Climate Change Matrix
This webpage was
born from a question directed my way in December 2006, “what do you think about global warming?” My reply was simply, “I don’t know enough to
give you an informed opinion, but what I’ll do is research the question for the
next year or two and get back with you.”
Pretty nutty, huh? Is it loony to
defer a question like that?
While it can be
gratifying to the ego to respond in casual conversation with certainty, it is
far more important to respond with the Truth.
My research during 2007 and 2008 has taken me to places that seemed
ridiculous. Some avenues of research led
me to realize that for some people politics was more important that scientific
integrity. A conversation with people on both sides of the issue has been in
some cases very disappointing. In more than one case I’ve lost respect for
individuals who are playing politics with science. Wading through the political
dung heaps that surround this issue was pure olfactory insult. I uncovered perversions of persuasion, money
passed under the table, censorship, propaganda, bold lies, “junk science”,
amongst those who had no political axe to grind. An entire catalog of logical fallacies are creatively
employed by writers on this topic: ad hominen, ad nauseum, appeal to authority,
appeal to fear, false dilemma, bare assertion
fallacy, arguementum
ad ignorantiam, begging
the question, etc., enough to keep a professional philosopher busy for
decades trying to sort out the valid truth claims from the nonsense.
The heart of the
matter is going to be the answer to this question, “to what extent, if any, does
mankind contribute to climate change and if he does contribute to climate
change, is there anything that can be done to ameliorate (reduce, eliminate )
those effects?”
This is the question that drove my inquiry, and provided the
information presented below. This website will attempt to separate the wheat from
the chaff, the science from the nonsense, the truth from the lies. Some of the links reference educational sources
that will define basic terms of the debate, including scientific method,
logic, etc. I hope you enjoy finding out the difference between Science and pseudo science.
A Layman's Guide to the Science and Controversy
How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic
Examining the Science of Global Warming
Skepticism
US Government Global Change
Research Program
The Discovery of Global
Warming
WIKIPEDIA:
Scientific Opinion on Climate Change
Promoting Integrity in the Use of
Climate Science In Government
Climate Science from Climate Scientists
The Pew Center on Global Climate Change
Get Informed and Let It Change You-A Risk Management Approach
Lloyds
of London's - Climate Change Risk - Adapt or Bust
Position
Statements by Scientific Organizations:
AAAS: The American Association for the Advancement
of Science and its statement:
http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/mtg_200702/aaas_climate_statement.pdf
262 Societies and Academies of Science reaching 10 million
individuals
AAS: African Academy of Sciences
the network of AAS
groups issued this statement:
162 members, 28 countries
ACS: American Chemical
Society
and its statement:
http://portal.acs.org/portal/fileFetch/C/WPCP_007661/pdf/WPCP_007661.pdf
11,474 members
AGU: The American Geophysical Union
and its statement:
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html
50,000 members
AIP: American Institute of Physics
and its statement:
http://www.aip.org/gov/policy12.html
125,000 members
AMS: The American Meteorological Society
and its statement:
http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/climatechangeresearch_2003.html
12,000 members
APS: The American Physical Society
and its statement:
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm
46,000 members
CMOS: Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic
Society
and its statement:
http://www.cmos.ca/climatechangepole.html
1,100 members
and its statement:
http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/representation/policy-positions/climate-change.cfm
EGU: European Geosciences Union
and its statement
http://www.egu.eu/fileadmin/files/egustatement.pdf
9,000 members
ESF: European Science Foundation
and its statement:
77 member organizations, 30 countries
GISS: Goddard Institute for Space Studies
and its research:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20080514/
GSA: The Geological Society of America
and its statement:
http://www.geosociety.org/positions/position10.htm
21,000 members in 85 countries
and its statement:
http://www.interacademycouncil.net/CMS/Reports/11840/11842.aspx
98 Science Academies
IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
and its statement:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf
and their
statement
http://nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf
NOAA's NCDC: National Climatic
Data Center
and its statement:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
SOCC: State of the Canadian Cyrosphere
and its statement:
http://www.socc.ca/permafrost/permafrost_future_e.cfm
UCAR: University Corporation for Atmospheric
Research
and its statement:
http://eo.ucar.edu/basics/cc_1.html
UCS: Union of Concerned Scientists
and its statement:
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/positions/position-papers-of-ucs-global-warming.html
200,000 members
The
Climate Change Blogosphere:
An Insiders View of Climate Science,
Politics and Solutions
Environmental News and Commentary
A New Way To Understand Disputes About
Global Warming
PUBLICATIONS:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126
http://books.nap.edu/collections/global_warming/index.html
EPA
Publications on Global Warming
The Select Committee on Energy
Independence & Global Warming
Understanding
and Responding to Climate Change - 2008
NEWS
SOURCES:
Environmental News Courtesy
of Reuters
Scientific
American: Global Warming
Times
of India - Earth - Global Warming
INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE SITES:
South Africa - Climate Systems Analysis Group
Australia - Bureau of Meteorology -
Climate
Germany - Potsdam
Institute for Climate Research
UK
- Environmental Research Letters
Africa - ACCESS Africa Centre
for Climate and Earth System Science
US - American Geophysical Research
Letters
Japan - World Data Centre for Greenhouse
Gases
Japan - Tokyo
Climate Center's Global Warming & Climate Change Monitoring
INTERNATIONAL
& GOVERNMENT SITES:
EPA: The Environmental
Protection Agency
and its statement:
http://epa.gov/climatechange/science/stateofknowledge.html
United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
ADVOCACY – Make
a Difference
WWF -
Climate Change- Solutions-Actions
National
Wildlife Action - USA Today Ad on Behalf of Hunters
704
Hunters and Anglers Groups Tackle Global Warming
SURVEYS:
AMS Broadcast
Meteorologist Survey - #5 & #6 on Global Warming
Gallup
Poll - Little Increase in American's Worries
Pew
Research - Global Warming Causes & Solutions
“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and
knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”
Samuel
Johnson