The American Denial of Global Warming

Polls show that between one-third and one-half of Americans still believe that there is "no solid" evidence of global warming, or that if warming is happening it can be attributed to natural variability. Others believe that scientists are still debating the point. Join scientist and renowned historian Naomi Oreskes as she describes her investigation into the reasons for such widespread mistrust and misunderstanding of scientific consensus and probes the history of organized campaigns designed to create public doubt and confusion about science. Series: "Perspectives on Ocean Science" [12/2007] [Science] [Show ID: 13459]

Channel: Education
Uploaded: December 20, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Author: uctelevision

Length: 58:36
Rating: 4.28
Views: 29602

Tags: global Naomi Oreskes warming

Video Comments

grastog1313 (August 30, 2008 at 3:23 pm)

kfw38C - I agree with your analogy. Regarding the same issue of CO2-driven warming, I remain impressed by Nancidrew4's ability to find informative scientific sources to describe in detail the mechanisms of the warming. Any viewers wondering whether CO2-driven warming is only a modern phenomenon should review her comments. Also, given her ability to communicate, the suggestion by SauceMystery (StarsHaveFaces) that she deceptively uses many other less impressive identities seems laughable.

kfw38C (August 30, 2008 at 2:44 pm)

Thanks for your posts on this. stop attacking one of the cornerstone logical fallacies denialists rely on. I recently went on a date with guy and we got into the whole AGW thing. He brought up the CO2 lags temp increase argument. He tried to draw an analogy to the economy by saying job losses lag an economic downturn. I reminded him that screwing up at work can still lead to job loss(es) despite the economic (aka natural) cycle.

kfw38C (August 30, 2008 at 2:27 pm)

Sauce...I noticed that you accused nancidrew of having multiple names.....when are you going to own up to being TheStarsHaveFaces?TheStarsHaveFaces was created on 8/11/08 after someone or some people were marking your posts as spam, which was understandable given how you were blanketing videos all over youtube with the same quotes over and over again. I also noted that both identities are 37 years old.You found a way to get around the comment limit, that may be a youtube violation too.

nancidrew4 (August 30, 2008 at 7:41 am)

... during Termination III (~240,000 years before the present). This record most likely reflects the temperature and accumulation change, although the mechanism remains unclear. The sequence of events during Termination III suggests that the CO2 increase lagged Antarctic deglacial warming by 800 +- 200 years and preceded the Northern Hemisphere deglaciation."Note that the carbon dioxide increase PRECEDED the warming of the Northern Hemisphere.

nancidrew4 (August 30, 2008 at 7:40 am)

icebubbles.ucsd. edu/Publications/CaillonTermIII.pdfTiming of Atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic Temperature Changes"The analysis of air bubbles from ice cores has yielded a precise record of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, but the timing of changes in these gases with respect to temperature is not accurately known because of uncertainty in the gas age--ice age difference. We have measured the isotopic composition of argon in air bubbles in the Vostok core ...

nancidrew4 (August 30, 2008 at 7:39 am)

CO2 warming explains how the relatively WEAK FORCING from Milankovitch cycles can bring the planet out of an ice age. It begins with the high southern latitudes warming and releasing CO2 from the oceans. The CO2 mixes through the atmosphere, amplifying and spreading the warming to northern latitudes. This is why warming in the southern hemisphere precedes warming in the northern hemisphere. This is confirmed by marine cores that show tropical temperatures lag southern warming by ~1000 years."

nancidrew4 (August 30, 2008 at 7:37 am)

Here's why the greenhouse theory is NOT disproved by the history of past temperature increases occurring before increased levels of CO2:skepticalscience. com/co2-lags-temperature.htm"Does temperature rise cause CO2 rise or the other way around? A common misconception is that you can only have one or the other. In actuality, the answer is both....Looking over past climate change, scientists have observed ... as temperature rises, CO2 also rises but lags the warming by 800 to 1000 years....

nancidrew4 (August 30, 2008 at 6:45 am)

'Well yes, it is getting warmer, but there's no evidence that it's due to human activity.' And then, 'Yes, it is getting warmer, and it's due to human activity, but the consequences will be trivial.'Today, Ozone Man is a Nobel Laureate, and even the most anti-scientific world leaders seem to admit that we are in trouble. If George Bush knows something, then believe me, everybody else knows it too."

nancidrew4 (August 30, 2008 at 6:45 am)

Dan Gilbert explains why the human brain is so poorly adapted to the threat of global warming:poptech. org/popcasts/?viewcastid=163"William James, the great philosopher and psychologist said, 'A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.'This is exactly what has happened with the conversation on global warming. Critics began by telling us there's no evidence of global warming. Then they said ...

SauceMystery (August 29, 2008 at 11:21 pm)

there is clear violation of YouTube guidelines happening in this thread. Comments that are germane to the topic of the video are being marked as spam and with abuseive amounts of thumbs down from a single user who has several usernames, i.e, sharkblubber, stopglobalwarming08, valcat9, nancidrew, edeagleman, belmonnt 162.This user has a disorder of personality that causes this type of activity.