Barry Bickmore's 40-minute explanation of why he stopped denying climate science is worth the time. As a a geochemistry professor, it should come as no surprise that he eventually came around, only that it took as long. But better late than never. He teaches at Brigham Young University in Utah, is an active Mormon, and an active Republican. So there you go.
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Maybe someday he'll realize the reality that being an active Mormon and republican requires the same ignorance of facts that caused him to be a former climate change denier. And then at that point he might leave BYU and start teaching at a proper university.
Better late then never, but the sooner the better.
When talking about Moncton's challenge to the audience to check for themselves, he could have brought in Dr. Abraham's work where he checked up on everything Moncton said and found it badly wrong on many levels.
Like most Republicans, he is still missing WHY "conservative" "leaders" deny climate change: Industry would like to gut all environmental regulation, in order to squeeze out more money and avoid the extra work of cleaning the air and water we must drink and breathe. "More big government and more taxes" is simply a euphemism for reasonable due diligence exercised in order to protect the earth itself. Meh.
How, in this modern world, can a 'scientist' mix up politics with science? How can an educated scientist be sucked into the lies that industry feeds us night and day to maximize their profits, and convince us to vote against our own self interests? We deserve what we are ignoranr enough to allow.
@agnosticator
How can you mix up politics with science? In the realm of politics, both interests are valid and important, the industry's as well as the environmentalists'. The task and purpose of politics is to take them both seriously and find a compromise. The task of politics is not to declare one of them the truth of this time and dismiss the other.
Let me repeat this comment, presumed to languish elsewhere: Isn't the residual "real debate" about how much "forcing" we can expect, to increase the effect of a baseline temperature increase from IR absorption? I've heard the forcing ration estimated around 2-3, but that could be (unlike the basic premise) subject to debate, true?
BTW it would be nice to have "remember personal info", or does the site not accommodate SeaMonkey?
Sven -
The problem is, the political argument should be:
'Given that continued emissions of GHGs are going to warm the planet, with significant-to-catastrophic effects, what policy actions should we take to avert this, given the need to improve the economic lot of the general populace'
That's a hard enough argument as it is, but it's not the argument we are having; indeed, the whole problem is that the fossil fuel lobby is trying to stop us even having the argument.
The underlying problem was stated quite openly during Bush Jr's reign. The republican leadership have decided that they do not need to concern themselves with reality; they can "create" their own new realities.
They have taken this attitude from politics - where it might actually have a grain of truth - into policy - where it emphatically does not.
This dangerous mindset has led to a series of disastrous decisions. Not least, the continuing attempt to create an alternate reality in which climate change is not happening and therefore need not be addressed.
Speaking of alternate realities; did you notice at the top of the page? There is a perfect explanation why actual "Physical Science" and "environment" are separate categories! The disastrous decisions all start there. What needs to be addressed is this: its not about IF climate change is happening (even though some data suggests cooling), the real question is WHY it may be happening. I think we should cap all the volcanoes to satisfy the global alarmists...anyone want to refute the fact that the global release of CO2 from normal earth volcanic cycles do not FAR outweigh anything that Al Gore's SUVs can harm? Or is that impossible to prove...like using faulty ice core tests?
My dear professor, please explain why the spikes in this graph
http://icons.wunderground.com/data/climate_images/pinatubo.png
don't show up in this graph
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dio…
?
Anonymouse:
Because solar radiation is not the same thing as Carbon Dioxide, duh.