Are we in a global warming cycle? [Archive]

sojourner

11-23-2008, 10:10 PM

I think man does contribute to global warming, but is it a huge amount? I have zero idea...

Who does? And how are we going to make an informed decision if we can’t get honest answers from the people that are supposed to know?

One thing we do know is that activists take the Chicken Little “The sky is falling” approach to promoting their causes. After all who is going to be motivated if you tell them that the average temperature of the earth is going to increase by 1 °C over the next 100 years?

Here is an example:
In 1988, James Hansen, a climatologist, told the US Congress that sea level would rise several feet by the end of the century. It rose one inch. Either he is a terrible climatologist and should find another profession or he deliberately inflated the number to get the response he desired.

Another thing we know is that activists only present one side of the equation.

Here is another example:
Al Gore likes to talk about the 2003 heat wave in Europe as an illustration. He talks about the 35,000 that died from the heat. But what about the other side of the equation, the people who died from the cold?

2,000 in the UK died from the heat wave. On the flip side, 2,500 died from the cold. From 1998 to 2000 4,700 died each year from the cold in the UK.

At least for Britain, the death rate from extreme temperatures would decrease if temperatures did rise.

p.s. I am not picking on AL Gore. He is just the front man who people are most familiar with.

Ikasu

11-23-2008, 10:12 PM

Who does? And how are we going to make an informed decision if we can’t get honest answers from the people that are supposed to know?

One thing we do know is that activists take the Chicken Little “The sky is falling” approach to promoting their causes. After all who is going to be motivated if you tell them that the average temperature of the earth is going to increase by 1 °C over the next 100 years?

Here is an example:
In 1988, James Hansen, a climatologist, told the US Congress that sea level would rise several feet by the end of the century. It rose one inch. Either he is a terrible climatologist and should find another profession or he deliberately inflated the number to get the response he desired.

Another thing we know is that activists only present one side of the equation.

Here is another example:
Al Gore likes to talk about the 2003 heat wave in Europe as an illustration. He talks about the 35,000 that died from the heat. But what about the other side of the equation, the people who died from the cold?

2,000 in the UK died from the heat wave. On the flip side, 2,500 died from the cold. From 1998 to 2000 4,700 died each year from the cold in the UK.

At least for Britain, the death rate from extreme temperatures would decrease if temperatures did rise.

p.s. I am not picking on AL Gore. He is just the front man who people are most familiar with.

These are good points. I've always been skeptical on global warming on a gut level, but I don't have a scientific background to argue it nor do I really care about it, to be honest.

sojourner

11-23-2008, 10:32 PM

These are good points. I've always been skeptical on global warming on a gut level, but I don't have a scientific background to argue it nor do I really care about it, to be honest.

It could cost the US one trillion dollars and you know these estimated costs only go one way.

You may not feel it directly but you might feel it indirectly because of the negative impact on the economy.

Ikasu

11-23-2008, 10:59 PM

It could cost the US one trillion dollars and you know these estimated costs only go one way.

You may not feel it directly but you might feel it indirectly because of the negative impact on the economy.

The other thing to consider is international restrictions put on developing countries that want to create a manufacturing base to produce capital, in order to get themselves out of soaring tax rates, debt and poverty, but can not due to global warming theories that influence these international barriers.

Behemoth_the_Cat

11-24-2008, 12:06 AM

VotingHillary

11-24-2008, 01:04 AM

Well, we have been averaging this November about 15-20 degrees colder than the normal range where I live....so, I just don't know.

sojourner

11-24-2008, 04:48 PM

GingerC

11-24-2008, 05:08 PM

Global warming is a hoax.

The National Climatic Data Center --- are reporting that through its first 10 months 2008 is shaping up to be the coolest year in the United States since 1997. In fact the surface temperature has been declining for a decade.

You hear how the ice of Antarctica is melting... what you don't hear is that 3 sides of it are actually growing.

An abnormally cool Arctic is seeing dramatic changes to ice levels. In sharp contrast to the rapid melting seen last year, the amount of global sea ice has rebounded sharply and is now growing rapidly. The total amount of ice, which set a record low value last year, grew in October at the fastest pace since record-keeping began in 1979.

It is absolutely folly to make policy on a hoax. Conservation is one thing. The left has gone completely overboard on the whole global warming hoax for one reason... CONTROL.

Ikasu

11-24-2008, 05:45 PM

Only 20 votes!

A while back there was a thread asking what issues we should focus on.
This was one of the first mentioned. I didn't count to see how many times it came up, but I take it from the number of votes that it isn't a concern to very many of us.

Global warming isn't in a popular news cycle right now. It's something people talk about when there's nothing else to talk about.

Nazgul 1

11-25-2008, 01:20 AM

We just went through the coldest winter, WORLDWIDE, in forty years. When Mt. Pinatubo blew in the Philippines back in the '90s it put more of the junk Algore and the crew say is a result of human activity than humans did - in a century at least. Result? Global cooling.

It's a hoax. One of those manufactured "crises" designed to accrue more regulatory and other power to big government, and more status and grant money to scientists.

Lealy

11-25-2008, 01:28 AM

global warming is a hoax.

The national climatic data center --- are reporting that through its first 10 months 2008 is shaping up to be the coolest year in the united states since 1997. In fact the surface temperature has been declining for a decade.

You hear how the ice of antarctica is melting... What you don't hear is that 3 sides of it are actually growing.

An abnormally cool arctic is seeing dramatic changes to ice levels. In sharp contrast to the rapid melting seen last year, the amount of global sea ice has rebounded sharply and is now growing rapidly. The total amount of ice, which set a record low value last year, grew in october at the fastest pace since record-keeping began in 1979.

It is absolutely folly to make policy on a hoax. Conservation is one thing. The left has gone completely overboard on the whole global warming hoax for one reason... control.

stamp!

hillary4change

11-25-2008, 02:31 AM

I think man plays a part, but I am not sure, as I dont trust any data at this point. People have agendas and data can be skewed to reflect what you want it to reflect.
Also I certainly don't trust the MSM anymore. Now that I doubt the DNC I am leary of Gore now too!! :):confused::(
So I will err on the side of caution, I am very mindful of my carbon footprint and try to keep the planet as safe and clean as I can. That is the best I can do with all the agendas and mixed data out there.

Onlooker

11-25-2008, 04:34 AM

I would actually have liked to tick more than one box in the poll. The one I did tick was "no" but the second one was true until quite recently. We were in a normal warming phase which ended in about 1998, so much so that temperatures are now back to about 1996 levels with all the temperature gains made since the 1930s lost. Despite all the hoopla, the hottest year in the U.S.A. since 1900 was 1934 (as reluctantly admitted by NASA). In other words anthropogenic global warming is nothing more than another (highly successful) form of propaganda. Something like the selling of Obama - give as little real information as possible and fiercely attack and ridicule not the substance but the messenger for any contrary view. There is also another strong similarity to the Obama campaign, which is the total blackout by the MSM of anything which refutes the official line.

This is a topic I have followed closely and feel strongly about because I can see strong elements of dictatorship in it. Controlling energy usage basically boils down to controlling people and their well being. Do we really need another layer of bureaucracy and taxation to fix something which, even if it existed (and I firmly believe that it does not) could not be controlled - the weather.

There is an article at this link by a neuroscientist and physicist, Dr. Gregory Young, which I think is an excellent summary of the current position. I think its quite eye opening and has embedded links to support his assertions.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/global_warming_bring_it_on.html

deannah

11-26-2008, 11:23 PM

I voted that there is global warming and that human activity is a factor. But I also know that it can't be proven - one way OR the other. We just don't have enough past data to compare, and we also don't know how well the Earth is able to self-correct the problem IF it exists.

One of the problems with scientific studies is that whoever calls the study often has a vested interest in results one way or the other. Just as you can find points against global warming, so can I find points for it, and we could go back and forth all night, with no clear determination of which study to believe.

However, the presumed cause of global warming - the burning of fossil fuels - is in itself a factor in other problems, such as pollution, smog, the hole in the ozone layer (itself controversial, I realize). I also believe that we are burning fossil fuels at an unsustainable rate.

For this reason, I support reducing the use of fossil fuels and developing alternate energy sources. This would have the added benefit of reducing global warming IF it is a real event. If it isn't a real event, we're still not hurting anything by utilizing other, safer forms of energy!

I aslo believe in erring on the side of caution. I would much rather take steps to reduce global warming, only to find out that it didn't exist, than to ignore the problem and find out that global warming was real.

Den2006

11-26-2008, 11:37 PM

Global warming may be a natrual cycle but the hype is a hoax by the extreme flat earth society environmentalists.

Behemoth_the_Cat

11-26-2008, 11:59 PM

I aslo believe in erring on the side of caution.

Yes, but which side is the side of caution?:)
The current levels of CO2 are anomalously (considering the whole geological history of the Earth) low. What if the Earth, having sequestered most of the carbon in the deposits of fossil fuels, is about to enter an uncorrectable ice age?

(love playing the Devil's advocate!)

sojourner

11-27-2008, 12:36 AM

What if the Earth, having sequestered most of the carbon in the deposits of fossil fuels, is about to enter an uncorrectable ice age?

How about burning our national forests? That would put CO2 in the air to absorb IR and smoke particles in the air to reflect incoming solar radiation? Or how about a strategically place A-bombs?

deannah

11-27-2008, 01:04 AM

Yes, but which side is the side of caution?:)
The current levels of CO2 are anomalously (considering the whole geological history of the Earth) low. What if the Earth, having sequestered most of the carbon in the deposits of fossil fuels, is about to enter an uncorrectable ice age?

(love playing the Devil's advocate!)

Oh, man, that would SUCK! I friggin' HATE snow! :D

joeysky18

11-27-2008, 02:32 AM

There is a cycle alright. But human speed things up and a 1000 folds.

The Easter Island is a proof that human can be very destructive to its habitat.

cynthia2

11-27-2008, 02:55 AM

Well, we have been averaging this November about 15-20 degrees colder than the normal range where I live....so, I just don't know.

We have just been through several months of NO sunspot activity. We have not had any solar flares during this period. I think sun activity has quite a bit to do with the temperature of the earth.

GingerC

11-27-2008, 06:32 AM

There is a cycle alright. But human speed things up and a 1000 folds.

The Easter Island is a proof that human can be very destructive to its habitat.

Being "destructive to habitat" is totally different from "global warming"... there is NO Global Warming. In fact the earth's temperature has DECREASED over the last decade.

NATURE puts out more CO2 than all the human activity on the entire earth. Volcanos, dying plants, animals, forest fires, etc... CO2 is in fact required for us to all survive.

Pollution is one thing, and efforts should definitely be made to lessen that, but this whole Global Warming crap is just that.

GingerC

11-27-2008, 06:33 AM

We have just been through several months of NO sunspot activity. We have not had any solar flares during this period. I think sun activity has quite a bit to do with the temperature of the earth.

BINGO. That is in fact a major part of it.

Onlooker

11-27-2008, 07:57 AM

Being "destructive to habitat" is totally different from "global warming"... there is NO Global Warming. In fact the earth's temperature has DECREASED over the last decade.

NATURE puts out more CO2 than all the human activity on the entire earth. Volcanos, dying plants, animals, forest fires, etc... CO2 is in fact required for us to all survive.

Pollution is one thing, and efforts should definitely be made to lessen that, but this whole Global Warming crap is just that.
Precisely.

sojourner

11-27-2008, 05:59 PM

There is a cycle alright. But human speed things up and a 1000 folds.

The Easter Island is a proof that human can be very destructive to its habitat.

That might be a bit of an over statement.

One of the earlier posters referenced a graph that shows the level of atmospheric CO2 about 500 million years ago was around 15 times what it is now.

Man produces about 2% of atmospheric CO2 that is produced by nature.

Even the most ardent supporter of mans involvement in global warming think that temperatures will only rise about 2°C by the end of the century if we do nothing.

The_Basseteer

11-27-2008, 07:20 PM

Narwhales trapped in arctic ice..I don't think we're in a warming trend

Tragedy for hundreds of narwhals trapped in ice off Baffin Island (http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/greenblog/2008/11/tragedy_for_hundreds_of_narwha.html)
An estimated 500 narwhals - the whales known for their long tusks - are trapped in ice on the northern end of Canada's Baffin Island and are being killed by the local Inuit population, news reports say.

sojourner

11-27-2008, 08:55 PM

Onlooker

11-28-2008, 04:35 AM

So far we have had votes for every option except: Yes, and it will be beneficial to us.
I am a little surprised. Global warming helps in some areas and hurts in other areas. It helps some countries and hurts others. No one has even attempted to determine the optimum temperature of the earth.
Potential benefits of global warming in US include:
- 40,000 per year Less deaths due to temperature extremes (2.5°C increase)
- Longer growing season, 0.2 percent increase in GDP (2.5°C increase)
- Reduced energy costs for heating and cooling $12.2 Billion annually (3.6 °F increase)
- Reduced medical cost by about $20 billion annually (2.5°C increase)
Unfortunately, we now seem to be in a cooling phase.

The other point that's seldom made and which shows the total lunacy of the alarmists' position is that the climate has never been stable, it is constantly changing. Even if we could influence it, why expend what could be close to our total resources to perhaps achieve a minute effect on something which is immutable. It is just hubris. What we should be doing is what we have always done, try to adapt to whatever nature may throw at us. That way, at least, we know we are addressing real problems, not just guestimates from virtual computer games.

deannah

11-28-2008, 12:52 PM

Hi everyone. My first post here.
Here are some interesting data:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
Please scroll down to the plot of CO2 concentrations and temperatures vs. time. There is NO CORRELATION. The conclusion:
We are in one of the periodical, anomalous temperature minima. The Earth will return to normal (i.e. warm up), even if the "greenhouse effect" cultists completely destroy the economy while trying to prevent this. I was curious about the author of your article, Monte Hieb, so I did some searching for his name. It turns out that he's not a scientist (much less a climatologist), he has never been involved in any research or experimentation, he has never submitted a peer reviewed article. So who is he, then, to be making such scientific claims with such a degree of expertise?

Well, he's the chief engineer of West Virginia's Office of Miner Safety. Ooooookay then. :rolleyes:

Sorry, while I know there is ambiguous evidence and a lot of debate, I'm going to have to side with the people who are, you know, actual scientists and stuff. :D

deannah

11-28-2008, 01:21 PM

I think there are some misconceptions here about what exactly global warming means. I do blame a lot of it on the media not really knowing what they're talking about combined with thirty second soundbites trying to explain a very complex issue.

First, for those who talk about it being a cold month or a cold year, don't forget that a month or a year is not *climate*, it is *weather*. Climate is a trend, and the temperature lines for the last decades are definitely trending upward.

Also, the notion that "global warming" means that every bit of the Earth will get warmer, is simply false. Changes in temperature can alter weather patterns, which can result in some places getting hotter and some actually getting colder. Again, it is the overall trend that scientists are attempting to measure.

The problem with global warming isn't even about the Earth just getting warmer. It's about the Earth getting warmer too quickly. Not just the Earth, but the living creatures on it, are surprisingly adapatble to many changes. However, adaptation takes TIME, and it is the RATE of warming that is alarming scientists, not just the *amount* of warming, which to us laypeople, sounds pretty small (a couple of degree? big deal!) but which can *potentially* have devastating effects.

So, is global warming happening or not? I will reflect on the statistics (aka damn lies) behind it in another post, but bottom line - nobody can know with any certainty because we just don't have all the data that we need to have to draw a surefire conclusion. Barring that, all we can do is look at what is happening and make the best guesses. For that I trust the scientific community - not the oil and gas companies who have a VESTED INTEREST in global warming NOT being real, not the bloggers who all have opinions just like they have you-know-whats, not that one guy who sounds really, really smart and has cool graphs but has ZERO science credentials (see Monte Hieb above for a perfect example).

If you choose to be skeptical about global warming, that is fair and your right, of COURSE. But I admit I am surprised by how many think it's a hoax, like it's something that the majority of the world's climatologists made up like the world's biggest prank. :confused: What, are they sitting back laughing while we -oooohhh, make an attempt to reduce the carbon footprint and look for greener solutions? That makes NO sense to me, and, if I have to listen to SOMEBODY, I am going to play the numbers and trust the huge majority of scientists and the huge majority of peer-reviewed research (not just bloggers and studies commissioned by the oil and gas companies). If I'm wrong, so be it. I'll be in pretty good company, I guess.

sojourner

11-28-2008, 02:01 PM

Sorry, while I know there is ambiguous evidence and a lot of debate, I'm going to have to side with the people who are, you know, actual scientists and stuff. :D

The graph Behemoth_the_cat referenced with done by Christopher Scotese.

Christopher Scotese is geologist at the University of Texas at Arlington. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1985. He is creator of the Paleomap Project, which aims to map Earth over the last billion years, and is credited with predicting Pangaea Ultima, a possible future supercontinent configuration. [Wikipedia]

I don’t think you need to be a real scientist to voice an opinion if you use data generated by real scientists to support your argument and reference the source of that data.

deannah

11-28-2008, 02:03 PM

So, about statistics (aka there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistcs). There is a lot of information out there. There is also a lot of misinformation and a lot of outright speculation. Here is what I think is important to consider when you are trying to judge the reliability of a study or an article or a source:

1. Who commissioned the study? Neutrality is desired but rare, the oil and gas companies are behind many of the anti-global warming "studies" or "experts" because they have a vested interest in fighting a growing public perception that we need to make greener choices (read: reducing fossil fuels). I'm not claiming that everyone on the other side is neutral, either, but I think that there are a lot more groups that stand to lose big if we start taking steps to solve the global warming crisis, and they have a lot of money to spend buying "studies" with the end result showing exactly what they want it to show (i.e. global warming? what global warming?).

2. Are you picking the results that show what you personally want to hear? I probably am guilty of that, most of us probably are, although in my mind, I am siding with the preponderence of the evidence, so to speak, which is not the worst way to make a decision. But I think the fact that the split in "belief" happens pretty much right down the liberal/conservative line is a huge neon sign that says "biased". And if you are disregarding 99 studies from reputable sources in order to seize upon the 1 study that says what you want to hear, then yes, you are being intellectually dishonest. Cherrypicking is your right, but I'm just not going to accept your study as "fact" no matter how much you say it is, when there are MANY MORE studies out there disagreeing with your stance.

3. If you are getting your sources from a blog or a personal website, and it does not provide a link back to a reputable, peer-reviewed study, then I'm sorry, you've lost my consideration of that source.

4. If you disregard anything I have to say with claims about the "mass media hysteria" or "hoax" then I guess we don't really have much to discuss. Ignoring the mountains of scientific evidence that DOES argue global warming by implying that it is fake or media created is disingenous at best and dishonest at worst. There is a lot of real information in those studies that IS worthy of debate, but let's DEBATE that, not just blow it off as hysteria, mmmkay?

5. More about the media - I do agree that the media plays up things like that. That's what they DO, okay? They play EVERYTHING up - just look at the recent campaign season! Just because they have a tendency to get all alarmist about the global warming issue does NOT mean that the global warming issue is automatically suspect.

I guess that's all. I think it's an important discussion and I do appreciate hearing some of the other theories that argue against global warming (because yes, some of them are reasonable and possible), but the blanket condemnation and dismissal of science, all in the name of "hoax" or "conspiracy" that I'm seeing in this thread is getting huge :rolleyes: from me.

For anyone who is interested in my preferred "damn lies", I believe that the IPCC (http://www.ipcc.ch/about/index.htm) is a generally well-respected within the scientific community (very important to me), as well as the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (http://dels.nas.edu/climatechange/about.shtml)

deannah

11-28-2008, 02:25 PM

The graph Behemoth_the_cat referenced with done by Christopher Scotese.

Christopher Scotese is geologist at the University of Texas at Arlington. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1985. He is creator of the Paleomap Project, which aims to map Earth over the last billion years, and is credited with predicting Pangaea Ultima, a possible future supercontinent configuration. [Wikipedia]

I don’t think you need to be a real scientist to voice an opinion if you use data generated by real scientists to support your argument and reference the source of that data.

I disagree. Opinions are fine, everyone's got one and all that. But I sure didn't see the words "in my opinion" on that website. I saw a lot of stuff represented as scientific fact, and that is a FAR cry from voicing an OPINION.

I think it's not just foolish, but potentially dangerous, to draw conclusions - and present them as scientific fact - when you do not have all the tools and information and training to draw such conclusions. It's junk science and I have no problems disregarding the conclusions drawn by someone who is a not even a scientist. YMMV.

To cap it all off, the source (Scotese) where Hieb apparently got all this "factuall" knowledge has this to say on his own website (http://www.scotese.com/modern.htm):
We are entering a new phase of continental collision that will ultimately result in the formation of a new Pangea supercontinent in the future. Global climate is warming because we are leaving an Ice Age and because we are adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

sojourner

11-28-2008, 03:35 PM

I disagree. Opinions are fine, everyone's got one and all that. But I sure didn't see the words "in my opinion" on that website. I saw a lot of stuff represented as scientific fact, and that is a FAR cry from voicing an OPINION.

I think it's not just foolish, but potentially dangerous, to draw conclusions - and present them as scientific fact - when you do not have all the tools and information and training to draw such conclusions. It's junk science and I have no problems disregarding the conclusions drawn by someone who is a not even a scientist. YMMV.

To cap it all off, the source (Scotese) where Hieb apparently got all this "factuall" knowledge has this to say on his own website (http://www.scotese.com/modern.htm):

So you agree with my last statement.

If the point of the original post was to point out that the earth has been hotter in the past, I think it was valid to use Scotese's graph to support that argument. I don't think he was trying to say anything other than that.

deannah

11-28-2008, 04:09 PM

So you agree with my last statement. Well....no, not really. I agree with you ONLY insofar as it is valid for anyone to state an opinion, at any time, for any reason. I think the fair and honest thing to do is to state upfront that it is just opinion, and not in any way scientific fact, but that's just me.

But I DISAGREE that that was what was happening on Hieb's website. I think Hieb was presenting HIS take on the graph as scientific FACT, not opinion. At the very least, Hieb was implying a knowledge in the field that I do not believe AT ALL he holds. If you do more searching, you will see that Hieb is a known skeptic of global warming. Fair enough, but he is trying to interpret information that he has no proven background to interpret, and his interpretation in fact is not what Scotese asserts! And, in turn, Behomoth took Hieb's "factual" (not) website and used it as proof of his position. And in my mind that is a SERIOUSLY flawed argument made more flawed by the fact that Hieb isn't even a scientist!

If the point of the original post was to point out that the earth has been hotter in the past, I think it was valid to use Scotese's graph to support that argument. I don't think he was trying to say anything other than that.Are you talking about Hieb, or Behomoth? If you were talking about Hieb, I think he was trying to say MUCH more than simply that the Earth has been hotter in the past. I don't think any scientists alive on the planet disputes that fact! That still does not in any way prove that global warming is not a real possibility. And considering that Hieb is a known skeptic of global warming, I don't think its hard to see what Hieb is trying to insinuate by using that graph, and it ain't *just* that "the Earth used to be warmer in the past".

If you're talking about Behomoth, well, he wasn't JUST trying to say that the earth has been hotter in the past, either. He said:

Please scroll down to the plot of CO2 concentrations and temperatures vs. time. There is NO CORRELATION. The conclusion:
We are in one of the periodical, anomalous temperature minima. The Earth will return to normal (i.e. warm up), even if the "greenhouse effect" cultists completely destroy the economy while trying to prevent this.

That's a little more than just saying that the earth has been warmer in the past. That's saying the global warming is bunk, and that the proof is on Hieb's website. And THAT is what I am saying is not supportable by "facts" in any way, shape, or form.

I hope that explains my position better.

sojourner

11-28-2008, 04:22 PM

I agree with all that you have said. Just a comment in the interest of being fair and balanced.

Many on the other side also have a vested (financial) interest in global warming being real. The door swings both ways.

...I trust the scientific community - not the oil and gas companies who have a VESTED INTEREST in global warming NOT being real...

Contrary to what you may think, I am not on either side on this issue. I don’t belong to any political party. I am conservative, which means I don’t like to throw money at something until I have a good idea what the cost benefit ratio is, the probability of success, and whether that money could be better used elsewhere.

I know that essentially all our heat comes from the sun so we are at its mercy. I know that all the predictions come from models. I think the equations and assumptions in those models should be published. I have heard that they do not include cloud cover and solar cycles.

I believe we are in a global warming cycle now. I believe some of it is anthropogenic. I don’t know how much an effect it would have. I don’t know that some increase in temperature wouldn’t be beneficial.

sojourner

11-28-2008, 04:35 PM

I hope that explains my position better.

This whole thing started with your response to Behemoth_the_Cat.

My only point was that if he was trying to make the point that it has been warmer in the past, he used real data from a real scientist. I in no way was trying to make any state about the author on the other website or to make any statement about the current global warming.

I wasn't attaching you or your position.

Some how we jumped the tracks on this one and I am not sure why.

Behemoth_the_Cat

11-28-2008, 05:13 PM

That's a little more than just saying that the earth has been warmer in the past. That's saying the global warming is bunk,

Nonsense. The very fragment of my post you have quoted states:
"The Earth will return to normal (i.e. warm up)"

So WHERE is my "saying the global warming is bunk"???

I am saying that the temperature will eventually return to the long-term average all right, but the CAUSATIVE link between the concentration of CO2 and temperature is a bunk. The long term data support this opinion, and thus the short term correlation (based on selected, partial data), often presented by the proponents of the anthropogenic origins of global warming, is likely caused by the phenomenon of degassing (reducing the CO2 solubility in water with the increase of temperature).

sojourner

11-28-2008, 06:00 PM

I am with you on this also. Some additional comment:

1. Who commissioned the study? ...

I have been involved in some university studies funded by industry. Usually the university retained the right to publish the finding. In some cases the funding company had veto power over publication. My take is that most paper that get published are reasonable unbiased. Problem is that the others don't get published.

Also there seems to be a knee-jerk reaction by the pro-global warming camp to accuse anyone taking the opposing point of view to have been funding by big oil.

Here is an example, a response from an author to one of his critics.

The very first review of my book to appear here claims I (the author) am funded by Exxon-Mobil, which is totally false. Apparently, people can say whatever they want on the internet, spreading rumors, and this is the eventual result. My research has always been 100% U.S. Government-funded. No oil company has ever even ASKED me to do anything for them, let alone paid me. I have written on this issue for 15 years, and am supportive of the oil and coal industries simply because of the huge benefit to mankind that has resulted from access to abundant, affordable energy.

I have a "full disclosure" on my website if anyone is interested in more details...just Google [Roy Spencer full disclosure]. If the best a reviewer can do is say they haven't read the book, but they know I'm just a shill for big oil, then they are seriously misinformed on the global warming issue. Unfortunately, this is becoming commonplace.
-Roy W. Spencer

There is some addition information in his full disclosure as well as other parts of his website.

Roy Spencer Full Disclosure (http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm) Scroll down. It is near the bottom.

Are you picking the results that show what you personally want to hear? ...

This is a sore spot with me. Many people use anecdotal information. Most proponents of any cause only look at one side of the equation.

My hope is, at this site, we can get those two sides of the equation and piece them together the get the whole picture. Then we can draw some valid conclusions.

Onlooker

11-28-2008, 06:25 PM

If you choose to be skeptical about global warming, that is fair and your right, of COURSE. But I admit I am surprised by how many think it's a hoax, like it's something that the majority of the world's climatologists made up like the world's biggest prank. What, are they sitting back laughing while we -oooohhh, make an attempt to reduce the carbon footprint and look for greener solutions? That makes NO sense to me, and, if I have to listen to SOMEBODY, I am going to play the numbers and trust the huge majority of scientists and the huge majority of peer-reviewed research (not just bloggers and studies commissioned by the oil and gas companies). If I'm wrong, so be it. I'll be in pretty good company, I guess.

Actually, no. This is where much of the argument goes wrong. The IPCC is a POLITICAL body, a division of the United Nations (take that as you will) which was formed on the ASSUMPTION that humans were causing global warming. They never made the least attempt to evaluate WHETHER this was really the case but just cherry picked all the evidence to PROMOTE it. It is also a case of money speaks louder than words where scientists who want funding either support or, at least, do not denounce the orthodoxy. In a way, it is compromising the whole scientific community.

This is proven to a degree by the fact that the leaders of the difficult fight to show this up (and it is very difficult because, just like with Obama, the media has taken a position and refuses to report anything to the contrary) are the emeritus professors and the retired ones, in other words, those whose funding cannot be removed and whose reputations cannot be destroyed by the barage of ridicule unleashed against them by true believers. Here is a link to the site of a very lively example of this, Dr. John Ray:

http://antigreen.blogspot.com

You are clearly taking the well travelled path of attacking and ridiculing the messenger instead of addressing the substance. Of course, this is made inevitable by the fact that the only "proof" the alarmists have is based on laboratory computer models with dubious input and assumptions which have proven wrong in every instance when compared with actual, real world outcomes.

Here's a link to a paper by Professor Robert Carter of James Cook University in Australia:

http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/rmcknockknock.pdf

sojourner

11-28-2008, 06:28 PM

Efforts to support global climate-change falls: Poll
Peter O'Neil, Europe Correspondent, Canwest News Service
Published: Thursday, November 27, 2008

PARIS - There is both growing public reluctance to make personal sacrifices and a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the major international efforts now underway to battle climate change, according to findings of a poll of 12,000 citizens in 11 countries, including Canada.

Results of the poll were released this week in advance of the start of a major international conference in Poland where delegates are considering steps toward a new international climate-change treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

There already are reports emerging that some countries, such as coal-dependent Poland, are pushing for special treatment to avoid making major commitments to slash carbon emissions during a global economic downturn.

Full article here (http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/story.html?id=f0a1687c-decd-4c72-9d0e-7e6dd92d4ebe)

Detached

11-28-2008, 06:52 PM

Hey If the numbers dont work ,just make um up.

The world has never seen such freezing heat
A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China’s official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its “worst snowstorm ever”. In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS’s computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious “hockey stick” graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new “hotspot” in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen’s institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. (He was recently in the news here for supporting the Greenpeace activists acquitted of criminally damaging a coal-fired power station in Kent, on the grounds that the harm done to the planet by a new power station would far outweigh any damage they had done themselves.)

Yet last week’s latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen’s methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

Another of his close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, who recently startled a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising “very much faster” than ever, in front of a graph showing them rising sharply in the past decade. In fact, as many of his audience were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped.

Dr Pachauri, a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, may believe what Dr Hansen tells him. But whether, on the basis of such evidence, it is wise for the world’s governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/16/do1610.xml

sojourner

11-28-2008, 07:16 PM

Hey If the numbers dont work ,just make um up.
[

Dr. James Watson and GISS have made so many errors in rushing to get out the bad news that one wonders if they are all errors.

deannah

11-28-2008, 07:50 PM

Sojourner, thank you for your always reasoned posts. I am enjoying discussing this with you.

Personally, I just don't know about global warming. I really don't. I like things to be black and white and they're not. Barring conclusive evidence, and realizing that there is evidence arguing for and against global warming, I'll admit that while I generally err on the side of global warming being a real event, that is based partly just on intuition, or what makes sense to me.

There's just no way to know. How can we possibly pretend to be experts, or even reasonably informed, based on recorded information that consists of eyeblink of the lifetime of Earth? Reasons that I DON'T support global warming is simply that there are so many things about earth that we still don't understand. I also believe that earth is so much more powerful than we can ever even imagine - at times I picture the effects of man on Earth much like the effects of a flea on an elephant!

Reasons I DO support the argument that global warming exists is based on balance. I think it has been pretty well established - let me know if you don't agree - that humans have had unmistakeable effects on the balance of things in nature, that has caused species after species to go extinct. Who knew that overhunting sharks could cause coral reefs to die out? (Just one of many examples of the delicate balance that exists in ecosystems.) Sometimes a change doesn't have to be big - what we think is no big deal can often have unintended consequences that we never would have imagined.

I like to think of it as the 212 degree theory. You can heat water all the way up to 211 degrees and you just have hot water. But push it just another degree and you have made a huge change - you are now boiling water and making steam.

Along those same lines, maybe 99% of warming is totally natural and part of Earth's cycle. But even if we are contributing an extra 1% to the Earth warming or making it warm up 1% faster - if that one percent is enough to kill out a species that cannot adapt quickly enough and that species is a critical component to the balance of an entire ecosystem - then we have problems. Unanticipated events CAN have an effect on Earth - from the volcanic eruptions mentioned earlier to the (theoretical) asteroid that hit the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs.

That part I said about intuition? Well, it really does make sense to me that incredibly increased CO2 emissions since the industrial revolution, combined with a not-inconsiderable amount of forest removal - absolutely could have SOME effect on the amount of greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere. And if that is the case, I just don't think it's unreasonable to fear that it could play some role in the rate at which Earth is currently warming up, whether the majority of the warming is part of a natural cycle or not.

Anyway, this is just rambling, and I accept that right now I'm talking out of my rear end to an extent. But since we can't debate the data (seeing as how it's hard to find a study to trust!), at least maybe I can explain why I think that the effort to reduce our carbon footprint and find greener solutions is at least an admireable goal, if not demonstrably a required one.

deannah

11-28-2008, 07:57 PM

Nonsense. The very fragment of my post you have quoted states:

So WHERE is my "saying the global warming is bunk"???

I am saying that the temperature will eventually return to the long-term average all right, but the CAUSATIVE link between the concentration of CO2 and temperature is a bunk. The long term data support this opinion, and thus the short term correlation (based on selected, partial data), often presented by the proponents of the anthropogenic origins of global warming, is likely caused by the phenomenon of degassing (reducing the CO2 solubility in water with the increase of temperature).

You're right, you did not use those exact words. Your words "greenhouse effect" cultists " seemed to me to imply that you do not believe that there is any anthropogenic cause of global warming.

I should also make clear that in the global warming "argument", I am speaking specifically of the anthropogenic causes, not simply of the fact of the Earth warming up. I apologize for not making that clear. So, when I say that some people deny that global warming is happening, I only mean that they think there is no human cause. I will try to be more clear in the future about what I mean by "global warming".

Behemoth_the_Cat

11-28-2008, 08:19 PM

I should also make clear that in the global warming "argument", I am speaking specifically of the anthropogenic causes, not simply of the fact of the Earth warming up. I apologize for not making that clear. So, when I say that some people deny that global warming is happening, I only mean that they think there is no human cause. I will try to be more clear in the future about what I mean by "global warming".

With all respect, that's why I call one of the approaches to the subject a "cult". If we are talking about facts, the warming is one thing, its causes are another. Cults tend to bundle things together (under some brand name - "global warming" in this case) and require believing in the whole package. Doubting one element constitutes general blasphemy.

Detached

11-28-2008, 08:25 PM

deannah

11-28-2008, 08:49 PM

With all respect, that's why I call one of the approaches to the subject a "cult". If we are talking about facts, the warming is one thing, its causes are another. Cults tend to bundle things together (under some brand name - "global warming" in this case) and require believing in the whole package. Doubting one element constitutes general blasphemy.I personally think the use of "cult" is unnecesarily derogatory, but I'm not going to get all worked up over it.

So I guess there are 3 main camps:

1. Those who don't believe that global warming is happening.
2. Those who believe that it is happening but don't *necessarily* agree that it is caused by humans (to any degree, I guess).
3. Those who believe that it is happening and believe that humans are to *some degree* causing it (how much of it is human-caused also up for debate)

I am honestly torn between #2 and #3, for reasons already specified and discussed in previous posts. However, the reason that I am a supporter of those who advocate action, is that the proposed solutions - using less fossil fuels, alternate energy R&D, conservation - is all stuff that I think we should be doing *anyway*. It's win/win in my mind! I truly cannot think of a way that reducing our impact on the earth could NOT be beneficial. If you can, I am open to alternate viewpoints.

I'm a big environmentalist, though (aka treehugger), so take everything I say with a grain of salt. :D

sojourner

11-28-2008, 09:00 PM

Sojourner, thank you for your always reasoned posts. I am enjoying discussing this with you.

So have I, on this and other threads. I have learned some things along the way. I hope you have too.

Maybe we should start a blog together. Sort of a internet version of Hannity and Colmes. We could call it something like "in search of common ground" ...

Wait I thing that idea has already been taken. ;)

How can we possibly pretend to be experts, or even reasonably informed...

I don't know but I am going try and at least be reasonably informed. I file all the links to global warming articles I find on the internet. I bought three books on global warming that I plan to finish reading over the weekend - one pro, one con, and one in the middle.

The one that I like best so far is the in the middle one "Cool it" by Bjorn Lomborg, known as the skeptical environmentalist. Cool it having two meanings. It is his second book on global warming.

I like to think of it as the 212 degree theory. You can heat water all the way up to 211 degrees and you just have hot water. But push it just another degree and you have made a huge change - you are now boiling water and making steam.

That sounds like a "glass half empty viewpoint." Water boils at 212 but once it reaches that temperature it stays there. The “glass half full viewpoint” might be that temperatures increase 1-2 °C and then stabilize.

Detached

11-28-2008, 09:08 PM

I would recommend Michael Chricton's book "State Of Fear" alot of Great Data in it.And an excellent read.

sojourner

11-29-2008, 03:45 PM

This is an article on global warming myths and facts. It may be a bit biased coming from the environmental defense fund.

Global Warming Myths and FActs (http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1011)

sojourner

11-29-2008, 03:51 PM

Cold snap fails to cool protagonists of global warming

John Stapleton | November 29, 2008
Article from:
The Australian

EUROPE is shivering through an extreme cold snap. One of the coldest winters in the US in more than 100 years is toppling meteorological records by the dozen, and the Arctic ice is expanding. Even Australia has been experiencing unseasonable snow.

But the stories about global warming have not stopped, not for a second.

In May last year, The Sydney Morning Herald breathlessly reported that climate change had reduced the Southern Ocean's ability to soak up carbon dioxide, claiming that as a result global warming would accelerate even faster than previously thought.

The story was picked up and repeated in a number of different journals around the region.

But this week the CSIRO suggested the exact opposite. "The new study suggests that Southern Ocean currents, and therefore the Southern Ocean's ability to soak up carbon dioxide, have not changed in recent decades," it said. This time the story got no coverage in the SMH, and was run on the ABC's website as evidence the Southern Ocean was adapting to climate change.

CSIRO oceanographer Stuart Rintoul, a co-author of the study, said it did not disprove global warming and he did not believe its lack of an alarmist tone was responsible for the poor coverage.

But the story is being pointed out as an example of media bias on global warming. Critics argue that the ABC and the Fairfax media are the worst offenders.

Full Article here (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24723425-11949,00.html)

sojourner

11-30-2008, 03:59 PM

Theoretical physicists have been working for decades to come up with a unified field theory.

Environmentalists seem to have found theirs in global warming.

sojourner

11-30-2008, 04:37 PM

For those that think the earth has never been warmer than it is now, how to you explain this? Mammoth comes in from the cold (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/481571.stm)

Behemoth_the_Cat

11-30-2008, 06:00 PM

sojourner

11-30-2008, 06:56 PM

(I believe this is a spoof, but you can never be sure with the environmentalists) :)

It has to be. i was sure when I clicked on the link it would take me to The Onion.

sojourner

11-30-2008, 09:52 PM

From The Times
November 29, 2008
Nations urged to agree new formula for cutting greenhouse gases
Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter

Attempts to force countries to reduce their carbon emissions per head of population are to be put forward next week at a United Nations climate change conference.

The plan, which is being drawn up by Brazil, is designed to put pressure on other nations to agree how targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be shared. The revised per capita scheme is thought to go some way towards easing resentment in developing nations that they are being asked to take on an unfair burden on climate change.

Instead of concentrating on a nation's overall carbon dioxide emissions, which would lead to many emerging economies being penalised as stiffly as wealthy countries, targets would be measured per capita.

Setting targets according to the average emissions of CO2, the chief greenhouse gas, attributable to each person is an approach endorsed by Britain and Germany.

It would mean developing countries such as China, which pumps as much CO2 into the atmosphere as America, facing less onerous reduction targets because each person is responsible for a fifth of the emissions of the average US citizen.

Full article: The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5254478.ece)

sojourner

11-30-2008, 09:58 PM

The global warming crowd's on thin ice in this economic climate
Posted by Paul Mulshine November 30, 2008 11:33AM

I just got the skis down from the attic. I think it's going to be a cold winter. I can feel it in my bones.

But what the heck do I know? I can't predict the weather. Neither can anyone else. Not Al Gore. Not even Phil Chapman.

Chapman is a geophysicist who studies sunspots. He lives in California but was born in Australia. In the 1960s, he became the first Aussie to qualify as a U.S. astronaut.

Chapman recently achieved some fame, or notoriety, when he authored an article for an Australian newspaper headlined "Sorry to Ruin the Fun, but an Ice Age Cometh." His thesis is that there has been an alarming absence of spots on the sun recently. A lack of sunspots has historically been accompanied by global cooling rather than warming. Ergo, we may face the threat of another ice age.

The headline was a bit of an overstatement, Chapman said when I called him the other day. He's not sure that an ice age is coming. But he's not sure the planet is warming either.

"The uncertainties are enormous," Chapman said. "I would not claim cooling will happen or warming won't."

The problem with many of the scare stories about the warming threat, said Chapman, is that they focus on one part of the planet, the Arctic, for example. But the only reliable measurement is from space, he said, and that showed the Earth's temperature dropped by 0.7 degrees Celsius last year. That might be explained by the recent dearth of sunspots.

Full Article (http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2008/11/the_global_warming_crowds_on_t.html)

sojourner

11-30-2008, 10:50 PM

Another application of the unified theory of global warming (all changes in nature are caused by global warming).

Global warming: Too close to home

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

Which is scarier -- the economy or global warming? Climate change gets our vote, in part because it will be with us for decades to come.

That's even more our thought in the wake of the findings of scientists studying the Pacific Ocean waters off Washington's Tatoosh Island. They found that global warming is apparently causing the water to become acidic 10 to 20 times faster than the rate predicted by climate-change models.

The scientists, led by the University of Chicago's Timothy Wootton, fear the changes will have a dramatic impact on ocean life. Already, they report the island's mussels, which dominated the water's edge, have declined rapidly. Acid in the water can weaken their shells.

Scientists had expected the oceans to be able to absorb with relatively little change the increasing levels of carbon dioxide that we pump into the atmosphere through industry, transportation and the like. Although other scientists caution that changes may not be occurring at the same pace in open waters, the Tatoosh evidence will throw that assumption into question.

The study would seem to add one more reason to hasten to control greenhouse gas emissions much more rapidly than politicians are inclined to do. But there are indications (hailed with bizarre glee in the sparsely populated corridors of global warming skeptics) that the troubled economy will cause politicians in many countries to pull back from job-creating investments in alternative energy, smarter transportation and carbon sequestration. There's a real nightmare: letting the economy lead us into operating as if business as usual will solve climate change.

deannah

12-01-2008, 12:38 AM

Sojourner, how was your weekend reading? Learn anything new? Anything you'd like to share with the class?

sojourner

12-01-2008, 01:07 AM

Sojourner, how was your weekend reading? Learn anything new? Anything you'd like to share with the class?

When I get time I am going to post a book report on at least one of the books.

deannah

12-01-2008, 01:30 AM

When I get time I am going to post a book report on at least one of the books.

This is actually a very timely thread for me. This week as we finish our energy unit, I am teaching my students about energy conservation, alternate energy sources, air pollution, and - yes- global warming! Aieeee!

sojourner

12-01-2008, 02:08 AM

Motorists will have to drive electric cars for UK to meet climate change targets
By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor
Last Updated: 12:18AM GMT 01 Dec 2008

Motorists will have to switch to electric cars if Britain is to meet its legally-binding commitment to cut carbon dioxide emissions, a Government report warns.

The Committee on Climate Change will recommend that large numbers of motorists must switch to the greener vehicles by 2025.

The influential Committee, headed by Lord Turner, sets out the major technological advances needed for Britain to meet its commitment of cutting emissions by 80 per cent to halt global warming.

Gordon Brown is a major advocate of electric cars and is likely to welcome the recommendation. He has already called for a million "green collar" jobs to be created in new environmentally-friendly industries. At the G8 summit in Japan last summer, Mr Brown's wife was photographed test-driving green vehicles.

Today's report is expected to say that Britain currently generates the equivalent of 10-12 tons of carbon dioxide annually per person - about 700m tons in total. This must be cut to two tons per person annually by 2050 - about 12 pounds per person each day.

However, a typical family car uses the total daily allowance driving just 25 miles. Therefore, it is not seen as feasible to meet the new targets without largely abandoning the internal combustion engine.

Complete article (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenpolitics/3537145/Motorists-will-have-to-drive-electric-cars-for-UK-to-meet-climate-change-targets.html)

I am not sure electric cars are going to do it (assuming they are talking about hybrids). A standard Honda Civic gets aroung 36/43 MPG a Honda Civic Hybrid around 40/45. That great an improvement, with are primium car price.

If it were an all electric car, electric motors are about 90% efficient but how effective is the plant that generates the electricity to charge the batteries?

Onlooker

12-01-2008, 04:03 AM

This is from the U.K. Telegraph -

President-elect Barack Obama proposes economic suicide for US
By Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 11:01pm GMT 29/11/2008

If the holder of the most powerful office in the world proposed a policy guaranteed to inflict untold damage on his own country and many others, on the basis of claims so demonstrably fallacious that they amount to a string of self-deluding lies, we might well be concerned. The relevance of this is not to President Bush, as some might imagine, but to a recent policy statement by President-elect Obama.

Tomorrow, delegates from 190 countries will meet in Poznan, Poland, to pave the way for next year's UN conference in Copenhagen at which the world will agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. They will see a video of Mr Obama, in only his second major policy commitment, pledging that America is now about to play the leading role in the fight to "save the planet" from global warming.

Mr Obama begins by saying that "the science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear". "Sea levels," he claims, "are rising, coastlines are shrinking, we've seen record drought, spreading famine and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."

Far from the science being "beyond dispute", we can only deduce from this that Mr Obama has believed all he was told by Al Gore's wondrously batty film An Inconvenient Truth without bothering to check the facts. Each of these four statements is so wildly at odds with the truth that on this score alone we should be seriously worried.

advertisementIt is true that average sea levels are modestly rising, but no faster than they have been doing for three centuries. Gore's film may predict a rise this century of 20 feet, but even the UN's International Panel on Climate Change only predicts a rise of between four and 17 inches. The main focus of alarm here has been the fate of low-lying coral islands such as the Maldives and Tuvalu.

Around each of these tiny countries, according to the international Commission on Sea Level Changes and other studies, sea levels in recent decades have actually fallen. The Indian Ocean was higher between 1900 and 1970 than it has been since. Satellite measurements show that since 1993 the sea level around Tuvalu has gone down by four inches.

Coastlines are not "shrinking" except where land is subsiding, as on the east coast of England, where it has been doing so for thousands of years. Gore became particularly muddled by this, pointing to how many times the Thames Barrier has had to be closed in recent years, unaware that this was more often to keep river water in during droughts than to stop the sea coming in.

Far from global warming having increased the number of droughts, the very opposite is the case. The most comprehensive study (Narisma et al, 2007) showed that, of the 20th century's 30 major drought episodes, 22 were in the first six decades, with only five between 1961 and 1980. The most recent two decades produced just three.

Mr Obama has again been taken in over hurricanes. Despite a recent press release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration claiming that 2008's North Atlantic hurricane season "set records", even its own release later admits that it only tied as "the fifth most active" since 1944. NOAA's own graphs show hurricane activity higher in the 1950s than recently. A recent Florida State University study of tropical cyclone activity across the world (see the Watts Up With That? website) shows a steady reduction over the past four years.

Alarming though it may be that the next US President should have fallen for all this claptrap, much more worrying is what he proposes to do on the basis of such grotesque misinformation. For a start he plans to introduce a "federal cap and trade system", a massive "carbon tax", designed to reduce America's CO2 emissions "to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80 per cent by 2050". Such a target, which would put America ahead of any other country in the world, could only be achieved by closing down a large part of the US economy.

Mr Obama floats off still further from reality when he proposes spending $15 billion a year to encourage "clean energy" sources, such as thousands more wind turbines. He is clearly unaware that wind energy is so hopelessly ineffective that the 10,000 turbines America already has, representing "18 gigawatts of installed capacity", only generate 4.5GW of power, less than that supplied by a single giant coal-fired power station.

He talks blithely of allowing only "clean" coal-fired power plants, using "carbon capture" - burying the CO2 in holes in the ground - which would double the price of electricity, but the technology for which hasn't even yet been developed. He then babbles on about "generating five million new green jobs". This will presumably consist of hiring millions of Americans to generate power by running around on treadmills, to replace all those "dirty" coal-fired power stations which currently supply the US with half its electricity.

If this sounds like an elaborate economic suicide note, for what is still the earth's richest nation, it is still not enough for many environmentalists. Positively foaming at the mouth in The Guardian last week, George Monbiot claimed that the plight of the planet is now so grave that even "sensible programmes of the kind Obama proposes are now irrelevant". The only way to avert the "collapse of human civilisation", according to the Great Moonbat, would be "the complete decarbonisation of the global economy soon after 2050".

For 300 years science helped to turn Western civilisation into the richest and most comfortable the world has ever seen. Now it seems we have suddenly been plunged into a new age of superstition, where scientific evidence no longer counts for anything. The fact that America will soon be ruled by a man wholly under the spell of this post-scientific hysteria may leave us in wondering despair.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/30/do3010.xml

There are also some interesting comments at the site.

sojourner

12-05-2008, 03:10 AM

Global Warming: UN Environmental Policy or Wealth Transfer Scheme?

U.N. says poor nations need $130B for climate change

POZNAN, Poland (AP) — The U.N. climate change organization has said the world's poor countries will need $130 billion dollars a year by 2030 to help them adapt to global warming and curb their carbon emissions.

The U.N. says rich countries need to increase their payments over the next 20 years to six times the funds available now, which is about $21 billion.

The figures were presented Thursday during a conference of 190 nations on a new climate treaty.

The environmental group WWF International says nearly all the money paid today by industrialized countries goes toward setting up clean energy projects in poor countries. It says less than $1 billion is earmarked to help them cope with the effects of climate change.

Source: USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-12-04-un-climate-change_N.htm)

Nancy Kallitechnis

12-05-2008, 04:21 AM

It's important to note that global warming is a natural event that started before humans existed. It's cyclical, that is, there are cycles of warm and cool weather. So, although we can alter the earth's temperature to a certain degree, we can't completely avoid global warming, at least not with our present technology. Here are charts that show the global warming and ice age cycles:

chronology: 450,000 years
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Ice_Age_Temperature.png

chronology: 542 million years
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png

Onlooker

12-05-2008, 05:10 AM

Nancy Kallitechnis

12-05-2008, 10:06 AM

we now seems to be in a cooling cycle

We are near the top of the warming cycle. The last ice age was about 20,000 years ago and earth's temperatures have been generally rising since then. If you look at the following chart you will notice that the previous global warming cycle had higher temperatures than we have yet:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Ice_Age_Temperature.png

Thus, since the previous warming cycle had higher temperatures than we are now experiencing, then it's reasonable to conclude that the earth's natural global warming has not reached its high point yet. But even if we are beginning the cooling cycle, it is natural to have short warming cycles during the cooling cycle as the above link shows. It's true what Palin said during the VP debates: earth's temperature is cyclical and that should be taken into account when discussing the current global warming trend.

sojourner

12-05-2008, 04:18 PM

"EPA Seeks To Have Water Vapor Classified As A Pollutant" (http://www.ecoenquirer.com/EPA-water-vapor.htm)

My proposition: tax nations proportionally to the surface area of their territorial waters. Adjust for the average ocean/sea temperature and salinity. Tax lakes and rivers separately.:D

(I believe this is a spoof, but you can never be sure with the environmentalists) :)

I discovered source of the article on ecoenquirer.com. I am reading a book on global warming: “Climate Confusion by Roy W. Spencer. In it he said he was intrigued by some of the wild claims that were appearing in the news, so he started a website called EcoEnquirer.com and put satirical articles about global warming on it. Readers were allowed to comment and about half of them thought the articles were real and contained valid information.

Onlooker

12-05-2008, 05:56 PM

I discovered source of the article on ecoenquirer.com. I am reading a book on global warming: “Climate Confusion by Roy W. Spencer. In it he said he was intrigued by some of the wild claims that were appearing in the news, so he started a website called EcoEnquirer.com and put satirical articles about global warming on it. Readers were allowed to comment and about half of them thought the articles were real and contained valid information.
Classifying water vapor as a pollutant is no more ridiculous than classifying carbon dioxide, which we exhale with every breath, which plants need to grow and without which there would be no life on earth, as such but this has already happened.

Behemoth_the_Cat

12-05-2008, 06:45 PM

This time it's no spoof...
"Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if a federal proposal to charge fees for air-polluting animals becomes law." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081205/ap_on_bi_ge/farm_scene_cow_tax_2

sojourner

12-09-2008, 11:48 PM

Garnaut warns: don't go alone on global warming
Samantha Maiden, Online political editor | December 08, 2008
Article from:The Australian

CLIMATE change adviser Ross Garnaut has warned that developed nations will be unable to avert global warming by simply setting exemplary emissions targets in the hope that developing nations will follow, saying [B]China and India must join a global action plan from the start if there is to be any hope of success...

In about ten years China is projected to be the number one producer of CO2 and India number three. Assuming global warming is a problem how is this supposed to work without them?

The leaders of 140 global companies have rejected arguments that the economic downturn is reason to tread softly, saying decisive action now will stimulate economic activity.

Any change these companies will profit from efforts t reduce global warming?

Complete article (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24765781-2702,00.html)

ModerateRepublican

12-10-2008, 12:27 PM

Classifying water vapor as a pollutant is no more ridiculous than classifying carbon dioxide, which we exhale with every breath, which plants need to grow and without which there would be no life on earth, as such but this has already happened.

Also on a per unit basis water vapor has a MUCH STRONGER greenhouse effect. Combine that with the high abundancy of water vapor and water vapor is the SINGLE LARGEST contributor to the earth's greenhouse effect.

So any "greenhouse" tax system if fair and based on scientific merit MUST tax water vapor.

So a hydrogen fuel cell car produces water vapor as an exaust should be taxed HIGHER than a Hummer. The water vapor produced by the fuel cell will contribute far more to the greenhouse effect than the CO2 produced by the Hummer.

The other problem w/ "global warming" is enviromental policy is a zero sum game.

The kyoto treaty even if it works, and even if you believe global warming can be prevented, and even if we are right and reducing CO2 will stop/slow global warming, and even if countries don't back out will slow global warming by 0.07 deg over next 40 years at a cost of about $7 TRILLION.

Let's look at those numbers again:
0.07 deg
40 years
$7 trillion

That works out to about $100 Trillion, $100,000 Billion over 40 years per 1 deg.

Let's compare that to other projects:
Worldwide AIDS research and prevention $10 B annually
Worldwide Malaria research and prevention $2 B annually (#1 preventable disease killer in world).

Imagine what can be done with $100,000 Billion.
Either prevent (maybe) earth from warming 1 deg OR
cure aids, wipe out malari, end world hunger, bring up health levels of 3rd world, worldwide vacinations, clean water worldwide, etc, etc, etc.

Programs like micro loans to build a solar powered water pump ($300) for a village could vastly improve the health, and daily lives of people living in poverty. Imagine how many you could build across impoverished parts of the world for just $1 Billion.

$100,000 Billion to prevent earth from warming 1 degree and to put it in perspective the earth was about 3 deg warmer during the medeval warm period in which there was virtually no manmade CO2. The MWP was actually a boon for human civilization and lead to the first period of economic expansion due to increased crop yields.

The amount of money being dumped at this "problem" instead of real issues like:
AIDS
Malaria
Vacinations
Worldwide Hunger
Basic Infrastructure for 3rd world (communication, electricity, sanitation)
Clean Water
Endangered Species

is just sad. We could do so much more instead of maybe preventing the earth from warming A single degree.

Behemoth_the_Cat

12-10-2008, 12:51 PM

UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6)

“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.” - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.” - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”

Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists,” - Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.

“The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity.” - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico

“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

If a Nobel winner calls it a "religion", I feel better for calling it a "cult" before...
:)

DaElephant

12-10-2008, 03:26 PM

sojourner

12-10-2008, 11:26 PM

Thousands Negotiate New Climate Treaty

By Arthur Max, The Associated Press
posted: 10 December 2008 09:07 am ET

POZNAN, Poland (AP) — Scientists studying the changing nature of the Earth's climate say they have completed one crucial task — proving beyond a doubt that global warming is real.

Now they have to figure out just what to do about it.

"It is critical for us to get a much better understanding of the impact of climate change in some parts of the world," Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday.

Scientific warnings of potential catastrophe have been the backdrop for talks among more than 10,000 delegates and environmentalists negotiating a treaty to control the emission of greenhouse gases, which have grown by 70 percent since 1970. The treaty, due to be completed in one year, would replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Innovation: Ideas to Power the Future

Pachauri said he was concerned that negotiators were sparring and probing — and leaving key decisions for the last moment.

"My concern is that if we leave everything to the end, we might end up with a weak agreement that doesn't really address the problem," he said.

Last year, Pachauri's IPCC, which collected the work of more than 2,000 scientists, said climate change is "unequivocal, is already happening, and is caused by human activity."

It listed likely effects of global warming: arid regions will grow dryer, rising seas will flood coastal areas, melting glaciers will flood communities downstream and then dry up the source of future water supplies, and up to 30 percent of all plant and animal species may become extinct.

Since then, new evidence has emerged showing that ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctic are melting, which threatens to dramatically raise the level of the oceans and flood coastal cities and low-lying islands.

"Small island states are living in a state of fear," he said.

But Pachauri said there was no conclusive evidence the world is in imminent danger.

"I don't think we should jump to conclusions if we get material that is based on the last one or two years," the Indian scientist said. The IPCC issues its reports every five or six years.

Complete Article (http://www.livescience.com/environment/081210-ap-climate-treaty.html)

sojourner

12-12-2008, 11:19 PM

Federal Polar Bear Research Critically Flawed, Forecasting Expert Asserts

ScienceDaily (May 10, 2008) — Research done by the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine if global warming threatens the polar bear population is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify listing the polar bear as an endangered species, according to a study being published later this year in Interfaces, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

On April 30, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ordered the Interior Department to decide by May 15 whether polar bears should be listed under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act. (Note regarding decision: On May 15, 2008 the polar bear was listed as a 'threatened species' under the Endangered Species Act.)

Professor J. Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School says, “To list a species that is currently in good health as an endangered species requires valid forecasts that its population would decline to levels that threaten its viability. In fact, the polar bear populations have been increasing rapidly in recent decades due to hunting restrictions. Assuming these restrictions remain, the most appropriate forecast is to assume that the upward trend would continue for a few years, then level off.

“These studies are meant to inform the US Fish and Wildlife Service about listing the polar bear as endangered. After careful examination, my co-authors and I were unable to find any references to works providing evidence that the forecasting methods used in the reports had been previously validated. In essence, they give no scientific basis for deciding one way or the other about the polar bear.”

Prof. Armstrong and colleagues originally undertook their audit at the request of the State of Alaska. The subsequent study, “Polar Bear Population Forecasts: A Public Policy Forecasting Audit,” is by Prof. Armstrong, Kesten G. Green of Monash University in Australia, and Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. It is scheduled to appear in the September/October issue of the INFORMS journal Interfaces.

Professor Armstrong is author of Long-Range Forecasting, the most frequently cited book on forecasting methods, and Principles of Forecasting. He is a co-founder of the Journal of Forecasting, the International Journal of Forecasting, the International Symposium on Forecasting, and forecastingprinciples.com.

The authors examined nine U.S. Geological Survey Administrative Reports. The studies include “Forecasting the Wide-Range Status of Polar Bears at Selected Times in the 21st Century” by Steven C. Amstrup et. al. and “Polar Bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea II: Demography and Population Growth in Relation to Sea Ice Conditions” by Christine M. Hunter et al.

Prof. Armstrong and his colleagues concluded that the most relevant study, Amstrup et al. properly applied only 15% of relevant forecasting principles and that the second study, Hunter et al. only 10%, while 46% were clearly contravened and 23% were apparently contravened.

Further, they write, the Geologic Survey reports do not adequately substantiate the authors’ assumptions about changes to sea ice and polar bears’ ability to adapt that are key to the recommendations.

Therefore, the authors write, a key feature of the U.S. Geological Survey reports is not scientifically supported...

Complete Article (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080508132549.htm)

sojourner

12-12-2008, 11:39 PM

Polar Bear Status Report

Polar bears are a potentially endangered species living in the circumpolar north. They are animals which know no boundaries. They pad across the ice from Russia to Alaska, from Canada to Greenland and onto Norway's Svalbard archipelago. No adequate census exists on which to base a worldwide population estimate, but biologists use a working figure of 20,000 to 25,000 bears with about sixty percent of those living in Canada.

In areas where long-term studies are available, populations are showing signs of stress due to shrinking sea ice. Canada's Western Hudson Bay population has dropped 22% since the early 1980s. The declines have been directly linked to an earlier ice break-up on Hudson Bay. A long-term study of the Southern Beaufort Sea population, which spans the northern coast of Alaska and western Canada, has revealed a decline in cub survival rates and in the weight and skull size of adult males. Such declines were observed in Western Hudson Bay bears prior to the population drop there. Another population listed as declining is Baffin Bay. According to the most recent report from the Polar Bear Specialist Group, the harvest levels from Nunavut when combined with those from Greenland (which were thought to be much lower than they actually are) has resulted in this shared population being in a non-sustainable harvest situation, meaning the population is at great risk of a serious decline. The harvest is thought to be several times above what is sustainable.

The IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group reclassified the polar bear as a vulnerable species on the IUCN's Red List of Endangered Species at their most recent meeting (Seattle, 2005). They reported that of the 19 subpopulations of polar bears, five are declining, five are stable, two are increasing, and seven have insufficient data on which to base a decision. On May 14, 2008, the U.S. Department of the Interior reclassified the polar bear as a Threatened Species under the Endangered Species Act, citing concerns about sea ice loss. Canada and Russia list the polar bear as a "species of concern..."

Source: Polar Bears International (http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/bear-facts/)

sojourner

12-13-2008, 12:00 AM

Doesn't sound like much was accomplished. Looks like financial crisis trumps global warming crisis.

UPDATE 1-Poor accuse rich of meanness in UN climate fight
Sat Dec 13, 2008 7:42am IST

By Gerard Wynn and Gabriela Baczynska

POZNAN, Poland, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Developing nations accused the rich of meanness on Saturday at the end of U.N. climate talks that launched only a tiny fund to help poor countries cope with droughts, floods and rising seas.

They said agreement on the Adaptation Fund -- worth just $80 million -- was a bad omen at the halfway mark in two years of negotiations towards a new treaty designed to be agreed in Copenhagen at the end of 2009 to fight global warming...

Many delegates expressed hopes that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama would adopt more aggresive climate policies...

The fund, among few points agreed at the meeting, has just $80 million but could rise to $300 million a year by 2012. The developing nations accused the rich of blocking talks on wider funding. The issue was delayed until 2009...

Complete article (http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINLD66430720081213?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0)

TheTaoOfBill

12-13-2008, 12:11 AM

I don't know about you guys but I'm freakin cold!!

http://www.clipartof.com/images/emoticons/xsmall2/2159_freezing.gifhttp://www.clipartof.com/images/emoticons/xsmall2/2159_freezing.gifhttp://www.clipartof.com/images/emoticons/xsmall2/2159_freezing.gif

Onlooker

12-13-2008, 01:16 AM

Wonderful to be able to agree on something, Tao.

NoMoreSexism

12-14-2008, 09:11 AM

No, and we are not headed into another ice age.

foxyladi

12-14-2008, 11:20 AM

there is a looot of folks gettin stinkin rich from this..lol..

sojourner

12-14-2008, 02:15 PM

Greenhouse gases warming North America unevenly

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

WASHINGTON (AP) — Climate change caused by greenhouse gases is warming the United States, though unevenly, government researchers said Thursday.

"The continent as a whole is warming, mostly as a result of the energy sources we are using," William J. Brennan, acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said at a briefing on the nation's climate since 1951.

But there is a "warming hole" where no change occurred in the center of the country, roughly between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, added Martin Hoerling of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory.

Last year the International Panel on Climate Change, studying the planet as a whole, concluded that global warming is "unequivocal, is already happening, and is caused by human activity."

Thursday's report localized the analysis, concluding that average surface temperatures over the United States have increased 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit since 1951, nearly all in the last 30 years.

Weather observations are the Rosetta stone, Hoerling said, "We see a cause-effect relationship in data."

He said that human-induced warming is the overall driving factor and also is the major cause of changes in sea-surface temperature...

Complete article (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hHcaIs4oriV8O7d5gfVZgbXVxWtwD950MU2G0)

sojourner

12-14-2008, 02:26 PM

Red Alert! Global Warming Sea-Level Rise Comes Tonight!! Sell Your Beach House While You Can!!!

POSTED December 12, 2008 | 4:24 PM

Al Gore never warned us about this! Tonight, this very nigh, the oceans will rise just as the former vice president and Nobel Prize recipient, and the UN's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been telling us it would. Of course, Gore and the IPCC do say it won't happen for decades and when it does happen, it will be because of the global warming selfish humans are causing by burning carbon-based fossil fuels in our cars and trucks, and burning coal and natural gas in the plants that make the electricity we all depend upon.

Depending on a variety of factors, the IPCC's Fourth Report predicted that global warming will cause sea levels to rise anywhere from seven to 23 inches by the year 2100. That's enough to engulf places like Ocean City on Maryland's Atlantic coast and Padre Island on the Texas Gulf Coast.

But The Heritage Foundation's David Kreutzer points out that the sea-level increases that will occur tonight won't have anything to do with Global Warming.

No, it's all going to be the result of ... the Moon, which Kreutzer notes "reaches the perigee of its orbit. In addition, there will be a full Moon. The combination will push high tides to 1.6 feet over the normal high-water mark. 1.6 feet is pretty much the IPCC’s projection of sea-level rise by 2100. Of course the impact of tonight’s flooding will be worse since we won’t have 90 years to prepare and adapt."

Article (http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/TapscottsCopyDesk/Red_Alert_Global_Warming_Sea-Level_Rise_Comes_Tonight_Sell_Your_Beach_House_Whi le_You_Can_121208.html)

devildog

12-14-2008, 03:08 PM

sojourner

12-14-2008, 11:54 PM

Obama left with little time to curb global warming
By SETH BORENSTEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) - When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid.

Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it.

"The time for delay is over; the time for denial is over," he said on Tuesday after meeting with former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming. "We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now that this is a matter of urgency and national security and it has to be dealt with in a serious way."

But there are powerful political and economic realities that must be quickly overcome for Obama to succeed. Despite the urgency he expresses, it's not at all clear that he and Congress will agree on an approach during a worldwide financial crisis in time to meet some of the more crucial deadlines.

Obama is pushing changes in the way Americans use energy, and produce greenhouse gases, as part of what will be a massive economic stimulus. He called it an opportunity "to re-power America."

After years of inaction on global warming, 2009 might be different. Obama replaces a president who opposed mandatory cuts of greenhouse gas pollution and it appears he will have a willing Congress. Also, next year, diplomats will try to agree on a major new international treaty to curb the gases that promote global warming
Complete Article (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081214/D952LKP00.html)

Changing presidents may not help that much. The last time the senate voted on the Kyoto Protocol they rejected it by something like 98 to 2.

Onlooker

12-15-2008, 12:03 AM

Complete Article (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081214/D952LKP00.html)

Changing presidents may not help that much. The last time the senate voted on the Kyoto Protocol they rejected it by something like 98 to 2.
Thank heaven!

ModerateRepublican

12-15-2008, 01:05 AM

Changing presidents may not help that much. The last time the senate voted on the Kyoto Protocol they rejected it by something like 98 to 2.

That was in good economic times. Now we are in a recession and even after we recover (move to + GDP growth) the economy will be very fragile.

Kyoto estimated costs (which many say are extremely low) is about $150 BILLION per year. Over the next 42 years (Kyoto is in effect until 2050) the total estimated cost is going to be 6.3 TRILLION. Think the bailout was bad; it is like doing a bailout every year for next 40 years!

So what do we get for our 6.3 TRILLION? 0.07 C worth of potential warming avoided. That's right less than 1/10th of 1 degree for the cost of 6.3 TRILLION.

Imagine what 6.3 TRILLION could do if these fields:
* Stem cell research (I prefer adult stem cells)
* AIDS research, education, eradication
* Clean water projects in 3rd world
* Worldwide vacination
* Malaria eradication
* Convervation projects
* Preserving wilderness areas
* Hydrogen Economy
* Solar, wind, other renewables.

There are a lot of "green" or mankind improving things I can think of spending 6.3 TRILLION on. Preventing the earth from warming (maybe) 0.07 degrees is not one of them.

CO2 isn't a pollution. In order to prevent it from being released we are going to have to NOT spend money in other areas. Million (maybe tens of millions) of people will die from AIDS, preventable diseases, lack of clean water, malaria, hunger malnutrition as $$$ are sacrificed at the alter of global warming. All that wasted progress that could improve the lives of everyone but most importantly those the most in need just to prevent CO2 release that MIGHT prevent the earth from warming another 0.07 C. Kyoto is a crime against mankind!

BTW: China & India are not included. They can release unlimited amount of CO2 and REAL POLLUTION while we waste 6.3 TRILLION worth of real money chasing a ghost.

Thank GOD they voted it down.

sojourner

12-16-2008, 07:59 PM

Scientists Call AP Report on Global Warming 'Hysteria'

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Scientists skeptical of the assertion that climate change is the result of man's activites are criticizing a recent Associated Press report on global warming, calling it "irrational hysteria," "horrifically bad" and "incredibly biased."

"If the issues weren't so serious and the ramifications so profound, I would have to laugh at it," said David Deming, a geology professor at the University of Oklahoma who has been critical of media reporting on the climate change issue.

In the article, Obama Left with Little Time to Curb Global Warming, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein wrote that global warming is "a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid," and that "global warming is accelerating."

Deming, in an interview, took issue with Borenstein's characterization of a problem he says doesn't exist.

"He says global warming is accelerating. Not only is it continuing, it's accelerating, and whether it's continuing that was completely beyond the evidence," Deming told FOXNews.com.

"The mean global temperature, at least as measured by satellite, is now the same as it was in the year 1980. In the last couple of years sea level has stopped rising. Hurricane and cyclone activity in the northern hemisphere is at a 24-year low and sea ice globally is also the same as it was in 1980."...

Deming said the article is further evidence of the media's decision to talk about global warming as fact, despite what he says is a lack of evidence.

"Reporters, as I understand reporters, are supposed to report facts,"Deming said. "What he's doing here is he's writing a polemic and reporting it as fact, and that's not right. It's not reporting. It's propaganda.

"This reads like a press release for an environmental advocacy group like Greenpeace. It's not fair and balanced."

Michael R. Fox, a retired nuclear scientist and chemistry professor from the University of Idaho, is another academic who found serious flaws with the AP story's approach to the issue...

Like Deming, Fox said global warming is not accelerating. "These kinds of temperatures cycle up and down and have been doing so for millions of years," he said.

He said there is little evidence to believe that man-made carbon dioxide is causing temperature fluctuation. "It's silly to lay it all on man-made carbon dioxide," Fox said. "It was El Nino in 1998 that caused the big spike in global warming and little to do with carbon dioxide."

Other factors, including sun spots, solar winds, variations in the solar magnetic field and solar irradiation, could all be affecting temperature changes, he said.

James O'Brien, an emeritus professor at Florida State University who studies climate variability and the oceans, said that global climate change is very important for the country and that Americans need to make sure they have the right answers for policy decisions. But he said he worries that scientists and policymakers are rushing to make changes based on bad science.

"Global climate change is occurring in many places in the world," O'Brien said. "But everything that's attributed to global warming, almost none of it is global warming."...

"When the Arctic Ocean ice melts, it never raises sea level because floating ice is floating ice, because it's displacing water," O'Brien said. "When the ice melts, sea level actually goes down...

Complete Article (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,468084,00.html)

sojourner

12-17-2008, 12:14 PM

Global Warming’s Last Gasp

Tuesday, December 16, 2008 1:59 PM
By: Philip V. Brennan

In a hysterical report, "Obama left with little time to curb global warming," AP writer Seth Borenstein warned that global warming "is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid."

…NewsBusters' associate editor, Noel Sheppard, rounded up comments by top climate experts disproving Borenstein's claims…

“How then does he explain the fact that the mean global temperature [as measured by satellite] is the same as it was in 1980? How can global warming be 'accelerating' when the last two years have seen dramatic cooling...

Richard S. Courtney, a U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expert reviewer and a U.K.-based climate and atmospheric science consultant snorted, "Rubbish! Global warming is not 'accelerating.' Global warming has stopped. There has been no statistically significant rise in [mean global temperature or MGT] since 1995 and MGT has fallen since 1998 . . .

"Arctic ice advances and recedes over decades. 2007 saw a minimum in Arctic ice cover in the short period that it has been monitored using satellites. But 2008 saw the most rapid growth in Arctic ice cover in that same period and Arctic ice cover is now back to the average it has had in the period...

“Also, 95 percent of polar ice is in the Antarctic, and Antarctic ice is increasing. Nobody can know if the recent halt to global warming is temporary, permanent, or the start of a new warming or cooling phase. But it is certain that anybody who proclaims that 'Global warming is accelerating' is a liar, a fool, or both." ...

Added Chemical Scientist Dr. Brian G. Valentine of the U.S. Department of Energy who has studied computational fluid dynamics and modeling of complex systems, "The world hasn’t 'warmed' in a dozen years, and over the past year not even [NASA's] Jim Hansen and his magic bag of tricks can make it appear we’re all getting 'warmer.'"

“There exists not one single laboratory test on climate that can be extrapolated to mimic the open atmosphere, and that includes the most advanced computers that in any case treat the earth as a flat disc with a 24 hour haze of solar radiation — about as far removed from reality as is possible."

And Don J. Easterbrook, Ph.D., emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, asked, "What does it take to ignore 10 years of global cooling, sharply declining temperatures the last couple of years, record setting lack of sun spots . . . failure of computer models to predict real climate, predictable warming and cooling climates for the past 500 years. The answer is really quite simple — just follow the money!"

Complete Article (http://www.newsmax.com/brennan/global_warming_debunked/2008/12/16/162489.html)

Horizon

12-17-2008, 02:53 PM

Funny story. I went down the corner market last night for a pack of ciggies. It's a Circle K with gas pumps and frozen burritos. It was colder than hell here last night and the poor kid working was by himself, so I had to wait while he pumped some gas. He came in and his nose and ears were beet red and we got to talking about the cold and how unusual it is for us to have temps below 20. He told me that some guy had come in and tried to convince him that we are in the beginning of an ice age and pretty soon the elephants will even start growing hair and taking back the wooly mammoth appearance. He was dead serious the guy said. I just laughed my ass off and headed back to my frozen car. Crazy ass peeps.

sojourner

12-17-2008, 04:10 PM

Meg

12-17-2008, 04:12 PM

Scientists believe that northern Asia would be the first to feel the effects of global cooling. Many believe the discovery of a hairy elephant in northern Asia may be an early indication of a coming ice age.

http://brooklynmetfan.com/images/uploads/1265.jpg

http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/36/36_11_6.gif (http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=_undefined) OMG WTF IS HIS NAME AGAIN!?!?!?!

ModerateRepublican

12-17-2008, 04:39 PM

OMG WTF IS HIS NAME AGAIN!?!?!?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloysius_Snuffleupagus

Snuffleupagus

Meg

12-17-2008, 04:41 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloysius_Snuffleupagus

Snuffleupagus

YES!!!!!!!!!! :D I knew it ended in "gus". *does happy dance*

Horizon

12-17-2008, 04:44 PM

Oh SHIT!!! There;s a whole herd of them trampling my flower bed!!!

HELP!!! Snuffelupagus are on the attack!

sojourner

12-26-2008, 02:04 AM

December 25, 2008
Documenting the global warming fraud
Thomas Lifson

Global warming theory represents one of the greatest scientific con games in history. The putative intellectual foundations are based on data manipulated to support the desired conclusion, and have been conclusively debunked.

Andrew G. Bostom pulls together a beginning history of the steps by which the theory was sold. Unscientific studies came to be embraced as conclusive, their debunkers targeted for abuse. The remarkable hockey stick graph and the effort to "get rid" of the Medieval Warm Period (whose temperature rise dwarfs anything in the last century) are among the scandalous abuses of science covered here.

Those who want to marshal the evidence to induce skepticism in friends who fall for warmist propaganda should read and save this article (http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2008/12/25/horse-hockey-climate-scientology-%E2%80%9Cgetting-rid%E2%80%9D-of-the-medieval-warming-period/). The science is explained lucidly, so that any serious reader can comprehend the issues. It is not a quick and light read, but it repays an investment of a few minutes of serious attention.

American Thinker (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/12/documenting_the_global_warming.html)

CGP

02-15-2009, 12:19 AM

Scientists: Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/14/AR2009021401757.html?hpid=moreheadlines)

(Washington Post, 2/15/09)

The pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems, scientists said Saturday.

"We are basically looking now at a future climate that's beyond anything we've considered seriously in climate model simulations," Christopher Field, founding director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, said at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

VotingHillary

02-15-2009, 01:38 AM

Scientists: Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/14/AR2009021401757.html?hpid=moreheadlines)

(Washington Post, 2/15/09)

I am not being flippant about global warming, but it is hard to embrace considering the brutality of this past winter. That said, I still think we need to decrease the greenhouse gas emmissions for the sake of the future generations.

CGP

02-15-2009, 02:29 AM

I am not being flippant about global warming, but it is hard to embrace considering the brutality of this past winter.

I hear ya! I've often thought about "global warming" while FREEZING this winter, unlike last winter which seemed quite mild by comparison.

CGP

02-26-2009, 03:26 AM

52 votes

CGP

03-16-2009, 08:59 PM

53 votes.

ImmaSlave4U

04-10-2009, 02:59 AM

Nearly half of respondents are global warming deniers? Really? X_X

CGP

04-11-2009, 12:20 AM

Nearly half of respondents are global warming deniers? Really? X_X

I know. Then again are you really surprised? Considering there remain large numbers of people in society who still follow the bible literally it's not really all that surprising that there other people who refuse to beleive there is anything such as "human impact" on the environment.

CGP

04-11-2009, 12:21 AM

Nearly half of respondents are global warming deniers? Really? X_X

Actually, less than 40%.

sojourner

06-10-2009, 01:57 AM

Texas Blasts Federal Efforts to Fight Global Warming

Texas elected officials Tuesday railed against federal efforts to curb global warming, claiming it would throttle the state's economy -- one of the few that generated job growth last year.

State comptroller Susan Combs said that if passed, a landmark climate change bill winding its way through Congress could cost the state 164,000 jobs and shave some $25 billion per year, or 2%, off the state's total economic output.

"Texas is the kitchen of the country. We cook up all of the products that are used elsewhere," said Ms. Combs, a Republican, referring to the state's large petrochemical and plastics industry. "The recipe for disaster is being cooked up in Washington D.C.," she added.

Ms. Combs joined Gov. Rick Perry, also a Republican, at a meeting with industry leaders in the state capitol to discuss the threat of federal climate-change policy and underscore the energy-producing state's skittishness towards the environmental concerns that are at the core of the Obama administration's policy-making.

"I happen to think that what they are discussing could wreck our traditional energy industry and put a very serious dent in our economy," said Mr. Perry. He repeated his view that the proposed provisions that recently passed out of committee in the House of Representatives amounted to the largest tax increase in history. The provisions would put a limit on emissions of the gasses blamed for climate change and require companies to pay for permits to pollute. As a result, "Every American that uses any source of energy would see their bills go up," he said.

The impact would be felt acutely in Texas, home to a giant refining complex. Refineries under the legislation would be forced to purchase emissions permits, driving up the cost of producing fuel. It is also home to the corporate headquarters of the world's largest oil company, Exxon Mobil Corp., and the largest refining company based on refining capacity, Valero Energy Corp., as well as another major oil company, ConocoPhillips.

Political observers have pointed out that Mr. Perry has a political agenda for attacking Washington D.C. He will likely face a stiff challenge from within his party next year in the Republican gubernatorial primary from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. His critique of Washington regulations has traditionally played well with Republican primary voters, and might be Mr. Perry's strongest strategy for fending off the challenge from Ms. Hutchison, a three-term U.S. Senator, to win an unprecedented third term.

Ms. Hutchison, however, also stands against a carbon cap-and-trade system. "A cap and trade approach to address climate change is onerous and misguided, and it will raise energy prices for consumers and adversely impact workers and small businesses during a time of economic hardship," she said Tuesday in a statement.

Source: wsj (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124458842076899771.html)

CGP

07-25-2009, 01:56 PM

Reviving.

CGP

07-25-2009, 03:49 PM

62 votes.

sojourner

07-25-2009, 05:13 PM

I know. Then again are you really surprised? Considering there remain large numbers of people in society who still follow the bible literally it's not really all that surprising that there other people who refuse to beleive there is anything such as "human impact" on the environment.

Cheap shot and based upon a bad assumption. Christians, from Biblical teaching, believe they are to tend and care for the earth.

“Deniers” as defined by Al Gore and other global warming enthusiasts are scientists that believe we are in a global warming phase, but question how much is anthropogenic, the reliability of the models used to predict global warming, what the effects might be, and whether the money used to combat global warming could be better used elsewhere. And they probably put as much stock in the Bible as you do.

It is beyond me how anyone can read all the material on this thread and not have doubts about the claims of those pushing for limits on CO2 production (not to mention their veracity).

CGP

07-25-2009, 05:16 PM

Cheap shot

That took 4 months to respond to! :thumbsup:

But I revived the thread, so I will have to accept your criticism!

sojourner

07-26-2009, 05:00 PM

Primer: Cap and trade
Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill can 'sink a big chunk' of the U.S. economy
The journey of HR 2454 began over two decades ago with the United Nations' creation in 1988 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC's mission statement is straightforward: "The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential and options for adaptation and mitigation."

Skeptics point out the inherent bias of a government-funded mission to identify human-induced climate change. If you don't find it, does your funding go away?
At the heart of the IPCC's work are computer models used to simulate global climate and weather. Any TV weatherman will tell you that predicting next week's local weather is an iffy proposition even with the latest first-alert-Doppler-whiz-bang-Vipir radars.

The IPCC's ever-more-confident and apocalyptic warnings rest on the near-impossible task of simulating with computers climate conditions for the whole planet and not for next week but for 50 to 100 years in the future. This, while science still struggles to explain exactly how clouds work.

World-renowned mathematician Freeman Dyson, who in his early years worked alongside Einstein and is now professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, had this to say about climate models: "The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in."

The Heartland Institute's exhaustive analysis of the IPCC's most recent report entitled "Climate Change Reconsidered" includes this critique: "Scientists working in fields characterized by complexity and uncertainty are apt to confuse the output of models - which are nothing more than a statement of how the modeler believes a part of the world works - with real-world trends and forecasts. Computer climate modelers fall into this trap, and they have been criticized for failing to notice that their models fail to replicate real world phenomena."
Some final considerations: The climate glass may be half full. CO2 is not a pollutant in the way that we normally think of pollution.

In fact, CO2 is vital to our ecosystem and as we learned in 10th-grade Biology, CO2 is a crucial part of the photosynthesis process that turns sunlight into carbohydrates.

Even with the increase over the past 50 years CO2 still only makes up .4 percent of the atmosphere and the increase actually improves the planets potential for plant growth as greenhouses are want to do. Water vapor has a much bigger greenhouse effect but it is excluded from the models because like clouds, it is too hard to model.

Improved plant growth will make it easier to feed the planet's 6 billion residents. Contrary to IPCC predictions, the Earth's temperatures have been dropping since 1998.

In fact, this June was the coolest June in New York City in half a century - let those UN bureaucrats out of their cubicles and into the real world of Central Park. Many scientists think temperature swings have more to do with solar flares and sunspots than with CO2 concentrations.

Source (http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20090726/OPINION03/907260302/1046/OPINION/Primer--Cap-and-trade)

We are basing our CO2 cap-and-trade bill on the predictions of unvalidated global warming models that do not includes basic climate components like clouds and volcanic dust particles and we wonder why some people are skeptical?

foxyladi

07-26-2009, 06:04 PM

Global warming isn't in a popular news cycle right now. It's something people talk about when there's nothing else to talk about.

hillarystamp!

Laura Cereta

07-26-2009, 06:25 PM

I'm truthfully not that concerned with climate change.

65 votes.

So does either person who voted "other" want to explain what they meant? I'm just wondering... other could mean anything, right?

sojourner

07-27-2009, 04:21 PM

I'm truthfully not that concerned with climate change.

65 votes.

So does either person who voted "other" want to explain what they meant? I'm just wondering... other could mean anything, right?

I would think that people would be concerned about the increased cost of energy caused by cap-and-trade, especially if they are not concerned about climate change.

sojourner

07-27-2009, 04:23 PM

More evidence that global warming models are flawed.

Water Vapour, Ignorance and Misunderstanding is Everywhere
Politics of Climate Science: Selective Research, Ignored Facts. By Dr. Tim Ball

Ignorance and Misunderstanding is Everywhere.
Generally the public is unaware water vapor is 95% of the greenhouse gases by volume and CO2 is less than 4%, yet water vapor is virtually ignored. Here is a web site devoted to greenhouse gases (GHG) but water vapor, by far the most abundant and important one is listed under “other.” oops, your bias is showing.
A Positive Feedback that is Actually Negative
There’s a problem even if you accept the assumption an increase in CO2 will cause a temperature increase. The atmosphere is almost saturated with respect to CO2’s capacity to delay heat escape. A good analogy is the objective of blocking light coming through a window. A single coat of paint will block almost all the light and is like the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Second and third coats block very little more light just as doubling or tripling CO2 will cause very little temperature increase. This created a dilemma for the theory that a human increase in CO2 would create significant warming.

It was supposedly resolved by claiming an increase in CO2 causes a temperature increase that causes increased evaporation putting more water vapor in the atmosphere. Now the most important greenhouse gas they essentially ignored received attention. Temperature increases projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) depend totally on increased water vapor. It is known as a positive feedback and is at the center of the debate of climate sensitivity. Evidence shows the positive feedback is wrong and climate sensitivity is overestimated. Negative trends in [water vapor] as found in the NCEP data would imply that long-term water vapor feedback is negative—that it would reduce rather than amplify the response of the climate system to external forcing such as that from increasing atmospheric CO2.

Source (http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/13170)