Was it not "scientific consensus" that gave us the whole "antibiotics are good for you" argument that has lead to what I posted above, having to do with superbugs? Just because there is "consensus" doesn't mean that consensus cannot be disagreed with. Doesn't mean that "consensus" can't be wrong. Or can't have "unintended" consequences. So the whole argument circles back to the beginning, the very question of whether or not human activities contribute (or should we say, contribute significantly) to climate change.
I concede nothing, because science that concedes is "science" that doesn't progress. It is the nature of science to question, to express doubt. Doesn't meant the "doubters" are right, but it also doesn't meant the "consensus" is right, either. It simply means this is not a simple issue. It means we aren't done yet. It also means we have yet to see what may come. Both sides might be surprised. Personally, I'm all ears. So far, this whole issue of climate change has been loads of fun to poke and prod. Because science should also be fun. Do you concede to this view?
Antibiotics, your personal thoughts about mavericks and whether or not you believe a little knowledge is a dangerous thing do not determine whether or not an idea is true.
I'm not sure why you think they do.
A hypothesis can be demonstrated to be correct, or proven wrong, if a plausible mechanism is contrived and evidence is found to determine whether the predictions of this mechanism are true. The fate of a hypothesis is not determined by contrast with unrelated fields of science, or concerns about the moral or political implications it would have if it were true.
In the case of Anthropogenic climate change, the mechanism is the adsorption of longwave radiation by carbon dioxide's Carbon-Oxygen double bonds.
The sun's short wave radiation hits the earth and is re-emitted as longwave radiation. This longwave radiation would be lost to space, if there were no atmosphere and the earth would be about 255K, very cold indeed.
Instead, trace gases in the atmosphere intercept this radiation and absorb it, turning the energy in the photons into vibrations in their bonds, or heat.
This figure demonstrates the effect:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif
The solid line is the radiation flux we would expect at the top of the atmosphere, if all the re-emitted long wave radiation escaped. The troughs are caused by trace gases which absorb specific wavelengths, and the energy which these troughs represent is enough to explain why our planet is about 300K instead of 255K.
Carbon Dioxide and Water are the most significant atmospheric gases which contribute to this effect, called the greenhouse effect.
Studies have shown that water molecules only have a residence time of about 11 days in the atmosphere, so we know that they are climate feedback and not a climate driver.
Carbon Dioxide has a more sustained presence in the atmosphere, and it takes a long time for atmospheric concentrations to decrease after volcanic eruptions and so forth. Hence Carbon Dioxide is a climate driver.
This prediction, that Carbon Dioxide drives long term climate, can be tested. If we look at our planet, orbiting a G2V type star, we should expect it to become warmer as its star ages and becomes brighter. Instead Earth has a sustained average temperature of about 300C for the last 600m years, punctuated by long term glaciations.
That's not what you'd expect at all if only the sun was determine global temperature, so we know there is another climate driver, other than the sun.
If you overlay carbon dioxide concentrations through this time period with solar luminosity, then the curves are a good match with temperature variations.
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/images/figure7.gif [CO2 and Temp]
http://www.nap.edu/books/0309095069/xhtml/images/p2000c604g64001.jpg [solar luminosity]
This shows that the two most important climate drivers are Carbon Dioxide concentration and Solar Luminosity.
Earth's temperature has remained rather steady in spite of increasing solar luminosity because of a general decline in greenhouse gases over geological time:
https://sustainableloudoun.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/fi2.png
Hence we know that if the solar luminosity changes suddenly, or the CO2 concentration changes suddenly, the climate will be changed.
We're currently changing the CO2 concentrations very quickly, and the climate is changing just as all the evidence we've reviewed indicates it should.
I don't understand why people who live in shitty climates, like UK and Canada, are against getting a warmer climate
-Associated rises in sea level due to ice-on-land melting and running off into the oceans threaten to submerge our coastal cities.
-Carbon dioxide dissolves into the ocean, and forms carbonic acid. This changes the acidity of the oceans, causing coral reefs to dissolve and changing the viability of fish stocks.
-Energetic storms are likely to become more frequent and powerful, because they draw their power from warm oceans, so as the oceans warm there will be more available energy to drive them.
I don't want to portray all change in climate as 'doom and gloom'. Rapid changes in climate merely represent a challenge to creatures -including us-because, having adapted to their current environments, they will discover that the environments have changed and that they are no longer well-suited to them.
*sigh* There was never a "scientific consensus" that "antibiotics are good for you." We knew about evolution before we knew about antibiotics. The consensus has always been that some antibiotics can kill some bacteria, but that there is risk of some bacteria evolving a resistance to it. The new superbugs only validated the consensus.
Even if Roose's comments about antibiotics were right, they would have no relevance to discussions about climate change.
