Hello DA Morgan,
I have a degree where my specialty was the study of the causes of flips between glaciations and interglacial periods. Since I also have a Masters and a Doctorate I suspect I could be included in the "scientific community". Do a search through Google on global warming and "myth" or any number of words suggesting skepticism and you will find a great many scientific papers written by scientists who appear to have some expertise in the subject who do not agree with global warming.
Just because newspapers start quoting global warming as a fact does not make it so. Even conclusions made in scientific studies do not necessarily mean much. It is the accuracy of the research that the paper presents that is important.
So I must respecfully disagree. While I am not capable of reading even more than a tiny fraction of studies being conducted, the ones that I have read often have conclusions that the study or the research does not satisfactorily support. Conclusions are opinions, not fact.
The views described here are actually interesting to read even if I do not agree with them, as most will not agree with my conclusions, since they are not based on fact either.
I can demonstrate an overall cooling of the northern hemisphere (or much more specifically for the northern hemisphare land masses away from oceans and cities where humans have continuiously been in habitation during that period) over the last 80 years from those records that are not affected by variables that cannot be corrected by solid science rather than guesswork. That research was done in the late 70s.
But even that research does not mean the northern hemisphere is not actually heating up. It could be that the heating is occuring above the arctic circle or over water but that would still require an explanation as to why the other land areas have been getting cooler, for which no one has seemed to come up with a rational explanation.
I would like to know where the scientific proof is that an increase in CO2 levels are a "predictable event" with respect to global warming. Without an atmosphere, the earth would be a pretty different place but just what CO2 level changes does to the earth's climate is not a simple arithmetic progression. At some point CO2 will definitely cause cooling. When volcanos erupt in very major events CO2 increases dramatically but the earth cools. That might have nothing to do with the CO2 but rather other particulate matter. That was my point - thus far there is no scientific proof that CO2 especially with our current atmosphere will cause warming. Should you know of some research that suggests otherwise I would really like to be directed to it but thus far I haven't seen it. All assumptions relating to CO2 have been based on models.
And as to models, the room example made was a pretty good one. The earth however is so many times more complex than the room that simple equations such as suggested for the room have to be based on a guess or an estimate somewhere. I actually tested a model a while back and changed only a few assumed inputs by as little as a single percent and came away with answers that suggested major cooling or runaway heating.
I do have one major point that seems to escape politicians and conservationists. Let's say that global warming is a fact and is actually caused by humans. Would Kyoto fix it? Huh! It only bound the developed world. There is a limit to what could be done actually. You cannot simply create replacement hydrogen cars for every car that is on the earth. Actually hybrid cars and so called greenhouse friendly power creation have problems of their own.
Everybody assumes recycling paper is a great idea. Except it unlocks CO2 and takes six times the net energy to do than plantation timber creating new paper does. When all the sums are taken into account, the solution can end up contributing more to the original problem than the previous usage. Solar panels are another example. They need substantial usage of limited resources and quite high energy usage to create and the net effect seems to be negative.
Unless you are willing to kill and lock up the CO2 in the carcases all ruminant livestock in the world, a very significant greenhouse gas producer will not change at all.
I've yet to hear any suggestion that has a snowball's chance in hell of actually being adopted that might have some chance of reducing greenhouse gases. Cutting C02 emmissions for industry even by very large percentages would not do it (although it would have other positive effects such as less air polution - depending on what replaced it of course).
Here's a suggestion for a post. You are the world's dictator. Greenhouse gases are absolutely 100% the reason for global warming and there is no doubt at all that global warming is occuring. Fix it and stay in power. Assume you have the strength and stranglehold on the world on par with Hitler or Stalin. Might be an idea for a computer game actually!
