Global warming debate on NPR

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

I just listened to a debate on NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9082151) on global warming. I think the contrarian side got squished quite nicely, for the most part, despite the vote at the end. I was pleased to hear Somerville debunk the global cooling consensus myth. Crichton demonstrated his mastery in providing red herrings.

The global warming side was represented by Richard Somerville, Gavin Schmidt, and Brenda Ekwurzel. The contrarians were represented by Michael Crichton, Richard Lindzen, and Philip Stott.

[Man of Knowledge]

It is obvious humans have caused most of the global warming. Though I don't think you can ignore the suns contribution. Their are studies showing the sun also contributes significantly to global warming, but not as much as humans. In fact the extra human contribution is causing the largest mass extinction in history.

[Hawxhurst]

For a side that got squished quite nicely, they certainly don't seem to be hurting in the voting.

"Not a crisis" went from 30% to 46%. Am I reading that right?

Anyhow, thanks for the link. This should be interesting.

[theyeti]

What I find rather telling is that 2 out of the 3 of the contrarians, including uber-hack Michael Crichton, were not climate scientists. The fact that they couldn't find enough climate scientists to fill in for that role speaks to the pointlessness of this debate. And of course the way in which they framed the question, "Is Global Warming A Crisis?", is the most contrarian-friendly way of setting things up. For people like Crichton or Lindzen who long denied that there was any warming going on at all, this is really letting them off the hook. All they have to do is duck and weave and play off of the variable meanings of the word "crisis" without having to atone for their long and sad history of bullshiting.

theyeti