David Lum wrote:

"there are certainly folks out there, particularly those wholitigate in
the name of the environment and the pseudo-scientists thatact as expert
witnesses, who do make a fair living off the trumped up bad science.
These guys can indeed take on the giants because they have something
that's extremely powerful, public sentiment, and these days public
sentiment is extremely high towards the environment. The issue is that
they can easily highjack the context of even the best research and spin
it towards fear mongering. The giants may not be angels, but neither are
some of those on the other side of the fence.

Please take a look at the AP article contained at link http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=82134&keybold=ocean%20warming%20salmon.  Take note on who from the Center for Biological Diversity is being quoted in the article.  Is it a scientist? Absolutely not, it's a lawyer.  Also, note that the last paragraph throws the ocean acidification topic into the mix with global warming, another area where jury concerning the true science behind its cause is still out.  It's sound bite piling on sound bite."

Sigh.... sadly, public sentiment is most decidedly NOT "extremely high towards the environment" yet.  Polls consistantly find that when push comes to shove, environmental concerns are far down the list of "top concerns" for the average voter - behind economic matters, national security, social considerations such as gay marriages... and when asked flat-out how much extra people would be willing to pay for such things as electricity generated in sustainable manners, or for energy-efficient appliances and such, the average "person on the street" is not willing to dig very deeply into their pockets to further environmental goals.   Most environmental public awareness work and litigation is pursued by a small percentage of the population who are for the most part volunteers, and the great majority of the few who get paid, could earn FAR more in business: yes, there are a few lawyers who are making good money representing environmental groups, but this is a necessary evil: if you want to win a case, you have to hire lawyers adept at what they do - and this costs!! Contrary to popular opinion, nobody is "turning carbon into gold" except big business interests who are exploiting the massive "carbon trading" markets which are sprouting up all over the place, but which are pretty well useless ecologically.

So far as the causes of global warming being poorly understood, this is simply not true: there is a MASSIVE scientific consensus which agrees that our species' activities are the primary cause of the recent rapid warming which our biosphere is experienced.  The "Greenhouse effect" is sound, very solid science, and the forcing factors involved in the ongoing warming can be calculated rather well.  Further, the increase of CO2 in the world's oceans, which is of course closely tied in with anthrogenic-enhanced greenhouse warming, is a real threat to many organisms which use calcium carbonate to build their exoskeletons.  Off the coast of British Columbia, for example, there are now repeated upwellings of low pH, carbonate undersaturated water - of a nature which wasn't expected by scientists who study such matters, for another 30 years.  This is not "junk science" as some right wing folks like to claim: it is quite real.  The "junk" is being sponsored by business interests and right-wing (often business-financed) "think tanks", and the vast majority of it doesn't get published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals - not that every article that DOES get published in there "mainstream" scientific journals is fantasticically solid, but they do on the whole have a far higher probability of being "sound science" than articles or reports which are rejected by said journals.

 A good website which is written by scientists who work in climate-related fields (with no lawyers in sight.....), is http://realclimate.org/ - some exclellent articles at all levels of accessibility (ie, you don't have to be a scientist to understand most of it!!) can be found there.

From a summery night in New Scotland,
Ross Mayhew.
http://www.schnr-specimen-shells.com/

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