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Old 4th December 2009, 02:19 PM
stingray stingray is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 4
Default Climate Change is (almost certainly) man-made

The idea of man-made climate change is not preposterous. The fact that not everything is understood about the climate – as your first link suggests – does not make the vast amount of data that is available bunk. Your second link – regarding climate change on Mars – has of course nothing to do with the legitimacy of claims about climate change on Earth. And your third link, to the “World’s Largest Science Group Rejecting Man-Made Climate Fears” is also misleading. In fact, while some members of the American Chemical Society have been actively campaigning to get the ACS to change its official stance, there is no evidence they represent a majority. The ACS official stance remains strongly in support of the evidence for man-made climate change.

I would also like to clarify that I do not know if the majority of scientists believe in anthropogenic climate change. Scientists are a diverse bunch. But a biologist, or a physicist for that matter, is not an expert on climate science. They might be trusted to understand the science better than a lawyer or a plumber, but the experts we should be listening to are climate scientists themselves. And there is ample evidence the vast majority of climate scientists believe that man is likely a major cause of the current warming trend. Take for example this Wikipedia article on Scientific opinions on climate change, and this excellent survey of scientists opinions that shows just how complete the consensus is - in fact, 97% of scientists who actively publish on the subject of climate science.

The rest of your argument descends rather dramatically into nonsense. Okay, solar panel subsidies would be amazing, I grant you that. But in one paragraph you attack environmentalists for “destroying the economy of entire communities” by trying to protect critically endangered species, and in the next paragraph, you attack the government for trying to protect a major, well-established economic activity by spraying for the painted apple moth. It seems whichever side an environmental action is on, in your view it’s part of some vast conspiracy. Throwing around the word “allegedly” doesn’t make your argument strong, it makes it seem like you’ve been listening to paranoid, deluded losers too much.

Having said this, I certainly agree bureaucracy isn't always in the interests of getting things done. Our government is not only showing too little commitment to combating climate change, it seems to be caving to pressure to accept schemes that have been warped and politicized until they are ineffective at actually doing anything about climate change, but suit the fickle wants of the international community. Unfortunately that is the world we live in. Whatever the solution to this problem is, it’s not denying the science and trying to smear the scientists.

The solution isn’t obvious, but the problem is. For an excellent, concise, and easy to understand article on some recent evidence for climate change, I recommend this article from the Economist
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