Disclamer: This diary is not about President Obama and Afghanistan, so please adjust your screaming hyperbolic tone of typing before entering. :) (snark)
So everybody now knows about the ridiculous "controversy" over the hacked global warming emails. Well after reading about it, a childhood friend of mine (who since has become a hardcore right-winger) posted this message on his facebook:
Hackers Expose a farce? You be
the judge..... Climate Change, formally known as Global
Warming...... Changed to reflect, hmmmmmmmmmmm what?
Having done my senior thesis on the connection between denial of global warming and belief in creationism (a remarkable correlation BTW), I can say I understand the subject fairly well and know absolutely that anthropogenic global warming is real. So not one to let falsehoods and ignorance go unanswered, I responded back with this post:
I hope you realize that this person is just enhancing a graph to make his conclusions more persuasive. If you read the emails, you will see he is just talking about making a prettier picture out of his data, not manipulating the data itself—big difference. Unethical? Yes. Proof that global warming is false? Absolutely not.
Anthropogenic GW has been studied by more scientists over the past 30 years than any other scientific topic throughout history outside of evolution. And without a doubt, 99% of scientists have come to the same conclusion-->GW is happening and is being caused by the increase of manmade carbon emissions. Trust me, I have seen the research and read the reports. Not a single peer-reviewed scientific article has been published (out of millions) that even remotely disproves GW. And the only "scientists" who do dismiss GW are those like Fred Singer, an oil industry consultant that also dismisses the link between second-hand smoke and lung cancer.
It took 50 years for scientists to convince the American people that smoking is unhealthy due to the misinformation campaign by the tobacco industry. The exact same thing is occurring today with GW and the oil/coal industries.
The data proving GW is overwhelming and the visual evidence in the Arctic, Australia, & California is remarkable if one takes the time to look at it.
BTW, 2009 is on pace to be the 5th warmest year on record according to NASA.
Of course being facebook, there's only so much text space provided for conversations. Nonetheless, even without delving deep into the scientific data, I thought my post was good enough. But then a few days ago, John responded back with several questions:
Chris..... Where were humans during the past freeze thaw eras on earth? Living in caves driving SUV'S? Did lack of human emitted carbon emissions cause everything to freeze during the last ice age? What were carbon level during these times?. Since you seem to be up on your research can you please tell me what scientist say about what it is going to take to end global warming? I'm not discrediting nor endorsing their research Chris, I'm questioning their terminology and cause and effect HYPOTHESIS . Why am I questioning it? Because, I do not believe for a second global warming is any more man made and can be stopped by driving electric cars, any more then I believe in Big Foot.
Nature produces 550 gigatons of carbon emissions
Humans produce 15 gigatons of carbon emissions
That durn nature seems to be causing a bigger portion of the problem........
I do believe in being good stewards of this beautiful earth. God gave it to us and we should take care of it. I also believe if we all did the best we could things WILL turn out fine. 2.8 billion dollars is wasted yearly researching the natural cycle of the earth.
However I have not found the answers to many of these questions he put forward, specifically the issue with nature producing hundreds of more gigatons of carbon emissions. Therefore, I was hoping some of you could help point me to the answers to these questions without having to read through hundreds of pages of IPCC reports.
Of course being a right-winger, I seriously doubt I am going to convert him to reality anytime soon no matter how much evidence I present him with. But I think it is very important to confront ignorance on vital issues such as global warming every chance we get. I want to make sure the only thing preventing my friend John from believing that global warming is happening is his own ideological bias.
Thank you all.