Ex-sceptic says climate change is down to humans
POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Wednesday, May 14, 2025 17:12
VIEWED: 3935
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19047501
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A formerly sceptical climate scientist says human activity is causing the Earth to warm, as a new study confirms earlier results on rising temperatures.
In a US newspaper opinion piece, Prof Richard Muller says: "Call me a converted sceptic."
Muller leads the Berkeley Earth Project, which is using new methods and some new data to investigate the claims made by other climate researchers.
Their latest study confirms the warming trend seen by other groups.
The project received funds from sources that back organisations lobbying against action on climate change.
Their latest study, released early on Monday (GMT), concludes that the average temperature of the Earth's land has risen by 1.5C (2.7F) over the past 250 years.
The team argues that the good correspondence between the new temperature record and historical data on CO2 emissions suggests human activity is "the most straightforward explanation" for the warming.
The paper reiterates the finding that the land surface temperature has risen 0.9C just in the last 50 years.
In a piece authored for the New York Times, Prof Muller, from the University of California, Berkeley, said: "Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming.
"Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I'm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause."
When establishing the project, Prof Muller had been concerned by claims that established teams of climate researchers had not been entirely open with their data.
He gathered a team of 10 scientists, mostly physicists, including such luminaries as Saul Perlmutter, winner of this year's Nobel Physics Prize for research showing the Universe's expansion is accelerating.
Funding came from a number of sources, including charitable foundations maintained by the Koch brothers, billionaire US industrialists who have also donated large sums to organisations lobbying against acceptance of man-made global warming.
On a different page
However, one collaborator on the previous tranche of Berkeley Earth project papers, Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, declined to be included as an author on the latest one.
Commenting on the paper, Prof Curry said: "Their latest paper on the 250-year record concludes that the best explanation for the observed warming is greenhouse gas emissions. Their analysis is way oversimplistic and not at all convincing in my opinion."
She also told the New York Times: "I was invited to be a co-author on the new paper. I declined. I gave them my review of the paper, which was highly critical. I don't think this new paper adds anything to our understanding of attribution of the warming."
Prof Michael Mann, director of the Earth Science System Center at Penn State University, said that there was "a certain ironic satisfaction" in seeing a study funded by the Koch Brothers "demonstrate what scientists have known with some degree of confidence for nearly two decades: that the globe is indeed warming, and that this warming can only be explained by human-caused increases in greenhouse gas concentrations".
Prof Muller, meanwhile, describes his own change in standpoint as "a total turnaround".
He explained: "These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming."
The University of California physics professor added: "I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its human causes.
"Then comes the difficult part: agreeing across the political aNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I totally agree that our next global catastrophe is man-made.
It is what it is.
There is ZERO you, or I or anyone else can do about it.
Short of us all agreeing to live the lives of the Amish, we're doomed.
Sorry to be the bad guy here, but the truth hurts.
Seeing as how I've never sent a text message in my life on a cell phone, and I don't have any kids, just ask your own kids how they'd feel about "going green" if it meant no more video games or streaming movies or text messages....
I'm one generation behind the new problem now....
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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just ask your own kids how they'd feel about "going green" if it meant no more video games or streaming movies or text messages....
Going green probably means paying more for electricity - in the short term at least. It doesn't mean giving up electricity altogether...
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There is ZERO you, or I or anyone else can do about it.
We're in a car heading full speed towards a brick wall. We could at least try braking? And it's not what you or I can do, but what governments can agree to do internationally. As I said to Auraptor, put a price on carbon emissions and businesses will reduce them automatically. And the money that comes from that could go towards new technologies, or even attempts to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere.
Or we could do nothing - ignore the brake pedal, try shutting our eyes instead... The Auraptor approach.
It's not personal. It's just war.
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Going green means paying a shit ton more for electricity for those who don't already have alternative means, or Government Funds, further separating the gap between the haves and have-nots in the US.....
It amazes me that parents still buy new video game systems and the games for them to keep the industry alive since the last "New" console I bought was PS2, and I've heavily modded the XBox1 for years to make it do 100 times what you might think it's capable of if you've never seen the end result. (yes, it now plays over 50,000 classic games ranging from Zork to about half of the PS1 library, and all of the Arcade games in-between)
In my eyes, Dead Rising 1 on XBox 360 is the epitome of gaming. I'm sure I'm like 6 years behind now, and that's not a bad thing in my book.
I've come a long way. I remember dreaming about Super Mario Bros 3 on NES before we had one. I was only 11 then, but I would have willingly bludgeoned a schoolmate's head for an NES and a copy of that game back then.
Bottom line, you have no clue what your kid's are capable to get the next video game fix. If you're two parents still together, at least you can confront him unified.
I was at the forefront of "let's let them all play for free" for years....
Playing is one thing, but being a part of the movement is more like a cult than anything else.....
Only 8 people I know in real life know what I did for 4 years while I disappeared from "real life".
In two years, Gametap will be able to stream all the work my team did without losing a second to bandwidth...
Imagine every single game ever made, from PC to Arcade to Condole games, from 1977-2001 all included, videos and snapshots made, and in-depth reviews from classic magazines all included.
Pro-Bono work.....
What amazes me is that not one single "source" of money on that front has tried to recruit me now.....
It's only a matter of time....
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19047501Quote:
"Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I'm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause."
Bah. They're just stupid scientists! Everyone knows that the only people who truely understand the environment are Oil Company Executives and Talk Radio hosts. Duh.
Note to anyone - Please pity the poor, poor wittle Rappyboy. He's feeling put upon lately, what with all those facts disagreeing with what he believes.
"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I totally agree that our next global catastrophe is man-made.
It is what it is.
There is ZERO you, or I or anyone else can do about it.
Short of us all agreeing to live the lives of the Amish, we're doomed.
Sorry to be the bad guy here, but the truth hurts.
Seeing as how I've never sent a text message in my life on a cell phone, and I don't have any kids, just ask your own kids how they'd feel about "going green" if it meant no more video games or streaming movies or text messages....
I'm one generation behind the new problem now....
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
Seems a rather fatalistic approach; "we can do nothing, ergo let's do nothing."
Suppose I took a similar view of our spending. Since it's so high now, let's not ever even think about trying to slow it down. After all, getting out of the red would mean your kids have to learn to go without, right?
So let's just keep on doing what we're doing, keep on spending, and hopefully we'll all be dead before the bills really come due, since we'll all be dead shortly after they come due anyway.
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero
"The groin cup and throat protector have about as much ballistic protection as the kneepads I wear when I'm doing a job that requires me to be on my knees." - Troll
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There are myriad ways we could minimize the damage we are doing to the earth to at least delay what I believe is the inevitable for our children's children's children. It's not just about electricity, or even omissions. Stopping the clearing of forests would be a good beginning. Forcing the energy-providing companies to make changes would be another...yes, more expensive in the short term, but that is the problem with America in my opinion; we are too hung up on the short term. Pollution could be lessened; "clean coal" could be dealt with (I don't know how, but there are people out there with imagination); "natural gas" could be treated realistically, not put out in advertisements as the next wave of cheap energy. There could be ENFORCED restrictions to the pollution of water, air, land. Further encouraging recycling; even if every community made similar goals to the ones we have here in Marin.
Government is the biggie, as mentioned. Government could subsidize the increased energy costs on those who can't afford it, for a start, and many other things. As it stands, government is in the pocket of Big Oil, Big Coal and Big Natural Gas--if that could be changed, it would be an imporant start.
Even if just investment in infrastructure were made, it would help. The auto makers have made a start; continued financial encouragement for low-emission autos, VIABLE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION in the West; advertising more on the benefits of public transit rather than all those expensive ads I see multiple times daily about "natural gas".
Eliminating farm subsidies for corn; ethanol isn't a viable option and shouldn't be pursued, in my opinion.
The list goes on and on. If we dealt with the multiple important issues we're facing, some of them would not only impact global warming, they would help lessen all the other factors which at this point pretty much ensure our extinction. I posted the things scientists have determined compromise our reaching or passing tipping point; global warming is only ONE of them. Maybe we ARE past tipping point on that one, as I now believe, but we might be able to find ways to adapt to that and lessen it over time; combined with all the others, yes, it is pretty bleak.
So if we start from the point of dealing with the numerous things endangering our survival and changing the planet radically, and accept that global warming is just one of them, there is MUCH we could do to, at the very least, stave off what those coming after us will face; possibly even make it possible for us to have time to adapt to global warming and start reversing it (hey, I can dream). To reiterate what I listed previously, :Quote:
A team of 30 scientists across the globe ( http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/researchnews/tippingtoward
stheunknown/contactdetails.4.1fe8f33123572b59ab800010646.html) have determined that the nine environmental processes named above must remain within specific limits, otherwise the "safe operating space" within which humankind can exist on Earth will be threatened.
The group has set numeric limits for seven of the nine so far (chemical pollution and aerosol loading are still being pinned down). And the researchers have determined that the world has already crossed the boundary in three cases: biodiversity loss, the nitrogen cycle and climate change.
Up to 30% of mammals, birds and amphibians will be threatened with extinction in this century;
Biodiversity loss has happened faster in the past 50 years than at any other time in human history;
We're losing ice sheets; sea levels are rising; weather patterns are changing;
Carbon dioxide is making the oceans more acidic, causing the loss of corals, shellfish and plankton;
Widespread fertilizer use is changing the nitrogen and phosphorous cycles even more than the carbon cycle;
Excess nitrogen and phosphorous pollute our rivers, lakes, oceans and atmosphere;
Global freshwater use
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Suppose I took a similar view of our spending. Since it's so high now, let's not ever even think about trying to slow it down. After all, getting out of the red would mean your kids have to learn to go without, right?
So let's just keep on doing what we're doing, keep on spending, and hopefully we'll all be dead before the bills really come due, since we'll all be dead shortly after they come due anyway.
Really, if one takes the "we're doomed, why bother" attitude - why should they care about spending in the least? Wouldn't the logical progression be to say "keep spending, since we'll die before the bill comes due" anyway?
Note to anyone - Please pity the poor, poor wittle Rappyboy. He's feeling put upon lately, what with all those facts disagreeing with what he believes.
"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"
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Current skeptic still a skeptic.
" We're all just folk. " - Mal
" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall
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Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
Really, if one takes the "we're doomed, why bother" attitude - why should they care about spending in the least? Wouldn't the logical progression be to say "keep spending, since we'll die before the bill comes due" anyway?
That's pretty much the train I'm riding on these days.
Really, what can be done when we have nothing but criminals running the show for us?
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." ~Shepherd Book
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