by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York on 09. 8.09
...
Photo via Yglesias
Posted on 09/09/2009 2:34:18 AM PDT by StACase
'Global Cooling' Exhibit Still on Display at the Smithsonian
by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York on 09. 8.09
...
Photo via Yglesias
The Smithsonian boasts one of the nation's most respected, most visited, and most famous group of museums. So what's it doing still displaying an exhibit based on 1970s-era science--that the earth is undergoing 'global cooling'--in its Natural History Museum in 2009?
You're probably most likely to hear about global cooling these days from climate change deniers who sometimes say something along the lines of: "Well, scientists said that there was global cooling in the '70s. Now it's global warming?"
And no matter what you've heard, the '70s notion of global cooling has been disproved, and scientists are now at a consensus that the earth is warming. Matthew Yglesias, who spotted the exhibit on a recent visit to the Smithsonian, explains:
In the 70s the study of earth's climate was in its infancy. There was some data, that now turns out to be a very short-term trend, that pointed toward cooling. Other data pointing toward a warming trend. More research was done, and we now understand that there's been a long-term warming trend throughout the industrial era, caused largely by growing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere
. Now maybe we know where some of those climate change skeptics are getting their misinformation--which brings us back to the question of why there's a display pushing the idea of global cooling in one of the nation's most prestigious natural history museums.
Evidently, it's out of sheer laziness: there's been a note up next to the placard for the last two years saying that the exhibit is going to be updated, but no changes have been made. Elsewhere in the museum, there are displays showing recent, up-to-date climate science, and explanations of the current understanding of climate change. Looks like it's about time to update the exhibit--come on fellas, you're the Smithsonian.
I say it's down and in the memory hole before the end of the month.
The World is colder than it was 15 years ago. A truly scary situation/trend.
Any evidence?
Maybe it is there to demonstrate The Rule Of Forty Eight: All scientists are blind.
Ask Galileo what he thinks about that consensus thing.
Regardless of the petulant fist-waving in the article, the placard shown in the picture is essentially correct. We are in a warm interglacial period, and we are still in an ice age. The planet is currently in its “icehouse” phase.
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Geez..If only we could get people to LISTEN!!!
I don’t worry about it. :’)
"For thirty years, nobody disputed this 'fact'. One group of scientists abandoned their experiments on human liver cells because they could only find twenty-three pairs of chromosomes in each cell. Another researcher invented a method of separating the chromosomes, but still he thought he saw twenty-four pairs. It was not until 1955, when an Indonesian named Joe-Hin Tjio travelled from Spain to Sweden to work with Albert Levan, that the truth dawned. Tjio and Levan, using better techniques, plainly saw twenty-three pairs. They even went back and counted twenty-three pairs in photographs in books where the caption stated that there were twenty-four pairs. There are none so blind as do not wish to see." (Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, p 23-24)The correct number of chromosomes could have been discerned, one would think, during the almost 35 years involved in the events above. The most daunting realization is that the double heliacal form of DNA was discerned in 1953, two years before this chromosome count was corrected.
Just because a person with some letters after his name writes a paper stating something doesn't mean it is true. Like global cooling about the time I saw that book or global warming now.
They might want to keep that exhibit around when global cooling comes into chic vogue again.
Global Warming on Free Republic
Then we need to act now, as it is certainly human caused.
We must cut our carbon footprint, enact cap and trade, and otherwise destroy our economy.
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