Published on May 29, 2013
About This Talk
One of the nation’s leading climate scientists explains how he goes about knocking down the “zombie theories” that plague our discussions about climate change. What is a zombie theory? Says Shepherd: “It’s one of those theories that scientists have refuted or disproven time and time again, but they live on like zombies in the blogs and on the radio stations.”
About This Speaker
As the 2013 president of the American Meteorological Society, Shepherd is a leading international expert in weather, climate and atmospheric sciences, and recently briefed the U.S. Senate on climate and extreme weather. A professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia, Shepherd is director of the University’s Atmospheric Sciences Program. Shepherd spent 12 years as a research meteorologist in the Earth-Sun Division at NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center. Shepherd was recently named the UGA Athletic Association Professor in Geography and 2004 was honored at the White House by President Bush with a PECASE award as one of the top young scientists and engineers
in the country.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations).
97% of climate scientists are alarmed?? What a liar!
My applaud to all the Americans who are trying to convince the deniers in
their country,as the rest of the world is busy constructing important
infrastructure to mitigate climate change you brave souls are still trying
to convince your less bright and/or greedy countrymen,they are idiots with
inflated ego’s who are blaming Climate change for their countries downfall
but they fail to understand that the very people they are trying to protect
(oil barons) and republicans are the one’s who destroyed America.They will
blame others by concocting conspiracy theories and keeping Zombie theories
alive.If Obama leads the world in mitigating Climate change,we will all
love USA again and forgive these deniers for almost killing humanity for
their inflated egos and tiny minds.
As far as income climate scientists remain at the more poorly paid end of
the spectrum of professionals. It’s the lobbyists who get all the Oil
money.
+Tom Ulcak Well said!
These fucking deniers have NOTHING at all to “teach” anybody about
anything, least of all climate science & how the economy works.
+CPsycho77 Because conservatives & righties are psychopathic hypocrites.
They LOVE & WORSHIP war, but only if it’s a war to murder poor people &
steal their oil & other resources so the conservatives can use them.
Conservatives are 1000x worse than a vegan antinatalist rapist. Unlike a
rapist, who is violently forced to pay for his political activity (rape),
righties get away with eating meat & fucking & breeding. They preach
against all government, but then they hypocritically cheer when anarchists
such as Dr Theodore Kaczynski are imprisoned, or Occupy Wall Street (OWS).
They love & want big government to protect the top 0.01% rich who freeload
off the rest of society.
Science shows that every 10,000 yrs the climate changes abruptly, well over
the course of 50yrs, which is pretty quick. In saying that, householders
are penilised for not recycling their rubbish but the fat cats still travel
spewing fuel over the atmosphere. We still use fossil fuels when 90% of the
world knows we don’t need to. But the profits are to big to give up. So
don’t bother me with this nonsense.
Very very interesting video. Something definitely worth sharing.
Zombies? That’s the best you can come up with? What a total farce! Even if
we were causing the MINUTE uptick in the global temperature, what
difference do you think it would make if we shut down 100% of America’s
“greenhouse gas” output? It would be insignificant, to say the least. What
would we do then? FORCE the rest of the world stop producing theirs? Go pet
a unicorn, you rainbow farting, blinder-wearing liberal jackass! “Climate
Scientist”, my ASS! Get a real fucking job, not some contrived, bullshit
position created to help make Obammy’s unemployment figures look better.
BTW, why is it so goddamned cold, MR. CLIMATE SCIENTIST?
“Turner”? Is that ‘Ted Turner’? If so you already know the tenor and
prejudice of this presentation. Thanks. From Canada.
Illuminated masses …. bravo glad to see that someone is keen to this
global taxation scam created for the next ( after the fed reserve’s )
massive rape of our global economy …
Dr. Marshall, if u r a Doctor ??? shame on you paid to mislead your people
into global slavery. Wonder who signed your last check for this puppet
show.
I saw the data and agreed that the planet was warming. I was on the fence
on its true causes. So I took a free online class offered from the
University of BC on climate literacy from coursera. I was convinced
throughout the course of our contributions. I shared some of what I had
learned with friends and family. I’ve now become a “liberal” sell out in
their eyes. I asked them to read the data. No they said, the numbers are
fake and I’m gullible.
So they won’t educate themselves and any numbers are faked except the ones
that prove their point. I think there is a deeper psychological mechanism
at work than just simple denial in some people.
Cold weather-global warming
Hot weather-global warming
Record Arctic ice-global warming
Decrease in Arctic ice-global warming
Increase in hurricans-global warming
Decrease in hurricans-global warming
Increase in tornados-global warming
Decrease in tornados-global warming
See a pattern here? It was 10 degrees warmer in the 1800’s than today, and
Co2 levels were lower.. The “consensus” or the “settled science” they talk
about, consists of 300 or so paid, nutball scientists who will fudge and
cherry pick data for grant $$.
Our government, who invade countries for resources, spy on its citizens and
destroy the constitution should be our real cause for worry.. People can
barely afford to heat their homes or buy food and they want more money??
GTFO!
Can any one here tell what the perfect global temp is????The climate has
never been static and never will,the sun drives climate….Solar
activity/storms affect cloud formation,that’s what the latest study’s
say…Does everyone here know all animals for example produce co2,plants
produce oxygen…Funny how that works,any one see a pattern???We give the
plants what they need and they gives us what they need…
I suppose you guys have not heard the founder of the weather channel and
30,000 climate scientist are suing Al Gore for fraud for his climate
change claims…Its time to to take this to court and prove it.. 🙂
If we stopped using fossil fuels today,we would starve in the dark…Think
slow motion Apocalypse ….The world would grind to a halt…
I think people who deny climate change are those who do not want to
relinquish the benefits that cause the climate changes in the 1st place. IF
climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and
biofuel (it has emissions like any other combustible fuel.) then to reverse
that hypothetical damage we have to totaly stop those things and replace
them with technology that allows us to continue this level of wasteful
energy usage, nuclear is the best bet atm. Otherwise we would have to make
a fair few sacrifices as wind and solar are mainly a supplemental power
supply and just can’t support our current usage.
Also I wonder if tectonic forces have been factored in to that climate
model or even volcanic activity it’s self. If a mere 1 degree can affect
climate then maybe a tectonic shift of mere centimeters could affect
climate too.
Um… brontosauruses? Maybe we should work on paleontological literacy as
well…
Slay those Climate Zombies
Slaying the “Zombies” of Climate Science: Dr. Marshall Shepherd at
TEDxAtlanta
Many of the comments here display how seriously infected by zombie theories
the commenters are. This speaker is one of our leading meteorology
professors and climate scientists. His peers have elected him to lead the
American Meteorological Society. People who choose to laugh and echo the
zombie theories he debunks here need to pay attention to him instead.
From Bishop Hill
This TED talk by American Meteorological Society president Marshall
Shepherd is hilarious. You might have expected the big man to marshal some
of the most powerful and incisive arguments around. Instead, El Pres cites
what he calls “The Hockey Stick”, but is actually the Marcott paper: you
remember, the one with what the authors diplomatically call a “non-robust”
blade (critics are much, much ruder). We get The Day After Tomorrow cited,
apparently in all scientific seriousness, we get biofuels lauded as core to
an “energy renaissance”. I’m completely bemused as to how he thinks that
saying “climate and weather are different” slays an argument that you can’t
trust climate models.
Someone who says that you can not cherry pick the data, is to often picking
that last cherry.
Yeah.. the climate changes… no one is arguing that the climate is not
changing. This is a political scheme to create a global tax that will fund
global government and begin systematic global de-population. Google:
Georgia Guidestones for proof.
6:50 I think they ask that question because they are used to people
thinking God causes weather in order to punish sinners.
If you do not believe in climate change, I wonder if you believe in
pollution.
Reality is relative to the observer. Take off your blinders and step into
the light so that you can see better.
“You are assuming that what he is saying is reality” No, thats not an
assumption, it’s observed fact.
Excellent talk. I think Dr. Shepherd’s argument against “Scientists want
grant money” at 12:20 was probably the weakest part of his presentation. He
argued “[if a scientist wants more money, report ‘dunno’]”. This builds on
the assumption that money is granted to those who say ‘dunno’, rather than
to those who say what the money-hander-outers want to hear, which might be
an answer in one direction rather than the other. That may be true, but all
Dr. Shepherd said was “I don’t understand”.
i could answer that one for you ..But …It is difficult to get a man to
understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it,
so you probably wouldn’t understand. By the way, what data are you guys
talking about …he didn’t present any data ….pictures of cartoon zombies
is NOT DATA!
#imoocac13
lol u are stupid