Hey all,

I have been dying to weigh in on global warming. My field of research if Chaos Theory, and in specific, I am working on problems of turbulence. I am not trying to be a tease, at some point I am certain that I will get into some very long discussions about this. I just can’t tonight.

That said, I really do want to leave some thoughts…

1. Politics is not science. If you find someone arguing that either that the world will end tomorrow or that there is no problem at all, you have instant proof that the main motivation of the speaker is political rather than scientific. It is also, much like the creationist thermodynamic argument, proof to a scientist that the speaker has not looked at or understood the science. At best, they cherry picked snatches of the science and heard only what they wanted to hear. This applies to both camps. I have said before and will say again, a pox on both their houses.

2. This is a no - duh statement but the MSM is not a good place to get science. The MSM is out to sell their product, they do this by sensationalizing things and by over-simplifying things to the point that they are just wrong. The only really trustworthy sources are the peer reviewedjournal papers themselves.

3. As per the evidence, there is no longer any doubt whatsoever that the climate is changing. I have posted a ton of links before on this, and I will dig up more again when I have more time.

4. There are precisely three debates here that are legitimate as far as the science goes. First, How much of it is caused by humans? Second, What can we do about it? Finally, How bad do we think it will get and how quickly will it get bad?

5. As to those debates, the first one, it is certain that humans have had some effect. Many respectable people have good arguments that we are the dominant cause. Other respectable people have respectable arguments that maybe not, but they are with each passing year, becoming more and more of the minority - and this is not a conspiracy in the academic world to hurt the oil companies or make Republicans sad. This is the ebb and flow of the scientific process as it tackles open questions.

The second question is much more complicated and much more open to speculation. We do not have easy answers. Someone who tells you that there are easy answers is full of crap. This applies to both sides. I personally say that we need to get off of oil anyway for plenty of other good reasons and that we can make fission reactors that can’t melt down, but that is another discussion.

The third question is the most problematic to discuss with non scientists. The models are very complex and no-one claims that they are perfect. It is also very difficult to estimate exactly how predictive they are. However, they are not nothing and they are not as limited as their detractors would like to wish they were. Honestly, getting bogged down in the numerical details of evaluating huge systems of linked differential equations is a technical subject. Honestly, many of the arguments made by nonscientists about the limitations of the models indicate that they do not understand the actual limitations of the models and are again only arguing out of what they don’t like, not what they know. On the flip side, the moonbat who takes the worst, most cherry picked, read of the most pessimistic models, without any understanding of the math or the science either, is not any better. The honest answer is we don’t know, but we have very good reason to believe that when we do know, we will not like the answers.