New Mars Forums

As Syria joins Paris climate agreement, US stands alone
By Jennifer Hansler, CNN
November 7, 2017

The United States is now a party of one in its stance on climate change.

Syria will join the Paris climate agreement, leaving the US as the only country in the world not signed on to the landmark climate deal.

Syrian officials announced their intention to ratify the accord at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP23) in Bonn, Germany, on Tuesday.

"I confirm that the Syrian Arab Republic supports the implementation of Paris climate change accord, in order to achieve the desired global goals and to reflect the principles of justice and shared responsibility, but in accordance with the capabilities of each of the signatories," Syria's Deputy Minister of Local Administration and Environment M. Wadah Katmawi said

Katmawi added that developed countries, "in their capacity as the primary contributors to climate change, should live up to their legal and humanitarian responsibility" by offering technical and financial support to developing countries to help battle climate change.

Syria, plunged in a civil war, was not present at the 2015 negotiations for the climate agreement, which is dedicated to lowering emissions and strengthening countries' abilities to deal with the effects of climate change. Nearly 200 countries signed on the pact at the time. Nicaragua was the only other hold-out, based on criticisms that it was "insufficient" in addressing climate change.

However, the Central American country recently announced its intent to join the agreement. In late October, Nicaraguan Vice President and first lady Rosario Murillo said the nation had submitted a "document of adhesion" to the United Nations to join the pact.

"It is the only instrument we have in the world that allows us to unify intentions and efforts to face climate change and natural disasters," she said of the agreement at the time.

The US trails only China as the world's worst emitter of carbon dioxide, according to the European Commission's emissions database. In 2015, it released 5.1 million kilotons of carbon dioxide, more than all 28 European Union countries combined, and makes up almost a sixth of all global emissions.

Read the full article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/07/politics/ … index.html

I believe you are right.   And it's likely that the new NASA administrator James Bridenstine , if confirmed, will be the waterboy for  Trump and the National Space Council.

He probably expects to cash in by helping to award Moon and Space Launch System contracts to favored private companies during his time at NASA.     He can enrich himself by serving on several boards of public companies when he leaves NASA.    That's how the financial corruption game works in Washington.   Kickbacks .... and completely legal after leaving the "public sector" and joining the "private sector" of big business and Wall Street.

That's probably his real focus!   Enriching himself.

You scratch their corporate backs and they will give you a b.j.    That stands for blue jacket of course!

The United States does not allow Russians to control more than 25% of American radio and TV stations and Russia does not allow more than 20% foreign ownership in their radio and TV stations. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vladimir Putin has signed into law a bill, which sets the maximum foreign stake in Russian mass media companies at 20 percent.
The law will come into force on January 1, 2016, and media companies must submit reports on their stockholders before February 15, 2016.

The new Russian law is in line with international practice as many countries in the world have already protected their informational space from excessive foreign influence. For example, Australia has set a 30 percent limit of foreign ownership in national mass media and Canada has a law limiting foreign ownership in electronic mass media by 46 percent. The United States allow foreigners to control not more than 25 percent of American TV and radio stations, while Japan has set this limit at 20 percent. France will not allow non-EU citizens and companies to possess more than 20 percent of its mass media. In the UK, the shares of foreign stockholders in mass media corporations cannot exceed those owned by British investors.

https://www.rt.com/politics/196084-russ … a-foreign/

I think that Robert Zubrin and all members of our organization will keep a close eye on Bridenstein's activity as NASA administrator. 
Unless some new scandalous information is revealed I believe Bridenstein will be easily confirmed by the full Senate.

Here's an excerpt from my recently submitted Mars paper regarding Mr. Bridenstein:

WILL JAMES BRIDENSTEIN CONTINUE NASA’S DETOUR AWAY FROM MARS?

"Trump has picked a far-right politician from Oklahoma to become the NASA Administrator.  I believe Bridenstein is the first anti-science politician to be nominated to head up NASA.   He doesn’t agree with the findings of NASA scientists on global warming and voted to slash funding for climate change studies conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration.

I don’t know if Bridenstein agrees with Trump that climate change is fake news and a giant Chinese government hoax designed to cut coal production and hurt coal miners in America.

I have a disagreement with our President, Robert Zubrin, on what course Bridenstein will likely follow as NASA’s leader.   Zubrin is probably hoping the new administrator will do some progressive things such as spending more money to implement a serious Mars human expedition plan.  Zubrin and most of us were encouraged to learn that Bridenstein,  unlike President Trump, reads books!   And Bridenstein told Robert that he actually read Zubrin’s book “The Case for Mars”!   Perhaps Bridenstein will pass along his copy to Donald Trump.   

I’m very skeptical about Bridenstein’s intentions regarding Mars.   It’s especially hard to determine what he really thinks about the priority of Mars and other significant issues such as the Chinese exclusion ban.  He recently deleted all of his Facebook, Twitter and YouTube posts which might have shed more light on these issues.

Bridenstein appears to be primarily interested in having NASA help fund various Moon business ventures rather than conduct a big human scientific exploration of Mars.   Bridenstein told an excited audience of rich investors “this is our Sputnik moment!   America must forever be the preeminent spacefaring nation and the Moon is our path to being so.”

John Holdren, a scientist who was the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology for 8 years wrote:   “Bridenstein’s stance on climate change reveals him to be a fact-adverse, scientifically illiterate ideologue and a danger to NASA’s leadership in space science and Earth science alike.”    Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio declared:   “I just think his nomination could be devastating for the space program.”

In a year we will have another Mars Society convention and at the convention we can make an intelligent and informed assessment of Mr. Bidenstein’s NASA activity assuming he is confirmed as the new NASA administrator."

So let's wait and see what actually happens!

Here's the article link.

http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Solar_ … s_999.html

There's No Science Behind Denying Climate Change

By Ethan Siegel, Contributor
Astrophysicist and author Ethan Siegel is the founder and primary writer of Starts With A Bang! His books, Treknology and Beyond The Galaxy, are available wherever books are sold.
Forbes
May 2, 2017

[Excerpt]

If you didn't know anything about climate science, about the Earth's temperature, about carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases, but you wanted to, how would you go about doing it? You'd begin by constructing a plan for how you'd accurately scientifically investigate the problem. You'd think about the data you'd need to collect and how you'd gather it. You'd think about the measurements you'd want to make and how to make them. You'd think about the sources of error and how to account for them: how to properly calibrate your data from all over the world and from many different time periods. And then you'd bring it together, under one enormous framework, to try and draw a scientifically robust conclusion.

Scientists may debate whether the techniques used to calibrate the data are optimal or not, but no one says "don't calibrate your data." Scientists may argue over the limitations of temperature or CO2 reconstruction techniques from proxies, but no one says, "don't use proxies." And scientists may argue about the merits of various models and the accuracy of long-term projections, but no one says, "there are errors and uncertainties, so therefore it's all garbage." Those calling themselves skeptics who've actually gone and done the science themselves have either drawn the same conclusions as the other experts in the field, or have made egregious errors -- arguably deliberate errors -- that have been uncovered.

If you want to argue about the conclusions of climate science, you owe it to yourself to understand the science for yourself. If you think the Earth isn't warming, how are you measuring the Earth's temperature over time? If you think that carbon dioxide content isn't increasing due to human activity, how do you think it's happening? If you think that the proxies are no good (e.g., if you ever heard the phrase "hide the decline," it refers to the decline in the usefulness of tree ring width under certain conditions), can you quantify just how "no good" you think they are?

Many have argued that scientists should stay out of politics. That scientists should stick to science, and that more and better science will always carry the day in the end. But science has already carried the day here; no scientifically valid alternative conclusion remains. The world is warming; increasing CO2 from human activity is the cause; the temperature will continue to increase for approximately 50 years after the last bit of extra CO2 is emitted; the more we emit, the faster the temperatures rise and the greater the feedback mechanisms will be. What should a scientist do in the face of an overwhelming conclusion being ignored by the entire world outside of the scientific community?

There are still scientific disagreements over questions of "how much," "how fast," and "in what ways will the climate change in various locations," but there is no scientific doubt over the overall conclusions. In any scientific discussion, argument or debate, the starting point is to agree on facts. But if you accept the facts, you must allow them to dissuade you from your position. The truth must be allowed to challenge your preconceptions. You must not cling to your desired conclusions, massaging the facts to fit them and throwing away the ones that don't. And you must root your conclusions in the data itself, not in your assessment of the scientists taking it or the entities that stand to suffer or benefit from those conclusions.

Nearly a century ago, a volume of 100 papers from 100 different authors was published, challenging Einstein's theory of relativity. When a reporter asked him about it, Einstein responded with a question:

“ Why 100? If I were wrong, one would be enough.

Indeed, if there were a conspiracy, if climate science were a hoax, and if all this research were incorrect, all it would take was one scrupulous, competent scientist. But every scrupulous, competent scientist that investigates it has come to the same conclusion: it's real, it's warming, and it's our CO2 that's doing it. You are free to deny climate change if you want, but there's no scientific leg to stand on if you do.

Read the complete article at:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswith … 337d904ff7

A good example is the science theory that the Earth is round and not flat.  What a gravy train for the transportation industry!

The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted
By Jeanna Bryner, Live Science Managing Editor |  April 4, 2012

Dynamic Earth

Earth is a dynamic sphere and, it turns out, so is the planet's climate, otherwise known as the long-term trend of global weather conditions. It's no wonder questions and myths abound about what exactly is going on in the atmosphere, in the oceans and on land. How can we tell our orb is actually warming and whether humans are to blame? Here's a look at what scientists know and don't know about some seemingly murky statements on Earth's climate.

Myth: Even before SUVs and other greenhouse-gas spewing technologies, Earth's climate was changing, so humans can't be responsible for today's global warming.

Science: Climate changes in the past suggest that our climate reacts to energy input and output, such that if the planet accumulates more heat than it gives off global temperatures will rise. It's the driver of this heat imbalance that differs.

Currently, CO2 is imposing an energy imbalance due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Past climate change actually provides evidence for our climate's sensitivity to CO2.

Myth: The planet can't be warming when my front yard is covered in several feet of snow. … This winter has been one of the chilliest, how is that possible in a warming world?

Science: Local temperatures taken as individual data points have nothing to do with the long-term trend of global warming. These local ups and downs in weather and temperature can hide a slower-moving uptick in long-term climate. To get a real bead on global warming, scientists rely on changes in weather over a long period of time. To find climate trends you need to look at how weather is changing over a longer time span. Looking at high and low temperature data from recent decades shows that new record highs occur nearly twice as often as new record lows.

For instance, a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in 2009, found that daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the prior decade across the continental United States.

Myth: Global warming has stopped and the Earth has begun to cool.

Science: The last decade, 2000-2009, was the hottest on record, according to Skeptical Science. Big blizzards and abnormally chilly weather often raise the question: How can global warming be occurring when it's snowing outside? Global warming is compatible with chilled weather. "For climate change, it is the long-term trends that are important; measured over decades or more, and those long term trends show that the globe is still, unfortunately, warming," according to Skeptical Science.

Myth: Over the past few hundred years, the sun's activity, including the number of sunspots, has increased, causing the world to get warmer.

Science: In the last 35 years of global warming, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend, while the climate has been heating up, scientists say. In the past century, solar activity can explain some of the increase in global temperatures, but a relatively small amount. (Solar activity refers to the activity of the sun's magnetic field and includes magnetic field-powered sunspots and solar flares.)

A study published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics in December 2011 revealed that even during a prolonged lull in the sun's activity, Earth still continued to warm. The study researchers found that the Earth absorbed 0.58 watts of excess energy per square meter than escaped back into space during the study period from 2005 to 2010, a time when solar activity was low.

Myth: There's no consensus on whether the planet is actually warming.

Science: About 97 percent of climate scientists agree that human-made global warming is happening. "In the scientific field of climate studies — which is informed by many different disciplines — the consensus is demonstrated by the number of scientists who have stopped arguing about what is causing climate change — and that's nearly all of them," according to Skeptical Science, a website dedicated to explaining the science of global warming.

Myth: Rick Santorum, GOP presidential nominee, summed up this argument in the news when he said: "The dangers of carbon dioxide? Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is," he told the Associated Press.

Science: While it is true that plants photosynthesize, and therefore take up carbon dioxide as a way of forming energy with the help of the sun and water, this gas is both a direct pollutant (think acidification of oceans) and more importantly is linked to the greenhouse effect. When heat energy gets released from Earth's surface, some of that radiation is trapped by greenhouse gases like CO2; the effect is what makes our planet comfy temperature-wise, but too much and you get global warming.

Myth: Some have pointed to human history as evidence that warm periods are good for people, while the cold, unstable stints have been catastrophic.

Science: Climate scientists say any positives are far outweighed by the negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, human health, the economy and the environment. For instance, according to one 2007 study, a warming planet may mean an increased growing season in Greenland; but it also means water shortages, more frequent and more intense wildfires and expanding deserts.

Myth: Ice covering much of Antarctica is expanding, contrary to the belief that the ice cap is melting due to global warming.

Science: The argument that ice is expanding on Antarctica omit the fact that there's a difference between land ice and sea ice, climate scientists say. "If you are talking about the Antarctic ice sheet, we expect some gain in accumulation in the interior due to warmer, more moisture-laden air, but increased calving/ice loss at the periphery, primarily due to warming southern oceans," climate scientist Michael Mann, of Pennsylvania State University, told LiveScience. The net change in ice mass is the difference between this accumulation and peripheral loss. "Models traditionally have projected that this difference doesn't become negative (i.e. net loss of Antarctic ice sheet mass) for several decades," Mann said, adding that detailed gravimetric measurements, which looks at changes in Earth's gravity over spots to estimate, among other things, ice mass. These measurements, Mann said, suggest the Antarctic ice sheet is already losing mass and contributing to sea level rise.

Myth: Models are full of "fudge factors" or assumptions that make them fit with data collected in today's climate; there's no way to know if those same assumption can be made in a world with increased carbon dioxide.

Science: Models have successfully reproduced global temperatures since 1900, by land, in the air and the oceans. "Models are simply a formalization of our best understanding of the processes that govern the atmosphere, the oceans, the ice sheets, etc.," Mann said. He added that certain processes, such as how clouds will respond to changes in the atmosphere and the warming or cooling effect of clouds, are uncertain and different modeling groups make different assumptions about how to represent these processes.

Even so, Mann said, certain predictions are based on physics and chemistry that are so fundamental, such as the atmospheric greenhouse effect, that the resulting predictions — that surface temperatures should warm, ice should melt and sea level should rise — are robust no matter the assumptions.

Skeptic Arguments and What The Science Says
Here is a summary of global warming and climate change myths, sorted by recent popularity vs what science says.

1 "Climate's changed before" Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.
2 "It's the sun"
In the last 35 years of global warming, sun and climate have been going in opposite directions

3 "It's not bad" Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any positives.
4 "There is no consensus"
97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.

5 "It's cooling" The last decade 2000-2009 was the hottest on record.
6 "Models are unreliable" Models successfully reproduce temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean.
7 "Temp record is unreliable" The warming trend is the same in rural and urban areas, measured by thermometers and satellites.
8 "Animals and plants can adapt" Global warming will cause mass extinctions of species that cannot adapt on short time scales.
9 "It hasn't warmed since 1998"
Every part of the Earth's climate system has continued warming since 1998, with 2015 shattering temperature records.

10 "Antarctica is gaining ice" Satellites measure Antarctica losing land ice at an accelerating rate.
11 "Ice age predicted in the 70s" The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming.
12 "CO2 lags temperature" CO2 didn't initiate warming from past ice ages but it did amplify the warming. 
13 "Climate sensitivity is low" Net positive feedback is confirmed by many different lines of evidence.
14 "We're heading into an ice age" Worry about global warming impacts in the next 100 years, not an ice age in over 10,000 years.
15 "Ocean acidification isn't serious" Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains.
16 "Hockey stick is broken" Recent studies agree that recent global temperatures are unprecedented in the last 1000 years.
17 "Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy" A number of investigations have cleared scientists of any wrongdoing in the media-hyped email incident.
18 "Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming" There is increasing evidence that hurricanes are getting stronger due to global warming.
19 "Al Gore got it wrong"
Al Gore's book is quite accurate, and far more accurate than contrarian books.

20 "Glaciers are growing" Most glaciers are retreating, posing a serious problem for millions who rely on glaciers for water.
21 "It's cosmic rays" Cosmic rays show no trend over the last 30 years & have had little impact on recent global warming.
22 "1934 - hottest year on record" 1934 was one of the hottest years in the US, not globally.
23 "It's freaking cold!" A local cold day has nothing to do with the long-term trend of increasing global temperatures.
24 "Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming" Extreme weather events are being made more frequent and worse by global warming.
25 "Sea level rise is exaggerated" A variety of different measurements find steadily rising sea levels over the past century.
26 "It's Urban Heat Island effect" Urban and rural regions show the same warming trend.
27 "Medieval Warm Period was warmer" Globally averaged temperature now is higher than global temperature in medieval times.
28 "Mars is warming"
Mars is not warming globally.

29 "Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle"
Thick Arctic sea ice is undergoing a rapid retreat.

30 "Increasing CO2 has little to no effect" The strong CO2 effect has been observed by many different measurements.
31 "Oceans are cooling" The most recent ocean measurements show consistent warming.
32 "It's a 1500 year cycle"
Ancient natural cycles are irrelevant for attributing recent global warming to humans.

33 "Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions" The natural cycle adds and removes CO2 to keep a balance; humans add extra CO2 without removing any.
34 "IPCC is alarmist"
Numerous papers have documented how IPCC predictions are more likely to underestimate the climate response.

35 "Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas"
Rising CO2 increases atmospheric water vapor, which makes global warming much worse.

36 "Polar bear numbers are increasing" Polar bears are in danger of extinction as well as many other species.
37 "CO2 limits will harm the economy"
The benefits of a price on carbon outweigh the costs several times over.

38 "It's not happening"
There are many lines of evidence indicating global warming is unequivocal.

39 "Greenland was green" Other parts of the earth got colder when Greenland got warmer.
40 "Greenland is gaining ice" Greenland on the whole is losing ice, as confirmed by satellite measurement.
41 "CO2 is not a pollutant"
Through its impacts on the climate, CO2 presents a danger to public health and welfare, and thus qualifies as an air pollutant

42 "There's no empirical evidence" There are multiple lines of direct observations that humans are causing global warming.
43 "CO2 is plant food"
The effects of enhanced CO2 on terrestrial plants are variable and complex and dependent on numerous factors

44 "Other planets are warming" Mars and Jupiter are not warming, and anyway the sun has recently been cooling slightly.
45 "It's clouds" 
46 "Arctic sea ice has recovered" Thick arctic sea ice is in rapid retreat.
47 "There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature" There is long-term correlation between CO2 and global temperature; other effects are short-term.
48 "We're coming out of the Little Ice Age"
Scientists have determined that the factors which caused the Little Ice Age cooling are not currently causing global warming

49 "It cooled mid-century" Mid-century cooling involved aerosols and is irrelevant for recent global warming.
50 "Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????"
Global temperature is still rising and 2010 was the hottest recorded.

51 "CO2 was higher in the past"
When CO2 was higher in the past, the sun was cooler.

52 "It warmed before 1940 when CO2 was low" Early 20th century warming is due to several causes, including rising CO2.
53 "Satellites show no warming in the troposphere" The most recent satellite data show that the earth as a whole is warming.
54 "It's aerosols"
Aerosols have been masking global warming, which would be worse otherwise.

55 "2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells"
A cold day in Chicago in winter has nothing to do with the trend of global warming.

56 "It's El Niño" El Nino has no trend and so is not responsible for the trend of global warming.
57 "Mt. Kilimanjaro's ice loss is due to land use"
Most glaciers are in rapid retreat worldwide, notwithstanding a few complicated cases.

58 "It's not us" Multiple sets of independent observations find a human fingerprint on climate change.
59 "It's a natural cycle"
No known natural forcing fits the fingerprints of observed warming except anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

60 "There's no tropospheric hot spot"
We see a clear "short-term hot spot" - there's various evidence for a "long-term hot spot".

61 "It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation"
The PDO shows no trend, and therefore the PDO is not responsible for the trend of global warming.

62 "Scientists can't even predict weather" Weather and climate are different; climate predictions do not need weather detail.
63 "IPCC were wrong about Himalayan glaciers"
Glaciers are in rapid retreat worldwide, despite 1 error in 1 paragraph in a 1000 page IPCC report.

64 "2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory" The 2nd law of thermodynamics is consistent with the greenhouse effect which is directly observed.
65 "Greenhouse effect has been falsified" The greenhouse effect is standard physics and confirmed by observations.
66 "CO2 limits will hurt the poor"
Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change.

67 "Clouds provide negative feedback" Evidence is building that net cloud feedback is likely positive and unlikely to be strongly negative.
68 "The science isn't settled" That human CO2 is causing global warming is known with high certainty & confirmed by observations.
69 "Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated" Sea level rise is now increasing faster than predicted due to unexpectedly rapid ice melting.
70 "It's the ocean" The oceans are warming and moreover are becoming more acidic, threatening the food chain.
71 "IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests"
The IPCC statement on Amazon rainforests was correct, and was incorrectly reported in some media.

72 "Corals are resilient to bleaching" Globally about 1% of coral is dying out each year.
73 "CO2 effect is saturated" Direct measurements find that rising CO2 is trapping more heat.
74 "Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans"
Humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes.

75 "Greenland ice sheet won't collapse"
When Greenland was 3 to 5 degrees C warmer than today, a large portion of the Ice Sheet melted.

76 "500 scientists refute the consensus" Around 97% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming.
77 "CO2 is just a trace gas"
Many substances are dangerous even in trace amounts; what really matters is the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

78 "It's methane" Methane plays a minor role in global warming but could get much worse if permafrost starts to melt.
79 "CO2 has a short residence time"
Excess CO2 from human emissions has a long residence time of over 100 years

80 "CO2 measurements are suspect" CO2 levels are measured by hundreds of stations across the globe, all reporting the same trend.
81 "Humidity is falling" Multiple lines of independent evidence indicate humidity is rising and provides positive feedback.
82 "Neptune is warming" And the sun is cooling.
83 "Springs aren't advancing" Hundreds of flowers across the UK are flowering earlier now than any time in 250 years.
84 "Jupiter is warming" Jupiter is not warming, and anyway the sun is cooling.
85 "It's land use"
Land use plays a minor role in climate change, although carbon sequestration may help to mitigate.

86 "CO2 is not increasing" CO2 is increasing rapidly, and is reaching levels not seen on the earth for millions of years.
87 "Scientists tried to 'hide the decline' in global temperature" The 'decline' refers to a decline in northern tree-rings, not global temperature, and is openly discussed in papers and the IPCC reports.
88 "Record snowfall disproves global warming" Warming leads to increased evaporation and precipitation, which falls as increased snow in winter.
89 "They changed the name from 'global warming' to 'climate change'"
'Global warming' and 'climate change' mean different things and have both been used for decades.

90 "Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun" The sun has not warmed since 1970 and so cannot be driving global warming.
91 "CO2 is coming from the ocean"
The ocean is absorbing massive amounts of CO2, and is becoming more acidic as a result.

92 "IPCC overestimate temperature rise"
Monckton used the IPCC equation in an inappropriate manner.

93 "Pluto is warming"
And the sun has been recently cooling.

94 "CO2 is not the only driver of climate"
Theory, models and direct measurement confirm CO2 is currently the main driver of climate change.

95 "Peer review process was corrupted" An Independent Review concluded that CRU's actions were normal and didn't threaten the integrity of peer review.
96 "Arctic was warmer in 1940"
The actual data show high northern latitudes are warmer today than in 1940.

97 "Renewable energy is too expensive"
When you account for all of the costs associated with burning coal and other fossil fuels, like air pollution and health effects, in reality they are significantly more expensive than most renewable energy sources.

98 "Southern sea ice is increasing" Antarctic sea ice has grown in recent decades despite the Southern Ocean warming at the same time. 
99 "Sea level rise is decelerating"
Global sea level data shows that sea level rise has been increasing since 1880 while future sea level rise predictions are based on physics, not statistics.

100 "CO2 limits will make little difference"
If every nation agrees to limit CO2 emissions, we can achieve significant cuts on a global scale.

101 "It's microsite influences"
Microsite influences on temperature changes are minimal; good and bad sites show the same trend.

102 "Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity" Lindzen and Choi’s paper is viewed as unacceptably flawed by other climate scientists.
103 "Phil Jones says no global warming since 1995" Phil Jones was misquoted.
104 "Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate" Humans are small but powerful, and human CO2 emissions are causing global warming.
105 "Infrared Iris will reduce global warming"
The iris hypothesis has not withstood the test of time - subsequent research has found that if it exists, the effect is much smaller than originally hypothesized, and may even slightly amplify rather than reducing global warming.

106 "Dropped stations introduce warming bias" If the dropped stations had been kept, the temperature would actually be slightly higher.
107 "It's too hard" Scientific studies have determined that current technology is sufficient to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid dangerous climate change.
108 "It's not urgent"
A large amount of warming is delayed, and if we don’t act now we could pass tipping points.

109 "It's albedo" Albedo change in the Arctic, due to receding ice, is increasing global warming.
110 "Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960" This is a detail that is complex, local, and irrelevant to the observed global warming trend.
111 "It's soot"
Soot stays in the atmosphere for days to weeks; carbon dioxide causes warming for centuries.

112 "Roy Spencer finds negative feedback" Spencer's model is too simple, excluding important factors like ocean dynamics and treats cloud feedbacks as forcings.
113 "Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong"
Jim Hansen had several possible scenarios; his mid-level scenario B was right.

114 "It's global brightening" This is a complex aerosol effect with unclear temperature significance.
115 "Earth hasn't warmed as much as expected" This argument ignores the cooling effect of aerosols and the planet's thermal inertia.
116 "Arctic sea ice loss is matched by Antarctic sea ice gain" Arctic sea ice loss is three times greater than Antarctic sea ice gain.
117 "It's a climate regime shift"
There is no evidence that climate has chaotic “regimes” on a long-term basis.

118 "Solar cycles cause global warming" Over recent decades, the sun has been slightly cooling & is irrelevant to recent global warming.
119 "Less than half of published scientists endorse global warming"
Around 97% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming.

120 "A drop in volcanic activity caused warming" Volcanoes have had no warming effect in recent global warming - if anything, a cooling effect.
121 "Plant stomata show higher and more variable CO2 levels"
Stomatal data is not as direct as ice core measurements and hence not as precise.

122 "Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project"
The 'OISM petition' was signed by only a few climatologists.

123 "Ice isn't melting"
Arctic sea ice has shrunk by an area equal to Western Australia, and summer or multi-year sea ice might be all gone within a decade.

124 "IPCC ‘disappeared’ the Medieval Warm Period"
The IPCC simply updated their temperature history graphs to show the best data available at the time.

125 "Sea level is not rising"
The claim sea level isn’t rising is based on blatantly doctored graphs contradicted by observations.

126 "It's ozone"
Ozone has only a small effect.

127 "Climate is chaotic and cannot be predicted" Weather is chaotic but climate is driven by Earth's energy imbalance, which is more predictable.
128 "Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were ignored" An independent inquiry found CRU is a small research unit with limited resources and their rigour and honesty are not in doubt.
129 "Climate 'Skeptics' are like Galileo"
Modern scientists, not anti-science skeptics, follow in Galileo’s footsteps.

130 "The IPCC consensus is phoney"
113 nations signed onto the 2007 IPCC report, which is simply a summary of the current body of climate science evidence

131 "Tuvalu sea level isn't rising" Tuvalu sea level is rising 3 times larger than the global average.
132 "Naomi Oreskes' study on consensus was flawed" Benny Peiser, the Oreskes critic, retracted his criticism. 
133 "Renewables can't provide baseload power"
A number of renewable sources already do provide baseload power, and we don't need renewables to provide a large percentage of baseload power immediately.

134 "Trenberth can't account for the lack of warming"
Trenberth is talking about the details of energy flow, not whether global warming is happening.

135 "Ice Sheet losses are overestimated" A number of independent measurements find extensive ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland.
136 "CRU tampered with temperature data" An independent inquiry went back to primary data sources and were able to replicate CRU's results.
137 "Melting ice isn't warming the Arctic" Melting ice leads to more sunlight being absorbed by water, thus heating the Arctic.
138 "Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup" By breathing out, we are simply returning to the air the same CO2 that was there to begin with.
139 "Satellite error inflated Great Lakes temperatures" Temperature errors in the Great Lakes region are not used in any global temperature records. 
140 "Soares finds lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature"
Soares looks at short-term trends which are swamped by natural variations while ignoring the long-term correlation.

141 "We're heading into cooling" There is no scientific basis for claims that the planet will begin to cool in the near future.
142 "Murry Salby finds CO2 rise is natural"
Multiple lines of evidence make it very clear that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to human emissions.

143 "The sun is getting hotter" The sun has just had the deepest solar minimum in 100 years.
144 "Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer"
This argument uses regional temperature data that ends in 1855, long before modern global warming began.

145 "CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration" That humans are causing the rise in atmospheric CO2 is confirmed by multiple isotopic analyses.
146 "It's waste heat"
Greenhouse warming is adding 100 times more heat to the climate than waste heat.

147 "Water vapor in the stratosphere stopped global warming" This possibility just means that future global warming could be even worse.
148 "It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940" The warming trend over 1970 to 2001 is greater than warming from both 1860 to 1880 and 1910 to 1940.
149 "An exponential increase in CO2 will result in a linear increase in temperature"
CO2 levels are rising so fast that unless we decrease emissions, global warming will accelerate this century.

150 "Record high snow cover was set in winter 2008/2009"
Winter snow cover in 2008/2009 was average while the long-term trend in spring, summer, and annual snow cover is rapid decline.

151 "Mauna Loa is a volcano"
The global trend is calculated from hundreds of CO2 measuring stations and confirmed by satellites.

152 "CERN CLOUD experiment proved cosmic rays are causing global warming"
The CERN CLOUD experiment only tested one-third of one out of four requirements necessary to blame global warming on cosmic rays, and two of the other requirements have already failed.

153 "97% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven"
The 97% consensus has been independently confirmed by a number of different approaches and lines of evidence.

154 "Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect"
Venus very likely underwent a runaway or ‘moist’ greenhouse phase earlier in its history, and today is kept hot by a dense CO2 atmosphere.

155 "Deniers are part of the 97%"
If anyone claims to be part of the 97 percent, it means they disagree with the contrarian argument that humans are having a minimal impact on global warming.

156 "Water levels correlate with sunspots"
This detail is irrelevant to the observation of global warming caused by humans.

157 "It's planetary movements"
Blaming global warming on the movements of other planets is little more than 'climastrology' and curve fitting without a physical basis.

158 "Antarctica is too cold to lose ice" Glaciers are sliding faster into the ocean because ice shelves are thinning due to warming oceans.
159 "Positive feedback means runaway warming" Positive feedback won't lead to runaway warming; diminishing returns on feedback cycles limit the amplification. 
160 "Skeptics were kept out of the IPCC?"
Official records, Editors and emails suggest CRU scientists acted in the spirit if not the letter of IPCC rules.

161 "CO2 was higher in the late Ordovician"
The sun was much cooler during the Ordovician.

162 "Coral atolls grow as sea levels rise"
Thousands of coral atolls have "drowned" when unable to grow fast enough to survive at sea level.

163 "It's internal variability"
Internal variability can only account for small amounts of warming and cooling over periods of decades, and scientific studies have consistently shown that it cannot account for the global warming over the past century.

164 "CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused" Many lines of evidence, including simple accounting, demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to human fossil fuel burning.
165 "No warming in 16 years"
Global surface temperatures have continued to rise steadily beneath short-term natural cooling effects, and the rise in global heat content has not slowed at all.

166 "A grand solar minimum could trigger another ice age"
Peer-reviewed research, physics, and math all tell us that a grand solar minimum would have no more than a 0.3°C cooling effect, barely enough to put a dent in human-caused global warming.

167 "Adapting to global warming is cheaper than preventing it"
Preventing global warming is relatively cheap; business-as-usual will cause accelerating climate damage costs that economists struggle to even estimate.

168 "It's CFCs"
CFCs contribute at a small level.

169 "Scientists retracted claim that sea levels are rising"
The Siddall 2009 paper was retracted because its predicted sea level rise was too low.

170 "Warming causes CO2 rise" Recent warming is due to rising CO2.
171 "Renewable energy investment kills jobs"
Investment in renewable energy creates more jobs than investment in fossil fuel energy.

172 "Schmittner finds low climate sensitivity"
The Schmittner et al. study finds low probability of both very low and very high climate sensitivities, and its lower estimate (as compared to the IPCC) is based on a new temperature reconstruction of the Last Glacial Maximum that may or may not withstand the test of time.

173 ""
The 97% consensus on human-caused global warming is a robust result using two independent methods (volunteer abstract ratings and scientist self-ratings) and consistent with similar previous surveys.

174 "Greenland has only lost a tiny fraction of its ice mass" Greenland's ice loss is accelerating & will add metres of sea level rise in upcoming centuries.
175 "DMI show cooling Arctic" While summer maximums have showed little trend, the annual average Arctic temperature has risen sharply in recent decades. 
176 "Ben Santer and the 1995 IPCC report"
The IPCC operates by consensus.  Ben Santer could not have and did not single-handedly alter the 1995 IPCC report.  Accusations to the contrary are simply an attempt to re-write history.

177 "CO2 limits won't cool the planet"
CO2 limits won't cool the planet, but they can make the difference between continued accelerating global warming to catastrophic levels vs. slowing and eventually stopping the warming at hopefully safe levels

178 "It's a climate shift step function caused by natural cycles"
Natural cycles superimposed on a linear warming trend can be mistaken for step changes, but the underlying warming is caused by the external radiative forcing.

179 "Royal Society embraces skepticism" The Royal Society still strongly state that human activity is the dominant cause of global warming.
180 "It's only a few degrees" A few degrees of global warming has a huge impact on ice sheets, sea levels and other aspects of climate.
181 "It's satellite microwave transmissions"
Satellite transmissions are extremely small and irrelevant.

182 "CO2 only causes 35% of global warming"
CO2 and corresponding water vapor feedback are the biggest cause of global warming.

183 "IPCC graph showing accelerating trends is misleading"
All of the statements made in the IPCC report regarding the figure in question are correct and supported.

184 "Sea level fell in 2010" The temporary drop in sea level in 2010 was due to intense land flooding caused by a strong La Nina.
185 "Arctic sea ice extent was lower in the past"
Current Arctic sea ice extent is the lowest in the past several thousand years.

186 "UAH atmospheric temperatures prove climate models and/or surface temperature data sets are wrong"
The most likely explanation for UAH data warming less than expected is that the UAH data set is biased low.

187 "We didn't have global warming during the Industrial Revolution" CO2 emissions were much smaller 100 years ago.
188 "Ljungqvist broke the hockey stick"
Ljungqvist's temperature reconstruction is very similar to other reconstructions by Moberg and Mann.

189 "Hansen predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater"
Hansen was speculating on changes that might happen if CO2 doubled.

190 "Removing all CO2 would make little difference"
Removing CO2 would cause most water in the air to rain out and cancel most of the greenhouse effect.

191 "Great Barrier Reef is in good shape" Evidence clearly shows that both ocean warming and acidification due to human CO2 emissions are damaging the Great Barrier Reef
192 "Loehle and Scafetta find a 60 year cycle causing global warming"
Loehle and Scafetta's paper is nothing more than a curve fitting exercise with no physical basis using an overly simplistic model.

193 "Postma disproved the greenhouse effect" Postma's model contains many simple errors; in no way does Postma undermine the existence or necessity of the greenhouse effect.
194 "Underground temperatures control climate"
The amount of heat energy coming out of the Earth is too small to even be worth considering.

195 "Humans survived past climate changes"
Humans have been through climate changes before- but mostly cold ones and mostly in our far distant past.

196 "Heatwaves have happened before"
Global warming is increasing the frequency, duration and intensity of heatwaves.

197 "Climate change isn't increasing extreme weather damage costs"
The data and research are unclear whether climate change is increasing extreme weather damage costs, but many types of extreme weather are becoming more intense and/or frequent, and disaster costs from extreme weather events are rising.

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