You are being lied to: Cherry picked climate data can fool you
“Global Warming Has Stopped”? How to Fool People Using “Cherry-Picked” Climate Data – Forbes
The current favorite argument of those who argue that climate changes isn’t happening, or a problem, or worth dealing with, is that global warming has stopped. Therefore (they conclude) scientists must be wrong when they say that climate change is caused by humans, worsening, and ultimately a serious environmental problem that must be addressed by policy makers.
These statements are scurrilous deceptions and falsehoods. The planet is warming – an observation noted by every climate research institution tracking temperatures, the US National Academy of Sciences (over and over and over), every other national academy of sciences on the planet, and every professional society in the geosciences.
The next time you hear someone say it isn’t warming, or it hasn’t warmed for “xx” years, or “it’s actually cooling,” remember: someone is trying to deceive you with cherry-picked numbers.
Tip: @MichaelShermer
Selective data use is one of THE most common ways of fooling people about what’s going on. Check out this article to illustrate. The author rips through the deception being portrayed in certain media outlets to attempt to convince people that global warming is not happening. (Only the last handful of points – on the right end of the line – are being shown instead of the entire trend.)
The real graph STILL looks like this.
It ain’t on its way down folks. Time to embrace the big picture, the one that affects us not just in a few years but in our lifetime.
You’ve just read a post by Sharon Hill, syndicated from the Doubtful Newsblog. You may comment on it below, or leave a comment on the original post instead.
I am totally in favor of taking care of the earth. I am currently building a bike trailer so I can shop without my car, reducing my footprint.
But I would like to ask if this article takes into consideration that we have warmer centuries and colder centuries. Two examples are that in Roman times grapes were grown in Yorkshire (northern England). Then in Elizabethan time they were able to have ice festivals on the Thames. Elizabeth was the last monarch to do this because it is now too warm. There was a warm century from 1180 to 1280. In this time there were NO crop failures so no famine and the population tripled to 6 million. This population fell during the black death and never recurred again until the mid 1800′s.
So I wonder if you are cherry picking too.
This a topic I am still undecided about because of historical evidence of fluctuations. I would like to see more discussion taking both current evidence and historical evidence into account.
We also need to check our sources. I live in Stockholm, Sweden, and traditionally, the inner city temperature has beem measured at Observatorielunden, smack right in the middle of the city. Measures higher temperatures now than in the 1890′s ya think?!?
When I went to high school in the 80′s, it was taken for fact that the Swedish forests would undergo mass death due to acid rain downfall. In 20XX, there would be no forests.
Fact is, Swedish forests thrive. Goes to show how easy it is to be wrong.
We are trusting people that can’t tell the weather next Thursday to tell what the f***ing climate is going to be in the next 100 years!
I have a masters degree and a skeptic’s hat. I do not presume to understand the dynamics of the incredibly complex systems that make up our world.
I salute those who try, but mapping climate changes on a decade/centennial level in a chaotic system is just plainly not doable. Period.