Correction. There isn't a shred of evidence that you accept. In fact, evidence is everywhere.
No, there are predictions everywhere. Predictions from computer simulations that are notoriously wrong. The predictions simply haven't come to pass and when they don't, a whole new set of predictions emerge. For all the doom and gloom we have heard, we don't even have a whole degree of change in the past 100 years and over half of the change that has been measured happened in the early part of the 20th century before there were millions of cars on the road.
The fact is that there is no evidence of man having anything at all to do with climate change. The whole enterprise is nothing more than an attempt by anti capitalists to get the upper hand on capitalist countries and they are aided by millions upon millions of stooges across the earth who have the sort of mindset that prompts them to believe every "sky is falling" story that comes along, even when none of the previous stories came to pass.
I wonder what stories the conservatives will be telling themselves 20, 30 years from now when the temperatures are much warmer, when CO2 concentrations are much greater, when catastrophic effects of our ignorance are being inflicted upon humanity with increasing frequency? Will they still be in denial? Will they still be insisting that the climate change is merely temporary and has nothing to do with the way we have changed the atmosphere?
Much warmer than what? The fraction of one degree that we have seen in the past century? And based on what? The models? I have news for you, the models have been wrong almost all the time and when they actually managed to get it right, they were right for reasons that weren't even part of the equation.
Lets take a look at how well the models have done.
Type of prediction - 1900-2000 surface temperature trend
Model prediction - 1.1 to 3.3 C warming if all greenhouse gases are included (IPCC 2001)
Actual measurements - Surface temperature warming of 0.6 C
Predicted warming was 2 to 5 times greater than observed warming and they knew it and used the figures anyway. Let me ask. Did you question the fact that the already knew the actual temperatures and used the predicted numbers anyway? Do you realize that when you say that there is evidence everywhere, the evidence you refer to is these eroneous predictions?
Type of prediction - Surface and mid-tropospheric warming, 1979-2005
Model prediction - Mid-tropospheric warming should be 50-100% larger than surface warming.
Actual measurements - Surface warming is 0.18 C/decade compared to mid-tropospheric warming of 0.12 C/decade
In this case, the reality is exactly the opposite of what theory predicts.
Type of prediction - Animals and plants are migrating towards the poles (Parmesan and Yohe, 2003)
Model prediction - Study claims it provides evidence that climate models are correct.
Actual measurements - Actually the migration rates are consistent with a warming of 0.025 C/decade which is much smaller than models predict.
These results actually undermine the model predictions and may be an indication that the surface temperature record is overestimating the warming.
Type of prediction - Medieval Warm Period (ca. 1000-1200 AD)
Model prediction - The state of the art GFDL climate model claims the Medieval Warm Period is physically impossible (Stouffer et al., 1994)
Actual measurements - The MWP exists according to borehole temperature measurements at 6000 locations (Huang et al., 1997).
This one speaks for itself doesn't it? I am curious. What does it say to you?
Type of prediction - Phase of annual cycle
Model prediction - Predicted change of -1.7 days in 20th century.
Actual measurements - +0.8 days increase (Mann and Park, 1997).
Did you note that the model predictions have wrong sign? The wrong sign! Now tell me again about the credibility of that "evidence" that exists everywhere.
Type of prediction - Stratospheric cooling.
Model prediction - Several degrees per decade predicted (IPCC 1995)
Actual measurements - Less than 1 degree per decade to 1995 and no trend since then.
Once again, the predictions are completely off the mark. This is your evidence? I could go on ad nausem about the failure of the climate models which are the basis for what you call evidence. What surprises me is that anyone with even a low level of intellectual wattage can see that the predictions don't match the actual observations and yet, people still maintain their faith in the predictions and ignore the actual observations.
Tell me, by what logic do you favor predictions which have been proven wrong over and over and over in lieu of direct measurements which are the reality?
Maybe you aren't old enough to have been following the predictions for very long. I am and have been hearing them for decades. First, it was cooling. By now, we were supposed to be well into another deep ice age trend. When it became clear that they were wrong, then the next big thing was warming. Consider the logic. "If it is clear that we aren't going into an ice age, then we can scare the hell out of them with global warming."
By now, we were not supposed to be able to spend any time in the sun because the "ozone layer" was supposed to be gone and we would all get skin cancer from even minimal exposure. Let me guess, I bet you believe that CFC's could destroy the ozone layer as well?
Then the pollution was supposed to be so bad that we would need gas masks in order to breathe outside.
And on and on and on and on ad nauseum. None of it has come to pass. It has been almost 30 years since they began predicting warming and by now it was supposed to be damned warm and it just hasn't happened.
And further, by what line of logic do you suppose that the earth is at the optimal temperature for human beings right now? If you look into history, you will see that the great proliferations of life happened during times when it was a hell of a lot warmer than it is right now. Temperatures in the range that we are living in today have historically been times of large die offs. If you took the time to look at the history of the earth, you would see that the normal temperature is so warm that no ice exists anywhere. Ice is the anomoly on earth. Not the norm.
Your "priests" know that most of earth's history has been a good deal warmer than it is now and they know that the earth's climate moves in cycles and they know that since the ice started melting some 14,000 years back, that it is likely to continue melting since that is the way that the earth's climate cycles move. What is surprising to me is that you, and those like you can't see what is so obvious. When confronted with the fact that the earth has been warming now for 14,000 years, you ignore reality and actual measurements and start talking about predictions that haven't happened. You start talking about how much more rapidly the temperature is changing now when compared to the past and your argument is based on climate models which aren't supported by actual measurements.
If in 20 years the climate is a degree or two warmer, and the CO2 level is higher, I won't be complaining. Crops will be growing faster and for a longer growing season thus driving down the cost of food. A greater percentage of the earth will be arable so crops will be grown in more places. Deserts will begin to green as a result of increased precipitation. In fact, all plants will be growing faster and becoming more healthy. One only needs to look at the paleoclimate in order to see that this is true It will cost less to keep warm during the shorter winters, and the detremental health problems associated with cold weather will be lessened.
The fact is that warmer will be better and if we were a race of beings that lived for eons, we would be eagerly anticipating the return of summer after a particularly long and very harsh winter. Open your eyes and learn something. Try, for once, to trust what you can see and measure more than the predictions of computers that have a simply abysmal track record.
I suppose they will.
Sigh. We are
such a flawed species...
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