A couple of interesting articles

[carman34l]

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2606.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/56456.stm

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/com...E25717,00.html

the last one is funny,

[Graham]

Here he goes again.
I'm not playing this time...

[otolith]

OOOOHHHHH can I? Graham, you can send me a scathing pm if you so desire.

Hmmm, should I believe an editorial, or should I believe something published in a peer-reviewed journal? For every article like this, there's ten that contradict it. You can believe whatever you want. Glad you don't feel that we're in trouble...I'm not so sure. Hopefully you'll be right 30 years from now. The last I read on this (in the journal Science, when I was looking up another article) is that it's not necessarily that the reefs will die, but that the diversity of the corals we currently have will go down...I mean every species "suffers" extinction, it's just that our species speeds it up for so many other organisms.

I don't feel like debating this subject tonight...except to say to read the last post by Capman on the "die-off" thread. Amazingly, no one even bothered to reply.

[otolith]

If we're going to pick this up again, let's start with this good read.

Originally Posted by capman

There is a difference here between the 70's and now. I don't think there was anywhere near the level of widespread concern within the scientific community about the start of another ice age as there is now about global warming. In fact, I don't recall ever reading or hearing a great deal about concerns of the start of another ice age back then.

And there is another difference: the current concern is not just based on current anomalous weather patterns, but on a lot of good science, all of which is predicting global climate change as a result of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. Whether or not we are currently in a period of global warming, it is very clear that global warming is a high probability...indeed, more likely a certainty.

There was a speaker on campus last week (Dr. Thomas Jordan, professor of Earth Science at the University of Southern California) who spoke on the topic of geosystem modelling, and focussed a fair bit on global warming. One of the points he made was pretty interesting: "Scientists are generally much less afraid than the general public of some of the environmental 'dangers' that are publicized. A good example is nuclear radiation/nuclear power. On the issue of global climate change, however, the situation is largely the reverse. Many or most scientists are much more deeply concerned about this issue than are politicians or the general public" (I'm quoting here from a summary of his talk in our student newspaper, the Augsburg Echo, but this is pretty much what I remember him saying in his talk as well).

There is widespread and very considerable concern about global warming in the scientific community now. Much more concern, and much more basis for concern, than when people were wondering whether another ice age was starting back in the 70's.

Scientists are people like everyone else, with personal opinions and differences of opinion, but much more so than the general public, the scientific community holds scientists accountable for providing strong supporting evidence for claims. Scientists are EXTREMELY critical of other scientists (if you have not been involved with research and immersed in the scientific community yourself, you probably have no idea just how critical scientists can be), and ideas that have no foundation and that lack merit tend to get shot down by other scientists.

In fact, all scientific journals that I am aware of have a peer review process, and no research paper is published unless it passes the review of an editor (who is normally a specialist in the field himself or herself - content editors of scientific journals are active researchers themselves) and at least two or three other scientists in the same or related fields (hence the term peer review). So, if you are a scientist, you cannot get your research published without it being critically evaluated by at least 3 or 4 other scientists, some of whom may well be top experts in your field (sometimes the names of the reviewers are revealed to you, sometimes the reviewers prefer to stay anonymous). And the critiques are extremely detailed and meticulous. EVERY aspect of the paper is critiqued, ranging from the hypotheses tested and rationale for the hypotheses, to the methodology used, the statistical techniques used to analyze the data, the interpretation of results, and even the reference cited (if you fail to discuss prior research articles by others that are relevant, you will be shot down for that as well). Even sentence structure and word use will be critiqued. Sometimes these reviews can be quite harsh. Science is not a field to be in if you have an easily bruised ego - reviewers of scientific papers (and groups of scientists at scientific meetings) don't pull any punches!

My point here is that if an idea passes the scrutiny of a large group of scientists, it really means something. We never have absolute proof of anything in science (scientists are always open to the possibility that new evidence could come along to disprove previously accepted ideas), but when the majority of a group of scientists thinks something is true (and when this opinion persists year after year and grows stronger with time, as is the case with concerns over global warming) there is pretty high probability that it is true. And it is worth noting that it is not just a group of young renegade scientists fresh out of graduate school who are worried about global warming. The large group of scientists who are on board with the conclusion that we are changing the earth's climate includes a lot of really well established top scientists, including National Academy of Sciences members and Nobel prize winners.

It is odd that the general public is willing to accept and use knowledge produced by the application of the scientific method in many other areas of their lives (e.g. in medicine, engineering, chemistry, etc), but are unwilling to accept that the best sceintific minds in our country might know what they are talking about regarding the probable future consequences of elevated CO2 in the atmosphere.

[carman34l]

Oh come on you guys, I didnt post these to start an argument, I mearly found them interesting and I figured others would as well. I am not taking it any futher than that.

[otolith]

I'm not arguing, just debating.

You'll have to excuse us (if Graham doesn't mind me speaking for him as well) that we both saw the connection to the die-off thread. I thinks it's an interesting discussion. Let's keep it going. I'm open to what others, probably much smarter than I, have to write on this subject.

[Graham]

Whoa now....no "guys", please.
It was supposed to be taken as a funny...because we all already know I always think I'm right, so really, what's the point in me ever participating in anything anyway? I hereby respectfully resign my posting privelidges.

[Twins Guy]

ignance is bliss

(i tried deleting this so as not to be inflammatory but graham caught me so i'll put it back and be inflammatory after all)

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Twins Guy

ignance is bliss

I ain't touching that one.

[carman34l]

Originally Posted by otolith

I'm not arguing, just debating.

You'll have to excuse us (if Graham doesn't mind me speaking for him as well) that we both saw the connection to the die-off thread. I thinks it's an interesting discussion. Let's keep it going. I'm open to what others, probably much smarter than I, have to write on this subject.

I enjoy this debate as well, and that is the first time I read Capmans post. It was a very nice read. Right now, though, I am going to bed it has been a long day and my boy is getting baptised in the AM, so I will probably incite the riot tomorrow.

[carman34l]

I just got of the phone with a old friend of mine who lives on the gold coast in australia, and he was telling me that reports of mass bleaching on the GBR is false, he works a charter fishing boat and said he knows of one area that bleached on the northern most tip of the GBR. He is on the water on or around the reef just about every day. HIS observation is that everything is as it was 5 years ago. the company he works for also runs a dive cruise and he has heard no reports of "mass Bleaching" on the GBR. He laughed when I told him we were getting reports of 60% of the GBR bleaching. Even said that I shouldn't belive these reports unless I have seen the facts to back it up. And I tend to agree.

[JnS]

I still think TNT is the drama network

[smeese]

Lol