As the IPCC prepare to release a report tomorrow strengthening their claim in the last report in 2007 that climate change is threatening us all, the sceptics are out in force claim they are 'winning' the argument.
They say a slowing of temperature rises in the past 15 years means the threat from climate change is exaggerated at best and false at worst.
The sceptics believe that this slowdown is solid evidence that the 99% of environmental specialists from around the Globe are wrong and they have been are right all along.
The panel's last report said temperatures were likely to rise within the range of 2C to 4.5C with a best estimate of 3C. while the new report is believed to indicate a range of 1.5C to 4.5C with no best estimate indicated.
Having a brain in my head, i take my opinion from the people who know so let's ask Prof van Ypersele, a Belgian Professor of Climatology and Environmental Sciences with a doctorate in climatology and Vice-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with over 30 years experience of studying what goes on above our heads.
'What the sceptics say is either wishful thinking or totally dishonest'. Thank you Prof van Ypersele, carry on.
6 comments:
lucy,
you pick the scientists that say what you have decided to believe.
That's fine, but there are plenty of scientists just as qualified as those you note that question the global warmers.
science is not a democracy. 99% don't make a scientific opinion right or wrong. proper experimentation makes the decision.
in science you have to disprove all the negative evidence. that has not been done for global warming. Further, the data and methods of analysis are being challenged.
q
I don't pick the scientists, the scientists come out and put their opinion. If 99% of other scientists in their field agree with them, i'm going to lean towards believing what they have to say.
"in science you have to disprove all the negative evidence"
Who says? Surely this depends on what the subject matter is? Science can't 'disprove' that our universe isn't balancing on the head of a pin that's stuck into the arse of a gigantic elephant called Dorothy... This, however, does not mean that science cannot lead us towards theories that are more likely - sometimes much more likely - than others. This "You scientists can't prove everything" mantra shouldn't give people carte blanche to believe highly unlikely things. Well, not if they're sensible anyway.
Lucy: Don’t know if you’re watching ‘Science Britannica’ at the moment? It was on the other night. The editor of Nature magazine was interviewed by Brian Cox and explained the peer review method in fairly basic, but still interesting, terms. He said that scientists are the most ‘critically minded’ (i.e. sceptical, forever questioning, challenging) group of people he can think of... which makes sense when you think about it, because the ones who overturn long-held views about things with likelier explanations tend to become pretty famous!
really cheezy? surely you know what I mean...
in science, to prove a hypothesis one must disprove the negative...
if the hypothesis is: the globe is warming due to humans
then you have to disprove that it is cooling or staying the same, and you have to disprove that it is being caused naturally.
q
My point is that science can point us towards more likely or less likely natural occurrences, without one side of the argument being comprehensively disproved.
The absence of cast-iron copper-bottomed 100% proof means that it is not logically unsound for a person to take a position contrary to the, say, 99.99% certain position.
But, objectively speaking, this position is very likely to be wrong.
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