Last month a coalition of 18 Scientific organizations (and these are big ones...some of the biggest in the world) issued this statement (PDF) to the Senate:
Dear Senator:
As you consider climate change legislation, we, as leaders of scientific organizations, write to state the consensus scientific view.
Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.
These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. Moreover, there is strong evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad impacts on society, including the global economy and on the environment. For the United States, climate change impacts include sea level rise for coastal states, greater threats of extreme weather events, and increased risk of regional water scarcity, urban heat waves, western wildfires, and the disturbance of biological systems throughout the country. The severity of climate change impacts is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades. [See Footnote #1 below]
If we are to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change, emissions of greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced. In addition, adaptation will be necessary to address those impacts that are already unavoidable. Adaptation efforts include improved infrastructure design, more sustainable management of water and other natural resources, modified agricultural practices, and improved emergency responses to storms, floods, fires and heat waves.
We in the scientific community offer our assistance to inform your deliberations as you seek to address the impacts of climate change.
1 The conclusions in this paragraph reflect the scientific consensus represented by, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and U.S. Global Change Research Program. Many scientific societies have endorsed these findings in their own statements, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, and American Statistical Association.
The following societies signed this statement:
* American Association for the Advancement of Science
* American Chemical Society
* American Geophysical Union
* American Institute of Biological Sciences
* American Meteorological Society
* American Society of Agronomy
* American Society of Plant Biologists
* American Statistical Association
* Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
* Botanical Society of America
* Crop Science Society of America
* Ecological Society of America
* Natural Science Collections
* Alliance Organization of Biological Field Stations
* Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
* Society of Systematic Biologists
* Soil Science Society of America
* University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
The scientific consensus regarding global warming is overwhelming. It is time for the denial lobby to shut up. I recommend all my readers forward the above statement to their Congress critters.
(Disclaimer: I believe my wife is currently a member of the American Geophysical Union and will be presenting at their meeting this year)
Squid
Why the hell should people debate with the deniers? The deniers ignore the scientific evidence and at times blatantly lie about the scientific evidence. They are not even trying to be part of a scientific debate, they are trying to spread misinformation. As a scientist I get into many discussions and debates with fellow scientists. In fact I often disagree with my bosses during my career and you know what? If I have a good argument and date to back up my view, my bosses have always listened. If I bullshit, misrepresent and deny the evidence, the way climate deniers do, no one in the scientific community will pay any attention to me. If you can't understand that scientists have no obligation to "debate" people who have no scientific integrity (or any integrity whatsoever). They ARE obligated to prove themselves scientifically, which climate scientists have in thousands of peer-reviewed papers. Science is not debated like a high school debate team. Policy can be, but science is not. It is debated at scientific conferences and in peer-reviewed journals around the world. Al Gore, by the way, doesn't claim to be debating. He is presenting the evidence that scientists have produced in terms non-scientists can understand. And he does a good job, too.
So here's the challenge I place before the deniers: if you have anything worth saying, base it on data and publish it in a peer-reviewed journal. Period. That is how science is done. No deniers have ever done that. Until they do, they are not engaging in scientific debate. They are nothing but blowhards. If they want to be taken seriously scientifically, let them do it scientifically. Why can't you understand that?