Aliens Cause Global Warming: A Lecture by Michael Crichton (1/17/03)

No doubt global warming is occurring - the question is, why? Is it us? Is it that the sun has been projecting slightly more in our direction recently? Is it the poles switching? Didn't we have an ice age before? Things like that are what we really need to find out [except the whole ice age thing].

Technically, the theory has been around since the 1890's (or earlier, if you consider Fourier's theory of greenhouse gas warming). It wasn't until the 60's when the data began to show that the theory was indeed occurring. It has been since then that we (people in general, not me personally) have collected data, produced historical temperature records, and been able to create reasonable climate models¹. However, the gist of what big koi has said is correct. Further, Pharoh is right, too: anyone who would argue that the planet's temperature isn't rising should pretty much be written off as lying or simply ill informed. I hate to be so blunt, but the only questions with regard to global warming are what is causing it and what can we expect to happen in the future? Such questions are not at all like many other observed phenomena, save the scope of this question.

ajs has brought this article to my attention and I just wanted to let him know that I do really appreciate that. I do want to spend some time reading the article over and writing a decent and coherent response. However, that's not going to happen anytime today so I didn't want ajs to think I was ignoring his message. I did get it and I appreciate being included in the conversation. Unfortunately, my daily life and job take precedence over writing and commenting here. I do think it's great that we can use Newsvine to have interesting discussions like this. The internet isn't known for it's civility and even though there have been (and still are) some large spats here, generally this is a place for adult debate which makes us all wiser. Thanks for the message, ajs. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

The theory has been around since the 60's

However, in the '70s, scientific consensus was that we were on the verge of global cooling.

anyone who would argue that the planet's temperature isn't rising should pretty much be written off as lying or simply ill informed.

The question though is also rising as compared to what. The temperature is higher than what we believe it was in the Middle Ages, but there was a small ice age then, so I would expect out temperature to rise. What we don't know, is what has been the "normal" temperature for the earth. Are were merely still recovering from the Little Ice Age or are we actually at a temperature above normal?

However, in the '70s, scientific consensus was that we were on the verge of global cooling.

No. It wasn't. And frankly, repeating that will never make it true. Just because Newsweek went for a dramatic headline doesn't make it any sort of "scientific consensus."

I'd love to spend more time on this, but really just can't right now. The rate of temperature rise over the past 100 years has been faster than than anything observed for the previous 2,000 years. There is nothing "normal" about such as fast rise in global temperatures. If there had been some sort of steady rise since the so-called Little Ice Age, then your explanation might be more plausible. However, that does not correspond to the data.

Thanks for the reply big koi.

But isn't one of the main points of the lecture that "scientific consensus" means very little in the long run?

The article fails to mention the majority of the time that scientific consensus is correct. I feel that the article is really pointing out that science can fall victim to the same trappings that religion has, "group thoughy" , etc...

Not to be abusive but your statement is also not a scientific argument and does not mention scientific data, why should I believe your statement before the argument presented by Michael Crichton?

Umm... Are you joking? I began my statement with

My philosophical thoughts on global warming are ...

I figured that one could infer that my statement was not a scientific statement by that addition.

Last year, we had an aweful [sic] lot of hurricanes.

This year we had an awful shortage of hurricanes.

It was 70 degrees on December 1st in NYC this year

It was also in the 60's in August.

Anecdotes and single samples do not make good science.