Blog Action Day '09

And today's topic is:

CLIMATE CHANGE.

With so much to discuss, I just want to point yinz to this page at scienceblogs.com.

It's called "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic" and it's very useful. An example:

Objection:

Global Warming is just a hoax perpetrated by environmental extremists and liberals who want an excuse for more big government.

Which is followed by a list of the "hoaxers":

• NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) - http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm
• National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - http://books.nap.edu/collections/global_warming/index.html
• State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC) - http://www.socc.ca/permafrost/permafrost_future_e.cfm
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - http://epa.gov/climatechange/index.html
• The Royal Society of the UK (RS) - http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=3135
• American Geophysical Union (AGU) - http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html
• American Meteorological Society (AMS) - http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/climatechangeresearch_2003.html
• American Institute of Physics (AIP) - http://www.aip.org/gov/policy12.html
• National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) - http://eo.ucar.edu/basics/cc_1.html
• American Meteorological Society (AMS) - http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/jointacademies.html
• Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) - http://www.cmos.ca/climatechangepole.html

And then there's this list of National Academies of Science:

• Academia Brasiliera de Ciencias (Bazil)
• Royal Society of Canada
• Chinese Academy of Sciences
• Academie des Sciences (France)
• Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany)
• Indian National Science Academy
• Accademia dei Lincei (Italy)
• Science Council of Japan
• Russian Academy of Sciences
• Royal Society (United Kingdom)
• National Academy of Sciences (United States of America)

who have all signed a joint statement that opens with:

Climate change is real.

There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring. The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems. It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities (IPCC 2001). This warming has already led to changes in the Earth's climate.

On the otherside of the "debate" we have (locally at least) Richard Mellon Scaife's brain trust who opened an editorial on off-shore drilling with this:

Having bought the unsubstantiated arguments of global-warming alarmists, the Obama administration is all too likely to be swayed by politicized science regarding offshore oil and gas drilling.

Hmm. NASA, the National Academy of Sciences, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (just to name three) vs the Scaife's Tribune-Review.

Where do YOU stand?