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Apr 30, 2009 05:45 PM | 43
Eminent physicist Freeman Dyson raised eyebrows a month ago when he told the New York Times Magazine that a little extra carbon dioxide—and global warming—might turn out to be good for the planet. So when we saw his name on an event around the corner from Scientific American's offices we figured we'd go hear his criticisms, dubbed "Climate Disasters, Safe Nukes and Other Myths," firsthand.
At the luncheon put on by the Cato Institute, when the talk turned to climate change Dyson started out sounding as if the whole thing was overblown, noting that the prospect of global warming is a problem that should be taken seriously. But he also said that no one should be alarmed about it yet.
Then he outlined his main criticism: Too much of the science of climate change relies on computer models, he argued, and those models are crude mathematical approximations of the real world. After all, a simple cloud—small in scale, big in climate effects, the product of evaporation and condensation, all of which it is difficult to create equations for—eludes the most sophisticated climate models.
So climate modelers turn to what they call parameters or, as Dyson likes to call them: "fudge factors." These are approximations, such as the average cloudiness of a particular spot at a particular time, that are then applied globally. With the help of about 100 of these parameters, models can now closely match the world's present day climate, Dyson says. These models then, like the one developed at Princeton University where Dyson is a professor emeritus, are "useful for understanding climate but not for predicting climate."
That's too much of a temptation for scientists working on the problem, however. "If you live with models for 10 to 20 years, you start to believe in them," Dyson said, witness the implosion of the financial markets after over-reliance on quantitative models. He characterized this over-reliance as a disease infecting everything from physics to biology: "A model is such a fascinating toy that you fall in love with your creation."
Ultimately, "every model has to be compared to the real world and, if you can't do that, then don't believe the model." And he noted that the real world has been through some significant climate changes before: witness a lush Sahara Desert thousands of years ago or the forests that once covered Greenland.
Of course, models have been tested against the real world (both today's and eons ago's) and many of Dyson's other objections have been rebutted elsewhere. He also did not address the real world impacts already observed: ice melt, sea level rise, ocean acidification and more. His main concern seems to be that worrying about climate change distracts from more important problems such as poverty and infectious disease. Many might note that poverty (the inundation of Bangladesh) and infectious disease (improved conditions for transmission) are also problems exacerbated by climate change.
But Dyson's purpose seems to be to throw out "heretical" ideas that can then spur further debate. (As even he would admit, his heresies are a little more grounded in the real world when he's talking about nuclear weapons. Before discussing climate change, he told a roomful of people who probably want to put former President Ronald Reagan on Mount Rushmore that the Great Communicator blew a real chance to rid the world of nuclear weapons in 1986 because he was too attached to the "Star Wars" missile defense program.) As he said: "I know a lot about nuclear weapons and nothing about climate change."
"I like to express heretical opinions," Dyson said, with an impish gleam in his eye. "They might even happen to be true."
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43 Comments
Add CommentGotta love Dyson! Complete reliance on computer models to predict climate change wouldn't be prudent. So it's a good thing that we have much more to go on. Reading his criticism on it is refreshing. I'd like to read more on what he says about the nukes though.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInstead of snide little articles like this, it would be useful if SciAm would run an in-depth review of the premises, limitations, and "accuracy" of climate prediction models (I put "accuracy" in quotes because it's difficult to talk about accuracy in the field of long-term prediction -- you won't know if you're prediction of a data point 100 years from now is accurate until, well, 100 years from now). Dyson's main point -- that today's models are too crude and the variables too numerous to predict something as complex as long-term climate change -- is an argument I've heard experts in computer modeling make before. To dismiss it, as this report does, with the offhand comment "Of course, models have been tested against the real world (both today's and eons ago's)" is ridiculous.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDyson seems to have moved from a the vague ramble he published in Edge magazine a couple of years ago to a single complaint: models are useful for understanding climate but not for predicting it. Speaking as a climate modeler, I agree. The point I take away is that some understanding does emerge from this among other scientific pursuits within the climate sciences. Dyson wants us to take away that the models do not themselves count as tools for prediction. This is correct. It is the understanding toward which the models contribute that provides those tools.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is from this understanding, and not directly from the model prognostications, that the warning that climatologists are trying so hard to convey emerges. I have never met a climate modeler who overvalued the results of climate models in the way Dyson describes.
Climate model parameters have real physical meanings and should not be called "fudge factors". They represent the aggregate of physical processes happening on scales too fine to resolve. They are thus quantities which have a true physical value. While such numbers may be very difficult to measure, they are not in priniciple unmeasurable, and some significant measurement work is undertaken to refine these values in the field.
That aside, and while these numbers are indeed key to model behavior, it must be said that climate models are viewed as successful insofar as they reproduce observable features of the contemporary climate. Such models, including the parameters however obtained, are in rough agreement about the sensitivity of the climate system to greenhouse forcing: perhaps it can be argued that a factor of 2 disagreement remains, but not more than that.
Those hoping to delay carbon emissions policy, among whom Dyson, it appears, must be counted, don't need to stop at scoffing at the models and their fudge factors. Anyone is welcome to take the time to find some other set of numbers that models today's climate equally well that shows tolerably small changes in the climate a century hence under unconstrained emission scenarios. Nobody has succeeded in doing so.
This is not surprising, because models are good for understanding, and so we have some. It is our understanding that indicates that greenhouse gases changes are a powerful forcing of the system, and that changes in policy are necessary.
He makes a lot of sense to me. Some of my ancestors walked from Siberia to Alaska when the sea level was 300 feet lower than it is today. It will be horrible when the sea level rises two more feet but no one has told me why. It is horrible that the glaciers in the Alps are melting back to the point where they are uncovering Roman roads. I don't know why. It is also bad that the glaciers on the Andes are melting and uncovering Inca tombs. I don't know why. Since in the past when the World has increased in temperature only a few more degrees, the Sahara has turned into a forest and a massive carbon dioxide sink, why won't it do it again? Why are all my questions dismissed?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree, our biggest problem is nuclear weapons especially if they fall into the hands of the Taliban. A suicide semi can wreak havoc.
We know that two thousand plus years ago a lush Sahara Desert allowed the Romans to capture animals on the North African coast that could never travel there today and the forests that once covered parts of Greenland attracted Norse settlement. But what Dyson doesn't seem to discuss is that two thousand years ago cities or settlements were smaller and people could more easily relocate. Today crops and animals are limited in range. We need to worry about the "tipping point" that changes the global climate so much, and so quickly, that humans, and the animals and plants they rely on, are negatively effected. The consequences of the permafrost melting and releasing megatons of methane has already begun. The melt would increase fresh water flowing out of the Arctic lands and slowing, or changing, the thermal haline (or saline) circulation in the Northern Atlantic which has in the past, and will in the future, lead to another ice age -- or, at least, an exaggeration of the current Ice Age we are technically still in. It is an accepted fact that the world climate can change far faster than human cultures can, as shown by the many cultures lost to drought and freezing in mere decades-long weather.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd the CIA told Reagan that the Soviets were collapsing years before he gave that "tear down this wall" speech. He drove this country into debt and never investigated the grievances the air traffic controllers had. Sadly, the guy was the most competent clown the republicans have come-up with since Nixon. So, no more joking about Reagan on Rushmore, the insult to the Lakota and Cheyenne is already deep enough.
Freeman Dyson makes an excellent point about the unintended "falling in love" with computer models. They are great tools for discovery, but because their accuracy is unknown, they may not be the best tools for prediction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm afraid the "falling in love" factor is true of a lot of areas of research where a scientist, understandably, develops a strong attachment to his own theories and tends to dismiss contrary evidence, as mtobis demonstrates.
The models may be in rough agreement about greenhouse forcing, but the real world apparently doesn't agree. The models show strong correlations between, for example, CO2 and warming, but measurements of global temperatures and CO2 in the atmosphere don't. Perhaps the modelers are evincing similar biases that preclude them from considering other factors that may be diminishing the presumed effect of greenhouse gases.
Long before governmental policy changes will have a measurable effect on CO2, human innovation and technology will reduce emissions. That we should reduce emissions of course presumes that increasing CO2 is bad for us, and we don't know that. In fact, we can see that it's actually beneficial in numerous ways.
I doubt that Freeman Dyson's comment about expressing heretical opinions was a self-indictment of his arguments about global warming so much as it was his humorous way of suggesting that the argument is still open, rather than closed as so many global warming believers insist.
Anyone know how the weather over memorial day is supposed to be?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hope its sunny... :)
Freeman Dyson is actually Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, not Princeton University. Although located in Princeton, the Institute is not now, nor has it ever been, affiliated with the University.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Cato Institute is run by the industrialists who do not want to change the way they do business. Dr. Dyson is just a pawn in their game to obfuscate the issue of global climate change and to delay as long as possible the dramatic changes needed to change our society form carbon based energy to renewable energy. There is not way to prove the current climate modes are correct just as there is not way to prove that they are wrong. Nothing is certain. But based on the best evidence, it is clear that human activity, particularly the consumption of fossil fuels, is a cause of global warming. This warming, if unchecked, will result in significant harm to the environment and to our quality of life. Given the probability of great harm it is only prudent to take immediate action to prevent this from happening. If we wait until we are certain there is a problem it will be too late to do anything about it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDyson thinks like a scientist, which is a skill most do not grasp. For example, if climate varies naturally then observed warming is not per se evidence of human induced warming. Then too, if it has not warmed globally for 10 years then local warming is just local, such as in the Arctic. It must have cooled someplace else. Science is subtle stuff. That is what makes great scientists great.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI shake my head in wondering how so many people can be so ignorant. People are so easily swayed by others that they don't stop to think for themselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGlobal warming is a non-issue. It may - or may not - be happening but it isn't like this is the first time it has happened on this place we call earth. Those who deny this are ignorant. The earth has gone through many periods of global warming, from many different causes, throughout its billions of years of existence - and guess what? it survived!
Are our CO2 emissions contributing to a possible global warming? Yes! Is it significant? NO! However, the global warming advocates are hiding a greater problem. One that is measurable and that we can see every day of our lives. Our air, water and environment in are being polluted to the point that it will kill us long before global warming does.
This is something that people can see, smell, breath and understand far better than cutting CO2 emissions to stop global warming (which just won't happen). Every time a bus or large truck drives by or every-time you fly into a major city you can SEE the pollution - caused by burning fossil fuels - and then you breath it into your longs and you then smell it, taste it and feel it. Our health problems for the most part can be directly related to the air pollution. It is measurable.
The same goes for our waters and environment. We see sludge and oil and deformed aquatic creatures in our fresh water streams and rivers and we see and hear about the oceans being overwhelmed by the products of man. Every day I drive our country's highways I see pollution in the form of litter marring the beauty of our environment. All are a direct or indirect result of burning fossil fuels.
If we are really concerned about this place we call home and the environment we have to live in then we should redirect our concern from reducing CO2 to reducing pollution. That is something the majority of the world population can see, measure and possibly get behind rather then trying to reduce something we can't see, taste or smell. And guess what? We'll accomplish the same thing much quicker because we won't be able to get out of it by trading carbon credits! What a scam that is!
A quick note about computer models. They are programmed by humans all of whom have a bias and make mistakes. One small snippet of code in millions of lines of code can lean the results anyway the programmer wants it to - or didn't intend it to. Like the people who model clothes, their intention is to show off the best aspects of their side.
As with the person who said some of the "Article's" remarks were snide - I agree. The name of the Journal is the "Scientific American".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps the Journal needs to go back and refresh itself on the "Scientific Method". Some one suggested you could just Google "global warming lies" to get a bit of a view from the other side.
"Dyson thinks like a scientist, which is a skill most do not grasp. For example, if climate varies naturally then observed warming is not per se evidence of human induced warming."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour sarcasm is subtle but effective.
Obviously, a real scientist would want to know more about the natural variability -- its strength, its period, its timing, its correlation with human-induced warming -- before making claims that it somehow disproves the (experimentally observed!) human-induced greenhouse warming.
Naturally, real scientists have done this, and observed that natural cycles of climate variability have neither the period, nor the strength, of human-induced warming. And the timing would be awfully coincidental.
Climate deniers, on the other hand, are almost all content to affirm that natural variability exists, then leap to the conclusion that human-induced warming is a myth.
I hope that was sarcasm, otherwise you're hoist by your own petard.
@DWojick: "Dyson thinks like a scientist, which is a skill most do not grasp. For example, if climate varies naturally then observed warming is not per se evidence of human induced warming."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour sarcasm is subtle but effective.
Obviously, a real scientist would want to know more about the natural variability -- its strength, its period, its timing, its correlation with human-induced warming -- before making claims that it somehow disproves the (experimentally observed!) human-induced greenhouse warming.
Real scientists have done this, of course, and observed that natural cycles of climate variability have neither the period, nor the strength, of human-induced warming. And the timing of this variability would have to be awfully coincidental.
Climate deniers, on the other hand, are almost all content to affirm that natural variability exists, then leap to the conclusion that human-induced warming is a myth.
(I hope that was sarcasm, otherwise you're hoist by your own petard.)
I still think he's a denialist, but this article made me more sympathetic to Dyson. Just look at him - he's like a cute little elf! Who cares if he's giving ammunition to the delayers who would mortgage our children's future for a few more years of business-as-usual?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDyson knows science and scientific criticism, Biello debates him from Biello's view only, but Dyson won the debate with "a simple cloud" analogy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisParameters developed from "average cloudiness of a particular spot at a particular time" as Biello said, Dyson said: are "fudge factors" when applied globally.
Climate is topo-centric or local and H2O in the complexity of location and the moving clouds or lack thereof forms local climate.
We should Focus on conservation and on understanding local climate until science can advance by real observation supported by consistent local interval data collected all over the globe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat thinker Freeman Dyson, a highly respected nuclear physicist, certainly has a point. Do not wholeheartedly trust every model that is helping climatologists in their predictions.
Models are built to explain phenomena. When they are found to work, they would be adapted before adopted faithfully, albeit often at best only close approximations.
But climate must be seen as a long term science, covering an epoch of hundreds if not thousands of years. What happens in a matter of decades may not reflect the exact trend of its evolvement.
Let the discourse on climate change continue.
(Tan Boon Tee, btt1943)
I am quite serious. Great scientists look at a body of knowledge and see great questions. Dyson sees that we do not know why climate changes. Over the last 70 years it has warmed for just one 20 year period, roughly 1978-98. CO2 levels rose steadily for the entire 70 years, so cannot explain this burst of warming. What does explain it we do not know.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNor do we know that there are periodic cycles in natural variability, much less their so-called strength. The data is aperiodic, or episodic, probably chaotic but again we do not know.
Given this there has been no observational confirmation of the theory of human induced warming. The models merely demonstrate that it is physically possible, but the data do not particularlysupport it. The fact is that we do not know why climate changes, and there are many theories in play. This is what Dyson sees, a great question.
I made a comment similar to what Dyson's, in a q&a session after a talk by a climatologist.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI asked, are there parameters in the climate models that are tweaked to get the model to fit historical data?
Yes, he said. A lot.
So then you tweak these parameters to fit a time series of climate data. There's only one time series available to fit, apparently.
And the question then is, if you tweak these parameters, why do you think you have a model that's accurate enough to predict the future? On the basis of that one time series of climate data? You're tweaking hundreds of parameters. Probably many different tweakings will cause the model to fit the historical time series. How do you know you've hit one the one tweaking that's best to predict all climate in general?
I'm not a climatologist and I don't know if that's a meaningful criticism. I used to work on computer models of protein dynamics, though, and they were very inaccurate, even though the parameters, like Van der Waals forces & hydrogen bond forces, were accurate. Probably anybody who works on models of complicated natural processes is skeptical about them.
That doesn't mean that global warming is a scientists' delusion, though. The basic idea, of excess CO2 warming the earth, and the earth's temperatures tracking along with the CO2, has a very solid foundation, from what I've read. The global warming skepticism is emotionally motivated, I think. People don't want to believe it, it's too drastic.
The earth's temperature has not "tracked with the CO2." In modern times the CO2 has risen steadily for the last 70 years but the temperature only rose for for the roughly 20 year period from 1978-1998. Temperatures have been flat or falling since 1998, even though CO2 levels have risen steadily. It was flat or falling from 1938-1978. There is no correlation, no tracking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is also the uncertain but popular 600,000 year ice core record in which CO2 levels seem to track temperature but lag it by 800 years or so, so temperature does not track CO2, quite the opposite. In between we have little to go on as the data are mixed. But there is no case in which temperature has tracked with CO2 levels. That is one of the great myths.
Once again, Dyson's point is that we do not know why climate changes. It is all speculation at this point. Speculation is the heart of science.
David Wojick
http://www.climatechangedebate.org
@TacitVox:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat the heck were you babbling about at the end of your tirade (Reagan?!?) You climate-change guys are whacked out of your skulls...Take some meds for the ADD will ya?
Remember the Club of Rome and Limits to Growth. Their model fitted the data and was completely wrong when used for prediction. The huge waste of money arising from carbon trading and the like would pay for a great deal of adaptation to a change in climate driven by natural forces other than man. The anthropogenic theory is just the latest human hubris and is just as foolish as the idea that the earth is the centre of the universe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust look online and you can find sites that convincingly explain the correlation between CO2 and temperature. For example http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2009/03/does-co2-correlate-with-temperature.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's easy to manipulate statistics to be deceptive, especially since a lot of people don't know about things like confidence values. But wrong.
I just googled "CO2 temperature" to find that one.
No, the basic principle that more CO2 warms the earth is solidly founded.
Laura
The CO2 rising after temperature rises does not cast doubt on CO2 causing global warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen the oceans are warmed, they give up carbon dioxide.
Thus there's a feedback effect going on, where increased CO2 causes temperatures to rise, which increases CO2 levels. It means that increasing CO2 is actually a powerful way of warming the planet, because of this feedback effect.
See http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm
It is my opinion that skewed data should be a criminal offense. If one takes a gas reading of a healthy pond during the day the ox will be med to high, and CO2 will be med to low, however if one repeats the same exercise just before the sun comes up the ox levels will be extremely low with a high CO2 level. The same pond no changes, but the time is the only parameter change. The dark side of photosynthesis is no longer thought in schools.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf i wished to skew data on, plankton surface water gas levels, I could do the same, with the same results.
Going back on the "net" I have found it hard to find the climate models I
had found in the passed, it you ran them, you would know why.
SA leans the artical on Dyson to seemingly weak points however, on closer exam people that haven't ruled out changes in the sun's radiant output or the knowledge that the Earths orbit is not perfectly round leaves other reasons for changes, up or doun, in temps.
The end results of cap and trade will create many times the pollution that it says it will reduce, by sending metal creating work over to China and India- soft coal heating without any discharge scrubbing will be, more of what they already do.
It is my opinion that skewed data should be a criminal offense. If one takes a gas reading of a healthy pond during the day the ox will be med to high, and CO2 will be med to low, however if one repeats the same exercise just before the sun comes up the ox levels will be extremely low with a high CO2 level. The same pond no changes, but the time is the only parameter change. The dark side of photosynthesis is no longer thought in schools.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf i wished to skew data on, plankton surface water gas levels, I could do the same, with the same results.
Going back on the "net" I have found it hard to find the climate models I
had found in the passed, it you ran them, you would know why.
SA leans the artical on Dyson to seemingly weak points however, on closer exam people that haven't ruled out changes in the sun's radiant output or the knowledge that the Earths orbit is not perfectly round leaves other reasons for changes, up or doun, in temps.
The end results of cap and trade will create many times the pollution that it says it will reduce, by sending metal creating work over to China and India- soft coal heating without any discharge scrubbing will be, more of what they already do.
But there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature over the last 70 years. CO2 rose steadily and temperature did not increase for 50 of the 70 years. All we have is a single 20 year rise in the surface temperature reconstruction (which is not a measurement by the way) and, even worse, a single jump in the sattelite record. Elaborate computer models have been constructed to try to explain this great lack of correlation, but models are just speculation. Nor do the models agree.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is still a big question, which is Dyson's point. The state of the science is one of controversy, so there are no good explanations. There are no observations that confirm the theory of human induced warming.
David Wojick
http://www.climatechangedebate.org
The interglacial CO2 feedback theory is a speculation, not an explanation, and it has serious problems. We see this happen at ever interglacial so why does it happen? How does it start? Why does it stop? Even worse the 800 year lag time scale is completely inconsistent with modeling of the present case, where things happen in decades to centuries. It is still a big question. We do not know why climate changes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDavid Wojick
http://www.climatechangedebate.org
I wouldn't take Freeman Dyson too seriously. From the photo it looks like he has one foot in the grave already, so what does he care, eh? I'd wager he isn't planning on retiring to Florida. He's lived his life, so a wait-and-see tactic is probably pretty appealing to him, he won't live to see it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHuman induced, or natural? A lot of old ice at the poles is melting, I really don't care why it's melting or if its our fault. The fact that it IS melting is a cause for concern. If we can do something to slow or reverse this trend, I think we probably should. Should we worry about it? No, worrying isn't going to help the situation, so Dyson is right on that count. But we should be concerned, should be trying to evaluate the human contribution to the problem, and be looking at ways to reduce the impact of global warming to our global civilization. Human-induced or natural warming is not an issue we need to resolve before we resolve to take action.
Tornados are natural events, do you refuse to heed warnings and take shelter from one because it is a natural phenomenon?
It seems to me that many of the people who posit that global warming is a natural phenomenon believe that no response is necessary on the part of humanity should it turn out to be so. I admire their willingness to lay down their lives and the lives of their children when mother nature comes a knockin', but when the tornado comes to my home, maybe I'll just head for the basement. I don't care if its a natural tornado or a man-made one; I know that if I get in its way, I'm the one that's going to lose.
Very old ice is melting, therefore global warming is real, whatever the cause, and we are in its way, and we are going to lose. The real questions are, just how much are we going to lose, and how fast are we going to lose it? Is there anything we can do to mitigate the damage to our civilization?
Jim Barzydlo
I wouldn't take Freeman Dyson too seriously. From the photo it looks like he has one foot in the grave already, so what does he care, eh? I'd wager he isn't planning on retiring to Florida. He's lived his life, so a wait-and-see tactic is probably pretty appealing to him, he won't live to see it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHuman induced, or natural? A lot of old ice at the poles is melting, I really don't care why it's melting or if its our fault. The fact that it IS melting is a cause for concern. If we can do something to slow or reverse this trend, I think we probably should. Should we worry about it? No, worrying isn't going to help the situation, so Dyson is right on that count. But we should be concerned, should be trying to evaluate the human contribution to the problem, and be looking at ways to reduce the impact of global warming to our global civilization. Human-induced or natural warming is not an issue we need to resolve before we resolve to take action.
Tornados are natural events, do you refuse to heed warnings and take shelter from one because it is a natural phenomenon?
It seems to me that many of the people who posit that global warming is a natural phenomenon believe that no response is necessary on the part of humanity should it turn out to be so. I admire their willingness to lay down their lives and the lives of their children when mother nature comes a knockin', but when the tornado comes to my home, maybe I'll just head for the basement. I don't care if its a natural tornado or a man-made one; I know that if I get in its way, I'm the one that's going to lose.
Very old ice is melting, therefore global warming is real, whatever the cause, and we are in its way, and we are going to lose. The real questions are, just how much are we going to lose, and how fast are we going to lose it? Is there anything we can do to mitigate the damage to our civilization?
Jim Barzydlo
Dyson is not completely wrong. 970,000,000 starving people are waiting for the rich world to take notice of them and adapt economic policies to allow them to survive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDyson is not completely wrong. 970,000,000 starving people are waiting for the rich world to take notice of them and adapt economic policies to allow them to survive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClimate modeling is just one of many arguments for humankind to abandon polluting power sources. Changing the current situation is a political problem from rapidly disappearing resources, or highly polluting, to what we need to do to continue our current power hungry civilization. Greater efficiency in using what we have is a good start. Being willing to operate more efficiently and slow down obvious wasteful ways like low mileage cars commuting on crowded freeways, for example. Science is a tool to aid in our affluent survival. I'd rather be wrong about the efficacy of modeling and right about the reasons we need to change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately science these days leans left, as does this article and most of this websites content. Sad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd SciAm misses that CO2 is a life-essential gas that increases agricultural production as its rate increases. You also missed that IF science decreases CO2 levels, it WILL CAUSE GLOBAL STARVATION by reversing the 30+% ag gains caused by CO2 increase over the past 200 years. Why doesn't SciAm discuss real issues of climate change science? Where is the discussion about a hydrogen economy reducing the hydroxyls in the atmosphere that otherwise would reduce the methane? Where is the discussion that methane is 22X more effective as a GWG than CO2 and results in part by ecological policies that force timber to rot in forests rather than be harvested for fuel? Dyson isn't being "contrary", he's sending you a message that the press isn't paying attention about real science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClimate models can be tested against observation by applying them to previously observed climate changes using data collected prior to those times. Climatologists have been doing this for many years and using the results to refine their models. Geologists have been using the same methods to evaluate models of continental drift, volcanic activity, sea floor spreading, and many more.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismceltix2000, read the article so as to not flaunt your ignorance of the comments contained within. The second to the last paragraph reads: "Before discussing climate change, he told a roomful of people who probably want to put former President Ronald Reagan on Mount Rushmore that the Great Communicator blew a real chance to rid the world of nuclear weapons in 1986 because he was too attached to the "Star Wars" missile defense program." The article concerns computer models versus observational reports and the fact that man can not know everything about the global climate that should be placed into a computer program to estimate an approximate real-world end result, but your wouldn't know that, having not read the article. You people-with-blinders-on are all alike -- be aware that though the Earth's orbit is elliptical and Sun-Spots are at a minimum (both of which would normally indicate the beginning of a global cooling cycle) glaciers are melting all over the planet. Something is changing, but obviously not the blind not seeing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissang_froid, we know that volcanoes pour out tremendous amounts of CO2, but where is the tipping point? If warming continues methane from the tundra and the underwater continental shelves will contribute to an over-all increase average temperature, which will be very inconvenient for humans and the life we depend on. If you concede that humans add to the natural greenhouse gases being released, and believe that humans as a species can't do a thing about climate change -- forgetting the small comfort they would take from believing that they are still able to maintain a comfortable climate -- turn the furnace up on a hot day, because it's gunna get hot anyway. Look at the ancient record, see how difficult life can become when the temperature increases by three to five degrees.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI discovered that I can make asleep almost everyone, who I can see or can evoke sleepiness with wink. The same goes with some animals like dogs. The object can by i a distance 50 meters too, in other room visible through a window. I must only to see his eyes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this.Who can explain it.
milospara@seznam.cz
I discovered that I can make asleep almost everyone, who I can see or can evoke sleepiness with wink. The same goes with some animals like dogs. The object can by i a distance 50 meters too, in other room visible through a window. I must only to see his eyes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this.Who can explain it.
milospara@seznam.cz
We need to tackle Climate Change just as urgently as we need to tackle the financial crisis, ressource depletion and the demographic explosion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost negationists forget this, believing that by denying global warming, the problems they will somehow go away. if we ignore the warnings, rich countries will go bankrupt and die of starvation just as the 970,000,000 others in this world of our's do.
2008 Reality check : Yes, the world was much warmer when dinosaurs roamed the earth. But they fed on plants which have since gone extinct because of lowering temperatures. If temperatures continue to increase now, those enhanced growth plants you talk of will still have to be grown hundreds of miles further north. And deserts will also move north, causing the emigrations of farmers too. Agriculture will become very problematic....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTacitvox,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI dont think the genius of Dyson is in knowing everything, but in his ability to point out the shortcomings of those who think they do. Especially the new eco gods - Hansen, Gore, Mann, Jones and Pachauri.