Two main reasons:
1. Climate science is complicated and counterintuitive. Folks with minimal mental abilities, some of whom are also lazy and dishonest, may find it convenient to claim or pretend that the whole field of knowledge is a hoax rather than exercise their brains trying to understand it. (Some of the most eager but least intelligent of that group are heavily over-represented in this category of Yahoo Answers.) Some politicians, particularly Republicans in the U.S., have decided to pursue electoral support from that ignorant and dishonest segment of the voting public.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_cha...
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/201...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinio...
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/opinio...
2. The fossil fuel industry stands to lose trillions of dollars in future revenues if serious action is taken to limit greenhouse gas emissions, develop non-carbon energy sources, etc. The industry has helped fund a massive disinformation campaign, tailored-made to trick, dupe, and encourage the more gullible portion of the public already inclined in that direction anyway (see point 1 above).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-mckib...
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument...
In any case, the basic real science has for well over a decade not been disputed amongst top scientists:
U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 2010:
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record...
“Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems.”
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpine...
“Choices made now about carbon dioxide emissions reductions will affect climate change impacts experienced not just over the next few decades but also in coming centuries and millennia…Because CO2 in the atmosphere is long lived, it can effectively lock the Earth and future generations into a range of impacts, some of which could become very severe.”
http://www.physics.fsu.edu/awards/NAS/
“The Academy membership is composed of approximately 2,100 members and 380 foreign associates, of whom nearly 200 have won Nobel Prizes. Members and foreign associates of the Academy are elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research; election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer.”
Edit: Moe's comments here are pitiful even by the typically low standards of Yahoo Answer anti-science liar-deniers. There is a ton of evidence supporting the decades-long scientific consensus on climate change, endorsed by the hundreds of Nobel Prize winning scientists I have cited. Moe, of course, offers no support or documentation at all for his anti-science nonsense, but it is a typical ploy of lazy liars to accuse truth-tellers of being like them.
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Is it not the role of all scientists in a specific field to try and disprove, or invalidate, each others' work? There are scientific papers out there doing just that, but they don't get recognition. Now why is that? Why is there only efforts to persuade everyone that it's fact? There's nothing scientific about what's going on in the AGW debate, at least on the side that's sole purpose is trying to convince everyone it's real.
It’s clear global warming/climate change is real. It’s equally clear the > current < warming cycle has been going on since the last ice age and that’s why the Sahara was grassland 10,000 years ago but is desert today + has been desert for centuries. The fact the current warming trend started long before there was any industry and when there were hardly any people is good evidence humans are not the cause. It also means humans are not the solution.
The Earth goes through constant climate change cycles and has done so throughout its history. The exact mechanism is not well understood but appears to be related to solar activity and not human activity. Note that the Earth is apparently at the end of the current warming cycle and should begin cooling soon (“soon” in geological terms).
All of the carbon tax/carbon offset BS is just robbery or extortion disguised as science. Countries like China and India LOVED the idea of carbon taxes/carbon offsets – but only when they could pretend to be “undeveloped”. Once it was pointed out both are horrific polluters of > every type < they suddenly weren’t so keen on the idea. Only the global Left and countries like North Korea & Zimbabwe still love the idea of carbon taxes.
The Left loves the idea because they are dedicated to destroying the West in general and the USA in particular. Getting the developed world to wreck its own industrial base is something they want. Having the West simultaneously give free guilt-money to countries like North Korea & Zimbabwe would just make it better.
Unfortunately, scientific research has been compromised by the politics of the subject. The academic community leans far to the Left, so researchers who “prove” human-caused global warming (AGW) are rewarded with more grants, but researchers who don’t “prove” AGW find themselves cut off.
The politics of the issue are a problem because we really do need to understand how the Earth works so we can anticipate, predict, and adjust. We also need to reduce actual pollution that is poisoning our environment, and countries like China & India shouldn’t get a free ride.
All the 'new', ie most recent, information from further study, peer review and observations in the field is of a catastrophe proceeding even faster than the most pessimistic IPCC Reports. The consensus of active, publishing, climate scientists is near universal and every single Academy of Science and learned scientific organisation concurs. Every single one. And all the denialists have is a tiny claque of ideological zealots, superannuated cranks and a few well-paid alumni of the tobacco harm denial industry. And the fervent support of thousands of dull but ideologically fanatic Rightwing zealots, who apparently have no concern about the fate of their and anybody else's children.
Because science can be wrong.
When I was a kid, we had nuclear war drills because we were all going to get blasted by warheads.
We were entering an ice age.
We were all going to starve by the year 2000.
Y2K was going to destroy the entire world through computer meltdown.
Haley's Comet was the end of the world.
The planets were going to align and it would be the end of the world.
The Myan calender was going to be the end of the world.
We were going to run out of oil.
No lie. This is what we were told!
The world is going to put its grubby hands deep into your pockets and pull out a butt load of money from you because this is the only way to save the world from global warming. Now, go outside with a pencil and notebook and write down everything you see damaged by global warming...after all, science says we are in a crisis again. Hmmmm.
Solutions to the problem most directly affect the fossil fuel industry, the single largest economic activity on the planet. The industry is controlled by individuals as well as corporations and governments. All of these classes have components that would prefer not to change the way the industry acts at present - just look at how coal interests are pushing for law to improve their position vs that new cheap natural gas. Economic, political and religious interests have all been interpreted as being affected in ways that wouldn't go bad if somehow the scientists were wrong.
Science is neither good or bad it's the search for truth. Dook calls it complicated and counter-intuitive and I know of no science where these are used as a defense for lack of evidence. AGW is not a hoax, myth, or a new world order plot. These are all used to discredit those who find the evidence lacking and are no more valid than warmon cries that there is a fossil fuel conspiracy to keep alternatives from competing or an anti-science conservative movement. The problem I have with climate science is the use of the counter-intuitive mantra when the obvious or historical evidence interferes with the theory, ambiguity is used to cover your ass, and adjectives are used elicit emotional response all to help support a theory.
Confirmation bias, and similar brain tricks. Our minds tend to reject "unfriendly" information, however valid; http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2011/0... discusses the matter at length. Since AGW is very "unfriendly" to people who think that technology is good and environmentalism and nature are suspect at best, people are fighting it tooth and nail.
You'll see the same kind of reaction from fundamentalist Christians (and a similar fraction of Muslims and Jews) to evolution. It challenges their view of the world, so they see it as an attack and fight back with everything they can bring to bear.
Climate science is funded by Political organisations and they demand the right to write the conclusion bit of the lab report. I remember as a lad, getting a load of dots all over the place and drawing a straight line through the middle and writing the graph is a Straight line so the law is proved.
It doesn't matter what the science says the guy who writes the conclusions will get the headlines. Hence the hobgoblins and bogeymen churned out and credited to scientists by the politicians. Other scientists will recognise this and may discredit it.
Who's desperate? It seems the ones throwing temper-tantrums here are the alarmists. Creating a false frenzy about how the climate responds to added CO2 seems to be the main focus. People have many facts about the subject, but the complexities created by science make it hard to understand. Let's keep it simple and bring an understanding first before we all jump off the "Global Warming Cliff" based on alarmist claims.
When you understand that humans have a less than 1% net effect on GHG warming, then you will get off that wagon. Here are some facts (Yes! I said facts!) :
1) CO2 is not a poison and is a natural atmospheric gas (at 150ppm plants don't grow)
2) CO2 is a very minor greenhouse gas
3) CO2 has increased 0.00248% as part of our whole atmosphere since 1880
4) Just because the planet is in a warming trend doesn't make it a human caused problem
5) The extra CO2 in our atmosphere creates more biomass in food plants and trees (recent analysis shows a 20%-30% increase in food products)
6) A doubling of CO2 in our atmosphere will only create about a 1 degree celsius rise in global temperature. CO2 has limits of physically being able to raise temperatures and most of the temperature rise from CO2 happens in the first 20ppm. http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/...
7) Modern warming is not unprecedented. The early 1900s to the mid 1900s experienced a much greater temperature increase (0.45 Celsius) than what we've experience in modern days and CO2 emitted by humans was still relatively low before 1940.
8) Alarmist scientists use a trick when presenting their evidence. They make the graph based on a smaller gradient to show a steeper rise (or fall). A larger gradient (2 degree instead of 2/10ths of a degree) shows a more stable temperature graph. Most all of us have lived through a 40 to 50 degree (F) swing in temperatures in just 1 day.
9) Global mean temperature has fluctuated over the billions of years of this planet. It's not constant. Never has been. Natural Climate Variability (Geological research) in our past has shown that the Arctic was at least 10 degrees Celsius warmer and the Antarctic has also been warmer. Glaciers have been much farther south (They can't form at latitudes of 20 to 27 degrees north and south of the equator). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogives_(gla...
When you understand the facts about CO2 (instead of listening to unfounded alarmist claims), then you can make a judgment about what is actually happening and make more responsible decisions. Nobody is saying that we all can't be good stewards of the planet.
Because there are a lot of hucksters out there promoting AGW or Climate Change to the needless robbing and ruination of mankind. Who out there likes to be robbed? If you are that sick, go to Australia and pay all those ridiculous taxes. Who likes to have their freedoms taken away, especially on an unproven scientific claim that there is more evidence against than there is for?
Who is getting rich from all this? President Obama just gave the UN $100 billion in the name of Global Warming. That money came out of the taxpayer's pockets. It was all over an unprovable bit of corrupt science. Exxon-Mobile's profits were $84 billion. They provided a service to mankind. The UN didn't do a thing or will not do a thing to improve mankind's lot with all that money.
There are honest people who resent being treated like mushrooms and stolen from. It is only natural that they fight back, if they are a decent human being.
For decades science delivered only good news. As soon as something tricky came along people were all like "that's not real science".
Part of science is predictability.
The "Climate Scientists" have a dismal record of predicting anything.
"Climate Science" disproves itself, sorry for noticing.
Some people are afraid that if we do not burn fossil fuels, we will not be able to drive and heat and light our homes. But all of these things can be done with clean energy sources, such as solar, wind and nuclear power.
And then there is greed. Oil and coal companies do not like the idea of people using other sources of energy. And the reason why many denialists are religious fundamentalists has nothing to do with the Bible, which does not say that God controls weather and climate or that humans have no effect on climate. In fact, the Bible says a consequence of sin is to have no rain. (Zechariah 14:17) The real reason why so many religious fundamentalists reject global warming is that many oil companies are headquartered in the Bible belt and many preachers love to see 10% of oil company profits in the offering bucket.
People might take climatologist seriously if they were not tweaking and creating false results to land $$ from big Grant to produce a another skewed study supposedly proving "x". . The scam is all about $$!!! Temperature data included in many of these studies were recorded from temp monitors placed next to metal structures and other heat exhaust areas not to mention the mythical math factors used in many calculations and the "ice core study" where the researcher chose to utilize a unique measurement technique that involved injecting CO2 into the sample cores then utilizing a mythical formula that would determine the true CO2 levels. Scientific studies like everything else can be manipulated. The end game for the climatologist scammers is to secure $$ from carbon taxes and force others to utilize their "products".
READ-> http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009...
Ice has melted and covered the planet for eons. Greenland was once a grass covered land mass that supported livestock and a good sized population. . A century or so later most of he settlers and farmers left Greenland due to the cold temps and icing.. Volcanic eruptions have been implicated in mass extinctions (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...
Most folks will embrace using different forms of energy IF the are reliable and cost effective. The new light bulbs cost more and pose a mercury hazard. Wind towers have issues (Birds / changing climate down wind of the installation / shifting wind patterns that may or may not produce different storm /tornado patterns. In short, The earth has experienced most all forms of heat/cold/water events.The once lush Sahara is now a desert likely due to climate change that had nothing to do with populations using "x" or high CO2 levels.*
It's not that people are desperate to disprove climate science, it's that you communists are desperate to scare people with your hype. You want global government, and this is your latest propaganda to try to bring it about.
Good science is fine, political biased science is atrocious.
We are spending billions on climate science, achieving nothing accept hurting the economy and jobs, and driving prices up.
Even if climate science (AGW) is proven fact (it is not yet) we have no actions as Co2 continues to climb and will continue to climb.
All that money could have been put towards developing safe reliable nuclear, you cannot stop carbon emissions unless you can provide cheap alternative energy resources first.
Because actually doing something about it would involve some rather expensive changes in popular technology such as automobiles.
The western 1st world has a long history of raping the environment for their own convenience, and they have absolutely no conscience about it, and they are absolutely outraged at the suggestion that they should.
It is weird.
One think is certain :
The world will run out of fossil fuel in about 200 years from now.
At that time (surprise surprise) there will be no further burning of fossil fuel.
The CEOs of oil and coal producing countries could not care less about what happens in 200 years.
What they care about is their 50 million dollar annual salary package.
And incidentally, as reserves are used up, the value of reserves still in the ground will go up.
That means that reserves that are currently not economical to extract, will become economical at some time.
And that means that we will run out of oil, coal, and gas, all more or less at the same time.
Serious work on alternatives will only get under way then.
By then earth may be uninhabitable.
That does not concern today's CEOs.
And THAT is why it is weird.
Vested interest.
Because its not science its the science of deception.
You can do your own experiments. You don't need climate scientists.
Its called denialism : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism
