Global Warming and it's Assumptions
There are
six main assumptions about anthropomorphic carbon dioxide driven
greenhouse global warming. The first is that simply increasing carbon
dioxide means the earth will be warmer, regardless of it's role or
importance in the greenhouse cycle. The second assumption is that carbon
dioxide is evenly spread throughout the atmosphere; more carbon dioxide
implying more carbon dioxide spread evenly throughout the atmosphere,
and thus a higher global average. The third is that humans are playing a
predominant or majority role in the production of the carbon dioxide,
and thus it's effects. Three more common assumptions are that there is a
unanimous agreements within the scientific community that it
definitively is a problem, the effects will be disastrous, and fossil
fuels are the primary cause.
There are a number of reasons why these assumptions are wrong.
Unanimous Support
There
is a tendency among global warming advocates to claim near unanimous
support for global warming. Figures ranging from 75 to 97, to 98% are
not uncommon among many media sources.[1][2][3][8]
The
very concept of 98 or 97% of all scientists agreeing on something seems
questionable from beginning. Surely they could only poll 98% of all
scientists, and could not have polled all of them. What question was
asked, specifically; climate change, global warming, anthropomorphic
global warming, anthropomorphic climate change, whether or not it should
be immediately dealt with, whether or not the effects will be severe,
carbon dioxide driven global warming? Is it a big enough issue to be
dealt with, are fossil fuels the primary cause, is it simply changing
things slightly? How big is the impact, does it warrant immediate
attention? Which theory do they believe in specifically? These questions
are all important to determining the ramifications of the effects.
How
do we determine what is a "scientist"? Is it someone who studies
science; by the vagueness of these and the impact science has on the
world, do we mean science as the body of knowledge humans have
collected, or the more archaic science as the actual world itself?
Either way, this means that practically the entire population could
count as a scientist; is it someone who uses the scientific method?
Anyone with a science degree; what about students, getting a degree? Who
counts as a scientist; do we mean, climatologists? Climatologists
specifically studying global warming; and if so, shouldn't we look at
the scientific data instead of asking a very vague question? Was it
anyone who attended a particular science convention during a particular
time frame?
The notion itself is quite skeptical to
begin with, regardless of whether or not we seek the basis of it; by
which poll did they did, how did they do it? The nature of their
decisions on how they decided provides broader implications than the
answers themselves, since this ultimately determines what they mean. A
unanimous acceptance of man made global warming also doesn't determine
the impacts or if we should support politically charged doctrines like
the Koyoto protocol.
The actual Study
The
legitimately of unanimous support boils down to the actual study or
polling done to determine whether or not 98%, or 97% of scientists
legitimately support climate change. Skeptical science [2], The Guardian [3], the New York times [1], and even CNN [7]
utilized the same study in their report. The study does not try to
confirm a global consensus on anthropomorphic climate change, it's
impacts, or the actual science behind them. It merely attempts to assert
that a percentage of scientists agree that humans are having some
impact on climate change, or more specifically global warming.
"We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6%
endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause
of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1%
endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.
In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own
papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated
papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers
expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both
abstract ratings and authors' self-ratings, the percentage of
endorsements among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally
increased over time. Our analysis indicates that the number of papers
rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the
published research."
The actual study did an "analysis
to 11 944 papers written by 29 083 authors and published in 1980
journals", all particularly chosen. Out of this, 32.6% endorsed AGW,
97.2% of the authors endorsed the position. I don't find this to be
particularly surprising, but I don't think it proves a global consensus
on global warming. " A team of 12 individuals completed 97.4% (23 061)
of the ratings; an additional 12 contributed the remaining 2.6% (607)." A
team of 12 which apparently believes AGW is significant, no doubt?
Political action
Carbon dioxide greenhouse effect
Carbon dioxide not evenly spread
Human Carbon Dioxide Contribution
Effects According to IPCC
