<div>This post is aimed at those with an open mind on the subject of climate science and sincerely wish to learn. The numerous references to climate science information will be of interest to someone, perhaps. The references below amply demonstrate that anthropogenic climate change is occurring (and that current climate change is primarily being driven by anthropogenic climate forcing) due to the hundreds of billions of tons of human sourced CO2 emissions and other impacts. This is not only a matter of majority vote or degree of consensus among all scientists on the issue. It's a matter of physics, mathematics and evidence, that has been revealed by climate scientists who have spend decades studying climate science. We could just as well claim that Einstein's relativity theory is an open question in science, given there are scientists who question it, if we are to emphasize how uncertain anthropogenic climate change is, because there are scientists who question this theory. There are cases where being in the minority makes someone wrong (or very likely to be), when it can be amply demonstrated they are not considering all the relevant evidence. Just because a scientist has professional credentials is not a reason by itself alone to trust that their views on a given scientific issue are just as credible as any scientist. How well their views hold up to peer review is very important. If all but one in a crowded theater smell smoke and yell out "smoke," while one person shouts "there is no smoke; this is a hoax," this claim is doubtful. Einstein's relativity theory and the scientific evidence for human CO2 emissions altering climate are both well established scientific theories. At the bottom of this post I address Einstein's relativity theory again.</div>
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<div>It is rather obvious the the issue of anthropogenic climate change has become a politicised, ideologically driven, highly emotional issue. There are good reasons for this, among them a resistance to face the limits of human impacts on the Earth for development and economic activity, for both purely materialistic and also ideological motivations; humans as dominators of Nature is a God given principle (to some), so to emphasize we are just one organism among many, within the greater whole of the biosphere, that if we damage the biosphere, humanity is at risk, is perhaps a kind of heresy. </div>
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<div>It's no surprise that many of the organizations pushing doubt about anthropogenic climate change have been/are connected to industries that will be negatively effected by efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, to religious fundamentalists, and "free enterprise" think tanks, such as "The Heartland Institute," who have in recent years organized some of the most effective and extensive efforts in the media to cast doubt in the public about anthropogenic climate change, promoting junk climate change science.</div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.heartland.org/" target="_blank">http://www.heartland.org/</a></div>
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<div>Is the climate science behind anthropogenic climate change as doubtful as many of the the skeptics claim? I present scientific information below that demonstrates it is not very doubtful; the uncertainty about the science does not rise to the level where it is worth the risks of ignoring the evidence that humans are altering climate in profound ways, and thus not taking immediate mitigation action.</div>
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<div>Those die hard skeptics who do not want to accept the well established science on this subject simply will not... No facts or arguments will change their mind. Even if Greenland melts into the sea, and Wall Street is under water, a person can always claim there was some other cause besides human impacts (solar variability perhaps now the most common argument, not supported by the observations of solar radiation over recent decades). From "Nature" journal:</div>
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<p><i>Nature</i> <b>443</b>, 161-166 (14 September 2006) | <abbr title="Digital Object Identifier">doi</abbr>:10.1038/nature05072</p>
<h2>Variations in solar luminosity and their effect on the Earth's climate</h2></div>
<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html" target="_blank">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html</a></div>
<div>---------------<br>So why debate the issue? So that those with an open mind who can be persuaded by fact and reason do not succumb to ideologically driven propaganda that attempts to portray the global climate science community as either conspirators in a global fraud, grossly incompetent, or both. It's one or the other, or both, given the emphatic assertions of the IPCC and numerous leading scientific organizations around the world:</div>
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<div>Statement on anthropogenic climate change from numerous science academies around the world:</div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8Statement_Energy_07_May.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8Statement_Energy_07_May.pdf</a></div>
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<div>More info on scientific organizations who clearly state humans are altering climate, which should include the Union of Concerned Scientists:</div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686" target="_blank"><font size="2">http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686</font></a></div>
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<div><font size="2">The American Meteorological Society (</font><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#ref6" target="_blank"><font size="2">6</font></a><font size="2">)<font lang="0" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face="Arial" color="#000000">, the American Geophysical Union (<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#ref7" target="_blank">7</a>)</font><font lang="0" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face="Arial" color="#000000">, and the American Association for the Advancement of <span class="" id="st" name="st">Science</span> (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/#ref8" target="_blank">8</a>)</font></font><font lang="0" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face="Arial" color="#000000" size="2">.<br>
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<div>Statement from the Union of Concerned Scientists on global warming:</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/">http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/</a></div>
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<div>Global warming is one of the most serious challenges facing us today. To protect the health and economic well-being of current and future generations, we must reduce our emissions of heat-trapping gases by using the technology, know-how, and practical solutions already at our disposal.</div>
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<div>Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change website:</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/">http://www.ipcc.ch/</a></div>
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<div>I continue:</div>
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<div>In fact, the theory of greenhouse gases trapping solar energy can be tested by anyone, rather easily, if they want, in a simple experiment. I posted a high school science text dealing with lab experiments on this issue:</div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.enviroliteracy.org/pdf/labge1.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.enviroliteracy.org/pdf/labge1.pdf</a><br>-------------</div>
<div>And the physics behind the claim that increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, will result in increases in global average temperature, is well established science. Below read the results of research from Barton Paul Levenson (who has a degree in physics, and is an outspoken Christian, if this matters to anyone), to collate the scientific studies on what is called "climate sensitivity," the change in global average temperature from a doubling of atmospheric CO2, which has been studied since Nobel Prize winner Arrhenius in 1896 ( <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/feb/19/climate-change-arrhenius">http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/feb/19/climate-change-arrhenius</a> ). Note pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 levels were about 280 ppm, now over 380 ppm. due to human emissions. Not all the studies are listed at Levenson's site, but I have never read a credible peer reviewed published study that shows no increase in global average temperature from a doubling of atmospheric CO2. Even MIT's meteorologist Richard Lindzen, whose claim to fame is primarily that he has opposed the IPCC, and is often quoted as one of the qualified experts that shed doubt on the impacts of human greenhouse gas emissions, acknowledges that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will raise global temperature, but his claim is that this is less than 1 degree Centigrade. The average of the studies on this subject conducted by hundreds of scientists is close to 3 degrees Centigrade:</div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/ClimateSensitivity.html" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/ClimateSensitivity.html</a></div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/</a></div>
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<div>The basics of this science is not difficult to understand, given what should be the level of science and mathematics comprehension of the average college graduate. Content below from the American Institute of Physics that explains the development and verification of this theory. This is well established science. </div>
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<div>AIP on CO2 and greenhouse effect:</div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm" target="_blank">http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm</a><br>------------</div>
<div>The survey of climate science specialists I posted information about earlier indicated that 97% of the specialists surveyed believe human activity is altering climate. Survey results at link below:</div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf" target="_blank">http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf</a><br>-----------</div>
<div>To return to the high school lab tests on greenhouse gas, these lab tests do not duplicate what happens in Earth's atmosphere, so the argument can be made that these tests are not really an experiment dealing with anthropogenic climate change. But the argument that everyone can test gravity, so it is more believable than the science behind anthropogenic warming, which cannot be verified by everyone, does not address the manner in which the public will accept and trust scientific theories, that are difficult for the average person to verify. How many people have tested the science behind Einstein's Theory of Relativity? And given the small number of people who can claim to have, how many people educated in modern science will expound on the uncertainties in science, thus the explosion in a hydrogen bomb or the fusion of hydrogen powering our sun, might not be related to Einstein's theory? Of course, you can find scientists who will question Einstein's relativity theory, in one way or another. Some scientists think Einstein's theory will eventually be replaced with a more complete "physics of everything." But Einstein's relativity theory is well established science, that virtually no modern educated person would claim is a "hoax," in the manner we see a surprising percentage of the US public believing about anthropogenic climate change.</div>
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<div>Ted Moffett<br> </div>
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