Re: [Phys-L] "Climate science is not settled"

[Bernard Cleyet <bernard@cleyet.org>]

On 2014, Oct 04, , at 12:07, Ze'ev Wurman <zeev@IEEE.ORG> wrote:

> I avoided barging in, not wanting to add fuel to the fire and hoping that the non-scientific propaganda here will die out. Yet the latest salvo of inane excuse forces me to react. I will try to make it brief.
>
> 1. The excuse that "no science is truly settled" is precisely that -- an excuse. There is a big difference between some *details* of a theory being unclear, and having essentially ALL existing climate models unable to accommodate the 15+ years temperature hiatus. Many people here -- correctly -- poke fun at people arguing that "evolution is just a theory" because -- correctly again -- essentially everything of explanatory nature in science is "just a theory." Yet here they seem happy to engage in an identical linguistic charade from the other direction ... "nothing is settled." I call it rubbish and deceit.


cut

By one definition it’s settled when it enters the pop. culture.

Sherman's Lagoon - Houston Chronicle  


http://www.chron.com/entertainment/comics-games/comic/Sherman-s-Lagoon/  


bc notes a local carbon sequestration (thought partially permanent)  [subject of yesterday’s Quest, a KQED production]

Ecological importance of sea otters:

"Based on their calculations, the presence of otters increased the carbon storage of kelp forests by 4.4 to 8.7 megatons—equivalent to the amount of carbon found in the annual carbon dioxide emissions from 3 to 6 million passenger cars"


Thanks to Sea Otters, Kelp Forests Absorb Vast Amounts of CO2 : SEAOTTERS.COM – POWERED BY CUTENESS™  

http://seaotters.com/2012/09/07/thanks-to-sea-otters-kelp-forests-absorb-vast-amounts-of-co2/