Trend vs Deviations
Posted in Environment by George
Since the recent IPCC Report on Climate Change came out, asserting that global warming is caused by humans and will cause harm if unchecked, there have been a torrent of Op-Eds and blog entries criticizing the report and claiming global warming is a hoax. Unlike Frosty Hardison, I believe in the value of free speech, so I took the time to read quite a few of those articles and blog posts yesterday.
One thing that really bothers me about some of these writings, or the comments of individuals who agree with them, is that they don’t seem to understand any of the science behind global warming. The chief complaint I have is that people don’t understand that global warming is a long-term trend. The thing about a trend is that deviations from it are always possible. For instance, let’s think about the stock market. Over the past 100 years, the long term trend has been an upward climb. However, there have been days, weeks, and even years where the stock market has tanked. Yet overall, the country has been growing, and these “down times” were merely deviations from a long term trend.
Global warming is a long term trend as well. Over the long term, the temperatures on the planet are going to increase. One warm day, week, month, year, or other relatively small unit of time does not prove global warming exists. Nor does a cold day, week, month, year, etcetera prove it does not exist. The science of global warming never claimed that we wouldn’t have a cold month or two in the dead of winter. Yet bloggers and various internet commenters have decided to attack a claim that the science of global warming doesn’t make.
Take Gina Cobb’s Global Cooling Weather Watch article. She cites low temperatures in the Midwest US (one small part of a vast globe for a short period of time) as the reason that global warming is a farce. Sorry, Gina, but short term cold temperatures have nothing to do with global warming or cooling. Good try, though.
Next, check out the comments on this article at NewsBusters.
1) JohnathanAnderson writes: “The global warming assault continues in the Midwest … record lows, record snowfall, record windchill…” (clearly no idea of the fact that deviations from a trend are possible) …
2) Aero writes: “For me, all it takes to be a “skeptic” is watching the evening weather predictions and then sticking my head out the door the next day. They can’t even predict the temperature for tomorrow within 5 degrees–why in the world would I believe that they can predict a 2-degree change across the entire globe over a period of years?” (doesn’t realize it’s harder to predict deviations from a trend than to estimate the trend itself)
3) JayTee writes: “You can’t hide the Weather, and when Schools are closing today because of the Wind Chill advisories, Global warming suddenly begins to look like B.S.” (once again, no idea that deviations from a trend are possible)
I have yet to read any writings by scientists or journalists who actually claim anything as silly as these people, yet, but I’m sure the time will come. So please, if you’re going to reject the notion of global warming, please actually reject a claim the science makes, rather than making something up. Thanks.
February 6th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Science is in some cases, very wrong. For example, it was all accepted thought at one point in time that space was a sphere enveloping earth and that the all points on the edge of it were equidistant from the earth. Oh boy science, you rock. I know very little about climate change and have limited say in how graphs and tables should be interpreted after being explained by an activist mind you. Sure, science has great value to the human race, but it also is just based on theories. Global warming is one of these theories. The temperature levels may be rising, but this may be natural despite the rapid industrialization of the planet and increasing carbon emissions. I think that this may very well exist but I am still a skeptic. I hope that you and your peers find a way to fix what our parents generation screwed up, leaving us to pay the price…according to you.
“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness.”
This quote is actually talking about freedom but you get my drift.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Benny, continuing to flip flop. Just a few weeks ago you told me, after watching an Inconvenient Truth, that you accepted global warming existed, humans were causing it, and you said that we just shouldn’t do anything because of economic costs (I’m not going to criticize your logic or your claims here). Now you say that you are a skeptic.
I don’t want to get in a brother-on-brother debate with you about what you said or what you didn’t say. But please, make up your mind.
Secondly, let’s stick to the topic of this article (criticism of people attacking a claim that a theory never made).
Thirdly, EVERYTHING in science is a theory. This includes things like gravity. Just because it’s a theory doesn’t mean we should ignore it or refuse to act on it. Should we ignore gravity because it’s a theory?
The great thing about scientific theories is that people can challenge them. It’s great that people are challenging the theory of global warming, because it provides more information for individuals to look at to help make up their mind. The reason I believe so strongly in the theory of global warming is because I have read both sides of the story and the global warming “proponents,” if you will, have exhibited a much stronger argument that has a lot less “baggage” (i.e. less of a money trail).
February 6th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
I have a small criticism with your judgment.
I believe that global warming is a long-term process, brought about by a combination of natural and man-made causes. Debate over the distribution of blame should be left up to scientists (most of whom feel that man has a certain blame).
Short term effects should not come into play on either side of the equation. George, you taunt people who claim ice storms prove global warming wrong, but support your argument on global warming with videos of hurricanes and forest fires and an article on an island in a river delta flooding. I’m sure we can both agree that ice storms, hurricanes, forest fires, and river flooding have happened long before man.
So please, if you’re going publish posts, such as “We’re Doomed”, please think about how a long term trend could have swallowed an island, rather than just making something up.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Chris,
I will make a concession to you that I probably shouldn’t have written the article entitled: “We’re Doomed.” To be honest, I ran a quick google search to fact check and never really explored beyond the first couple links I found. That was an error on my part, but I suppose that’s one of the things I like about gimme-five: people keep me accountable for what I write, and it hopefully has made me into a slightly better writer.
To be fair, the global warming video was more of a joke than anything serious.
But anyways, “We’re Doomed” wasn’t my greatest moment on gimme-five.
February 10th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
So am I correct in assuming that George has an expert’s knowledge in the science behind Global Warming. So you have a PhD in a similiar field? Because if you are an economic undergrad then perhaps you also do not understand the science.
February 10th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
I don’t think I ever made the claim that I understood the science behind global warming in its entirety.