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Re: [Phys-L] just for fun

It would really help (at least those of us with a little knowledge in this area) if the media would not keep throwing false or misleading facts into their presentations of the actual research and conclusions. I've been trying for the past month to find a decent film on climate change for use in my Spring Energy class. I need to replace the excellent one that Nova/Frontline did in 2001 because of its age and length (2 hours). I've gotten over the 'preachy' approach of many of the available films but have problems when:
a) When talking about fossil fuel power plants spewing carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere they show cooling towers (also used to show air pollution but never localized heat pollution).
b) They present Katrina as somehow proof of global warming.
c) They use the same graph of historical (200,000 years to now) data on global temperatures and CO-2 concentrations to 'prove' that CO-2 causes climate change that Gore used in Inconvenient Truth--when that data shows that over this time period that CO-2 lags temperature by several hundred years. There is a correlation (not necessarily cause and effect) but it is the wrong direction.
d) Short change the computer models which really are the primary 'evidence' for CO-2 driving the current climate change.

The other problem I've run into is that when I find a fairly good presentation (THIN ICE being one--despite using (c) above) it is so dry and dull that I can't really use it with my gen-ed class.

There are also some interesting 'other' hypotheses-this one still anthropogenic but offering a different future scenario.

http://phys.org/news/2013-05-global-chlorofluorocarbons-carbon-dioxide.html

The point here is that this climate change issue, as it now gets to 'the man on the street' is chock full of propaganda from both viewpoints making it more difficult for the unskilled 'critical thinker'.

rwt

On 12/31/2013 3:47 PM, John Mallinckrodt wrote:
And I, in turn, wonder what those who so smugly treat the overwhelming scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming as if it had already been roundly falsified and is, therefore presumably, a massive ongoing hoax on humanity by the scientific community will have to say about themselves when and if that position becomes untenable.

IMO, if the overwhelming scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming turns out to be wrong it will be one of the few times that modern science has been SO shockingly misguided and WILL, therefore, be cause for some very serious introspection. But by the same token, given the strength of that consensus and the fact that it is based on relatively simple physics that is amply supported by the data, it seems to me that anyone who dismisses it so casually betrays a deeply anti-scientific worldview.

John Mallinckrodt
Cal Poly Pomona

On Dec 31, 2013, at 11:07 AM, Ze'ev Wurman wrote:

It was a perfectly nice thread until John "Know-It-All" Clement chose to
climb on his beloved wooden pony yet again.

On 12/31/2013 9:05 AM, John Clement wrote:
In the US both evolution and global warming are fields where politicians and
religious leaders are not engaging in critical thinking. (see the latest
PEW survey) They are ignoring the professionals in science and using common
everyday thinking which is often not critical.
The proximity of "evolution" and "global warming" that so predictably
and so uncritically roll off his tongue make me (critically?) wonder
what will happen if/when global warming will be shown not to be
man-caused, or even possibly non-existent. Will John the-pony-rider
start separating evolution and global warming then, or will he stop
believing in evolution too? Critical minds want to know.
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