the evidence speaks for itself med
if you draw a different conclusion from the same evidence then so be it
I guess de-forestation and polution doesn't mean much to righties, Eh? I can't prove what I believe , but there are thousands of scientists that do believe in global warming:
The truth about global warming
By
Sandi Doughton
Seattle Times staff reporter
NATACHA PISARENKO / AP
The evidence: melting glaciers. Ice falls from the Perito Moreno Glacier in Patagonia, Argentina, where the melting rate of ice fields has doubled in recent years. Glaciers around the world are retreating, a sign, scientists say, of global warming.
BETTY UDESEN / THE SEATTLE TIMES
UW atmospheric scientist John M. Wallace was initially skeptical of claims that humans are changing Earth's climate.
ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES
UW geochemist Eric Steig helped start a blog, RealClimate.org, to change public perception of global warming.
STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES
David Battisti, a UW atmospheric scientist, is helping rice farmers in Indonesia and plantations in Mexico prepare for drought. Projected behind him is a chart showing precipitation changes.
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John M. Wallace tried to steer Al Gore away from global warming.
The year was 1994 and the vice president was convinced rising temperatures were responsible for recent floods in the Mississippi River Valley.
He invited Wallace, a distinguished climate researcher from the University of Washington, to join a small group of scientists for a breakfast discussion in Washington, D.C.
As Gore sipped Diet Coke, Wallace nervously left the eggs on his own plate untouched.
"It was one of the more awkward audiences I've ever had," he recalled with a chuckle. "I was trying, in a polite way, to tell him he was coming on too strong about global warming."
Like many of his peers, Wallace wasn't convinced greenhouse gases were altering the world's climate, and he thought Gore was straining scientific credibility to score political points.
More than a decade later, Wallace still won't blame global warming for any specific heat wave, drought or flood — including the recent devastating hurricanes. But he no longer doubts the problem is real and the risks profound.
"With each passing year the evidence has gotten stronger — and is getting stronger still."
1995 was the hottest year on record until it was eclipsed by 1997 — then 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. Melting ice has driven Alaska Natives from seal-hunting areas used for generations. Glaciers around the globe are shrinking so rapidly many could disappear before the middle of the century.
As one study after another has pointed to carbon dioxide and other man-made emissions as the most plausible explanation, the cautious community of science has embraced an idea initially dismissed as far-fetched. The result is a convergence of opinion rarely seen in a profession where attacking each other's work is part of the process. Every major scientific body to examine the evidence has come to the same conclusion: The planet is getting hotter; man is to blame; and it's going to get worse.
"There's an overwhelming consensus among scientists," said UW climate researcher David Battisti, who also was dubious about early claims of greenhouse warming.
Yet the message doesn't seem to be getting through to the public and policy-makers.
Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, calls global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people." Novelist Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" landed on the best-seller list this year by depicting global warming as a scare tactic of diabolical tree-huggers. A Gallup Poll in June found only about half of Americans believe the effects of global warming have already started.
At the G8 summit of world leaders this summer, President Bush acknowledged man is warming the planet. But he stood alone in opposition to mandatory emissions controls, which he called too costly.
"There's a huge disconnect between what professional scientists have studied and learned in the last 30 years, and what is out there in the popular culture," said Naomi Oreskes, a science historian at the University of California, San Diego.
Fuel companies contribute to that gap by supporting a small cadre of global-warming skeptics, whose views are widely disseminated by like-minded think tanks and Web sites.
Most scientists don't know how to communicate their complex results to the public. Others are scared off by the shrill political debate over the issue. So their work goes on largely unseen, and largely pointing toward a warmer future.
The consensus
Researcher finds that 1,000 studies all point to the same conclusion
Oreskes decided to quantify the extent of scientific agreement after a conversation with her hairdresser, who said she doesn't worry about global warming because scientists don't know what's going on.
"That made me wonder why there's this weird public perception of what's been happening in climate science," Oreskes said.
Preparing for climate change
King County plans a one-day conference on climate change on Oct. 27 at the Qwest Field conference center. For information:
http://dnr.metrokc.gov/dnrp/climate-change/conference-2005.htm
She analyzed 1,000 research papers on climate change selected randomly from those published between 1993 and 2003. The results were surprising: Not a single study explicitly rejected the idea that people are warming the planet.
That doesn't mean there aren't any. But it does mean the number must be small, since none showed up in a sample that represents about 10 percent of the body of research, Oreskes said.
The consensus is most clearly embodied in the reports of the 100-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established by the United Nations in 1988. Every five to six years, the panel evaluates the science and issues voluminous reports reviewed by more than 2,000 scientists and every member government, including the United States.
The early reports reflected the squishy state of the science, but by 2001, the conclusion was unequivocal: "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."
This may be dated, but does anyone really think things have gotten better?
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