Are you a Skeptic or Believer Due to Location?

[stanb999]

I've often found from perusing forums like this people generally have beliefs for a reason and that reason isn't always based on reason.

What are yours?

[sigurdur]

Oct 1, 2009 17:04:14 GMT stanb999 said:

I've often found from perusing forums like this people generally have beliefs for a reason and that reason isn't always based on reason.

What are yours?

The reason I am a realist is reading the science for 30+ years on climate. I have watched forcasts based on model evidence go by the wayside. I lived through the period of the "coming ice age" and am living in the period of the coming "burning up from co2".

Neither of those scenerios are based on climate study, but rather weather. 10 years, 20 years can make a trend, but as a rule do not indicate climate.

[questioneverything]

I first learned that the Anthropogenic Global Warming might not be all it is cracked up to be in my Geology Classes in College. Geologists look at the history of the earth in ways very much different from other scientists...of course, and the number of times that it has been colder or warmer than now was quite eye opening.

They look at the rock and organism in the rocks to determine a history or an earthstory. Magnetic Changes, temperature flucuations, atmospheric gas changes, have all been written in stone, so to speak.

Although most geologists work in time periods that have taken millions of years, slow change that shows up as a blip in the fossil record, they are quick to point out that, to take a line from Battlestar Gallactica "All this has happened before, and all this will happen again."

[slh1234]

I think a lot of options are missing in the poll. I live near the ocean, just barely above sea level, but I don't fear rising sea levels, an in fact, have commented that it is imperceptible. But that really has nothing to do with my position on AGW.

[thingychambers69]

I used to be a believer. When I started to look at the "data" I began to question that belief.

And now the media states every major natural disaster is driven by AGW. When dams and levies fail, its all due to AGW. The hysteria being whipped up is amazing

[kenfeldman]

I used to be a skeptic and pretty much believed everything I read on the Wall Street Journal OpEd pages until I started reading the actual science for myself. Now I'm a believer.

I don't live near the ocean, but I think sea level rise is going to be a big problem in the next few decades. I don't live in the Southwest or the Great Plains, but I think droughts are going to have a huge impact on agricultural productivity in the next few decades (they already are in China and Australia).

We are not going to "burn up". I think that's one of the most common misconceptions I've seen about the issue. We're talking about an increase in the average global temperature of 2 to 5 degrees C by 2100, or annual changes that will be barely noticeable by most people. The physical impacts (such as the droughts and the melting of West Antarctica and Greenland) are what worry me.

It will be the change in precipitation patterns that impact most of us, with the 10% of the people living near sea level getting that little problem as well. Although, since I live in the US, I imagine that a large part of my tax dollars in the coming decades will go to building seawalls around valuable coastal property.

[twawki]

what about options like; i live near the water and dont fear sea level rise, i live in the warmth and dont fear an increase in heat etc

[astrodragon]

Indeed, what about a poll option for us Brits - something like 'the weather is completely different and random from day to day...'

[spitfire]

The climate has always been changing it has in the past and it will in the future. I believe that natural and man made reasons are what is causing climate change today. I believe that the man made reasons has little to do with C02 or green house gasses.
A few years back I went to Alaska on vacation and visited the glaciers and ice fields. I have curiosity and fascination with weather and climate change. I was surprised to learn one of the main theories and reasons that they gave for shrinking glaciers and ice fields is the increase in earthquakes in the last 50 years. It is well documented that the earth has been increasing in earthquake intensity and frequency for the last 50 years and presently in the last few years. And why has there been an increase in earthquakes? I believe that nuclear testing has caused damage to the earths crust and is the main reason for the increase.
I welcome any comments.

[sfbmikey]

I was a believer for years, every time I saw a 'contrary data' I wrote it off as misrepresentative. I consider myself scientific and deeply rational, and in the 2002-2004 timeframe, I just kept coming across seriously crap science for the clear purpose of creating panic. After I read about the complete destruction of the credibility of the 'hockey stick' I started reading deeply about it. Now I am a (mostly) non-believer. (I believe in the black body warming increase caused by CO2, believe people are at least partly responsible for increased CO2, I do not believe in the modeling, past reconstructions, or nebulous positive 'feedbacks' that elevate a .7f increase to a 5f increase )

my region (the midwest) has crazy wild temperature swings all the time anyway, so I doubt I would notice global warming from 'local trends' until it was giant-big .

[stanb999]

I know there are more reasons that one could postulate. The purpose for this posting is to see the number of folks here (A very science based board by the way) Have other or additional reasons for there beliefs. Even the few that say they looked into it because they live on the coast or a warm or cold spot by now may have different beliefs but what was the initial idea for looking in to it this closely?


Thanks for all the responses so far.

[atra]

I live in Southern California, where climatologists tell us global warming will bring us severe drought, while our meteorologists wish for another super El Nino to bring us heavy rain.

Ironic, right?

[slh1234]

Oct 3, 2009 3:13:31 GMT @atra said:

I live in Southern California, where climatologists tell us global warming will bring us severe drought, while our meteorologists wish for another super El Nino to bring us heavy rain.

Ironic, right?

I was cheering for El Nino this year for just that reason (Even though I'm in Northern California). We really need rain.

[Ratty]

We've had a couple of months above average here in North Eastern Australia with many days well above the average and practically no rain. If I didn't do some research of my own, I would be convinced that doomsday global warming was real.

With no scientific background but with the help of sites like this, I am able to keep perspective. Most people only know what they read and hear from the media. The apathetic just don't care.

Should we be heading for higher temperatures and sea levels, I'm for adaption not panic and a tax on everything.

I remain a climate change realist & tell everyone I know at every chance I get that we're being mightily misled. One interesting thing I have noticed is that most people who have lived a while are sceptical and suspicious of government motives.

I've put together an email titled "Too Many Scares" in which I detail all the crap we've been told about polar bears, hurricanes, melting ice, etc and send it to anyone who sounds interested.

Keep the faith ....

LATER: It rained last night and today is predicted to be below average ...

[sentient]

No location doesn't matter to my belief structures. I live in sunny SoCal where we have just two seasons, summer and not quite summer. Water freezes here at 50 degrees F. Just ask anyone. When it gets to 50F everyone, and I do mean everyone, will say "its freezing!"

In my case, the theory of Multiple Working Hypotheses dominates my belief structures. For every hypothesis, such as AGW, I automatically create its antithesis, and start collecting data. Ask me anytime what the truth is, and you will get a response which quotes the hypothesis which has the dominant credible amount of evidence. With AGW this is pretty much limited to the virtual reality of yet immature climate models and their almost daily new predictions. The problem here is not remembering which one is "correct" but remembering which one is the most recent. I think the most recent was 4C by 2060. If required to believe climate model predictions one is next faced with which one to believe. The most recent one? The highest one? The highest one with the nearest date? The most recent one with the highest nearest date?

The simplest paradigm is simply to believe them all as they all predict something spectacular in the next 90 years. The antithesis, of course, is to not believe any of them. Is the truth somewhere in between? New hypothesis? And its antithesis is that the truth is not.

So one can watch the weather where one is and derive empirical evidence for one's local recent climate. Expanding from there to more regional evidence gathering one might glean a larger perspective. Layer on the envelope of natural climate change and this then becomes a signal to noise deliberation with your local climate variation (signal), during the period you gather your data, probably charting somewhere within that envelope of noise.

For perspective, even within the last glacial, the Wisconsin, there were 24 Dansgaard-Oeshger oscillations, each achieving between one third to one half the warming between glacial and interglacial conditions. So we even have a noise envelope during the 90% of the time when cold conditions dominated over the past million years of about 8-10C (with local excursions to 16C).

Looked at this way, the AGW prognosticated "signal" seems rather firmly embedded within the envelope of natural noise. It would seem logical to therefore conclude that AGW is more like noise rather than signal, regardless of where one lives.