Wow, I'm way behind because of work, but...
I'm concerned that world governments are about to spend untold trillions on lowering co2 production in order to just slow down the predicted global warming effects, not stop them.
There
are additional impacts already locked in for years to come even if we were to stop producing CO2 today. However, the eventual impacts are
not the same regardless of when we stop producing CO2.
The costs associated with adaptation are dependent on how severe the changes are, which is dependent on how soon we address the issue.
Also, mitigation vs. adaptation is a false dichotomy. Whether we do it now or later, the cost of the transition away from fossil fuels is one that has to be paid eventually. The direct cost of doing it now vs later may be slightly more, but it's not a cost that can be avoided altogether. The indirect cost due to expense of adaptation only increases the longer we wait though.
To say we are over populating the world is ignoring the fact that the FSU (Russia) has recognized the problem of fewer births and endorsed a national holiday to endorse "close contact".
Did they have this holiday because they had too much food? Too much energy? Too much land? Too much water? No. They had it for political reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with sustainability of global populations. Yes, Russia's (and Europe's) population has been declining. Global population has not.
Similarly, the inability for a country to pay retirement benefits due to reduced population growth is a political/economic issue, not one of sustainability of global resources.
Simply follow the money, who did not turn off his lights for one hour? Unfortunately it was someone big with an agenda. The proof is in the pudding. We all must walk the talk.
Excuse my skepticism (meaning I don't accept claims at face value without substantial evidence), but you made a claim, now show us the evidence. The money trail should be a pretty big one since it apparently involves almost all of the world's governments and tens of thousands of scientists.
Show us how climate scientists are gaming the system. Show us how much more funding an established scientist can rake in by investigating climate change vs. other climate related research, especially how the degree of "alarmism" affects funding. Don't forget to investigate the other side of the "debate" though. Show us their great grant proposals that have been declined because they don't fall in line with the consensus view. Show us how much is being spent by lobbying groups for both sides. If there really is some gravy train in climate science where a few lies to the grant review boards will net you funding, I want a piece of the action because in my line of work it doesn't work that way.
In any event, funding or motivation isn't how science is evaluated, which is beside the fact that Al Gore has absolutely nothing to do with the state of the science anyway. Even if he or an actual mainstream climate scientist came out tomorrow and said their motivation was just to get rich and create a world nazi government, reality would be completely unaffected and the evidence of AGW would be no less reliable.
If you want to evaluate the science, looking at the actual science (as opposed to press releases, news articles, or blog and forum posts) is a good start, but you evaluate it by asking-
1) Is the method that was used sound and applied correctly? Where there are errors, artifacts, or limitations, how do does accounting for them affect the conclusion?
2) Does the conclusion of the work follow from the results? Is it logically sound?
3) Are alternate explanations considered and if any are discounted, is this justified?
4) How does the current study relate to previous work? Does it support earlier work or are there conflicts? Where there are conflicts, can they be explained? Where conflicts can't be reconciled, which hypothesis is better supported by the balance of all other evidence?
These are the questions scientists ask when they're reading or reviewing other scientists' work.
Apply them to the arguments you're bringing up and prove to us that you're actually applying some true skepticism rather than ideology.
To have a knee jerk reaction to what a portion not a consensus of the scientific community believe is irresponsible.
30 years of inaction is hardly a knee jerk reaction. Also, I think you're going to have to define consensus and scientific community for us. Do you include tv weathermen, economists, and experts in "orgone energy" and dowsing in the scientific community or only those people who have actually performed research and published in climate science?
If it's the former, you have a pretty broad definition and you include people with very little basis for evaluating the evidence- people who have made names for themselves disputing the links betwen HIV and AIDS or smoking and cancer, as well as the previously mentioned experts on non-existent energy forms (all real examples included on list of "scientists who dissent over man-made warming claims").
If you look only at those that actually study and publish in climate science you find that only around 3% express personal disagreement with the consensus view. See here:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf and here:
http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/climate_authors_table.html
However, if you look at the actual published literature, there is virtually none that disagrees with the consensus view. See here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
The discrepancy is at least partly due to researchers like John Christy who express personal disagreement with the consensus, but whose work doesn't directly challenge the consensus- yet they don't claim that biased peer review is preventing their dissent from being heard.
If you visited 100 specialists and 97 of them tell you that they're more than 90% certain (the certainty reflected in the IPCC consensus view) you had cancer that required immediate action who do you listen to? The 3 that say you're healthy or that there's too much uncertainty to risk surgery or chemo? Or do you listen to the 97 that agree that there's a serious problem- even though it's not unanimous?
In all fairness, is there any "anti-climate change" (man or natural causes) peer reviewed journal articles.
Sort of.
There are scientists like John Christy who personally disagree with the consensus view, but whose work doesn't- though media statements on their work sometimes claim that it does. For example, Christy and crew published a couple of papers about the discrepancy between predicted and observed tropospheric trends. They were accompanied by media statements to the effect that they show how the models fail to match reality and were touted as "stakes through the heart of AGW." The first one actually ended up showing significant errors in the satellite calibration rather than the models and the second one showed that the discrepancy between observations and predictions was within the uncertainty ranges.
Then there have been several true "anti-consensus" papers published in
Energy and Environment by many of the most prominent denialists. One of the highest profile publications for denialists, where McIntyre and McKitrick point out statistical limitations in the methods behind the "hockey stick graph" was published in E and E. The journal is peer reviewed, but isn't ISI cataloged so doesn't show up in analyses like Oreskes' and isn't considered a major journal. It's also notorious for publishing work of questionable quality which the editor has publicly acknowledged is due to her political agenda.
Then there's Gerlich and Tschneuschner, who published their mental masturbation on why it's theoretically impossible for greenhouse gases to warm the planet in the International
Journal of Modern Physics. Their argument ignores direct observation and argues against some basic physics. Still, it was published not only in a peer reviewed ISI journal, but they were actually invited to submit it. However, the journal's impact ratings (based on citations) are well below average, ranking it near the bottom for journals in the field and even well below
Scientific American which is a pop-sci magazine.
but there can be many interpretations about climate change (social constructionist approach) and therefore many perceived consequences, but the data/variables can be more constant. We can observe and predicts significant changes, and now we have to address it. Next...:rollface:
