“Has global warming stopped?”
Why we posted this: Here’s a controversy in the New Statesman on a vital subject. Is the world really warming? How to judge the remaining hard-line sceptics?
Original story:
Has global warming stopped?
by David Whitehouse
The New Statesman
19 December 2007
Summary of story:
Whitehouse argues that there is no evidence that the world’s temperature has risen. He has unleashed a torrent of outrage, not least from the noted climate campaigner, Mark Lynas, also in the New Statesmen (same link, with masses of blogs), who says it definitely has risen. (You can see a BBC take on the same issue – here).
livingissues comment:
It is hard to imagine a more important issue than this. After all, if the “sceptics”, “contrarians” and “deniers” can be proved to be wrong on this, they may well be wrong on much more. So the global temperature trend is an excellent key indicator for the debate.
It is hard to see how the rising temperature trend can be denied. Whether it has kept or will keep pace with carbon emissions; how much the rising temperature will change the planet (for good or ill), and what can or should be done about it all – these are all profoundly uncertain. But the fact of temperature rises does seem hard to dispute.
