G'day Andist,
You asked an interesting question of dehammer. Why would governments want to believe in a theory that may not be correct since it does not seem to benefit them at all?
I was reading a completely unrelating study a week or so back concerning the functioning and evolution of the modern human brain. It seems we are hard wired for irrational beliefs and that only a very small percentage of people can perceive most things in a rational way.
If you think this is far fetched think of "It's bad luck to see a bride on her wedding day" and happily walk under a ladder, take a room on Floor 13 (or 8 or 7 in other cultures) or watch a small child come up with an explanation for the physical world they have not been taught how it functions. Think of the Catholic Church who locked up a priest for 20 years because he said light could be split into component colors (a rainbow but man made), nearly condemned Galileo to death, or the Spanish Inquisition or the Salem witch trials or any jury trial where a spouse is accused of murder and the only evidence is of adultery (even if almost every one on the jury has committed the same offence at some point in their marriage).
It was a fascinating theory and very nicely meshes with my religous studies (no not theology, the history of religions). Ancient man had a bunch of spirits that could be nice or mean that controlled everything because they understood almost nothing of the how the natural world worked. As knowledge increased these spirits were converted into Gods, still nasty or nice, but there was only a few of them. A bit more knowledge and you end up with a single God but at first this is a pretty ugly God. Think of the Old Testement smiting and destroying cities or insisting on the slaughter of your first born. Now that is not a nice god. The same is true for pre Mohammad, Islam although some sects had much nicer Gods than old Johovah.
Knowledge develops a little further and the God not only gets nicer but also more distant. He answers prayers but not directly. Miracles occur but only in such a way that you have to have faith to believe in the miracle.
Funnily enough the progression then stops. Getting rid of that last God seems to be impossible. This latest research suggests why. We simple need to have faith or be able to understand everything. Well, I know I understand most things but I'm not a normal human being, so irrational explanations are the ones that most humans will believe, even when faced with considerable evidence to the contrary.
What has all this to do with Global Warming? You only have to look at Mr Gore, and his evangilism to spread the word of Global Warming. Do not heed him and there will be NO governments in 100 years because we'll all be dead. Does this sound like a person that is acting rationally?
Governments might not like Global Warming but it has now reached a critical mass where saying it is poppycock or even going as far as presenting real scientific evidence that it either is a minor fluctuation or it does not exist, and you are likely to lose the next election. The lobby system for global warming is now truly huge.
To quote your good self:
"I firmly beleive that this "intergovernmental" panel was just saying what governments want us to hear."
In other words you believe this panel is biased because it was funded by governments and they obviously cannot genuinely believe there is no global warming, they just want to downplay it so they are not responsible for damaging global economies. Or they simply want to stick their heads in the sand.
Actually you pre-answered your own question.
I currently have a job reviewing studies on global warming. Aside from the outright frauds that use false data, I have not found one study that is not based on assumptions biased towards the writer or funder's point of view. And since my funder is very, very, very pro global warming, it is not making my job easier, I can tell you. Indeed, the current study is a huge one and I cannot get a great deal of the raw data because it "is not available" but what I have received has been altered from the raw data of the same things obtained from other sources. This puts into doubt the foundation upon which the whole very, very large study is based and bodes very badly for some very prestigous institutions that are supporting it. I am currently attempting to withdraw from the study of this study because I believe that if I keep going I won't have anything to do again.
What is truly strange is the raw data rarely, if ever, supports any argument for global warming.
The weather is getting wilder and more extreme. Not according to all reasonable records kept with one exception. There were a record number of hurricanes in the West Indies/East of US than ever recorded. Any good meterologist will tell that records get broken every day have have been getting broken since meterology became a science but that would not be good enough for most people. It would seem that the record number of hurricanes is only a record if you rely on recorded weather patterns since it has been recorded. However, there is apparently evidence that there has been worse Hurricane seasons as around 300 years ago, and that was at the start of the mini ice age. But why let the facts get in the way of a good argument.
The sea levels are rising. Actually no they are not based on raw data. It is only if you factor in things that the writers think have to be taken into account. Those islands in the Pacific that are being swamped are often used as prime examples of rising sea levels but Pacific islands have a nasty tendency to sink. You can thank the American missionaries for disasters such as the Marshall Islands. The islanders used to use the ocean as a toilet. That meant nakedness. So land based toilets had to be used. That meant water had to be found. That meant it was taken out of the ground. Funny thing is that if you do that for long enough in a place where there is not a huge rainfall and eventually the whole land area shrinks. Of course then you have other islands such as Nauru, that have been mined within an inch of the sea level all to the profit of the Australians in that case, and the gluttony of the local populations and their addiction to fatty foods paid for out of royalties. But real sea level data from stable regions where the land has not moved in relation the rest of the earth and the RAW data shows nothing. No rises. No falls other than minor fluctuations up and down that seem to correspond with solar activities but only in a very small amount.
The water temperature is rising. Actually no it isn't. There is now 30 years of good accurate sea temperature data, although spotty and the raw data shows a rise in line with the very small rise shown by satellites since 1980.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, is man made, and will inevitably lead to runaway warming. Good theory. Where is the proof? Try and find it. Show an experiment that replicates the atmosphere and add in more CO2 and that this then leads to major warming. You'll probably have a hard time because so far no one has managed to achieve this.
How about looking at other times that CO2 was many times higher than now. Then you get the rather inconvenient truth that it sometimes corresponded with the beginning of an ice age or significant global cooling.
I've even seen Venus used as an example of CO2 causing global warming. Funnily enough the CO2 on Venus (about 96% of the atmosphere) keeps the planet hundreds of degrees cooler because it acts as an atmospheric coolant and since when can you compare an atmosphere almost pure CO2 with earth with an atmosphere that has clouds, liquid water, and the CO2 is measured in parts per million.
