Global warming/skepticism/arguments

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Overview

This page collects legitimate arguments against any of the various aspects of global warming, and any known counter-arguments.

Particular Points

Although the majority of scientists agree that global warming is occurring and is caused by humanity, a few disagree; each of these few generally express one of the following positions:

• The Earth is not warming
  • e.g. surface records seem to show a warming trend, but satellite and weather balloon records do not.
• The Earth is warming but the cause is unknown
• The Earth is warming but mostly due to natural processes
• Global warming is occurring but not as much as feared

(Reference: wikipedia:List of scientists opposing global warming consensus)

Arguments Against

Arguments against global warming:

• Global warming is junk science: There are claims that scientists "proving" global warming are purposefully lying and modifying data or at least using questionable analytical methods.
• Scientists are divided on the issue: although there are a few dissenters, the scientific consensus agrees that global warming is happening and that it is anthropogenic; see The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
• Global warming is self-correcting: possibly, but the corrections may take some time
• At least one group has argued that the Earth is actually cooling:
  • New Research Indicates the Earth May Be Cooling by Amy Ridenour of the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research
    • response to Ridenour

Editorials Against

• 2007-10-17 Global Warming Delusions by Daniel R. Botkin:
  • <linkedimage>

wikipage=Issuepedia:Debaticons tooltip=claim that is the main subject of a debate img_src=Image:Arrow-button-rt-20px.png img_alt=right arrow debaticon </linkedimage> (premise) The only reason global warming matters is how it affects life, and the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.

• • • <linkedimage>

wikipage=Issuepedia:Debaticons tooltip=claim that is the main subject of a debate img_src=Image:Arrow-button-rt-20px.png img_alt=right arrow debaticon </linkedimage> (evidence) During the past 2.5 million years, a period that scientists now know experienced climatic changes as rapid and as warm as modern climatological models suggest will happen to us, almost none of the millions of species on Earth went extinct.

• • • • "The exceptions were about 20 species of large mammals (the famous megafauna of the last ice age -- saber-tooth tigers, hairy mammoths and the like), which went extinct about 10,000 to 5,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, and many dominant trees and shrubs of northwestern Europe. But elsewhere, including North America, few plant species went extinct, and few mammals."
      • This isn't really the issue. Although it is very unlikely that such a successful species as humanity would go extinct due to climate change, it seems likely that there will be great hardship – especially by those less well-off economically. This is what active GW seeks to avoid.
    • <linkedimage>

wikipage=Issuepedia:Debaticons tooltip=claim that is the main subject of a debate img_src=Image:Arrow-button-rt-20px.png img_alt=right arrow debaticon </linkedimage> (evidence) Also, scientific papers by Prof. Sarah Randolph of Oxford University show that temperature changes do not correlate well with changes in the distribution or frequency of [certain dangerous] diseases; warming has not broadened their distribution and is highly unlikely to do so in the future, global warming or not.

• • • • The evidence given relates solely to natural life, and says very little about how rising temperatures will affect human habitats, especially those in low-lying areas.
  • The article also argues that exaggerating the truth in order to get a sluggish, complacent public to react is not justified
    • I have to agree with this completely. The truth must be protected from political abuse; that is part of the purpose of Issuepedia. It is that sort of justification (the need for public action) which was apparently behind the gross exaggerations of truth which led to the US invasion of Iraq. --W.
• 2007-10-03 Stop the Global Warming Campaign: We Have the Power to Win This Fight by Phil Brennan: argues that global warming is a fiction which the government as using as an excuse to enact new laws which will gradually restrict our freedoms. Sounds like a twisted version of the reality that the War on Terror is being used for that same end -- is this a partial truth (our freedoms are in danger) concealing a lie (the claim that GW is a fraud), or is there some truth to it (that GW, fraud or real, is being used as an excuse to curtail freedoms)? The only GW measures even being considered, as far as I am aware, do not in any way restrict personal freedom, but only the "freedoms" of giant corporations which emit environmentally-significant amounts of waste.
• 2006-06-12 Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe by Tom Harris (warning: popups)

climate change deniers"

• 2005-05-04 [http://www.democracynow.org/articleDyson%7CD