Why are scientists skeptical

Peer review does not establish the quality of research nearly so much as it enforces the norms of a discipline. When these norms fail to do what science does, as with the GASSSPP, peer review enforces making the same mistakes throughout the discipline. If peer review actually ensured accuracy, the majority of GASSSPP research would never have been published in the first place, owing to erroneous interpretation of statistical significance.

They are not the same, and not even necessarily related. Earth's Future Open Access pdf This blog post combines extracts from articles published by our German language partner website klimafakten. It'll be the start of a series of blog posts looking more closely at the various discourses of climate delay, an insidious way to keep delaying action to combat climate change now that outright climate science denial seems to be waning. You could also call these "climate cop-outs", excuses to not having to do much against climate change.

Redirect Responsibilities : Someone else should take action first. Propagate non-transformative solutions : Mitigate without fundamental, disruptive changes - the "not like this" excuse. Emphasize the downsides of climate policy because it would be politically and socially unjustifiable. Surrender : stating that it's too late and that a change of course is no longer possible.

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections. The case for climate solutions has long been hindered because of the decades it will take for investments made today to yield benefits in the form of less extreme weather impacts. Carbon dioxide pollution remains in the atmosphere for upwards of a millennium, and so efforts to curb carbon emissions will only slowly bend the global warming curve.

Clean technologies deployed today will yield significant changes in extreme weather only toward the middle of the century. People often have difficulty making decisions based on such long-term considerations.

But as a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS concludes, curbing climate change does yield immediate benefits in the form of cleaner air resulting in healthier and longer lives.

In addition to pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, burning fossil fuels also releases other air pollutants that create higher levels of ozone and easily respirable fine particulate matter like PM 2. Ozone can aggravate lung diseases like asthma and emphysema, while PM 2. Those results were incorporated into this new research, which estimates that in , PM 2. Were the U. All told, close to 1. Scientifically, the Keeling Curve is a plot of atmospheric CO 2 concentrations.

Sociologically, the Keeling Curve represents our ability or lack thereof to live in balance with nature. Direct-air CO 2 measurements were started by Charles David Keeling in , and in honor of his work, plots of CO 2 concentration from to the present are called Keeling Curves see Fig. The Keeling Curve has two features: rising and falling intra-annual CO 2 concentrations, and steadily rising inter-annual CO 2 concentrations. The intra-annual trends represent natural up-down cycling of the seasons: when CO 2 is drawn from the atmosphere to make leaves on plants and trees, CO 2 concentrations decrease.

When leaves fall to the ground and decompose, CO 2 concentrations increase, because rotting vegetation releases CO 2 back into the atmosphere. Figure 1. The Keeling Curve, plotted as monthly-averaged values from to Although the main cause for the inter-annual increase is currently human GHG emissions, the Keeling Curve shows the net effect of all CO 2 emissions and sinks, both human and natural.

If human emissions decrease, but either natural emissions increase or natural sinks decrease, the Keeling Curve will respond less than expected based on changes to human GHG emissions alone. A central question of climate talks is how to stabilize and then reduce atmospheric CO 2 concentrations to a level that correspond to a particular, target temperature, such as 1. There are many commitments by many countries around the world, articulating how they will reduce carbon emissions.

Lots of promises, plans, and politics. There are three points to consider about what climate negotiators are recommending. The following articles sparked above average interest during the week: SkS Analogy24 - Atmospheric Carbon Loans , Misleading posts claim record Antarctica cold disproves global warming , Fox Weather readies launch, facing questions over how it will cover climate change , Yes, There Has Been Progress on Climate.

The incorrect conclusion, however, is that because our emissions are a fraction of total emissions, they cannot be causing the current warming. This argument confuses the concepts of emissions vs. In technical jargon we say that his income is in equilibrium with his expenses. In the common vernacular we say that he is living hand to mouth. Up to the Industrial Revolution i. About half of the human CO 2 emissions are absorbed by the biosphere i. Therefore, even though human emissions are a fraction of natural emissions, human emissions are a big deal because our emissions put the overall system out of balance.

Nature was in a delicate balance before the Industrial Revolution, not accumulating CO 2 in the atmosphere, but now our emissions have put the system out of balance. The accumulation of CO 2 in the atmosphere of about 2.

Increasing large wildfires over the western United States linked to diminishing sea ice in the Arctic Zou et al. Spatiotemporal trends of temperature extremes in Bangladesh under changing climate using multi-statistical techniques Mallick et al.

Theoretical and Applied Climatology Open Access pdf Scientific Reports Open Access pdf Poleward migration of western North Pacific tropical cyclones related to changes in cyclone seasonality Feng et al.

Heat Waves in Southern Armenia in the context of climate change Galstyan et al. Temperature-duration-frequency analysis over Delhi and Bengaluru city in India Devi et al. Theoretical and Applied Climatology Journal of Physical Oceanography Open Access pdf Archaeologists piece together the history of a civilization from pollen grains, kitchen middens, potshards, tools, works of art, written sources and other site-specific artifacts. Climate scientists prove anthropogenic global warming from the environmental sciences, planetary geology, geophysics, glaciology, meteorology, chemistry, biology, ecology, among other disciplines.

Evolutionary biologists uncover the history of life on Earth from geology, paleontology, botany, zoology, biogeography, comparative anatomy and physiology, genetics, and so on. Once an inferential or historical science is well established through the accumulation of positive evidence, however, it is just as sound as a laboratory or experimental science. For creationists to disprove evolution, for example, they need to unravel all these independent lines of evidence as well as construct a rival theory that can explain them better than the theory of evolution.

The principle of positive evidence applies to all claims. Skeptics are from Missouri, the Show-Me state.

Show me a Sasquatch body. Show me the archaeological artifacts from Atlantis. Show me a Ouija board that spells words with securely blindfolded participants. Show me the evidence that alternative medicines work better than placebos.

Show me an ET or take me to the Mothership. Show me the Intelligent Designer. Show me God. Most people scientists included treat the God question separate from all these other claims. They are right to do so as long as the particular claim in question cannot—even in principle—be examined by science.

But what might that include? Most religious claims are testable, such as prayer positively influencing healing. In this case, controlled experiments to date show no difference between prayed-for and not-prayed-for patients. And beyond such controlled research, why does God only seem to heal illnesses that often go away on their own?

What would compel me to believe would be something unequivocal, such as if an amputee grew a new limb. Amphibians can do it. Surely an omnipotent deity could do it.

Many Iraqi War vets eagerly await divine action. There is one mystery I will concede that science may not be able to answer, and that is the question of what existed before our universe began. In particular, wide political differences emerge in public support for and trust of environmental researchers and environmental health specialists. Democrats and independents who lean to the Democratic Party have more favorable views of environmental researchers and environmental health specialists than their Republican and Republican-leaning counterparts.

There are no significant differences by political party in views of medical researchers, medical doctors or dietitians. Similarly, Democrats are more trusting of environmental scientists than Republicans when it comes to their competence, concern for the public and the accuracy of information they provide.

There are modest partisan differences when it comes to trust in nutrition research scientists, but both party groups have about the same levels of trust in medical doctors, medical researchers and dietitians.

Black and Hispanic adults stand out as more likely than whites to see professional or research misconduct as a very or moderately big problem. These findings could be related to inequities in health care and outcomes, among other issues faced by black people and other nonwhite Americans in medical treatment and research. Say "Alexa, enable the Pew Research Center flash briefing". It organizes the public into nine distinct groups, based on an analysis of their attitudes and values.

Even in a polarized era, the survey reveals deep divisions in both partisan coalitions. Pew Research Center now uses as the last birth year for Millennials in our work. President Michael Dimock explains why. The vast majority of U. Use this tool to compare the groups on some key topics and their demographics.