I'm not sure what to say about this one

[necama]

Al Gore has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for An Inconvenient Truth. There is no overwhelming scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. Most of the scientists I know are literally on the fence about this one, and a cursory analysis of the data simply does not support the harrowing picture that a very vocal minority is turning into

Comments

Climate change is well-documented.

[natetg]

I haven't seen 'An Inconvenient Truth'.

There's no way to do controlled experiments, so it's very difficult to prove that any environmental change is due to a particular cause, or, for that matter, predict the large scale effects of human action in a scientifically rigorous fashion.

It's well-documented that glaciers are receding all over the world, and that the global average temperature has risen over the last century, and that the surface level of solar light is dropping.

Regarding anthropogenic heat:
It seems like the human global energy consumption is about 4e20 joules per year, the specific heat of air is around 1 joule per degree kelvin per gram at surface atmospheric conditions, and the mass of the atmosphere is around 5e21 grams so the human energy consumption would heat the atmosphere by about .08 degrees per annum. Even if we assume that this energy consumption is 90% efficient, we should expect some anthropogenic temperature change just from energy usage.

Re: Climate change is well-documented.

[necama]

Climate change I have no problem with -- that happens on its own

Re: Climate change is well-documented.

[ouraboros]

Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it. Well, almost no one.

Now you get to look at articles yourself, from someone you actually know, in climate research:

http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/journal_articles.html

Go on, you know you want to play with his models yourself...

Re: Climate change is well-documented.

[necama]

That's the joke -- I don't want to play with the models. It's an old joke in physics that if you give me an infinite number of gaussians, I can fit any function you like, and many of the climate models will also give you remarkably close results for reasonable inputs.

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I'll read some of the papers after we've moved. I should have some more time, then.

[roaminrob]

I'm OK with his getting the Peace Prize. There were probably other people who deserved it more, but at least his actions have provided a counter to balance the current political trend in this country towards ignoring environmental policy altogether. Both camps are wrong, but if we have to have one then the want the other one too.

That said, this article came up on one of the forums I frequent. As web forums go, it tends to attract more thoughtful, insightful commentary. I raised some of the same points, except that I took the time to cite a few examples as well. By the response alone, you would think I had just suggested the return of segregation! Counter-arguments were dogmatic and pointless, and I got downmodded into oblivion.