The author of this poorly drafted political statement masquerading as science ought to be ashamed.

This quote reveals everything:
"The lecture is in pure astrophysicist-ese"

In other words, "I'm Stupid"

PLEASE STOP PUSHING YOUR AGENDA IN THE GUISE OF SCIENCE

more information about the subject can be found @
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801174450.htm - 44k -

Response to Epicetus' comment:
This quote reveals everything:
"PLEASE STOP PUSHING YOUR AGENDA IN THE GUISE OF SCIENCE"

According to you, the astrophysicists referred to in this article are stupid as well?

Watchman, why do you feel the need to attack epicetus for his opinion of the article? The only thing that the author said that was intelligent was that she did not understand and id is apparent in her writing. I felt the article was a waste of time and bandwidth. Watch out. Some uninformed legislator may see the last sentence of the article and proposed a law prohibiting us from breathing.

Epicetus and auferret.... I have a hard time believing that there are still people like you that are so uninformed about the issue of climate change. The IPCC reports represent the most up to date scientific understanding of climate change.(http://www.ipcc.ch). The summary for policymakers are an easy read if your science background isn't strong (which by your comments I would guess that this is the case).

Uninformed is not the correct term for people like us. I like to think that we are open minded. I speak for many when I say that I do believe in climate change. I just don't believe that man has that much to do with it. The earth goes through normal heating and cooling cycles. The ice age, for example, occurred long before a certain Nobel prize winner began driving the suv he denied owning. There is also the recent scientific evidence that other planets are going through the same type of climate changes that we are.

We could debate this issue but the real issue is that the article still stinks. It is poorly written and incomplete. The editors should be ashamed that it was allowed to be posted on the website of a respected science magazine.

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the planet goes through natural cycles. However, the driving force behind current climate change is undoubtedly anthropogenic. If you need more convincing take a look at figures 2.4 and 2.5 in the latest IPCC synthesis report. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_topic2.pdf Figure 2.4 is a breakdown in the magnitude of radiative forcing attributed to many different factors. From the figure, it is obvious that the natural cycles in solar irradiance are minuscule compared to the effects from various greenhouse gases. Figure 2.5 is a comparison between climate models run using only natural inputs vs. natural inputs plus greenhouse gases. As you can see, only the models that include the effects of greenhouse gases are able to simulate the recent temperature increase.

I find it funny when people like you claim to be open minded. It's the same argument people use to denounce evolution. Just because you believe something to be true doesn't make it equally as valid as an opposite viewpoint unless you have scientific evidence to back it up. Your viewpoint that climate change is potentially caused by natural cycles would be fine if you had some evidence to support it. However, there is an overwhelming body of evidence proving that current climate change is being driven by anthropogenic factors. If you have some references to some recent scientific work that would support your assertions that natural cycles are responsible for climate change, I would love to read them. Please post them!! Then maybe we can have a real scientific discussion.

Your statement in your first comment proves that you have absolutely no idea about the science behind climate change. ("Some uninformed legislator may see the last sentence of the article and proposed a law prohibiting us from breathing.") Yes, the amount of CO2 added to the atmosphere through the combustion of fossil fuels is small compared to the amount that is naturally cycled through the environment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle). The problem is that this upsets the fine balance of sinks and sources, and causes the concentration to slowly increase. This increase drives the increase in global temperatures.

The fact that Al Gore drives an SUV has absolutely nothing to do with the causes of climate change. You might argue that he is being hypocritical, since he is advocating that people drive smaller vehicles, but this does nothing to change the scientific facts!

And lastly, I've noticed a fair bit of whining about the quality of the articles lately. I think that PopSci is doing a great job. I don't think these articles were ever intended to be full length and in depth. The website is just a free supplement to the magazine.
Also, have you ever been to a scientific conference? You are often overwhelmed with information. Really, the goal is to try and sample as much of the new scientific research as you can. The presenters are often trying to make a simple point in a very short amount of time allotted to them. That was the point of this article. PopSci is trying to give us a taste of what is happening at the AAAS meeting in Boston. The point of this particular presentation was that there is further proof that the sun is not responsible for recent climate change.

Please, I am very much open to further discussion on this topic.

One last comment... According to the IPCC scientists, recent climate change is "very likely" caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. If you look in the introduction, the term "very likely" is used to denote a 90% confidence level.

So, the world's best minds are 90% sure that global warming is attributed to humans. Governments around the world constantly spend trillions of dollars on programs with far less certainty of success.

A relationship has been made between climate change and solar radiation which was observed during the "little Ice Age" in the form of lower levels of sunspots. More sunspots = more radiation. I'm of the firm belief that current climate change is brought on by manmade factors but I also think that it has more to do with the interruption or destruction of Co2 absorbing processes than it does with actual increased Co2 emissions. If you look at the numbers, human Co2 emissions seem like a drop in the bucket (@ 27billion tonnes) when compared with the whole of the carbon cycle (about 800 billion tonnes including all plant and animal respiration) but then human destruction of the rainforest (which absorbs most of the Co2 out of the atmosphere) is utterly prolific at more than 50% in the last 100 years....

sjthuss,

Thank you for the very intelligent response. I am very wary of claims made at ipcc, which is an arm of the United Nations. If that is your only source for information, you will only get a very biased view of an issue. They contend that most scientists believe this junk when in fact, most do not. I could develop a list of sites where there is evidence to dispute their point of view but Phil Valentine has already compiled a fine list for us at http://www.philvalentine.com/GlobalWarming.htm .

"Your statement in your first comment proves that you have absolutely no idea about the science behind climate change. ("Some uninformed legislator may see the last sentence of the article and proposed a law prohibiting us from breathing.")"

If you read the last sentence of the article, you will find this statement: "The best way to turn down Earth’s thermostat is to stop emitting CO2." Again, there is nothing to back up the statement. Most everyone knows that CO2 is what we breath out. I have an idea of what some scientists (and politicians) say is what is behind climate change. I, however, refuse to believe what they say, just because they said it. Most of what the general public believes about this subject is what they learned in an Oscar winning "documentary" that has been for the most part debunked. The fact that he won a Nobel prize because of it, minimizes the efforts of all great scientists that were honored with the prize before.

Yes, we have done some bad things for the environment. Yes, we could do better. The problem with this article is that it makes a statement and says nothing to back it up. The article was about how boring the meeting was and had nothing to do with the title.

I have heard of a few people through the discovery channel have stated that during the Middle Ages the earth was actually warmer than it is now. The reason they believe this because they tested some of the larger ice packs by drilling into them and extracting some of the ice to under go testing. It proved that carbon dioxide levels were actually higher during the Middle Ages than it is now. I am all for the improvement of the world, and it may also slow the decline of the ice packs and everything. Also, the lessening of emissons and the release of harmful gases help protect the endangered wild Brook trout. The harmful gases that cause acid rain are slowly killing off the last few wild Brook Trout in the Appalachian Mtns.