The Facts About Global Warming Denial

Great post. I have heard all those responses, but optimistically it seems that more people are gradually moving from 1 through to 4.

I would like to add the point that when people talk about 'back to the stone age' they are ignoring the un-naturalness of present practices.

It takes 100W to keep a human alive - it takes 11000W to keep the average american living in the style to which they are accustomed.

It wasn't the 'Industrial Revolution', it's the 'Industrial Experiment' and it's still ongoing.

Another popular argument is Humans don't cause global warming, the CO2 is coming from Volcanic erruptions.

While this is true in part, here are the facts:

Volcanic eruptions can enhance global warming by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. However, a far greater amount of CO2 is contributed to the atmosphere by human activities each year than by volcanic eruptions. Volcanoes contribute about 110 million tons/year, whereas other sources contribute about 10 billion tons/year. The small amount of global warming caused by eruption-generated greenhouse gases is offset by the far greater amount of global cooling caused by eruption-generated particles in the stratosphere (the haze effect).

Great, great article. It's very true that companies like Exxon Mobil could do huge things for the world and make gigantic profits in the future by pioneering new alternative energy. Everyone just thinks about about the here and now, unfortunately, so that's not happening.

Ironic that one of the Google Ads under this post (at time of commenting) reads 'Global Warming: The Biggest Environmental Fraud of All Time' and links to a page that appears to straddle all four stages...

Thanks for the article. It answers some of my questions. I don't think all of the assumptions are reasonable however. Because you don't know the cause of the glaciers receding to the poles, or why they were there in the first place, it didn't happen? How do you know it would be slower, if you don't know the cause? It's speculation. Whether or not it's "educated speculation", I don't know, but it is what it is. You also make it sound as if people who consider the natural cycle theory are denying the pollution evidence. It's not black and white like that.

I find, that there are natural cycles, and there is pollution, and it's likely that both have some effect. What is the ratio? I don't know. Maybe you're right, it would be slower, and 99.x% of the change we notice is caused by pollution, but you still can't just deny woolly mammoths, some land features, and early native american migration exist(ed), because you don't know why there are cycles.

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Author's note: Hi Scott. Thanks for writing. I'm not sure I quite understand what you are saying, but from what I get, here's what I know:

Nobody is saying that natural cycles don't exist, they are just saying that the rapid warming since the industrial revolution isn't caused by one. Now I'm only relaying what the scientists who have studied this are saying, I can't explain all the details (you can go read the reports if you want - they are all published for all to see), but from what I know, natural cycles have causes (they don't just magically happen), so if this was one, we could find something (the planet doesn't warm that fast without something major happening). I also understand that if we look at past cycles, we're supposed to be a in a cooling cycle right now, not a warming one. But those cycles take place over thousands of years, not a hundred.

Hope this answers your question, and I'm sorry if I misunderstood your point.

Just goes to show that you can offer evidence as much as you want, but some people are just more interested in spouting the same crap over and over again than actually seeing facts.

:-P

Great post. It's unfortunate that, even when evidence is provided, there are plenty of people who will stubbornly refuse to accept or even acknowledge reasoned arguments.

the "global warming problem would be solved by power companies working less - they would work less if people (tree huggers included) stopped using so many electrical applicances, such as personal computers. But I don't see anyone jumping on that band wagon....

I have to call into question two aspects of of the authors response to "Scott".

First, the assertion that natural cycles have causes. Some element of intuition is associated with that position. It implies that there is no randomness in the natural world. I'm not a scientist either, so I make no judgments. However, a simply game of tossing the coin implies that gravity's actions on falling objects are both random, and unpredictable. Extrapolating a cause with which one could accurately predict the results of future tosses is an exercise in futility.

That leads me to the second critique. We are "supposed" to be in a cooling trend? I find predictive statements such at that one highly questionable coming from one who insists he is not a climatologist.

But I'm not a scientist, therefore I choose not to hold a position on the issue. Either for or against. I have to say that the most aggressive zealots on both sides seem to fall in that camp with me. Regardless of what I believe, I will always have an echo chamber to relax in.

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editorial note:

1) Because we can't determine the cause of something (either because it is too complex or because we can't meaningfully observe it) doesn't mean that there isn't one.

2) By "supposed" I just meant that if you look at past cycles, we were heading downward until the undustrial revolution came along. Not that it's predetermined, but it's certainly worth taking into account.

As for being a scientists or not, that's the point. I am not one, I relay the conclusions of the scientific community as best as I can, and if you want to learn about it, you certainly can read peer-reviewed climate papers or at least their abstracts (that's the whole point of the scientific method, it's transparent and open). You have the right not to make up your mind about it, but the scientific community is in general agreement that there is anthropogenic global warming.

Well said, however, as a "non-scientist" I try not to imply that I can understand or critque those peer-reviewed articles. I would simply have to accept them on faith.

Here’s the skinny: global warming is a symptom, not a disease, and as such anyone concerned about it is to be admired for their heartfelt thoughts and actions, but it is an manifestation of a greater problem: uncontrolled population growth. Global warming, pollution, the oil (energy) shortage, other depleted resources, social unrest, global terrorism, socioeconomic discord, and a myriad of other ramifications all derive form the simple fact that this planet’s ability to sustain life has a finite limit. Once you pass the point of reasonable accommodation you are bound to get the results we are now witnessing. There are just too many people vying for too few resources of sustenance.

Here’s the rub as concerns the population issue: there is really nothing that can be done about it. The procreation of man, unlike other species, knows no bounds because our evolution has allowed our intelligence to develop to the point that it is capable of warding off or eliminating nature’s built-in controls. Eradicating disease, mitigating natural disasters, removing petulance, artificially warming and cooling ourselves, erecting shelters,...inventing all manner of interferences and controls,...all appear to be advances and improvements on what the cosmos has ordered, but they are not. Our intellect has allowed us to artificially modify whatever we find dangerous, distasteful, and/or uncomfortable. I’m not blaming humankind because this manipulation is the natural consequence of our evolved life. Put the same primordial cocktail on another planet and you will get the same or similar results. Everything in the universe naturally seeks it’s own level and is driven to take its exploits to the absolute limit of it’s cosmic blueprint. The universe is a mechanism for recycling matter over and over and over again and it happens to be very good at it.

Population growth is mathematically exponential and predictable. Slowing down or stopping procreation is a social brake which can not be effectively applied. The only country I know of that has tried with something to show is China. Their one-child law has had an effect, but it has only slowed down the inevitable. (India, with a two-child law in place for several years will surpass China within the next 20 years). But just try this approach in a developed county, the United States or any other modern state. Religious and human rights groups would revolt at the mere suggestion of either intervening with “God’s plan” or violating civil liberties, to say nothing of the moral outrage of the general populace. Only totalitarian or quasi-autocratic governments have the ability to force social change of this magnitude. The only time you might see governmental intervention in this country would be at the point of no return, when things were so bad that an uprising was in the offing. But obviously you would have already reached the tipping point of anarchy and social collapse.

Here’s the other point to consider: even if we were successful in attaining zero or negative growth, we would then ensure our demise through economic collapse. That is because our socioeconomic engine if built on sustained growth. Examine every facet of what keeps us alive and employed economically and emotionally preoccupied and you will realize that the fuel is expansion and consumption. All of industry, the stock market, real estate, banking, construction, or any other consumer product, ...every component of the financial marketplace is solely dependant on ever increasing production and output. We are a cancer on the earth's surface which is rapidly multiplying and consuming it's host.

By all means, see the film (and take a friend) "An Inconvenient Truth" (http://www.climatecrisis.net/), but remember, we are the problem, not global warming.

Jeez David that's depressing, do you have any solutions?

I took a global warming course in the fall at the University of Toronto and near the end of the course the professor, Danny Harvey, discussed this very topic and I thought I would share some of his ideas on these "defensive moats around the citadel of inaction" courtesy of the climate skeptics. Some overlap with the article but some are new. Harvey argued that when one arguement is shot down, those who would do nothing to upset the status quo simply move to the next one.

"1. The increase in atmospheric CO2 during the past 200 years is not largely due to human emissions of CO2

2. The climate has not warmed during the last 100 years - the apparent warming is an artifact of urbanization causing metereological stations to register warmer temperatures in recent decades

3. The warming of the last 100 years is due to changes in the sun or other natural causes (and so can just easily go the other way in the future)

4. Climate models cannot simulate the warming observed during the last 100 years, and so are unreliable for the future. The business about aerosol cooling effect is made up by scientists in a desperate effort to make it look like they can explain what's happening, in order that they don't lose their research grants

5) Any climate warming that does occur in the future will be beneficial, since any negative effects will be outweighed by the beneficial physiological effects on plants of higher atmospheric CO2 concentration. Photosynthesis will be stimulated, water will be used more efficiently by plants, and we will have a green, global Garden of Eden.

6a. OK, so there will be negative impacts and damage from global warming. But efforts to reduce our use of fossil fuels will be even more devestating, send the world economy into a depression, causing massive unemployment and, eventually, millions of people will die.

A less extreme version of the above arguement is as follows:

6b. There will be negative impacts, especially on poor countries, from global warming, but these impacts can be greatly reduced or eliminated if these countries are wealthy enough to be able to successfully adapt to them by the time that they occur. By tring to prevent global warming through restrictions in the use of fossil fuels, we will hinder development of the poorest countries, thereby making them worse off."

-Harvey, Danny. GGR314F Global Warming Notes - University of Toronto. September 2005.

Brilliant man and by the end of his course we were easily able to dissprove all of these.

Hey great post! I Love this & will link now too :)

"To save mankind from environmentalism, what's needed is not the appeasing, compromising approach of those who urge a "balance" between the needs of man and the "needs" of the environment. To save mankind requires the wholesale rejection of environmentalism as hatred of science, technology, progress, and human life. To save mankind requires the return to a philosophy of reason and individualism, a philosophy that makes life on earth possible".Ayn Rand

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editor note: Wow.

Hey, I know...stop HAVING KIDS!

Vain, ignorant and emotional. You are really something to think humans are responsible for such drastic swings in our climate. It has been proven that ancient Chinese societies ended due to climatic shifts- where were the cars, planes, etc to cause this?

Where were YOU to save them? Stop being so selfish (I'll say this and do this so I feel better) and egotistical.

I think this article is great, but it misses stage 5. I see stage 5 as the point where people realize that they are contributing to global warming with their own daily actions, and they realize they have the ability to shift their own behavior, and in so doing help to prevent global warming from getting worse.

It doesn't matter if people know global warming is a problem if they don't act to do something about it!

There's so much each person can do, there's no reason to wait.

This article is interesting, however, does this really help to make us more aware about our own impact on the planet? In order to tackle Global Warming and be successful, all of us have to take full responsibility of our own actions and emissions, and not only by following the easy path.

Recently, I read some articles mentioning that Global Warming mitigation by purchasing carbon offsets is not having the effect that it should have to. This made ask myself, Is our money going through a black hole to finance carbon offsets providers operations or is it going to financially support the eco-projects that we expect?

These reports show a lack of transparency in the carbon offset retail market and we might find that a good cause has been used for some organisations to cash on the Global Warming crisis. UK figures are available in CarbonSMS.com and you are free to decide whether online carbon offset providers are cashing on the Global Warming crisis or not. A good guidelines on what to ask carbon offsets providers before buying is also available. The comparative table shows their range of products carbon offset prices, sales volume by organisation, and prices per tonne in the UK. It is surprising that prices in different British websites range from £7.40 to £9.00 tonne/CO2 when in the US the same tonne of CO2 costs £1.50. This seems a bit scandalous because this could mean that we pay more without making a real benefit on the environment and therefore we might be paying in excess administrative, marketing, shareholders and investors expenses. Is the price these offfset providers charge really the cost of the eco-project? or Is the money being taken by intermediaries? How much money are they taking from our pockets that really has a proven benefit on the environment or poor communities? Do these organisations teach what they praise? Why their ecological footprints are not publicly available?

In one hand, it seems that this market needs more disclosure of information so consumers can evaluate the offset quality, where the money goes, how the projects are selected and benefits they provide to the environment and communities. In the other hand, it is also reasonable to recognize that without them probably most of us wouldn�t be aware of the current situation in the environment and options to reverse the effects of our consumist behaviour.

It will be dangerous and sad to see that our hopes to mitigate Global Warming by offseting our emissions are not helping as they should while the time to reverse this crisis goes by. Carbon offsetting should be considered as one option amongst a portfolio of actions that each of us should take to reduce our emissions and not the only one to make us feel good.

good article. unfortunately your facts aren't facts. I seem to remember that in the 1970's the earth was "entering another ice age". That statement was made by the very same scientist that was one of the first to say the earth is now warming. FACT: humans are causing a drastic global warming. FACT: you say that the Earth cant naturally be warming, well that would also mean that the Earth couldn't have undergone numerous ice ages and warming stages either. FACT: one of the leading claims for the destruction global warming will cause is that it will raise ocean levels. Actaully, because ice is less dense than water and takes up more volume when it freezes, what would really happen when it melts would be the ocean levels would lower a tiny bit. The facts are all around us, drastic global warming is not happening, humans aren't causing it, and no we cant just f*ck with the Earths natural cycles because we think its a little bit too hot. Look at the facts, look at the history, then decide what is really happening.

"Actaully, because ice is less dense than water and takes up more volume when it freezes, what would really happen when it melts would be the ocean levels would lower a tiny bit."

But what about glaciers that aren't floating in the ocean?

And this reasoning only works for ice that is floating in the water, not for ice that goes from above sea level down to the ocean floor?

I think you need to get your facts straight.

"Actaully, because ice is less dense than water and takes up more volume when it freezes, what would really happen when it melts would be the ocean levels would lower a tiny bit."

That's incorrect.

Take a glass of water and put an ice cube in it. Note the level of the water. Wait until the ice cube melts, then note the level of the water.

It's the same.

Only ice that is not floating on water and thermal expansion are raising the level of the sea.

I'd agree with some of the theories... Global warming is happening... FACT!! Weather it is being caused by humans is unlikely but not out of the question!! BUT global warming being caused by carbon dioxide is absolute lunacy, try claiming the world is flat while your at it!!

This planet is 65 million years old!! in that time theres been two ice ages (that we know of) the last being around 1400ad when during the coldest winters the Thames in London would freeze over.. and the other as we know wiped out mammoths sabre toothed cats etc. However as well as these ice ages, there has also been periods of extreme heat most notably once again in the middle ages when the climate in Britain (which is now quite moderate) was as spain is now... We had vineyards all over the country FACT!!

The global temperature increasing after an ice age is therefore not unusual!!

Now for the stupid clain that CO2 is the cause!!

Everything on this planet is a carbon based life -form... We need carbon to survive, we talk about cars and factories and homes but no-one ever seems to mention natural Co2 emissions that can't be 'switched off', CO2 from living humans & animals, CO2 from dead and decaying matter, CO2 from volcanos. The sea alone covers 2/3 of the earths surface and is extremely deep in places, that emits more CO2 than all the factories and cars in the world could ever hope of emitting and that's constant you can't turn the sea off!

Conclusion!!

Human pollution IS damaging to this planet and to be environmentally friendly and not WASTEFUL IS a good thing... But please don't panic and think that because it's getting hotter the world is going to end because of it... It won't and when the global climate reaches it's peak (hottest) in a couple of hundred years time we can all enjoy the continental type weather for 400 - 500 years until we slowly head towards yet another ice age and we all start to panic about what we can do to stop that!!

We've only been emitting SERIOUS amounts of CO2 since the industrial revolution in the mid to late 1800's so really thats about 150 years out of 65 million. That's like having a cigarette when your 18, being diagnosed with lung cancer at 60 and blaming that 1 cigarette for it. This of course is more than unlikely, it is stupid, dangerous, paranoia not helped by governments harping on about it, the same governments that take you to war without good reason... If YOU believe that WE are causing global warming through OUR CO2 EMISSIONS, you might as well try sailing across the atlantic on a carrot... Just enjoy the increase in heat while it lasts because our future generations will have to endure another ice age in about another 700 years and I know which one I'd rather go through!!

Yes, global warming has been high jacked by politicians and commercialized by big business. This is surprisingly not a total disaster because as a society we have at least moved beyond just ignoring the environment all together. I am far more worried about the way sustainable design and development have been sort of cannibalized by the global warming debate. In the last two years these have been slowly sandwiched together by the mainstream media as one concept under the global warming “brand”.

The problem is that even as an ardent promoter and participant of sustainable design, I now find myself inconveniently confused by the global warming debate. Does our industrial carbon dioxide output actually enhance the greenhouse effect enough to be the major cause of climate change or are there way too many unknowns to be able to get to that conclusion in a rational way? Is the earth really running a fever or just adjusting to different variables that we are clumsily just starting to understand as we begin to direct our attention to them. At the core of the issue looms the growing disagreement on what the actual relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature really is. The more I become informed and gain perspective on the issue, the more uncomfortable and difficult it becomes to blindly embrace. There is more than enough ambiguity and disagreement between the so called experts to raise a flag of concern in my book and question if we “bright greens” have become too dependant on the proceedings and eventual outcome of the whole global warming phenomenon.

I wont get into the argument of scientific consensus, but if you know any history, you know that current beliefs or even consensus is not a FACT. The only thing I can feel comfortable claiming as a fact, is that Global Warming has become a huge business...and you know how that goes...

for more please visit www.sustainableday.com

Great posts across the board.

Global Warming, Global Smarming...

Let's be sustainable because its a good thing to do with finite resources. That is a fact that all sides can agree on.

But to legislate, on something that cannot truly be proven, due to our inability to even accurately measure rainfall within a determined area...com'on let's not force a faith based theory through a government that is not supposed to establish any form of religion, even the warm kind...

I think our free market system will provide the fertile ground on which sustainable living products will grow. I for one cannot wait to build a home; with geothermal heat/cooling, nano-solar pv's(crosses fingers), radiant floor heat under beautiful gray polished fly ash concrete.

Who wouldn't want to be off the grid!! Less money to government and energy monopolies and more for my kids edumacation?!?

Marketing is key in the fight to stop the McMansion effect, and promulgate beautiful design that is truly sustainable!

Seth, you make statements as if science and technology to measure does not exist. We can get the worlds most power switching system in geosynchronous orbit and keep it there live for 15 years and you Think, we can not measure rain fall?

We can, just from satellite, measure, wind, air temperature, water temperature, reflectivity, ice loss, botanical changes, movement, density...it just goes on an on. That is just ONE example of the tools we have.

This is not faith based at all - read the reasearch if you will not read those who report it.

It's good that you do recognize that we do not have to believe it all to live a more cost effective and indeed, better life if we act as if the CO2 greenhouse effect is real. Tell lots of your friends.

Articles like this always bring the argumentative and mentally challenged wahoos out of the woodwork. Denial without corroboration is moot, and establishes no position save that of being contrary.
Provide a study that concludes that GW, or mans' part in it, is fiction. It can't be done, so the sole ammunition of attack is attacking the studies, or a history (China comes to mind) that you know even less about.
People that won't be convinced can't be convinced. So just keep on keeping on, use all you can for your own comfort and while you're at it breath hard all the time for good measure. You're already in a minority that's shrinking by leaps and bounds. My consolation here is that victory by attrition is inevitable. You're mortal.

How do you offset the carbon footprint of this blog?

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ed. Our host, Pair, offsets it via wind power, iirc. But we think that's just the tip of the iceberg; things that our readers do because of what they read here more than compensates for the few kilowatts that our servers use.

you forgot the 5th stage- despair.

Many skip over some of the middle steps, (usually following some undeniable eye opening event or evidence), and go right to "oh my god, we are so screwed! We can't possibly do anything to turn it around, what is the use in trying?"

Criminy!!! I had to stop reading the comments after the guy claimed the Earth is only 65 million yrs old (instead of 4.5 billion, give or take), not to mention that there have actually been at least 4 strong glacial pulses in the northern hemisphere over the past few million years alone instead of only 2 since the dinosaurs died out.

Ok, I am not currently a scientist, but I hold scientific degrees in biology and geology, and I HAVE taken courses in paleoclimatology. What I have discovered in the scientific literature is that humans have been affecting regional and global climates as far back as 8000 years ago, since the advent of rice cultivation and animal domestication. Based upon comparisons between previous interglacial periods and the current one, there should have been a trending toward global cooling in the northern hemisphere beginning around 5000 years ago. The expected cooling trend has been offset by anthropogenic forces (slash and burn in SE Asia to cultivate rice, clear-cutting temperate forests to creat farmland and allow for human settlement, mass-breeding of domesticated herds that graze and "out-gas" CO2, etc.).

The truly alarming element of anthropogenic-induced global warming is that in the past 200 years (i.e., since the Industrial Revolution) the Earth has seen an increase in global temperature roughly equal to that of the previous 8000 years... and the expected warming is set to trend up exponentially!

BTW, those scientists from the 70's who were predicting a cooling trend were extrapolating from ice cores and other paleoclimate indicators... which is to say that they were reading what happened in the past and assuming that it would happen again. They weren't reading the contemporary climatic trends; they weren't thinking that humans would have a significant affect on something as big as the global climate; in short, they were underestimating the disruptive power of humanity on the global climate cycles (mainly because there was so little information compiled, interpretted, and at their fingertips regarding contemporary climate trends).

It is a fact that the earth's natural C02 emissions were for the most part balanced. It is a fact that since the industrial revolution humans have radically increased CO2 emissions (and destroyed forests and other CO2 conversion mechanisms). It is a fact that in laboratory experiments CO2 has been proven to have heat creation characteristics. And a rational person can put this all together. But you can not PROVE that human based carbon emissions are causing global warming in the same way that you can not PROVE that smoking causes lung cancer. Scientific hypothesis is based on observation and logic - but in the end one has to have faith in causality. So skeptics can always bring up ancient China, or some event that may have happened 40,000 years ago, or even monads and say there is no such thing as global warming

But what is even more apparent is that within our lifetime cheap oil will not run out. So while you can debate about the cause and effects of global warming you can not debate that we need to find ways to conserve energy and replace traditional carbon-emitting energy sources with renewable ones.

Anyone considered the possibility that the planet is simply going through something akin to a reproductive cycle? Just as a plant periodically flowers and goes to seed, it seems logical to me that the planetary entity also seeks to reproduce. For this to happen, it is necessary to breach the atmosphere and send matter into space. Sounds crazy? It may be true anyway. All the ingredients are present to make space travel almost unavoidable. Will we be like a perennially flowering tree with small and inconspicuously humble flowers that may live for a very long time? Or will we emulate the showy annual whose glory is fast to fade and having pulled all of the plants energy into the bloom, then dies.
We will see I believe. Personally, I think this is our time of testing to discern whether or not we are trully conscious beings capable of foresight and understanding that we are cells within an encompassing organism... or whether we are simply gears in a machine to be scrapped when worn out.

Simply discarding solar influence based upon solar activity is naive. As Earth loses its magnetism (main protection against solor winds/storms), we do become more susseptable to solar affects. Note the increasing size of the South Atlantic Anomaly, the hole in the magnetic field.

Perhaps we will now hear that atmospheric gases are affecting the inner Earth's magnetism?

The largest problem we are facing regarding our longevity on this planet has more to do with its loss of magnetism. Some 3.5 billion years ago, Mars lost its magnetism and subsequently, solar winds destroyed its atmosphere and its water was lost into space.

Vortok proxy data does, in spite of your claims, suggests a modern era temperature cycle of between 400-1000 years. Do you really think Greenland was named Greenland, because it was always covered in snow? No, it was because between 1000-1400 AD, its was lush and green enough to harvest crops and build homes from its trees. We have about 200 or so years left in this warming trend and then Earth will revert back to the cold cycle...which, will undoubtedly be worse than any thought of the current doom and gloom of global warming. During the early part of the last millenia (100-1400 AD), humans experienced the warmest temperatures since we've been on the planet. During that time there was extreme prosperity due to the higher CO2 levels. When plants have higher CO2 availabe, they require less water. Harvests dduring this time in history is legendary.

Perhaps we should use all of the proxy data and not just that of the last 80 years. I'm pretty sure the natural cycles are a little larger than what this article states.