Global warming

Overview

Global warming refers to the idea that the Earth's average temperature could significantly increase to the point where it will have noticeable (and probably detrimental) effects on how people live.

Also known as: climate change

Debate

The following points of debate have pretty much been resolved (see #News for details regarding the answers):

whether or not the Earth is currently on a general warmining trend – yes
whether or not this will have significant effects on anyone – yes
whether or not those effects will be bad – in the short term, yes; beyond that depends on a lot of unknown factors

There continues to be debate on the following points:

whether or not this trend, if it is real, will continue
whether or not the warming is being caused by humanity (strong circumstantial evidence that it is)
- Could be caused by random climatic drift
- Could be caused by changes in any of countless variables, e.g. the sun's energy output
whether it is in humanity's best interest to attempt countermeasures (as opposed to "letting nature take its course")
what sorts of countermeasures should be taken (e.g. should we try to counteract the warming trend itself, or just be prepared to deal with the changing climate and rising sea levels as they happen?)

There appears to be some considerable political pressure to deny that there is a dangerous warming trend.

Difficulty of Resolution

Part of the problem is that the issue has become heavily politicized, largely because direct countermeasures (attempts to counteract the warming trend) tend to be unpopular amongst those who would need to implement them, and those who would need to implement them are generally large businesses with significant amounts of political clout and ability to drive the discussion in directions favorable to them.

Another part of the problem is that determining whether or not the phenomenon is of genuine concern requires the integration of large amounts of data – over long timespans and a large number of different geographical locations – in order to notice subtle real effects without raising false alarms due to temporary or local effects.

Contrary Opinions

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: 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

Arguments against global warming:

~~Global warming is junk science~~: the specific arguments advanced have so far proven to be specious
~~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

2006-07-02 Don't Believe the Hype: "Al Gore is wrong. There's no 'consensus' on global warming."
2006-06-12 Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe by Tom Harris (warning: popups)
2006-04-12 Climate of Fear by Richard Lindzen: "Global-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence"

Reference

Wikipedia: |Global warming| |Global warming controversy|
Conflicting Claims on Global Warming and Why It's All Moot at LiveScience
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Sustainable Community Action - sca21:category:Climate change
Green Knowledge Wiki
Common Questions about Climate Change by United Nations Environment Programme - World Meteorological commOrganization
The Royal Society (UK) index of articles and statements on climate change
How to Talk to a Global Warming Sceptic: an excellent collection of skeptical arguments-and-responses

Discussion

Chaos Manor Special Report: collection of short & long pieces, some very detailed; does not seem to be parroting anyone's party line
- Subject: Climate change and Richard Lindzen

Significant Points

Al Gore at the TED 2006 conference has some good overviews on the Global Warming situation: "There's no real disagreement about global warming – a survery of peer reviewed papers showed 928 supporting a theory of global warming and 0 opposing it. But there's a powerful lobby that is producing doubt, and suceeding – a survey ... reveals that 53% of popular press articles have some doubt about global warming."
2005-05-04 ExxonMobil Spends Millions Funding Global Warming Skeptics: doesn't automatically invalidate global warming skepticism, but any argument which starts with "many authorities seem to agree that it's not happening" should be aware that the balance may have been tilted a bit.

Possible Solutions

"stabilization wedges": No single solution will be efficient enough fast enough, but in combination they may be enough
2006-09-01 A Road Map to U.S. Decarbonization by Reuel Shinnar and Francesco Citro, Science magazine: "Alternative energy sources could replace 70% of fossil fuels in America within 30 years at a cost of $200 billion per year."

Humor

2006-08-24 Grant money: cartoon by D.C. Simpson, I Drew This

News Articles

2006-10-04 Scientists Issue Global Warming Report
2006-09-25 Global warming nears ‘dangerous’ level "Researchers say average temperatures are close to a million-year high"
2006-09-21 Richard Branson pledges $3B to fight climate change
2006-07-27
- Cold, Hard Facts: op-ed by Peter Doran, a polar researcher whose paper on the Antarctic climate has often been misinterpreted (by e.g. Michael Crichton) as strong evidence of global cooling, or at least evidence against global warming
- Leaked Memo Reveals Coal Industry Propoganda Plan
2006-07-20 The Heat Is On by Peggy Noonan seems to be blaming scientists for not having a firm consensus on the issue. Is this the signalling shot for a conservative attempt to shift the blame as the reality becomes inescapable?
A response from Stefan Jones on Contrary Brin:

For twenty years you and the other faithful lapdogs of industry have dutifully parroted the sophistry fed to you by the fossil fuel crowd and by free-market ideologues. As the evidence mounted, you moved on to the next set of bogus arguments... and you blame scientists for being dishonest?

Also, the claim that there is no scientific consensus on global warming is a myth; see The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

2006-07-14 First half of 2006 is warmest on record
2006-04-02 Cooler Heads Needed on Warming By George Will
2006-03-17 Statistical Analysis Bolsters Theory Linking Warmer Oceans to Stronger Hurricanes (slashdot)
2006-03-02 NASA Mission Detects Significant Antarctic Ice Mass Loss
2006-02-16 Greenland Ice-Loss Doubles in Past Decade, Raising Sea Level Faster
- Greenland's glaciers are speeding to the ocean: different article on same study; glaciers moving faster than expected
2006-02-13 Snows of Kilimanjaro disappearing, glacial ice loss increasing
2006-01-30 Top climatologist accuses US of trying to gag him: James Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist, has accused the Bush administration of trying to stop him from speaking out after he called for swift cuts in emissions of the greenhouse gases linked to global warming...
2006-01-25 2005 was the warmest year on record
2006-01-18 the blame is not with the plants (in case anyone was confused about that)
2006-01-09 Tiny Ocean Creatures Tell of Global Warming
2006-01 Decoder: "How the White House edits out global warming" by Paul Rauber
2005-12-19 Most of Arctic's near-surface permafrost to thaw by 2100
2005-12-08
- Greenland Glaciers Retreating
- Pacific islanders move to escape global warming: A small community living in the Pacfic island chain of Vanuatu has become one of the first, if not the first, to be formally moved out of harm's way as a result of global warming.
2005-12-07 Global Warming Could Halt Ocean Circulation, With Harmful Results: "[This] has been characterized as a high-consequence, low-probability event. Our analysis [...] indicates it is a high-consequence, high-probability event."
2005-12-02 Atlantic currents show signs of weakening
2005-11-28 Close Coupling Of Climate With Green House Gases In The Past
2005-11-25
- New ice cores expand view of climate history: climate of the past 200 years clearly an anomaly; "There is now no question this is due to human influence."
- Global Warming Doubles Rate Of Ocean Rise (alt): improved historical data show increase since Industrial Revolution started
- Ice cores and climate change: more links and analysis
2005-11-24 New evidence; Today's atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are highest in 650,000 years
2005-11-11 Impact of regional climate change on human health (news brief)
2005-11-03 Study Shows Escalating Climate Change Impacts...
2005-11-02 Modeling Of Long-term Fossil Fuel Consumption Shows 14.5 Degree Hike In Temperature
2005-10-13 World Temperatures Keep Rising With a Hot 2005 By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Staff Writer
2005-09-23 CNN: New era of hurricanes "But don't rush to blame it on global warming, experts warn."
2005-09-16 Global warming 'past the point of no return'
2005-05-10 The (UK) Guardian: "David Bellamy's inaccurate and selective figures on glacier shrinkage are a boon to climate change deniers"
2004-12-03 The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change