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CLIMATE SCIENCE
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I am not a scientist (except maybe in manner of thinking, occasionally).
I've taken very few physical science classes after Freshman year in hs. Chem & Physics in hs 50 years ago, 1 general sci class in college; all totalling only 5 semesters. I've taken math classes which occasionally help me some but they're not the same thing as science classes.
I do have a strong opinion about C*****e C****e, anyway. Presumably I'm biased. (Virtually everybody's biased about some things.)
HOW MUCH WORK WOULD IT TAKE TO FIND OUT?
How much work would it take a lay person such as myself to find out whether "g****l w*****g is real" or "g****l w*****g is a h**x"? A lot, I think. S/he would have to study scientific papers and discover, first-hand by reading and understanding, which ones are well done and which ones are shoddily done.
Is there a way to do so without bias? Probably. As above. But it would take enough work that hardly anyone would do it. A dedicated scientist might do it. But even scientists can be biased or lazy. I'm guessing most scientists (good, useful people though they are) are either biased or lazy, just like almost all of us.
THE USUAL SHORTCUT: JUDGE THE CHARACTER OF THE MESSENGER
The usual approach to such questions, I think, is to judge the factions' characters. For example, such and such group, think tank, industry, or political party have wasted our time in the past, so we're not going to pay attention to them now. Or we may judge their manner of expression. For example we might think that those prone to inflammatory statements, or derogatory utterances about _other_ peoples' characters, or incomplete sentences, are less worthy.
THE LAY-PERSON'S GUIDE TO EVERYTHING
This evening I spent a half hour or so researching it in Duckduckgo.com (a search engine on the web, which claims it doesn't track the user -- therefore avoiding some bias in its list of results). I entered search queries such as:
g****l w*****g nations science leaders
I was looking for an enumeration of nations and nations' official science leaders who have given official statements about g****l w*****g (or "c*****e c****e" which is a phrase used more often lately).
(Why would they used to say "g****l w*****g" but now instead they would say "c*****e c****e"? Maybe because "warming" is so often misinterpreted as a description about _weather_; whereas the g****l w*****g of _climate_ is the real topic that the scientists are discussing.)
STRUCK GOLD!
This Wikipedia article is probably as good as I'm going to get in one evening:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_changeHere's a rough partial summary of it:
"Statements by scientific organizations of national or international standing":
These are classified by whether they agree, disagree, or are noncommittal with respect to the "IPCC view".
IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel on C*****e C****e
The "IPCC view" (in 2007 -- the date cited in this Wikipedia article) is (summarized by me):
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THE IPCC VIEW:
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"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal ..."
and
"Most of the g****l w*****g since the mid-20th century is very likely due to human activities."
and
"... Overall, net effects are more likely to be strongly negative ..." where negative means bad.
Etc.
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CONCURRING:
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(in 2001) "the science academies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom."
(in 2005) "The national science academies of" "Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States".
(in 2007) "the national science academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States". And: "the science academies of Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, as well as the African Academy of Sciences".
(in 2008) (similar to 2007)
(in 2009) (similar to 2007)
(in 2007) also: "the General Assembly of the Polish Academy of Sciences".
(in 2006) the "American Association for the Advancement of Science"
(in 2008) the "Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies"
(in 2001) the "United States National Research Council"
Plus about 40 or so other organizations (too numerous to list here but if you're curious you can see them in the same Wikipedia article).
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NON-COMMITTAL:
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"American Association of Petroleum Geologists"
"American Institute of Professional Geologists"
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OPPOSING:
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It says:
"See also: List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of g****l w*****g" (that's a link) (I did not bother to follow it; it would be a list of scientists, not a list of international nor national official organizations.)
(As you can see, I'm favoring the national and international scientific bodies, rather than individual scientists. Does this reflect some bias that I have? Maybe.)
and:
"Since 2007, when the American Association of Petroleum Geologists released a revised statement,[24] no national or international scientific body rejects the findings of human-induced effects on c*****e c****e."
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My Conclusion:
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I already said I was presumably biased. The Wikipedia article has not _changed_ my opinion; it confirms it (rather strongly, I think).
A quick reading shows that (according to that Wikipedia article) the only mentioned "national or international scientific body" which _might_have_ rejected "the findings of human-induced effects on c*****e c****e" would be: (drum roll ...):
The American Association of Petroleum Geologists
(does that word "Petroleum" suggest a bias?)
and a closer reading reveals that as of 2007 even THEY didn't reject the findings.
Their (AAPG's) backing off from the topic makes interesting reading; there are two paragraphs about that in the same article, in the "Non-committal" section.
The whole Wikipedia article could be biased; we don't know what it leaves out. (And, I didn't even bother to look at the list of dissenting scientists -- I was only considering the nat'l & internat'l org's of scientists.)
And, the dates indicate the article may be as much as 9 or 10 years old.
Nonetheless I think it's convincing.
Let someone post an opposing article, similar to this Wikipedia article -- go ahead, go where even the AAPG does not dare to go.
My conclusion is: yes, of course g****l w*****g is real and humanity's causing a lot of it and humanity should stop emitting so much greenhouse gases. Duh. And it's urgent and very important.
(And (in my additional opinion, meanwhile), even aside from all that about g****l w*****g, humanity should stop polluting so much anyway -- even if the "g****l w*****g" issue _were_ a h**x. Pollution's been a huge problem all along, even before anyone identified "g****l w*****g" as an issue.)