Too Much Noise? How Misleading Data Warps Climate Debate

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2010/03/17/Meeting_the_Energy_Challenge

Stephen Schneider, an environmental studies professor at Stanford University, debunks the idea that recent weather trends like the snowstorm in D.C. are signs that disprove global warming. He argues that climate change opponents use "bad" science, such as cherry-picking weather trends, to skew results.

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This event was produced by swissnex San Francisco and part of the U.S.-wide program ThinkSwiss-Brainstorm the Future.

As society struggles to find clean, affordable, and reliable energy alternatives to meet the energy challenge and mitigate global climate change, it is important that scientists and policy-makers around the world work together to explore solutions.

To present the Swiss perspective on sustainable energy alternatives for the future, professor Konstantinos Boulouchos of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) will share the complex interaction between the energy and climate change challenges and provide insight into the ongoing debate surrounding long-term strategic targets like the 2,000-watt versus the one-ton CO2 society.

Joining Professor Boulouchos is internationally recognized U.S. climate scientist, Stephen Schneider of Stanford University. - Swissnex San Francisco

Stephen H. Schneider is the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies at Stanford University, a professor of biological sciences, and professor (by courtesy) of civil and environmental engineering. He is also a senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford.

Internationally recognized for research, policy analysis, and outreach in climate change, he focuses on climate change science, integrated assessment of ecological and economic impacts of human-induced climate change, and identifying viable climate policies and technological solutions. He has consulted with federal agencies and White House staff in several administrations.

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[abyssquick]

This is about public literacy, not popularity. That's the main effort.

There are lots of know-nothing politicians / pundits who are expressing uneducated, imprudent opinions on the subject. The pool of scientists who disagree that global warming happens, who have degrees in relevant fields, is very, very small. Less than 1%. The media presents a false paradigm to the public.

The basic science that has been around for decades - carbon cycles, hydrological cycles, chemical properties, etc.

[marsCubed]

@allgoo19

The reason is that every single scientific institute in the world of national or international standing agree that man made climate change is a fact.

There are no opposing views, it is a scam by the oil corp lobby.

Have a look at

watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio

especially second half which details the opposing 'scientists'. They are same ppl who said ozone hole was not true, they said lead, smoking and asbestos were safe.

It is BS from the middle east oil producers and Bush's corp friends.

[Researchrules]

@marsCubed Also, climate is not a temperature record. Climate = humidity + pressure + temperature.

[Researchrules]

@marsCubed You seem to lack a basic grasp of the academic process. If your bibliography comes from ISI publications your research is more likely to be accepted at a conference.These conferences simply ask you to upload a document without your name and university, ALONG with the full document.

[Researchrules]

@marsCubed

Well, peer review IS NOT scientific audit. You just can not equate peer review with audit. Audit implies objectivity, tests to determine any material distortion in the process and INDEPENDENCE. How can any of your peer reviewers apply for the independent criteria. All peer reviewers have scientific papers of their own which need a H quotient upgrade.

[marsCubed]

@Researchrules

Recently, Skeptic scientists organized the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study.

Funding was even from oil lobby conservatives.

Peer reviewed, published on the web for any1 to see.

They used more data than IPCC & different methods.

Skeptics questions asked & answered by skeptical scientists themselves.

Their conclusion was that IPCC was correct & Climate warming is real.

Many denial sites not updating/gone. Even oil lobby stooges don't want to be sued .

deniers = epic fail.

[Researchrules]

This "scientist" says nothing at all. CO2 levels have been rising since the beginning of the century. Such a PHD moron. It is like saying: Have you been making money since you've been sick? You then have a correlation between your rising credit card balance and your time spent in hospital beds.That is GW "science".

[Researchrules]

Such a moron. Emotional appeal -4, Actual logic 0. Epic fail of a moron.

[happinesson]

a moment of silence makes a lot sense!

[brendanmcwilliams]

Of course changing the technique of measuring anything half way through the experiment is at best, bad science, and at worst, manipulative techniques to prove what you want to.

When called on this scam, their laughable response was that it was more accurate than tree rings. This, of course, is the point. The fact that when they switched measuring techniques happened to coincide with the jump of .8 degrees in world temperature (it is supposedly 1 degree higher at this point) was the point.

[brendanmcwilliams]

wikipedia*.org/wiki/Retreat_of­_glaciers_since_1850

So far, all speculation of charts showing average temperatures back as far as 200 AD or earlier are based on the global warming models rather than actual data.

A big joke among the educated and intelligent folks that like science is that, to make the global warming theory work, they had to switch from using tree rings to gauge temperature to thermometers attached to trees.

[brendanmcwilliams]

Actually, global cooling and the Coming Ice age was the predominant theory during the 1970s. For those that are educated, the graph this guy is using is cherry picked, just as he was complaining about right wingers doing.

The little Ice age ended right around the beginning of the graph, at 1870. It has heated and the glaciers receded since that time period, except from 1940 to 1970, which caused the global cooling/ ice age scare.