While falsehoods about "Climategate" -- supposedly undermining the scientific theory of global warming -- make headlines globally, it seems doubtful that too many of us will see the following on the front page of our local newspapers.
The Geological Society of America (GSA) has revised its 2006 statement on climate change. The GSA's position statement on climate change is as follows:
Decades of scientific research have shown that climate can change from both natural and anthropogenic causes. The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s. If current trends continue, the projected increase in global temperature by the end of the twenty-first century will result in large impacts on humans and other species. Addressing the challenges posed by climate change will require a combination of adaptation to the changes that are likely to occur and global reductions of CO2 emissions from anthropogenic sources.
The overall "position statement
(1) summarizes the strengthened basis for the conclusion that humans are a major factor responsible for recent global warming; (2) describes the large effects on humans and ecosystems if greenhouse gas concentrations and global climate reach projected levels; and (3) provides information for policy decisions guiding mitigation and adaptation strategies designed to address the future impacts of anthropogenic warming."
The GSA makes a strong statement about scientific advances in terms of understanding climate change:
Scientific advances in the first decade of the 21st century have greatly reduced previous uncertainties about the amplitude and causes of recent global warming.
The position paper makes clear that natural causes cannot explain the warming that we see:
Given the knowledge gained from paleoclimatic studies, several long-term causes of the current warming trend can be eliminated. Changes in Earth's tectonism and its orbit are far too slow to have played a significant role in a rapidly changing 150-year trend. At the other extreme, large volcanic eruptions have cooled global climate for a year or two, and El Niño episodes have warmed it for about a year, but neither factor dominates longer-term trends.As a result, greenhouse gas concentrations, which can be influenced by human activities, and solar fluctuations are the principal remaining factors that could have changed rapidly enough and lasted long enough to explain the observed changes in global temperature. .... changes in solar irradiance, continuously measured by satellites since 1979, account for less than 10% of the last 150 years of warming.
Greenhouse gases remain as the major explanation.
The GSA has two sets of recommendations: one for public policy and, the other for its membership.
- Public policy should include effective strategies for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. ...
- Comprehensive local, state, national and international planning is needed to address challenges posed by future climate change.
- Public investment is needed to improve our understanding of how climate change affects society,.... Sustained support of climate-related research ... is needed.
Actively participate in professional education and discussion activities to be technically informed about the latest advances in climate science. GSA should encourage symposia at regional, national and international meetings to inform members on mainstream understanding among geoscientists and climate scientists of the causes and future effects of global warming within the broader context of natural variability. These symposia should seek to actively engage members in hosted discussions that clarify issues, possibly utilizing educational formats other than the traditional presentation and Q&A session.
In the face of heightened attacks on climate scientists, the Geological Society of America has made a strong statement calling on their membership to engage -- forcefully -- in the public discussion of climate change issues.
NOTE / UPDATE:
1. Hat-tip to Michael Tobis who is very simply Only In It for the Gold.
2. Photos courtesy of agharwaan
3. For a discussion of (relevant) scientific institutions and their positions on climate change, see: Considering Institutional Authorities and Climate Change.
4. APS also recently amended their climate change statement.
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http://www.funnyconservatives.com/2010/01/global-disastrification-2/
The science is changing on evolution too, and for that matter in general - that's a fundamental aspect of what science is.
ekiosity: "but only the science that makes it look worse is accepted on some sides. "
Um, no. With respect to real science, that which survives scientific scrutiny is accepted. Not incidentally, the only scientific theory to explain current global warming that has survived scientific theory is anthropogenic global warming theory.
Here's what the U.S. National Academy of Sciences says in a 2006 report,
"Michael Mann and his colleagues have reconstructed northern hemisphere temperatures for the past 2000 years using a broader set of proxies than was available for the original "hockey stick" study and updated measurements from the recent past. The new reconstruction has been generated using two statistical methods, both different from that used in the original study. Like other temperature reconstructions done since 2001, it shows greater variability than the original hockey stick. Yet again, though, the key conclusion is the same: it's hotter now than it has been for at least 1000 years."
Now go ahead and try to claim that the web site (maintained entirely by non-scientists and probably funded by Exxon through one of its many indirect routes) where you read this myth is more credible than the NAS.
More broadly, what is debunked in your mind is not in mine, and I know the science very well. The truth is we disagree, so it is a genuine scientific controversy. That in fact is the skeptics main point, that the science is not settled, far from it. I see very little evidence to support the theory of human induced warming.
That's what evolution deniers ask too.
DavidWojick: "there is reason to believe that it was just as warm 1000 years ago... if it did there is no need to invoke GHG's to explain the recent warming."
Really. Please explain your "logic" here; thanks.
DavidWojick: "the 1978-1998 warming. (In fact it has only warmed for that brief 20 years in the last 70 years.)"
Lie. This past decade is the warmest decade on instrumental record.
DavidWojick: "The first warming is now thought to be due to solar influence,"
In large measure, yes.
DavidWojick: "the IPCC now only blames the second warming on GHG's. But the statement ignores the first warming and claims that solar influence can't do what it appears to have already done."
Lie. Unlike in the first part of the 20th Century, since 1960 the solar radiation trend has remained essentially constant.
DavidWojick: "And nobody claims the solar influence is due to variation in direct incidence."
Lie. For the first half of the 20th Century that's exactly what is "claimed," and for good (to put it mildly) reason - increasing solar radiation increases energy the earth receives.
DavidWojick: "Hosts of researchers are looking for an indirect mechanism."
"Hosts of researchers" are also looking for a way to undermine evolution theory too; in any event all attempts at doing so have failed scientific scrutiny.
I didn't call you a liar - I said that those statements of yours are lies. And they are.
DavidWojick: "or compare me to an evolution denier, just because they disagree with me."
That's not why I compared some of your rhetoric to that of an evolution denier - I did so because it is similar to some of the misleading rhetoric that evolution deniers use.
DavidWojick: "My field is the logic of science."
Really. In that case you too should know that for example your tortured "logic" above with respect to the sun's role in 20th Century global warming is misleading and fallacious.
DavidWojick: "But one of your statements is worth responding to because it repeats a common fallacy."
I love irony.
DavidWojick: "the only period of warming during the last 70 years was 1978-1998."
Again, this is a lie.
continued...
Spring is occurring 10 days earlier in the United States than just a few decades ago because, oh, those emails have faked out the flowers and insects.
For decades, each decade has fewer high-temperature records and fewer cold temperature records because, oh, those emails fooled the measurement systems.
Glaciers are melting because emails melt things...
Although not yet widely believed by scientists, water can replace oil as fuel.
Future cars might become substantial power plants when suitably parked, ending any need to build coal or nuclear plants and demonstrating far less expensive alternatives to fossil fuel. Eventually, automobiles may pay for themselves.
See Moving Beyond Oil and Running on Water at: http://www.aesopinstitute.org
To learn more about water as fuel, visit the website of parallel technology developer, BlackLight Power.
Scientists understandably have a hard time accepting fractional Hydrogen, the basis of this radically new energy.
Laboratories should repeat the fractional Hydrogen experiments published by Rowan University and successfully repeated by GEN3 Partners, who advise Fortune 100 firms.
National labs should repeat the experiments as well as design their own.
As technology using small quantities of water as fuel is demonstrated and reaches the market, it will become increasingly difficult to ridicule, ignore or deny.
Following the Pearl Harbor attack, within a few months a bomber rolled off an assembly line every 59 minutes.
These radically new technologies are much simpler and inherently cost-competitive.
Let's have an all out effort to develop them without delay!
There will be widespread support to end the rising price of imported oil - which threatens to abort economic recovery.
A 24/7 development program is pregnant. How quickly can it begin?
The report (TechnicalPresentation021710.pdf) on http://www.american-reporter.com/ is just a lot of rehashed publicity showing spectra results easily explained by crystal field theory. When science is not on your side (you can do a lot of fancy math and hand-jiving but Mother Nature has the last say), appeal to authority and bring out the celebrities:
"The company has assembled a formidable board of directors that include a former head of Westinghouse, a top federal nuclear energy official, ..." The American Reporter is another left-wingnut rag. Show us something from, say, National Science Foundation or the American Physical Society.
Garret Moddel from colorado.edu have debunked all this ZPE wet dreams in his paper "Assessment of proposed electromagnetic quantum vacuum energy extraction methods" (xxx.lanl.gov). Unfortunately for himself, who has a US patent “Quantum vacuum energy extraction,” Patent 7379286, he did not understand the physics of EM surface waves on Casimir tubes; thus his scheme is worthless. After exchanging a couple of emails, Moddel admitted to me that his patent
was a mistake. Sensible people becoming silly.
As I said before, I emailed Rowan. The faculty at Rowan were tight-mouthed and referred me to Black Light Power for any discussion. They are backing away from BLP claims that they confirmed hydrinos.
Also, the issue of the crystallography did not appear in the report. Is the Potassium-Hydrogen distance greater or less than say, plain KH? The crystallography can help with the stoichiometry problem.
The stoichiometry issue can be addressed by doing elementary tests such as density, various temperatures (melting, boiling, decomposition, etc..), crystal morphology (if any). None of this is done.
The problem with Mill's theory is the over-reliance on catalysts. His theory is supposed to be based on 1 electron in an electric field of a positive charge. Nothing else is in the picture. So transition from one state to another should be possible through radiative processes alone, the constraint being that the initial and final electronic orbitals have different symmetries. UltraViolet light should induce - by stimulated emission - the transition from the ordinary 1s orbital to one of the Mill's fractional p- (or d- or f-) orbitals. No such experimental results exist.
a) China now adds more Gigawatts from low-carbon sources than from coal. By year's end it'll have double the percentage low-carbon electricity as does U.S.
www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2261031/chinese-government-renewables
b) While Sweden's dropped its greenhouse gas emissions 14% since the 1990 Kyoto Accords, its GDP has nearly doubled. Germany, with the strictest environmental/GHG regs in Europe, now has the world's 4th largest economy, while more than doubling its GDP.
www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/7204/fromdepartment/7204/page/4
www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:DEU&dl=en&hl=en&q=german+gdp#met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:SWE
So, saying going green will kill our economy is RUBBISH!
Meanwhile, we're
c) 38th in life expectancy, just 2 years ahead of MEXICO. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
d) 18th among 36 industrialized nations in education.
www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/19/US-slipping-in-education-rankings/UPI-90221227104776/
e) DEAD LAST in TRADE BALANCE ~$730 Billion deficit, $585 Billion behind Spain.
China and Germany's surpluses are $352 and $252 Billion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_current_account_balance
f) 12 western hemisphere countries have universal health care, including Cuba and Trinidad; 30 in Asia; nearly all of Europe. WE DON'T.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care
So, are we QUITTERS or COMPETITORS?