Global warming consensus - Cracking or Broken?

[Robroy]

Looks like the plot thickens on the demise of the GW "consensus".

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonia ... xml&coll=7

A snippet:
Elsewhere, a former climate change alarmist detailed what you might call his change of science. David Evans was a consultant to the "Australian Greenhouse Office" from 1999 to 2005. He helped craft the carbon accounting model measuring Australia's Kyoto Protocol compliance.

"When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good . . .," he wrote recently in The Australian. "The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? . . . But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming."

Evans notes a few telling facts: One, scientists have looked for hot spots in the atmosphere -- places where a possible cause of global warming occurs first and most -- and have found . . . none: "If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming." Two, he points out what scientists have found: Ice-core samples showing the six global warmings over the past half-million years occurred an average of 800 years before any uptick in atmospheric carbon, satellite temperature readings showing the recent warming trend ended in 2001, and the temperature has fallen about 0.6 C in the past year -- to the 1980 level.

[Robroy]

This is pretty powerful stuff, actually:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 83,00.html

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[lamont]

[Charles Dean]

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[Charles Dean]

I personally tend to be an evolution agnostic. I think that scientific theory is such that evolution is currently the best explanation for something that we can really only hypothesize about.

I also don't understand why belief or non-belief in evolution is necessary for belief or non-belief in God.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[lamont]

[Charles Dean]

My thing with evolution has always been that there is some interesting evidence that I have read discounting evolution and some interesting theories, like that the Earth as a hyperbaric chamber prior to the great flood. Also about many pre-historic creatures that are still alive today.

That being said, I actually just started reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scie ... 0743286391
It's by one of the main scientists behind the human genome project, who is also a Christian. He's a firm believer in evolution, but thinks that the more we go down the path in science the more complicated everything is and the harder it is to deny the existence of God.

Lamont, have you read the graphic novel "The Watchmen"? There is a movie being made about it currently.

If you haven't read it, in the story there is a character who is given God-like powers while working on nuclear testing.

In many ways, I feel this book is telling the story of how God or a God may be created. It's not what I believe as far as God goes, but it makes for an interesting idea on what God might or could be.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[Charles Dean]

That's a good point on the hyperbaric chamber thing. I mean, there's no way to prove it unless someone lives in one of course.

The main problem with creationist theory is that they start out with the premise that the Earth is only 6000 years old, then try to fix the facts around it.

As far as "prehistoric" creatures, there's the coelacanth, horseshoe crabs, alligators and crocs, sharks that I can remember.

Also if you're into cryptozoology, there's also Mokele-mbembe. I find cryptozoology to be terribly entertaining.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[Charles Dean]