"If you look at the signatories of the op-ed, you won't find people more qualified than that," William Happer, a professor of physics at Princeton University and a signatory, told Design News. "These people are really heavyweights of the scientific world." (See a list of the scientists below.)
It's worth noting that the 16 scientists who signed the editorial aren't alone. Happer told Design News that after the editorial appeared, he received calls from colleagues who wanted to know why they weren't given a chance to sign.
The signatories aren't making a case for coal, oil, nuclear, wind, or solar power. They don't mention whether we should buy electric cars or gas guzzlers. By most measures, their opinion seems apolitical. They just believe that CO2 isn't a problem.
"The demonization of carbon has really distorted everything we do," Happer told us. "If we could back off and say, 'CO2 is probably good,' it would change the way we do things. We'd like to get back to an honest economic discussion not based on carbon footprints or assumptions about 'evil CO2.' "
Whether we agree or disagree with that assessment, it has the potential to affect everything that engineers do. Every day, engineers make decisions about the design of cars, trucks, furnaces, refrigerators, washers, dryers, and all kinds of industrial products. And the emission of CO2 plays into all those decisions. So a solid understanding of global warming science is critical.
In the wild world of the Internet, many bloggers argue that the science is settled. It's "incontrovertible," they say. But is it? Most scientists would acknowledge that the First Law of Thermodynamics is incontrovertible. So is the Second Law, Ohm's Law, Newton's laws, Bernoulli's equation, and a lot of other bedrock scientific principles. But does anthropogenic global warming really belong in the same breath as those?
Choosing to not cite any examples of wrong conclusions drawn from "obvious patterns" is poor science! Stick to the subject and post where global warming science is wrong, thus supporting your concern for poor discussion on the part of the anti-denier side.
So, your job is to peruse the published literature to show that there are indeed two sides to this debate. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that the deniers don't like are the implications that anthropogenic global wamring poses, that our behavior can produce negative consequences that therefore refutes both religious theologies and economic ideologies that claim that a) the universe was crated expressly for our use and therefore cannot fail, per god's plan, (b) the market solves all problems, or (c) we are too insignificant to affect an entire planet.
Their problem is not with the science per se, but with the implications of that science.
Sorry, but any polarization that you perceive is due to the deniers simply not accepting data. There aren't two sides with regards to global warming as the deniers who have nothing to back their denial up with don't count.
The only example of bad research is seen when a person either performs research that contradicts another's or writes to the publication to present his or her refutation to published research.
Aside from the large roar of emotional screaming, I have been wondering about the possiboe change that might have occured in the amount of heat being delivered by the sun. Considering that most of the heat energy on this planet does come from the sun, it is obvious that the amount is quite large. Now consider that the planet is also losing a large amount of heat energy, and that over the past thousand or so years has reached some sort of equilibrium point. Now, if the energy input were to increase by 0.01%, how far would that equilibrium point shift, and how long would that shift take? Based on my understanding of process themal kinetics, my guess is that it would take a while, and based on my understanding of instrumentation, it is not likely that any measurements accurate enough to allow a determination that the energy input has changed that small amount could have been made long ago enough to allow any valid conclusions. But now my question is about how anybody is going to do anything about any changes in the solar energy impacting the earth. One method might be to increase the amount of carbon dioxide, which may tend to reflect the energy back into space.
My other thought is to repeat that old axium, "Correlation DOES NOT equal causation". Many engineers understand this, while many in the media don't even understand what it may mean.
My position is that we, as professionals of the engineering branchs, have the ethical obligation to use our knowledge and skills to adopt a responsible position...
You have failed your principles. Neither you nor your hero Mr. Rutan are climate scientists. You are both disqualified from having authority to challenge real climate scientists who have analyzed and dismissed all your weak challenges. You may have an opinion, but it is based in ignorance and probably other conflicts of interest as well, as you probably don't want anyone telling you what to do with your unearned privilege of having a fossil fuel-heavy lifestyle. Typical addict denial, probably heavily influenced by hatred and fear of "big government intrusions."
--What temperature is the earth supposed to be at?
--P.S. Is your grammar always as bad as your scientific observations?
Charles, I see you've chosen to attack my grammar. I suppose that you're refering to above quote as an example. While English is my first language, I'm not an English teacher. So please enlighten me as to what my error is. I'd be glad to learn.
"Another non sequitur. It has never warmed this quickly and it's never happened with 7 billion exposed to the effects and such warming (or cooling) has never before been caused by human activity. Hmmm, why would you ask such a meaningless question?"
Never? I'd suggest that you neither have proof nor even good data to point to such a supposition. If you do, I'd be happy to review it.
As to why? It has all the meaning in the world. If you claim that we are causing the earth to do something that it otherwise wouldn't, shouldn't we be able to quantify the difference?
Do you not accept that the Earth's weather and climate would change even if humans (or some other intelligent species) weren't here? Based on the available science, there's good reason to believe that it did so before humanity arrived on the stage. There is also good reason to believe that the change has been both gradual and relatively sudden. Humans have only been on this planet for a comparitive "blink of an eye". We have only been "industrialized" for a comparitive blink of a blink. To ignore all all history before humans were present is rather short-sighted, don't you think?
So I am asking for you to quantify what is "unnatural"?
In the history of science, there have been some notable cases of absolutely wrong conclusions produced by what appeared to be "obvious patterns"... too many to cite here. But one characteristic defines "too-early-recognizers": they were right just by chance (50% probability), and they tend to deny anyone that dares to disagree. As I was saying, polarization does not help a bit. You seem to be too-shure about this matter. Let the rest of us take it with a grain of salt. I'm waiting for this matter to be resolved slowly but firmly, before losing my temper and objectivity. I invite my colleagues to be less fanatical and more objective, this matter relates to phenomena that probably take many years to be properly observed and studied. To rush to conclusions entails the risk of being proved wrong in the longer term, as has happened MANY times in the history of knowledge and science. Science is all about daring to disagree. Please don't tell me that Einstein was 100% right all the time... and don't say that present day particle physicists have said the last word either. Respectfully, Amclaussen.
Well, this is NOT about "niceness" or "graciousness" of my thoughts... but about the irrational polarization towards one (or the other) of the two sides which produces a large dose of Myopia (shortness of sight). As to cite only one of the engineers (and one of the greatest present day engineers in the whole world), my greatest respect for Burt Rutan... and he is reported to have signed as a non-believer of the alleged Human-caused Global warming. And I only mention him because I'm well versed in his engineering triumphs.
As to so called "researchers", we have seen bad examples in both sides. What I was trying to comment, is that truly valuable discussions are those that refrain from the several examples of bad taste and manners tha unfortunately, have started to appear here.
My position is that we, as professionals of the engineering branchs, have the ethical obligation to use our knowledge and skills to adopt a responsible position, not a fanatical one. (I would much prefer to be called a late-understander, than a early contributor to a false scam, my viewpoint).
I will resume my position in respect to avoiding a too premature "taking sides": Trying to establish a definitive conclusion towards this matter is like trying to produce valid conclusions within a VERY NOISY environment or with an extremely narrow window, like trying to determine the seismical classification of a place, when the seismograph is registering every footfall because it is unproperly mounted in a shaky substructure, located next to a large factory with heavy machinery (like presses), and then capturing only a few minutes of readings... or like trying to "see" a long term trend in an electrical signal by using an oscilloscope and only capturing a 2 picoseconds sample...
Good engineers tend to be highly analytical, self confident and capable of being calm when things start to go crazy. Let´s be calm in order to be productive and rigorous.
Good engineers see obvious patterns and make logical deductions. Your inability to be able to and instead choosing to delude yourself with denial noise does not show productiveness or rigor.
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