IS a correlation between CO2 and temperature (when temperatures go up, so do CO2 levels). Here’s the problem:

Rises in CO2 levels LAG BEHIND temperature rises by hundreds of years. As such, it certainly isn’t OBVIOUS that CO2 CAUSES temperatures to rise. RATHER, it appears to work the other way around.

What we need to do then, is make a distinction between “correlation” and “CAUSATION”. To make an analogy, if someone were to point out the correlation between smoking and lung cancer, and then conclude that cancer CAUSES smoking, they would be, well… totally wrong. Cancer does NOT cause smoking, and “correlation does NOT imply causation”.

To be clear: CORRELATION is NOT the issue. CAUSATION is the issue. Do rises in CO2 levels cause temperatures to rise, is it the other way around, or is it BOTH? THIS is the issue. Again… when AGW advocates pretend as if correlation is the issue, they are simply preying on your ignorance. For an AGW argument to be valid, it has to acknowledge the issue (causation), *and* acknowledge that, at least on the surface, it would APPEAR that temperature rises cause CO2 levels to rise, rather than the other way around. At any rate, we must note the following possibilities:

a) CO2 levels cause temperature levels to rise.

b) Temperature rises cause CO2 levels to rise, but CO2 levels do NOT cause temperature levels to rise. 

c) CO2 levels cause temperature levels to rise *and* vice versa.

Now… here’s the kicker: as far as I’ve been able to determine, scientists have been ENTIRELY unable to demonstrate that rises in CO2 levels (in the atmosphere), CAUSE temperature levels to rise (on Earth). I have looked, and looked, and looked, and found NOTHING that demonstrates this (scientifically). Now… if someone HAD done this, wouldn’t it be the EASIEST thing to find (on a Google search)? Of course it would. It would be huge news. Instead, what I usually find are people skirting the issue of causation, and talking solely about correlation. It would appear then, that the phrase “there’s no debate” is used primarily by people who have no argument.

Now… this does NOT mean that CO2 does NOT cause temperatures to rise. It just means that no one has been able to prove this yet, and there’s a great effort to gloss over and conceal this fact. Plenty of people CLAIM that CO2 causes temperatures to rise, but… I can’t seem to find anyone who’s actually demonstrated this.

What we need to recognize then, is that the argument for AGW relies primarily on attempts to falsify competing hypotheses (such as the hypothesis that the Sun drives climate change). There’s nothing wrong with this. Proving one’s opponent wrong, is a totally valid ASPECT of “winning” a debate. HOWEVER, proving one hypothesis wrong, is NOT the same thing as proving another hypothesis right. Those are two different things, even though ideally, they go hand in hand. 

At any rate, the notion that there’s “no debate” is totally absurd in light of the fact that no one (that I can find) has demonstrated a causal link between CO2 and temperature (occurring in the real world). It may very well be that CO2 CAN (theoretically) cause temperatures to rise, but this does not mean that there is enough CO2 in the atmosphere to actually do this (in real life).

Another thing that AGW “alarmists” (had to throw that term in just for fun) like to point out is that industrialization has increased CO2 levels beyond what would naturally occur. I don’t think anyone would deny this. However, until you FIRST establishing that CO2 drives temperature, the fact is irrelevant. 

Lastly, let me explain, that what I have done here is weed out some of the nonsense that occurs on the surface (in the mainstream) of this debate. In other words, as far as I can tell, when the smart people get together to debate this issue, all of this stuff I’ve been talking about is acknowledged and understood, and the debate CONTINUES from this point. Nothing I’ve said here, proves one side or the other at all. All I’m saying is that one has to get past a bunch of nonsense, in order to get to the REAL debate (which we’ll continue to discuss in the future). 

Amen.

This will be a quickie:

Wikipedia has an article on Global Warming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

The first paragraph contains the following sentence:

“The scientific consensus is that global warming is occurring and is mostly the result of human activity.”

The phrase “scientific consensus” does NOT link to the following wikipedia article (and as far as understand, it should):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus

Rather than linking to the “Scientific consensus” page, it links to the “Scientific opinion on climate change” page. As far as I know, this is incorrect, and either the link, or the text should be changed.

Now, maybe I’m paranoid, but… I HAVE to wonder if the reason they did this, is because one of the first things the “Scientific consensus” page says, is the following:

“Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the scientific method.”

I myself have made this point many times, whenever I hear people going on about the “scientific consensus” that Global Warming is “mostly the result of human activity”.

So… is this a DELIBERATE shenanigan? Is someone going to fix this? Do I just not understand how links are supposed to work? I dunno… I find it curious though.

Welcome. We will be exploring the topic of (AGW) Anthropogenic Global Warming. The first thing you need to do, is get the idea that there is “no debate” over this issue, out of your thick skull. That’s complete nonsense (regardless of how the media portrays the matter). In fact, this debate is alive, healthy, “deep”, and fascinating. It’s really an interesting topic, and it’s a shame that the REAL debate has been ignored/buried by special interests and whatnot. The idea that there is “no debate” is what keeps the public from sanely discussing, or even being exposed to, important issues related to the planet we inhabit.

Now personally, I have my own opinion on whether AGW is total bullcrap or not. HOWEVER:

a) My opinions have been known to change, and

b) My ultimate goal is not to promote my opinion (though I may do that from time to time). In other words, I have an opinion, but no agenda other than the following: I want people to UNDERSTAND THE DEBATE (what each side is actually arguing [what legitimate/fair points are being made on each side of the isle], what the issues involved are, etc.)

Now… I DO think that this issue is UNUSUALLY plagued by propaganda, special interests, intellectual dishonesty, conflicts of interest, etc. I will point these things out as I come across them, and I don’t care which side of the debate is pulling the most shenanigans. Shenanigans are shenanigans. It will probably seem at first, that I am harder on the AGW advocates, than on the AGW “deniers”. However, I believe that once you get past all the surface-level nonsense, there IS a REAL debate occurring, with very smart people on both sides. So… if I have to debunk a bunch of surface-level nonsense in order to get to what the people with brains are talking about (behind the scenes), I will. Don’t get butthurt. This ISN’T an attack blog. I might attack certain people and arguments, but I am not here to attack either side of the debate, as a whole. My ultimate goal is to engender an understanding (of the issue). 

Ok… with that said, let me point out what I feel are the three major premises of the AGW camp (which we’ll explore over time):

a) The world is warming

b) This is bad

c) It’s our fault.

From this, we can imagine some of the opposing views, such as:

a) The world isn’t warming, so…

or…

a) The world is warming

b) This is not a problem (it might even good)

c) It’s a natural process unrelated to anything we’re doing.

or…

a) The world is warming

b) We’re totally screwed

c) It’s a natural process, so doing something about might not be as easy as limiting CO2 emissions and whatnot.

You get the idea (I’m sure). We will be exploring such things (amongst many other super-interesting things), so… STAY TUNED!!!