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9 comments:
Not an issue.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/1934-and-all-that/
US accounts for 3% of the land mass of the global.
Global mean is more significant.
Tom, you're smarter than this.
Ok.
Maybe a century of U.S. temperature data can be safely ignored, and maybe we've got much more reliable long-term temperature data from that other 97%...
You also forget to mention that the difference between 1934 and 1998 is statistically insignificant
1.23 vs 1.25
Please don't go there. It's off topic. If your major goal is debunking the Ivory-billed woodpecker rediscovery, the global warming issue is only going to be used to beat you over the head as a right wing wacko regardless of the merits of your arguments. The science behind human-caused global warming may have some holes in it, as most new complex theories do, but at least most rational scientists are saying people are contributing to Global Warming, and Global Warming is a threat to the world's environment. The issue is too complicated for any of us who aren't true experts to understand, unlike the Ivory-billed woodpecker issue. When I see who lines up on each side of this issue and what they stand for, I'll happily go with main-stream science on this one.
Understanding complex models that supposedly predict *future* temperature is complicated.
Understanding a table of figures showing *past* temperature is pretty simple.
I can't believe you linked me to Glenn Reynold's blog.
I need to shower now.
Not that off-topic. If the scientists predicting global warming are correct, but many of us are skeptical, then we should ask: why are we skeptical? Especially when, like me, I admit I don't really understand the science.
Could it be because we have had the experience of seeing scientists turn out to be wrong in the past, e.g. "it's safe to eat beef infected by BSE"... "IBWO rediscovered in Arkansas"...
So, not that off-topic if the story is looked at from this point-of-view.
Could it be because we have had the experience of seeing scientists turn out to be wrong in the past, e.g. "it's safe to eat beef infected by BSE"...
That's an interesting example and here's why: as a matter of scientific fact, it is "safe" to eat beef infected by BSE. The odds of a person dying of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease because they ate beef from an otherwise healthy cow that tested positive for the presence of BSE prions are very very very slim. BSE is a greater concern for large-scale animal farmers (who used dead diseased animals as a source of cheap protein in feed) than it is for human health.
But a lot of people - especially Americans - tend to be very touchy about food-associated risks. People generally don't like to think of eating as a game of russian roulette, unless perhaps they are dining on fugu. On the contrary, Americans want their hamburger meat to be "100% pure ground beef." Even soap manufacturers don't go that far.
For a large portion of the American population, global warming is just too remote or irrelevant. After all, Joe Blow can always turn the air-conditioning up in his SUV. The important thing to Joe Blow is that fuel costs stay as low as possible for as long as possible, so he can retire on time. As is the case with the ivory bill woodpecker, Joe Blow simply doesn't care until the fallout directly affects Joe Blow or his family. In that case, Joe Blow will choose sides not by examining the science, but by examining the consequences of a political "victory" by one side or another.
Thus, for the IBWO believers, we can understand in part what motivates them to cling to their beliefs in spite of reality continually slapping them in the face: as "conservationists," the idea of living IBWOs out there "waiting to be found before they go extinct forever" is a potent political tool. For hardcore "birders", it's a sexy justification for the hobby, i.e., "look at how cool we are!" The fact that it's a pathetic and unnecessary justification does not seem to matter to many members of the birding community, presumably because birding requires only enough brain activity to master the focus knob on a pair of binoculars.
"When I see who lines up on each side of this issue and what they stand for..."
Ok, I'll bite.
Specifically who do you see lining up on each side of this issue, and specifically what do you think they stand for?
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