Global Warming is Bullsh!t!

[DanGarion]

Someone hacked into one of the main researchers on global warming and there is now lots of speculation that they have been lying about mankind causing (Anthropogenic Global Warming) it.

Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’? – Telegraph Blogs (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/)

Manipulation of evidence:

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Suppression of evidence:

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:

Next
time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat
the crap out of him. Very tempted.

Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):

……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….

And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.

Senate committee calling for investigation.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2188feb3-802a-23ad-4de4-3fbc0a92e126&Issue_id

[DaddyTorgo]

LOL

global warming is not bullshit. it can't be measured over any small period like 20 years reliably though, because there will be small cycles within that period.

what's the motive that these scientists would have for making global warming up, or not admitting that it's not a problem?

Look at all the melting polar ice caps and tell me there's no global warming

[ISiddiqui]

CONSPIRACY!!! ;)

[DanGarion]

LOL

global warming is not bullshit. it can't be measured over any small period like 20 years reliably though, because there will be small cycles within that period.

what's the motive that these scientists would have for making global warming up, or not admitting that it's not a problem?

Look at all the melting polar ice caps and tell me there's no global warming

What's the motive for them to hide and lie about the data?

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

It does not surprise me that not everyone in this controversy is acting ethically. It also does not cause me to disbelieve ALL science.

[Kodos]

**grabs 50 canisters of Miss Breck and sprays them joyfully into the air**

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

I'm just shocked that it took something like this for most people to realize that manipulation of data is occurring on both sides of the issue.

[Dr. Sak]

**grabs 50 canisters of Miss Breck and sprays them joyfully into the air**

I just let out 10 days worth of farts I've been holding in to cut down on my greenhouse gas emissions.

[dbd1963]

Science and Orthodoxy should never be combined, but always are.

I think the reason they wanted to do the nefarious deeds they have done is 1) they believe global warming is occurring, and 2) they believe present data that seems to disconfirm such is a small term trend, but that 3) politically it will be spun as disconfirming so that 4) steps that humanity ought to take right now will not be taken.

But the fact is, they have created an orthodoxy that now appears to be acting in its own self interest like some great many tentacled beast.

[CU Tiger]

what's the motive that these scientists would have for making global warming up, or not admitting that it's not a problem?


$$$$$$$$$$

Research is funded, if findings do not agree with funders funding stop.
When funding stops scientists have to sell their Porsche's

[Passacaglia]

I'm just shocked that it took something like this for most people to realize that manipulation of data is occurring on both sides of the issue.

I don't think that's the case.

EDIT: I should say I don't think it's true that "it took something like this for most people to realize that manipulation of data is occurring on both sides of the issue." Several people realized that before this, and as far as I know, this story isn't exactly going to rock the wold of everyone else.

[DanGarion]

LOL

global warming is not bullshit. it can't be measured over any small period like 20 years reliably though, because there will be small cycles within that period.

what's the motive that these scientists would have for making global warming up, or not admitting that it's not a problem?

Look at all the melting polar ice caps and tell me there's no global warming
Global warming itself isn't bullshit, it's a natural occurring change that the planet has made for millions/billions of years. Mankind causing global warming is in question.

[DanGarion]

Science and Orthodoxy should never be combined, but always are.

I think the reason they wanted to do the nefarious deeds they have done is 1) they believe global warming is occurring, and 2) they believe present data that seems to disconfirm such is a small term trend, but that 3) politically it will be spun as disconfirming so that 4) steps that humanity ought to take right now will not be taken.

But the fact is, they have created an orthodoxy that now appears to be acting in its own self interest like some great many tentacled beast.

Well said. There is nothing wrong with conservation, regardless of global warming. People should recycle and conserve just to do it, they shouldn't be fear mongered into lies stating we are all going to melt because we don't do it.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

$$$$$$$$$$

When funding stops scientists have to sell their Porsche's


HA! Too funny.

[DaddyTorgo]

Global warming itself isn't bullshit, it's a natural occurring change that the planet has made for millions/billions of years. Mankind causing global warming is in question.

i don't think we're necessarily wholly responsible (in fact i'd argue that good scientific evidence supports the assertion that we aren't). but if we exacerbate the problem, or break the "natural occuring cycle" then we're still doing harm.

[Kodos]

**smashes old refrigerator, allowing CFCs to escape into the environment**

[DanGarion]

**smashes old refrigerator, allowing CFCs to escape into the environment**

I think you might do more harm continuing to use it than smashing it. :)

[Kodos]

"Man versus Nature: The Road to Victory!"

[JonInMiddleGA]

**smashes old refrigerator, allowing CFCs to escape into the environment**

I get this vision of you wearing Mork's clothes, setting the eggs free.

[Kodos]

Nanu-nanu.

[DanGarion]

Nanu-nanu.

MORK!

[bulletsponge]

what's the motive that these scientists would have for making global warming up, or not admitting that it's not a problem?

Look at all the melting polar ice caps and tell me there's no global warming



you do realize "global warming science" and green technology are huge industries right? and the polar caps arnt melting despite the propoganda

[whomario]

Of course, if you actually read what the e-mails say, it seems the worst crime these scientists are guilty of is talking about messing with a graph to make the data look more persuasive. Not exactly a high crime. They're talking about making a prettier picture of the data and not about the manipulation of said data.

Anyway, I don't get the connection from one scientist in England prettying up his graph to PROOF GLOBAL WARMING IS A HOAX! But hey, right-wingers need their beliefs. I mean, a few bad e-mails totally outweigh the Northwest Passage becoming reality, pretty much all of the ten hottest years on record occurring in the past decade, and that thing where millions of acres of ice are falling off the Antarctic Ice Shelf.

this.

Are there scientists exagerating things to make sure their funds don´t get cut (and they end up out of work) ? Absolutely. Are there scientists that are simply ethically dubious or want to make profit ? Of course.
Those are people afterall.

But that doesn´t change that this is a problem.

[Kodos]

Who keeps the metric system down?
We do, we do.
Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do, we do.
Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star?
We do, we do.
Who robs cave fish of their sight?
Who rigs every Oscar night?
We do, we do!

[JonInMiddleGA]

But yes, it's that massive force known as academics living on college funding and barely profitable green technology that is secretly ruling the world!

Nah, just ruling those too fucking stupid to figure out that there's a lot of scam artists in the group, all desperately looking for their fifteen minutes.

[Arles]

The global warming/green movement is a massive industry and many people will try and protect it to make sure it stays that way. I think educating people on water use schedules, recycling and power reduction activities is a good thing. But, I think where the movement loses me is when it transitions into big business with things like carbon credits, huge focuses on CAFE standards and scare tactics about human beings causing the destruction of the world through fairly minimal (if even measurable) activities.

[DaddyTorgo]

the polar caps arnt melting despite the propoganda


you lost me here. there is clear proof that they are.

[DaddyTorgo]

The global warming/green movement is a massive industry and many people will try and protect it to make sure it stays that way. I think educating people on water use schedules, recycling and power reduction activities is a good thing. But, I think where the movement loses me is when it transitions into big business with things like carbon credits, huge focuses on CAFE standards and scare tactics about human beings causing the destruction of the world through fairly minimal (if even measurable) activities.

just to spite you i hope Gaia or the space-probe from Star Trek: The Motion Picture or the aliens from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" remake in 2008 reduce us back to stone-age technologies and wipe 90% of our population off the face of the earth.

[M GO BLUE!!!]

Anybody who says global warming is fact is bullshitting you.

Anybody who says global warming is bullshit is bullshitting you.

[Arles]

you lost me here. there is clear proof that they are.
Not according to the data. Back in 2006, we were on a 4-5 year steep downward trend. Then, in late 2007, it picked up again and we've been on a fairly massive upward trend for two-plus years. The South Pole is setting records (in 2008 and 2009) for maximum sea ice extent:

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg

Also, another beacon of worry is the Greenland Ice sheet accelerating, but it is slowing down:

http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/7/4_Another_Warming_Fear_Drains_Away.html

In fact, we could use some global warming right now as the increase in polar ice could have its own negative consequences.

[Arles]

just to spite you i hope Gaia or the space-probe from Star Trek: The Motion Picture or the aliens from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" remake in 2008 reduce us back to stone-age technologies and wipe 90% of our population off the face of the earth.
As we sit on a rock together and lament the damage we've done (or the aliens have done), I will gladly admit I was wrong and you were right. :D

[SackAttack]

It does not surprise me that not everyone in this controversy is acting ethically. It also does not cause me to disbelieve ALL science.

Yeah.

If you're gonna and say that because Scientist X is sexing up his data, it must all be bullshit, then you've got to be logically consistent and say that because Preacher Y gets caught doing something inconsistent with his proclaimed religious beliefs, the religion in question must be bullshit, too.

Can't have it both ways and say that one thing is true despite the actions of some of its adherents but the other is bullshit because of the actions of some of ITS adherents.

[Kodos]

Anybody who says global warming is fact is bullshitting you.

Anybody who says global warming is bullshit is bullshitting you.

Careful. Methane is a greenhouse gas.

[chinaski]

I had no idea the University of East Anglia was the number one source of all global warming data!

[M GO BLUE!!!]

Careful. Methane is a greenhouse gas.

I've had enough with your junk-science!

[DaddyTorgo]

I had no idea the University of East Anglia was the number one source of all global warming data!

:D

it probably has more to do with some dispute they are having with a competing local university because of personal dislike of other scientists than anything else i'd bet

[bhlloy]

Nothing good comes out of UEA. Stupid Pie-rats.

[DanGarion]

Nothing good comes out of UEA. Stupid Pie-rats.

Is that their mascot?

[Solecismic]

Anyway, I don't get the connection from one scientist in England prettying up his graph to PROOF GLOBAL WARMING IS A HOAX! But hey, right-wingers need their beliefs.

Personally, I'd like to know the truth.

Somewhere between Dr. Emmett Brown's flying DeLorean and Al Gore science started mixing with politics and religion.

No good can come from that approach. Now Democrats have Faith in Global Warming and Republicans have Faith that it doesn't exist.

And scientists understand in that scenario that if they want grant money, they had better appease the pro-warming crowd right now.

[JPhillips]

Personally, I'd like to know the truth.

Somewhere between Dr. Emmett Brown's flying DeLorean and Al Gore science started mixing with politics and religion.

No good can come from that approach. Now Democrats have Faith in Global Warming and Republicans have Faith that it doesn't exist.

And scientists understand in that scenario that if they want grant money, they had better appease the pro-warming crowd right now.

I think Copernicus would question your timeline.

[gstelmack]

Of course, if you actually read what the e-mails say, it seems the worst crime these scientists are guilty of is talking about messing with a graph to make the data look more persuasive. Not exactly a high crime. They're talking about making a prettier picture of the data and not about the manipulation of said data.

There's also the part where they are stacking the peer review boards for their papers. That's actually the more damning part in all this as it undermines trust in any science you read.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

There's also the part where they are stacking the peer review boards for their papers. That's actually the more damning part in all this as it undermines trust in any science you read.

This is not what the article says as far as I can tell. What the article says is that, in these people's opinion, Climate Research was doing this to allow some anti-GW research to get the peer review stamp. CR also had to issue a retraction on some of the conclusions stated in that research (http://www.int-res.com/articles/misc/CREditorial.pdf). In return, one of these scientists said it might be best to stop treating it as a peer-reviewed journal.

Edit: And this is probably a good reason why a thread like this should start with a news article rather than an opinion piece that reads like the author is experiencing multiple orgasms while writing it.

[cartman]

I tend to agree with how Ars Technica has weighed in on the situation.

UK hack reveals climate science's ugly side, little more (http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/11/uk-hack-puts-climate-scientists-personal-e-mails-on-display.ars)

[BishopMVP]

In fact, we could use some global warming right now as the increase in polar ice could have its own negative consequences.This was the most frustrating part in my mind back when I cared about this topic. An increase of a couple degrees would actually probably be beneficial overall, opening up vast tracts of land, primarily in Canada and Siberia, while a decrease of a couple would do more harm, and has a greater risk of disaster (another ice age). Anthropogenic Global Warming proponents and Environmentalists in general seem to have the idea that the data set at the beginning of whichever timeline was the ideal one and we should be doing our utmost to ensure the status quo remains. When in fact the climate and the environment have constantly been changing over time. Europe was warmer in the 1400's than it is today, and most scientists agree there was a mini-ice age in the 1800's - so it shouldn't be surprising, or a bad thing, that it is getting warmer. Also, every time they predict something they've been off - usually because they underestimate the effect of natural phenomenae (solar flares, ocean CO2 absorption, etc), so I don't see why we should be shackling our machines of progress instead of taking part of the money we would be sacrificing to build better levees in Rio/New Orleans/Dhaka/etc or improve the standard of living of the poorest people that will supposedly be in the most danger of starvation from climate change.

Plus I'd rather be spending that money exploring space or the ocean. :)

[dawgfan]

This was the most frustrating part in my mind back when I cared about this topic. An increase of a couple degrees would actually probably be beneficial overall, opening up vast tracts of land, primarily in Canada and Siberia, while a decrease of a couple would do more harm, and has a greater risk of disaster (another ice age).
From an overall view this might be correct, but the devil is in the details. Depending on the rapidity of change, such change could spark a tremendous amount of conflict among nations over changing resources.

Anthropogenic Global Warming proponents and Environmentalists in general seem to have the idea that the data set at the beginning of whichever timeline was the ideal one and we should be doing our utmost to ensure the status quo remains. When in fact the climate and the environment have constantly been changing over time. Europe was warmer in the 1400's than it is today, and most scientists agree there was a mini-ice age in the 1800's - so it shouldn't be surprising, or a bad thing, that it is getting warmer.
If (and I recognize it's a big "if") climate change is significantly impacted by human activity, the concern isn't as much that some change may occur as it is that whatever change is happening may happen more rapidly than we can easily adapt to and that the change may continue without settling into a new status quo.

Also, every time they predict something they've been off - usually because they underestimate the effect of natural phenomenae (solar flares, ocean CO2 absorption, etc), so I don't see why we should be shackling our machines of progress instead of taking part of the money we would be sacrificing to build better levees in Rio/New Orleans/Dhaka/etc or improve the standard of living of the poorest people that will supposedly be in the most danger of starvation from climate change.

Plus I'd rather be spending that money exploring space or the ocean. :)
Again, it really depends on how much of the change that is happening is truly due to human activity. If it's primarily natural causes, we'd be better off spending money learning how to adapt rather than trying to prevent the change. But if it's primarily human-caused, I think it's our duty to change our behavior.

What frustrates me the most about this debate is that I'm not sure we've ever been treated to a true debate on the issue. I'd love to see an honest, open discussion about the issue with people on all sides of the issue addressing concerns. I'm reasonably sure the Earth is warming, but I'm less certain on the causes. I'd love to see true debate on things like carbon emissions and how human activity compares to natural activity, and whether human activity is significant enough to tip things; I'd love to see true debate on exactly what's happening with glacial melt - are the ice caps actually retreating or not when you look at yearly cycles? I'd love to see debate about the supposed correlation between sunspot activity and climate changes, and whether that's a better explanation than human activity as a driver of climate change; etc.

Like so many important issues, this one seems to be so polarized that real, honest and open debate is no longer possible; true believers aren't willing to tolerate hearing any dissent, and non-believers have closed their minds to the possibility they are wrong. We in the middle are left with many doubts and little trust in either side to speak truth.

[CraigSca]

From an overall view this might be correct, but the devil is in the details. Depending on the rapidity of change, such change could spark a tremendous amount of conflict among nations over changing resources.


But I thought religion was the cause of all conflict.

[dawgfan]

But I thought religion was the cause of all conflict.
It is a source of much conflict, but certainly not all. Anyone that suggests otherwise is an idiot or an extreme ideologue ignoring reality.

[Kodos]

There aren't a lot of people shooting eachother over global warming though.

[dawgfan]

There aren't a lot of people shooting eachother over global warming though.
Not entirely true. If/as the climate changes, the effects on access to resources will result in more conflict between nations.

[Chief Rum]

There aren't a lot of people shooting eachother over global warming though.

There is if anyone steps on my land in Anaheim! I bought this anticipating to one day be beach front, dern it!

[RainMaker]

I actually don't think the e-mails are that bad. It's not like these guys are coming out and saying they are pulling a huge hoax and laughing behind everyone's back. I mean suppressing data is a big no-no, but to call global warming a complete hoax because of it is just wrong. These guys sincerely believe it is happening and are just spinning things to make their case look better. It's unfortunately an aspect of science that has been around forever and isn't going away. The War of Currents is a good example of a battle at the beginning of the last century.

I also don't think money is a huge factor in this. There are a lot of respected scientists with no financial stake in the matter who believe it's real. I think acclaim and recognition is more important to the average scientist than some grants. And I also don't see grants falling away as climatology is an important science that will never go away (it is vital in so many ways).

Personally I believe that we are just in the infancy of this science. I believe there are a lot of interesting ideas out there but just not enough evidence to really substantiate anything. That will change in the coming decades and I think we'll get closer and closer to real answers. I think it's ignorant to eliminate any of these theories at this time until more evidence evolves.

I do find it odd how this has become a political issue. Science should not be political yet it seems to have gone that direction with global warming and evolution. I have to hand it to the PR firms of some of these energy companies though, they've gotten the average citizen with no vested interest in their companies to be fervent supporters of their beliefs. Who'd have thought we'd have a group of people chanting "Drill Baby Drill" at rallies. What's next? Do we start chanting Nike's slogan at the next convention?

Ultimately my belief is that I don't care about the global warming debate. I just think we should be cutting down on our emissions. I can't fathom that pumping this kind of stuff into the air is good for our health or our environment. This goes beyond CO2 emissions and to toxic waste and so forth. I'd rather be safe than sorry when it comes to our environment so any efforts to reduce pollution is a good thing in my mind. If global warming makes people more friendly than so be it, but I think it'd be a good thing if we just got on the same page and realized that trashing our planet is probably not a good idea.

[RainMaker]

The global warming/green movement is a massive industry and many people will try and protect it to make sure it stays that way. I think educating people on water use schedules, recycling and power reduction activities is a good thing. But, I think where the movement loses me is when it transitions into big business with things like carbon credits, huge focuses on CAFE standards and scare tactics about human beings causing the destruction of the world through fairly minimal (if even measurable) activities.
That green industry pales in comparision to the energy industry.

And tying "green" into global warming is part of the problem. You don't have to believe in global warming to be good to the environment and other people.

[Dutch]

That green industry pales in comparision to the energy industry.

Maybe if the green industry stops kicking the energy industry in the shin, it might get better cooperation from the big dogs.

[BishopMVP]

From an overall view this might be correct, but the devil is in the details. Depending on the rapidity of change, such change could spark a tremendous amount of conflict among nations over changing resources.This is the cliche response, but it's hilariously disingenuous and/or poorly thought out. We're supposed to worry about climate change because it could lead to people in Africa or the Middle East fighting over water or insufficient crops? Newsflash - they already are. If people actually cared that the proper response isn't shackling western industry to potentially ward off/delay a result decades in the future - it's using a fraction of the money that would be lost by carbon caps improving their standard of living. Similarly you can try to prevent rising ocean levels and possibly (but probably not) AGW related hurricanes/cyclones from destroying the shacks and taking the lives of millions of people or you could actually spend money to build them better dwellings and improve the education so their government and infrastructure can respond and react to natural disasters.

People who say we should worry about changing climate because it could lead to deaths and privation from insufficient crops, water, and outbreaks of disease need to explain why the hypothetical ones down the line deserve our attention more than the ones happening as we speak.If (and I recognize it's a big "if") climate change is significantly impacted by human activity, the concern isn't as much that some change may occur as it is that whatever change is happening may happen more rapidly than we can easily adapt to and that the change may continue without settling into a new status quo.People are terrified of change because.... ? As I said above, the current status quo is unacceptable, and since any industrialization of the 2nd/3rd world is going to be much more inefficient and polluting than current western industries we should be focusing on helping increase efficiency and reducing pollution per capita rather than going after the best-run companies.Again, it really depends on how much of the change that is happening is truly due to human activity. If it's primarily natural causes, we'd be better off spending money learning how to adapt rather than trying to prevent the change. But if it's primarily human-caused, I think it's our duty to change our behavior.The best example I can think of is deforestation, and the logging industry in particular. First there is a false data set, with tales that North America was an untouched wilderness when Europeans got here, when now all evidence points to the contrary and says we have more trees than 500/1000 years ago. Then environmentalists spend money and time attacking US logging companies, and passing legislation to ensure all fires in national parks are put out. The first part is useless because the area that should be getting attention is the Amazon and Indonesian rainforests, not to mention that the US companies are actually doing it sustainably and ending up with more trees. The second actually leads to catastrophic results as the build up of detritus acts as a tinderbox and leads to raging, uncontrollable wildfires that destroy property and wilderness. So you end up with the environmentalists using faulty data, attacking the wrong people, and actually implementing counterproductive measures.

I'm not some luddite who disbelieves science, and I actually enjoy pristine wilderness (often against my better judgment as Werner Herzog would say) and am strongly in favor of reducing pollution. I mean, I despise smelling cigarette smoke - I don't think I would enjoy living in an industrial city like Pittsburgh, let alone the smog-choked Chinese ones. But at the same time, the science is unsettled, and even if it were true the measures people are trying to push through are misguided and poorly thought out.

[Warhammer]

I've been following this item fairly close. The problem, and check some of my previous posts on the topic where I claimed some of this was going on, is that all studies are supposed to be peer reviewed. The fact that they are changing how graphs are presented is important. This was not changing the scale of the graph to give it a new appearance, it was changing the trend or overly smoothing data points, which means they are tampering with the data to show what they want. Sure, you might down play some outliers, or discount why some data should or shouldn't be included but this is not what they were doing. They were changing data points. Then, when questioned about why their experiments and calculations could not be recreated, they refused to give people their data.

Coincidentally, this leak occurred the day after a freedom of information request was denied. Many people were shocked by the decision, but the following day (may have been later that day), this data went on the web.

Let's not forget that many of the predictions of the AGW lobby have proven to be false over the last 15 years. Additionally, their information is based upon their models. If their data has been skewed, what is to say that their models have not been tampered with? There have been those who have taken their data and found that their formulas for accounting for temperatures show that regardless of what you put in, you will get a positive increase in temperature, again regardless of what you put in.

The other things is that many of their favorite talking points, glacial retreat and the ice packs can be attributed to other things. For example, the arctic ice pack is subject to the prevailing winds. If you have strong prevailing winds pushing the pack towards the Atlantic Ocean, you get more melt than if the wind blows the other way. Also, the last few years have shown some significant rebound in the extent of the ice pack. Regarding glacial retreat, it has not been due to increased temperatures, but more from lowered humidity levels near the retreating glaciers. Much of this reduction in humidity is due to changes in land use around these glaciers. Case in point is Kiliminjaro. Last century it was surround by forest, now much of the surroundings are farmlands. Reduced humidity means more evaporation, which means more melt.

[Dutch]

Yes, poor Exxon and Chevron. Feel their pain.

You missed the point.

Would you have a problem if tommorrow Exxon and Chevron said, "We recognize that the future in money-making is in alternative energies and we are prepared to spend 100 times that of the "green energy" folks and employ 100 times more people?

[DaddyTorgo]

Regarding glacial retreat, it has not been due to increased temperatures, but more from lowered humidity levels near the retreating glaciers. Much of this reduction in humidity is due to changes in land use around these glaciers. Case in point is Kiliminjaro. Last century it was surround by forest, now much of the surroundings are farmlands. Reduced humidity means more evaporation, which means more melt.

Sure sounds like something that's been caused by humans to me...

[Warhammer]

Sure sounds like something that's been caused by humans to me...

But its not due to CO2 which is the only thing that the AGW lobby has been pushing.

Also, land use is not about increasing temperture per se, it is changing the albeido. Depending on the underlying soil, it can increase or decrease the local energy absorbtion.

However, this does lead to other questions. In cities, changes in land use, and increases in albeido (due to roads, parking lots, dark roofs, etc.) can lead to locally increased temperatures (due to radient heat). This can affect temperature readings. The heat island affect can cause a temperature anamoly of 10 deg. compared to surrounding areas. Therefore, citing of your temperature gauges is iimportant.

[Marc Vaughan]

My personal take on it is that mankind needs to be more responsible with the planet.

That being said to my eyes that the time period for which there is accurate data for environmental analysis is far too small to be able to say with 100% certainty that anything 'un-natural' is occuring because of human actions at present.

That leaves going 'green' in the bloody obvious camp to me - ie. I've never stuck my hand in a fire, but know its not something which I should do. Similarly we've only one planet to live on, lets look after it at least a little ;)

[Warhammer]

Agreed Marc. There are some things that we should do because it is good sense.

On a lighter note, check out this site:

Minnesotans for Global Warming - Minnesotans For Global Warming: Because its stupid to politicize the weather. (www.m4gw.com)

Pretty darn funny stuff.

[dawgfan]

This is the cliche response, but it's hilariously disingenuous and/or poorly thought out. We're supposed to worry about climate change because it could lead to people in Africa or the Middle East fighting over water or insufficient crops? Newsflash - they already are. If people actually cared that the proper response isn't shackling western industry to potentially ward off/delay a result decades in the future - it's using a fraction of the money that would be lost by carbon caps improving their standard of living. Similarly you can try to prevent rising ocean levels and possibly (but probably not) AGW related hurricanes/cyclones from destroying the shacks and taking the lives of millions of people or you could actually spend money to build them better dwellings and improve the education so their government and infrastructure can respond and react to natural disasters.
First off, what makes you think climate change will only affect the Middle East or Africa?

Second, how does improving standards of living in 3rd world countries help when they lose access to fresh water?

Third, my primary point is that while such changes in access to resources occur naturally too, if human activity is accelerating such changes, our ability to adapt reasonably to those changes is made more difficult.

People are terrified of change because.... ?
I think you missed my point. From what we know of climate history, there's been a range of climates that the Earth has stayed within. If human activity is affecting climate, there's a risk that this tips the scales in a way that leads to more severe climates than have occurred before, and perhaps leading to changes that might never be reversed.

The best example I can think of is deforestation, and the logging industry in particular. First there is a false data set, with tales that North America was an untouched wilderness when Europeans got here, when now all evidence points to the contrary and says we have more trees than 500/1000 years ago. Then environmentalists spend money and time attacking US logging companies, and passing legislation to ensure all fires in national parks are put out. The first part is useless because the area that should be getting attention is the Amazon and Indonesian rainforests, not to mention that the US companies are actually doing it sustainably and ending up with more trees. The second actually leads to catastrophic results as the build up of detritus acts as a tinderbox and leads to raging, uncontrollable wildfires that destroy property and wilderness. So you end up with the environmentalists using faulty data, attacking the wrong people, and actually implementing counterproductive measures.
First, I'd be very interested to see the evidence that says North America is more forested now than when we first settled here.

Second, since when are the destruction of the Amazon and Indonesian rainforests not getting attention?

There are many examples of civilizations ruining themselves through deforestation; it's good that the U.S. and Canada have practiced managed forestry (with the caveats that there is still work to be done to find the right balance between conservation, harvest and natural fires), but even countries with good forestation contribute to the overall planetary problem by exporting their deforestation - Japan for example tightly controls their forests, and as a result imports the vast majority of their timber, much of it from countries that are irresponsible foresters.

All that said, I'm not entirely sure the connection you're trying to make with climate change - how man reacts to environmental issues I guess?

I'm not some luddite who disbelieves science, and I actually enjoy pristine wilderness (often against my better judgment as Werner Herzog would say) and am strongly in favor of reducing pollution. I mean, I despise smelling cigarette smoke - I don't think I would enjoy living in an industrial city like Pittsburgh, let alone the smog-choked Chinese ones. But at the same time, the science is unsettled, and even if it were true the measures people are trying to push through are misguided and poorly thought out.
I would agree that we need to be careful about what measures we take to address these issues. First off, there's still so much we don't know about how climate works. Secondly, we can see in various areas of "environmentalism" how people can't see the forest for the trees, focusing on specific issues and not acknowledging how reactions to those specific issues are harmful to the environment in other ways.

But there are a number of "green" things we can do that make a lot of sense regardless of climate change. Using alternative energy to power our vehicles so we ensure we have petroleum available for products that we can't create otherwise; recycling material to reduce how much land we waste and pollute via garbage; reducing the amount we pollute our environment so as to keep us all healthier; being more responsible about energy use and reducing waste; etc.

[RainMaker]

Maybe if the green industry stops kicking the energy industry in the shin, it might get better cooperation from the big dogs.
They are opposites though. It's akin to saying that PETA should stop kicking the shin of slaughterhouses. There will never be cooperation as money is the only thing a corporation cares about.

I just don't get why people are so adamant about performing fellacio on these energy companies when they would slit your throat for an extra nickel on their stock price.

[Super Ugly]

Nothing good comes out of UEA. Stupid Pie-rats.

??

[Warhammer]

But to answer Dutch's question, if every single energy company said, starting today, we're going to start spending billions upon billions into developing solar, geothermal, wind, and other renewables, I would stand up and applaud them. But, they aren't going to do that. They're going to spend a token amount on alternative energy research and continue to fund global warming denialist groups to do their dirty work.

Solar, geothermal, and wind are not the answers to our energy problems. Solar and wind energy take up entirely too much space to be useful, and geothermal is too limited in what can be done with it If you want to solve our energy woes, we need to move to nuclear power.

Heck the ol companies would not complain, oil is too valuable a resource to be burned as fuel.

[cartman]

Solar and wind energy take up entirely too much space to be useful

Actually, there might be a space breakthrough on wind energy generation.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/1124/1

[Glengoyne]

A couple of folks are talking about the big energy companies being opposed to the "green" environmentalist machine hyping global warming. I compartmentalize those two debates. Yes environmentalists are against big energy. No doubt there. They are natural enemies. I just don't see those two as the two sides of the global warming debate.

I see the global warming debate as a fight for populist support for an agenda. I don't believe global warming is a hoax, but call me a skeptic when it comes to anthropogenic origins. In '96(?) the UN report on climate change stated pretty unequivocally that there were simply too many variables in play to determine if there were anthropogenic causes. That's what the scientists said. The political body involved disputed that, and summarized the report including an assessment of anthropogenic causes. Six or eight years later, the body again reported on climate change, yet this time they flatly stated that man was causing the phenomenon. No smoking gun, no perfectly fitting glass slipper. Just a declaration. The global warming folks shortly thereafter simply declared victory on the subject. They declared the debate "over", and rendered anyone who doesn't sign on as a "flat earther".

I'm figuring that in thirty years, I'll just be one of the vast majority of the population looking back and saying..."Do you remember those global warming whackos, and all of the crazy shit they predicted?" That just isn't the reality, as I'm not in the vast majority.

Anyway, I'm a skeptic, but that doesn't mean that I'm supporting "big Energy". I don't really see Big Energy as the opposition to the global warming debate. I see the global warming debate as a war to win hearts and minds.

All in all, I'm for conservation. I think we should stop or shut down every coal burning power plant in the country, in the world if possible. Not because I think that global warming is going to destroy the world as we know it, but because burning coal is obviously bad for the environment. That is obvious. So we should use nuclear power. Not because of global warming, but because of the obvious advantages.

[Dutch]

They are opposites though. It's akin to saying that PETA should stop kicking the shin of slaughterhouses. There will never be cooperation as money is the only thing a corporation cares about.

I just don't get why people are so adamant about performing fellacio on these energy companies when they would slit your throat for an extra nickel on their stock price.

Funny you should mention PETA. I'm strongly in the animal rights camp, but PETA does make me want to go out and kill bunnies.

Anyway,

The problem is that "Green Energy" needs to have the money and the firepower of "Big Energy" in order to be relevant. Their will never be enough money on the planet to support "Big Energy" styled infrastructure/power/money X 2. Never.

So what you are telling me, is that first we must tear down the "Big Energy" infrastructure, defeat their power players, take their money...then...rebuild the infrastructure, put new rich guys in charge, give them all the money and let them control the new power industry...

This sounds a whole lot like "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

Except,

1.) The battle won't be over by next Thursday and according to the Armaggedonists, it has to be done fast.
2.) We will have to spend more money exponentially to cover the "Energy Revolution" than we would if we could fund "Energy Reform".

Why not just work with the hundreds of thousands of people that already have an idea about the energy business than starting from scratch with a bunch of wacko liberals that are really more interested in destroying the idea of a capitalist cooperation than they are in finding the fastest way from point A to point B? Unless of course the more important goal is to attack capitalism rather than promote environmentalism...then I understand the shin kicking completely. "Big Energy" R&D money will always trump "Green Energy" R&D...if you join together to face the common concern, you'll be better off...in my opinion.

[RainMaker]

Funny you should mention PETA. I'm strongly in the animal rights camp, but PETA does make me want to go out and kill bunnies.

Anyway,

The problem is that "Green Energy" needs to have the money and the firepower of "Big Energy" in order to be relevant. Their will never be enough money on the planet to support "Big Energy" styled infrastructure/power/money X 2. Never.

So what you are telling me, is that first we must tear down the "Big Energy" infrastructure, defeat their power players, take their money...then...rebuild the infrastructure, put new rich guys in charge, give them all the money and let them control the new power industry...

This sounds a whole lot like "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

Except,

1.) The battle won't be over by next Thursday and according to the Armaggedonists, it has to be done fast.
2.) We will have to spend more money exponentially to cover the "Energy Revolution" than we would if we could fund "Energy Reform".

Why not just work with the hundreds of thousands of people that already have an idea about the energy business than starting from scratch with a bunch of wacko liberals that are really more interested in destroying the idea of a capitalist cooperation than they are in finding the fastest way from point A to point B? Unless of course the more important goal is to attack capitalism rather than promote environmentalism...then I understand the shin kicking completely. "Big Energy" R&D money will always trump "Green Energy" R&D...if you join together to face the common concern, you'll be better off...in my opinion.
There is no "joining together" though. Big Energy cares about their shareholders and themselves. They could give two shits about the environment (nor should they in some people's minds). Any act of cooperation is done because it serves some benefit to Big Energy. You aren't going to knock on their door and ask "pretty please" to start offering up some alternative sources of energy.

And no one is saying you have to elminate everyone in the energy industry. But we should be telling them that they need to adapt to new regulations over a set period of time. Offering them the ability to adapt and compete with others for energy supremacy. If some "wacko liberals" win the R&D race toward newer, cheaper options, then so be it. If the current Big Energy wins, then so be it.

Energy in this country goes beyond a normal industry. It is a health concern as well as a national security one. The government has regulations on procedures that companies must adhere to when it comes to the handling and distribution of meat we eat. They set guidelines for what needs to be tested. Telling a meat packing plant that they can't ship beef with e-coli isn't "attacking capitalism". Just as telling an energy company they can't pump a ton of crap into the air and kill all the local wildlife isn't "attacking capitalism". It's a regulation put in place for the betterment of the country.

Now I never said you had to tear down anything. Those are your words that you're trying to put in my mouth. It's a tired scare tactic played by that side to make it seem like anyone who believes it's in the best interest of our country to invest in other energy options wants to destroy big companies.

And while I don't agree with the people who want to rush this, I do understand their frustrations. We've advanced massively in technology in so many areas over the last few decades. Yet energy seems to be an area that has artificially gone stagnant. There are people/companies that don't want us to advance technologically in the energy industry. This inability to advance has cost the country countless dollars and a lot of American lives.

[Dutch]

There is no "joining together" though. Big Energy cares about their shareholders and themselves.

And "Green Energy" is the exact same way, just right now they are the "have not".

Any act of cooperation is done because it serves some benefit to Big Energy. You aren't going to knock on their door and ask "pretty please" to start offering up some alternative sources of energy.

Right, what I am saying is that the scientists need to provide solid data (not cave drawings and manipulated charts) and they need a consensus and they need to get all scientists on board. All scientists are on board with the fact that Mars exists. Lets' get them all on board that man is causing accelerated global warming.

Then, Big Energy will figure out how to make money and provide alternative energy. We still aren't even cautiously optimistic that oil will even last beyond the next century. If the oil dries up, will Big Energy simply go away without a fight or will they want to provide alternative energy to continue to make money? We can accelerate that if we work together.

Now I never said you had to tear down anything. Those are your words that you're trying to put in my mouth.

I never said you said that, but that is what this battle will be, and those are my words, my concerns, that I am presenting to you.

It's a tired scare tactic played by that side to make it seem like anyone who believes it's in the best interest of our country to invest in other energy options wants to destroy big companies.

What is a tired scare tactic? That Big Energy will destroy the Earth or that destroying Big Energy will affect millions of workers and their families?

And while I don't agree with the people who want to rush this, I do understand their frustrations. We've advanced massively in technology in so many areas over the last few decades. Yet energy seems to be an area that has artificially gone stagnant. There are people/companies that don't want us to advance technologically in the energy industry. This inability to advance has cost the country countless dollars and a lot of American lives.

Then work with them and not against them. If the only strategy the "Green Energy" folks have is to shut out "Big Energy"...they will probably lose the fight or prolong it for a very long time...so again, it seems like they are more interested in the fight than the resolution.

You are right though, Big Energy has no motivation to change and unless Green Energy works with/from within Big Energy.

All I am suggesting, is that Big Energy has all the tools, resources, money, and manpower to really propel the Green Energy movement. If their is something in it for them...money...there is reason we should explore that realm/possibility instead of constantly attacking them. I think Exxon and Mobil and whomever could be a major asset for environmentalism.

[Warhammer]

The reason why energy has stagnated is that there are not many ways to change the process. At its core, every energy plant does the same thing, they have a turbine that turns a core around an electromagnet that produces electricity in the core (probably have the core backwards, it might be the magnet that turns). The big question is how to turn the turbine.

The most common method is to produce steam to turn the turbine. This is achieved by burning fossil fuels to heat the steam. It is accomplished in nuclear plants by the energy of splitting uranium or whatever fuel they are using.

There are some mechanical methods, wind and hydro plants use wind and water to turn the turbines. Unfortunately, there are ecological impacts with both sources of power. Hydro plants can completely wreck a river's ecology, but often times in doing so, it produces a new niche for different species. However, environmentalists don't like that. Wind power, as it currently stands, requires large amounts of land area. The windmills are dangerous for birds and other creatures. Additionally, in some areas in which they have them there are some environmental concerns (don't know how founded they are).

The problem with fossil plants is that the efficiencies are only about 40%. Nuclear and wind are much lower, but since the source of the energy is much greater, you can live with the lower efficiency. Hydro, I have no clue what the efficiency is, but I believe it is fairly high.

[Dutch]

Should we waited until every single foreign policy expert was on board before we started the War in Iraq?

Big difference. Iraq instability on the oil industry was set to tumble American Energy industry and our economy, not Gambia's.

Hell, The Kyoto Protocol calls for the US and Europe to foot all the costs for "global warming" but ignores China and India. In 2050, Asia will account for 6 billion of the world's 8 billion population.

So yeah, we can play that game all day long too.

[RainMaker]

Right, what I am saying is that the scientists need to provide solid data (not cave drawings and manipulated charts) and they need a consensus and they need to get all scientists on board. All scientists are on board with the fact that Mars exists. Lets' get them all on board that man is causing accelerated global warming.
You'll never get every scientist on board. Not ever scientist believes in evolution. Are you advocating that we stop teaching it and immediately stop all funding toward research on medicines based on that scientific principle?

But there is a strong consensus amongst scientists in that field. Virtually every poll conducted amongst scientists who have experience in Earth sciences and climatology shows strong support for the belief of global warming and that it's caused by humans. There is little debate amongst scientists, it's non-scientists (politicians, companies, sheep) who are putting up most of the resistance. So tell me what a consensus is to you.

Then, Big Energy will figure out how to make money and provide alternative energy. We still aren't even cautiously optimistic that oil will even last beyond the next century. If the oil dries up, will Big Energy simply go away without a fight or will they want to provide alternative energy to continue to make money? We can accelerate that if we work together.
I doubt they are thinking 100 years in the future. We've seen through the latest financial collapse how far in the future these executives are planning through. They have a virtual monopoly on the energy industry with government supporting many of their wishes to secure new land for them to acquire more resources. Why on Earth would they have an interest in creating a competing technology? They are the most profitable companies in the world, have huge growth in demand, and find it cheaper to just buy up the patents of newer technologies instead of spending the amount of money it would cost to create something that would make their largest source of income obsolete.

What is a tired scare tactic? That Big Energy will destroy the Earth or that destroying Big Energy will affect millions of workers and their families?
I don't see how new technology and innovation would destroy anything. Energy doesn't go away. It shifts from technology to technology. When cell phones advanced to where they became our primary form of communications, the downfall of the old landline system is not going to affect millions of workers and families. It just shifted it to new companies, or kept it with the companies that were able to adapt toward the wireless revolution.

And as it stands, we do have millions of people affected by Big Energy. Everytime some conflict arises in the Middle East and oil prices shoot up. Or when a power company turns off facilities to artificially decrease supply. Or when we spend trillions militarily on top of thousands of lives to secure land so that we can give these companies record profits.

Then work with them and not against them. If the only strategy the "Green Energy" folks have is to shut out "Big Energy"...they will probably lose the fight or prolong it for a very long time...so again, it seems like they are more interested in the fight than the resolution.

You are right though, Big Energy has no motivation to change and unless Green Energy works with/from within Big Energy.
I think you're very optimistic to believe they have any desire to work with any "Green Energy". Why on Earth would they want to help make their core business obsolete? It's like knocking on Microsoft's door and asking them to make a new technology that would kill their operating system business. They'd laugh you right out the door.

All I am suggesting, is that Big Energy has all the tools, resources, money, and manpower to really propel the Green Energy movement. If their is something in it for them...money...there is reason we should explore that realm/possibility instead of constantly attacking them. I think Exxon and Mobil and whomever could be a major asset for environmentalism.

They may have them on paper, but they have never shown an ability to advance technology. They are not innovative and do not have any prior results to show they are capable of advancing technologically.

Lets look at the oil/automotive industry. My first car (1986 Mercury Topaz) had better gas mileage than most new cars on the market. That's over 20 years with little to no innovation or advancement in fuel efficiency. In that time we've seen gigantic 50 pound boxes we called computers that cost $10,000 turn into handheld devices that are infinitely more powerful and can connect me to anywhere on the planet in milliseconds. You are saying you want to put our future energy plans in the hands of companies that have not been able to innovate at all over the past 20 years.

We have a major health and national security issue at hand when it comes to energy. You are saying that you'd like to put it in the hands of those who don't innovate and have no incentive to do so either.

[Dutch]

heh, pretty much disagree with/or have comments on all of that but it's getting to unmanageable to respond...so you win because it's too much to type. :) In ay event, good luck defeating Big Energy. (Suggest you upgrade from sticks to rocks though...they do more damage)

[RainMaker]

I'm not trying to defeat Big Energy. I'd like to see some innovation and advances in the energy field but know that's impossible since it's not in the best interest of these companies to see that happen. They own the politicians and have somehow convinced some citizens to actively root for their corporate interests above their own.

The technology will come someday, but it won't be made here. We aren't a very innovative country anymore.

[Neon_Chaos]

Cold Fusion!

[mrsimperless]

A good read analyzing the leaked emails over at BoingBoing:

hxxp://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/25/more-insight-on-thos.html

[BishopMVP]

First off, what makes you think climate change will only affect the Middle East or Africa?That completely misses the point. Climate change will affect everywhere but it's not a life or death issue for western/OECD countries because we have the resources to mitigate the detrimental effects and take advantage of the opportunities it opens up.

Most of the areas outside the tropics will actually benefit from an increase in global temperature. Ignoring the effects on other parts of the world, shrinking ice coverage is phenomenal for Canada, Siberia and Alaska - which is a full 1/6th of the US land mass. Overall, the average US temperature is ~53 degrees, and as anyone with a thermostat knows the ideal is higher than that.Second, how does improving standards of living in 3rd world countries help when they lose access to fresh water?Because when you're rich enough you can import fresh water or filter it. Israel and Egypt are in as inhospitable climates as global warming could create, but as retarded in a big-picture sense as planting crops in the desert is (and before you talk about fresh water disappearing there is a huge amount of redistribution that could and should be done, probably Aswan first), each country has an abundance of fresh water due to economic and military (aka indirectly economic) factors.Third, my primary point is that while such changes in access to resources occur naturally too, if human activity is accelerating such changes, our ability to adapt reasonably to those changes is made more difficult.Sure, but shackling our most efficient energy producers - and yes, that is the US/OECD countres when you look at GDP per pollution/CO2 production - is going to make it much more difficult, even if it were guaranteed to reverse the trend. Which it is not.

If you want to go past ideology and look at the technical problems with carbon caps, it's that according to the models pushed by the IPCC the cuts necessary to actually reverse AGW are so drastic they'll never be implemented, and even if they were they wouldn't stabilize the excess CO2 for 50-100 years. So even if the problem is anthropogenic the genie is out of the bottle and it's time to spend the money figuring out how to adapt and fix it rather than lowering everyone's standard of living.I think you missed my point. From what we know of climate history, there's been a range of climates that the Earth has stayed within. If human activity is affecting climate, there's a risk that this tips the scales in a way that leads to more severe climates than have occurred before, and perhaps leading to changes that might never be reversed.This is a line of thinking that comes from an over-reliance on short-term history - and I would define the whole of human existence as short-term, let alone recorded history. I would say this is the usual line, from the first pro-AGW group google came up with6. What evidence demonstrates that the recent increase in global temperature is unprecedented?

The National Climate Data Center (NCDC) has maintained global average monthly and annual records of combined land and ocean surface temperatures since 1880, the earliest year for which reliable instrumental records were available worldwide. Based on NCDC data, nine of the top 10 warmest years globally have occurred since 1995. Adding to the evidence of direct temperature measurements, multiple studies by independent teams of researchers indicate that, across the Northern Hemisphere, the 1990s were likely the warmest decade of the past millennium-and possibly the past 2,000 years.The Earth has undoubtedly been warming over the last 150 years, but we were coming out of a mini ice-age - in an* historically freezing era. The Earth was 10-15 degrees warmer - celsius - for most of the past 100 million years. ( temperature (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/temperature.html#65Myr) ) There were no permanent polar ice caps. The numbers being talked about in comparison to that are minimal, we're much closer to slipping into another ice age than reaching anywhere near that, and the dangers of extinction for flora from slipping into an ice age are infinitely more pronounced than any increase of less than 20 degrees celsius. During the Younger Dryas (all of 12000 years ago!) temperatures dropped 7 C in Europe in a 20-year period. (And yes, some scientists argue this came about due to melting ice sheets interrupting thermohaline circulation (aka Day After Tomorrow) but I remain unconvinced.)

*(I know it should be a historically, but I can't bring muself to write that. Sorry grammar police.)First, I'd be very interested to see the evidence that says North America is more forested now than when we first settled here.Weirdly the only article I can find is pushing back against the theory (http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/fmt/fmt_pdfs/FMT65-3.pdf pages 31-34) but the basic line is that the native american tribes used burning techniques (similar to Aborginial Australians) to convert much of the country to savanna and grassland. The initial contact with Europeans (and resulting disease transmission) obliterated the native populations so overwhelmingly (~90%) that the newly sparsely populated landscape was quickly overrun with new-growth forests (at least here in the Eastern seaboard). Thus by the time large numbers of settlers arrived they saw huge forests and assumed the native populations "lived in harmony with nature" and other such crap.Second, since when are the destruction of the Amazon and Indonesian rainforests not getting attention?

There are many examples of civilizations ruining themselves through deforestation; it's good that the U.S. and Canada have practiced managed forestry (with the caveats that there is still work to be done to find the right balance between conservation, harvest and natural fires), but even countries with good forestation contribute to the overall planetary problem by exporting their deforestation - Japan for example tightly controls their forests, and as a result imports the vast majority of their timber, much of it from countries that are irresponsible foresters.These two are directly tied together. Lip service is paid to the Amazonian and Indonesian rainforests, but as you say, environmental activists in these industrialized countries end up implementing and enforcing tight regulations at home while the dirty work is outsourced. Sure it may be the only solution from a technical and international legal perspective, but if you want to solve these problems globally standardizing regulations is the only way to resolve the issues - and if anything these groups have less interest in relaxing regulations at home than they do in tightening them abroad. (To use another imperfect analogy - this one to minimum wage - if you actually care equally about people regardless of nationality then it makes no sense to complain about US workers who make $5 an hour when people in other parts of the world make $5 per day/week. A truly global situation would require the US going down for equilibrium to be reached.)All that said, I'm not entirely sure the connection you're trying to make with climate change - how man reacts to environmental issues I guess?Yah, it wasn't a perfect fit.But there are a number of "green" things we can do that make a lot of sense regardless of climate change. Using alternative energy to power our vehicles so we ensure we have petroleum available for products that we can't create otherwise; recycling material to reduce how much land we waste and pollute via garbage; reducing the amount we pollute our environment so as to keep us all healthier; being more responsible about energy use and reducing waste; etc.Sure, but I don't think you'll find anyone reasonable arguing against these measures (the first one on short-term technical grounds yes, but long-term no). It's when they begin getting lumped in with carbon caps or the attempt to paint 1-2 degree celsius changes as unprecedented recipes for disaster that I react so strongly. The amount of CO2 is unprecedented, and the temperature is rising. But the evidence to support a greenhouse effect is spotty at best and the temperature rise is certainly not unprecedented. Ceteris paribus, based on the historical perspective a global increase in temperatures is actually in our best interests, and I would love to find a combination where we reduce pollution from fossil fuels and still continue to see an increase in temperature.Should we waited until every single foreign policy expert was on board before we started the War in Iraq?This is one of those ridiculous gotcha questions that make no sense when you break it down. Are you claiming that the evidence for global warming is as ironclad as the evidence for WMD's in Iraq, that action on climate change would bog us down in an unwinnable quagmire, or that invading Iraq has achieved its desired goals? Given the propensity for overlap between AGW and anti-Iraq war proponents it feels nice to poke the other side in the eye, but if anything the analogy actually either forces your side to admit the other side is/was right on the other issue or that your side has no case.

[cartman]

Here is Scientific American's take on the situation.

Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense: Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense)

[DaddyTorgo]

Here is Scientific American's take on the situation.

Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense: Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense)

great link cartman

[path12]

Here is Scientific American's take on the situation.

Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense: Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense)


EDIT: scratch that. Not worth it.

[DaddyTorgo]

Claim 6: Climatologists have a vested interest in raising the alarm because it brings them money and prestige.
If climate scientists are angling for more money by hyping fears of climate change, they are not doing so very effectively. According to a 2006 Government Accountability Office study (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-461), between 1993 and 2004, U.S. federal spending on climate change rose from $3.3 billion to $5.1 billion—a 55 percent increase. (Total federal nondefense spending on research in 2004 exceeded $50 billion (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/proj05p.htm).) However, the research share of that money fell from 56 percent to 39 percent: most of it went to energy conservation projects and other technology programs. Climatologists' funding therefore stayed almost flat while others, including those in industry, benefited handsomely. Surely, the Freemasons could do better than that.

[path12]

God, the comments to that article are depressing.

[DaddyTorgo]

God, the comments to that article are depressing.

well 40% of this country is ignorant, so i'd expect a higher-than-average percentage of the comments to be cringeworthy.

[DaddyTorgo]

dola

that was a pretty ugly first few page of comments though.

wish i could move to a country with a higher level of intellectual discourse.

[Warhammer]

That article cartman posted misses most of the point, as far as I am concerned.

In argument to their first claim/myth, most people that argue against climate change is that the system is very complicated and that we do not fully understand all the interactions that make up the climate system. The champions of ACC say that we have to press on and change everything because we are approaching the tipping point. How many tipping points have we had since 2000? The deniers say that we need more data to look at other probable causes than CO2. Case in point, land use as I pointed out above, can have a huge impact on a microclimate. Yet, that is not CO2 based climate change. In fact, some of the impact of land use would be painless and very inexpensive to implement.

Claim/Myth 2: This one misses the point. If you read McIntyre's work in analyzing Mann's hypothesis, his big issue is that what ever you put in, you get the same result. The model/formula would show an increase in temperature whether you started with 100 deg. and ended with 0 deg., or vice versa. Also, there have been newly raised questions regarding Mann's use of the tree ring data, as well as the validity of tree ring data to prove anything, because so many factors can account for the width of the rings. The big issue with disproving Mann's work is that much of the subsequent work is based in part on his findings. It is similar to a house, if the foundation is faulty how long will the house stand. If the house has no foundation, it will fall.

Claim/Myth 3: You can use their own argument against them, we the 120 years for which we have reliable data is not statistically significant on a global time scale. That is what, 1.5% of the time frame in which man has been civilized? They claim the warming is from 1980 until today. The first 20 years are significant, but the decade since is not statistically significant? That is 33% of the time frame they are talking about.

Fundamentally, contrarians who have resisted the abundant evidence that supports warming should not be too quick to leap on evidence that only hints at the opposite.


And the same should hold true for the other side. I'm willing to talk about it, how about the other side?

Claim/Myth 4: My question is how do we know that these only increased by .12 W/m^2. How are we arriving at the 1.6 W/m^2 due to man? Is this taking into account the ocean's area? Their further claim that we have to prove solar radience varience, is not correct. CO2 has not been proven. Nothing can be proven, and they cannot account for variance either. Models do not prove anything. Data can prove, not models. Their arguments for Mars again can be used to disprove what they are talking about for Earth. Where we measure temperature is very small compared to the land mass of the earth. Also, saying that there is no long term trend in Svenmark's research is poppycock. I invite everyone to read his research.

Claim/Myth 5: OK, I understand their point that temperature data is public domain. However, to prove/disprove a theory we need to know what data was used in the study. We need to see what thought processes were used in selecting data. Why some data was more heavily weighted than others, etc. Again, they talk about creating models, I can create any sort of line fit that will account for past data and then do what ever I want it to in the future.

Additionally, (the article even points out some non-peer reviewed articles) peer-review is to convince those who disagree with the data. You have to overcome objections and these guys have not been forthcoming with the background of their research and data to the naysayers to let them for review.

The last two items, I need to read again, couldn't figure out the point they were trying to convey and I need to run.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

One of the scientists involved in the scandal has stepped down from his position pending the results of the investigation.

Climate scientist at center of e-mail controversy to step down (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/01/AR2009120102737_pf.html)

[cartman]

More insight from Ars Technica:

Five things you should know about climate change (http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/11/five-things-you-should-know-about-climate-change.ars)

[CamEdwards]

dola

that was a pretty ugly first few page of comments though.

wish i could move to a country with a higher level of intellectual discourse.

You could just pop over to MIT and talk to this guy:

Richard S. Lindzen: Climate Science and Global Warming - WSJ.com (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html)

[gstelmack]

Claim 6: Climatologists have a vested interest in raising the alarm because it brings them money and prestige.
If climate scientists are angling for more money by hyping fears of climate change, they are not doing so very effectively. According to a 2006 Government Accountability Office study (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-461), between 1993 and 2004, U.S. federal spending on climate change rose from $3.3 billion to $5.1 billion—a 55 percent increase. (Total federal nondefense spending on research in 2004 exceeded $50 billion (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/proj05p.htm).) However, the research share of that money fell from 56 percent to 39 percent: most of it went to energy conservation projects and other technology programs. Climatologists' funding therefore stayed almost flat while others, including those in industry, benefited handsomely. Surely, the Freemasons could do better than that.

There are two points here. First off climatologists whose research does not show global warming are being shut down / shut out of funding from areas other than the energy industries. Second, US federal funding is pretty narrow. It doesn't include foreign spending, it doesn't include private university research, it doesn't include think-tank and other privately raised funds, etc.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

You could just pop over to MIT and talk to this guy:

Richard S. Lindzen: Climate Science and Global Warming - WSJ.com (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html)

While you're over there, you could book a hotel room for a week and talk to all of these as well.

The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change | All Personnel (http://globalchange.mit.edu/people/all-personnel.php)

[DaddyTorgo]

There are two points here. First off climatologists whose research does not show global warming are being shut down / shut out of funding from areas other than the energy industries. Second, US federal funding is pretty narrow. It doesn't include foreign spending, it doesn't include private university research, it doesn't include think-tank and other privately raised funds, etc.

ummm it's a representative snapshot of funding, clearly not all of it

[DaddyTorgo]

hahaha that's rich

[DaddyTorgo]

is there ANYONE who is anti-global-warming who is not in the pocket of one of the big energy companies or industrial companies or something similar?

i have yet to see one

[dawgfan]

is there ANYONE who is anti-global-warming who is not in the pocket of one of the big energy companies or industrial companies or something similar?

i have yet to see one
To play devil's advocate, if funding isn't there by other means for climate scientists that disagree with global warming/global warming caused by man, where else are they going to find funding than the oil companies?

It is at least plausible that these scientists are funded by the oil companies because they are skeptics, rather than they are skeptics because they are funded by oil companies.

Keep in mind I suspect the vast majority are the latter, but still...

[DaddyTorgo]

To play devil's advocate, if funding isn't there by other means for climate scientists that disagree with global warming/global warming caused by man, where else are they going to find funding than the oil companies?

It is at least plausible that these scientists are funded by the oil companies because they are skeptics, rather than they are skeptics because they are funded by oil companies.

Keep in mind I suspect the vast majority are the latter, but still...

nope. i don't think it's very plausible at all. there would be academic funding for the other side for sure...no reason there wouldn't be

[dawgfan]

nope. i don't think it's very plausible at all. there would be academic funding for the other side for sure...no reason there wouldn't be
You're sure about this? Because people have come out and said that in fact the funding isn't there if you're a skeptic.

[DaddyTorgo]

You're sure about this? Because people have come out and said that in fact the funding isn't there if you're a skeptic.

who has come out and said that? any skeptics who have not been on the payroll of big energy companies?

[gstelmack]

who has come out and said that? any skeptics who have not been on the payroll of big energy companies?

You're arguing in circles. Links and articles have been posted numerous times in here backing this up. Right now big energy is the only one willing to push much in the way of skeptic research, most academia is shutting down skeptic research because global warming is "solved" and you must be wrong if you disagree, no matter how good your evidence and no matter how poor their evidence, or how much they have to stack peer review journals, etc.

This phenomena isn't limited to global warming. Research these days is becoming more and more about finding grants and getting money than it is about doing actual legitimate research.

[DaddyTorgo]

i'm not arguing in circles. i just think that your claim that "big energy is the only one willing to push much in the way of skeptic research" is an issue.

if a cigarette company comes out with a study by a scientist saying that cigarette smoking doesn't cause lung cancer don't we all just point and laugh and say "oh gee...big surprise. no way they would fund a study that undercut their business model?"

it's the exact same thing here. no way some big energy company is going to fund a study saying that global warming is a manmade problem when the solutions to that are going to hurt their bottom line!!

i really like that example actually.

if there isn't skeptic-research by somebody who isn't funded/associated with/whatever "big energy" then in my eyes their research is too biased to be entered into the conversation. it's common sense, and really it's far from an impossible hurdle to surpass.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

I have difficulty buying the proposition that all scientists are selling out to whoever is giving them the next grant. I have seen no links here or elsewhere that have convinced me this is anything more than a talking point.

edit: And that goes for both sides. I don't believe that most skeptical scientists are corrupt. Much more likely, is they are focusing on small things found in THEIR work that complicates the picture painted by the bulk of the research. ALL scientists should be skeptical, regardless of the discipline. It's the whole point of science.

[CamEdwards]

While you're over there, you could book a hotel room for a week and talk to all of these as well.

The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change | All Personnel (http://globalchange.mit.edu/people/all-personnel.php)

Sorry I'm late in responding to this. I think you missed my point. I'm not surprised that there are believers in global warming at MIT... that's kind of like being shocked that there are drunks in the bleachers at Fenway. DT had said he wished he could move to a country with a higher level of discourse. I was just pointing out that there was at least one skeptical scientist nearby with whom he could have a good conversation about climate change.

[DaddyTorgo]

Sorry I'm late in responding to this. I think you missed my point. I'm not surprised that there are believers in global warming at MIT... that's kind of like being shocked that there are drunks in the bleachers at Fenway. DT had said he wished he could move to a country with a higher level of discourse. I was just pointing out that there was at least one skeptical scientist nearby with whom he could have a good conversation about climate change.

to which ronnie pointed out that your scientist skeptic apparently has mutliple personality disorder...:lol:

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Sorry I'm late in responding to this. I think you missed my point. I'm not surprised that there are believers in global warming at MIT... that's kind of like being shocked that there are drunks in the bleachers at Fenway. DT had said he wished he could move to a country with a higher level of discourse. I was just pointing out that there was at least one skeptical scientist nearby with whom he could have a good conversation about climate change.

That's fair enough. Lindzen is often trumpeted by the "deniers" (terrible term but I couldn't come up with anything else) as a sort of Excalibur in that he's a smart man at a good institution while ignoring that there are many, many just as qualified at the same institution who disagree with him. Your point about DT's over-the-topness is taken for sure.

[DaddyTorgo]

lol that's me! over-the-top!

[Warhammer]

i'm not arguing in circles. i just think that your claim that "big energy is the only one willing to push much in the way of skeptic research" is an issue.

if a cigarette company comes out with a study by a scientist saying that cigarette smoking doesn't cause lung cancer don't we all just point and laugh and say "oh gee...big surprise. no way they would fund a study that undercut their business model?"

it's the exact same thing here. no way some big energy company is going to fund a study saying that global warming is a manmade problem when the solutions to that are going to hurt their bottom line!!

i really like that example actually.

if there isn't skeptic-research by somebody who isn't funded/associated with/whatever "big energy" then in my eyes their research is too biased to be entered into the conversation. it's common sense, and really it's far from an impossible hurdle to surpass.

Big Energy != Big Oil

Exxon, Chevron, Texaco, BP, etc. are all oil companies. None of them own an energy plant (that I am aware of). However, they are Big Oil. Big Oil is interested in selling oil. The thing is, there are so many other items that oil goes into, that they will still be in business for a long time. Also, oil is not the primary source of power in the US, coal is. Now, when cars are factored in, oil moves up in the rankings.

All that said, I don't think there is a single study that shows that smoking is good for you, and outweighs the bad. That is where your strawman differs from the global temperature debate.

Let me ask this, who here can tell me how scientific process works? How you conduct an experiment?

[RomaGoth]

... Lindzen is often trumpeted by the "deniers" (terrible term but I couldn't come up with anything else)...

How about "infidels"? "Non-believers"?

Just trying to be helpful. :D

[SteveMax58]

if a cigarette company comes out with a study by a scientist saying that cigarette smoking doesn't cause lung cancer don't we all just point and laugh and say "oh gee...big surprise. no way they would fund a study that undercut their business model?"

smoke every day...no cancer here. want more proof than that?

[RomaGoth]

smoke every day...no cancer here. want more proof than that?

Are you seriously using only one person as an example of how smoking does not cause cancer? :eek:

[CamEdwards]

This, in a nutshell, is why I really can't take the global warming crowd all that seriously (and frankly, why I don't pay as much attention to the issue as I probably should).

San Francisco, Amsterdam Work Toward Sustainability (http://www.govtech.com/734210)


San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Cisco Chief Globalization Officer Wim Elfrink, along with Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen, presented the latest developments in the Connected Urban Development (CUD) initiative in Bangalore, India, on Tuesday. They discussed the Urban EcoMap, the newest piece of the CUD program.

The EcoMap is designed to allow citizens to make informed decisions regarding the effect that their actions -- or inactions -- have on their environment. The online application's aim is to help foster healthy competition between cities as they lower their environmental impact.


So the mayor of San Francisco flew to Bangalore, India to put on a presentation with a muckety-muck from Cisco about how citizens can (and presumably should) be more aware of the effect their actions have on the environment.

He flew to Bangalore with the guy from Cisco. They couldn't hold a fucking video conference? According to the carbon footprint calculator I used, Newsom's flight alone had a carbon footprint of nearly 7 tons. It just seems to me that if global warming were such a real concern, the chief proponents of lifestyle change would be... you know... changing their lifestyles.

[RomaGoth]

This, in a nutshell, is why I really can't take the global warming crowd all that seriously (and frankly, why I don't pay as much attention to the issue as I probably should).

San Francisco, Amsterdam Work Toward Sustainability (http://www.govtech.com/734210)



So the mayor of San Francisco flew to Bangalore, India to put on a presentation with a muckety-muck from Cisco about how citizens can (and presumably should) be more aware of the effect their actions have on the environment.

He flew to Bangalore with the guy from Cisco. They couldn't hold a fucking video conference? According to the carbon footprint calculator I used, Newsom's flight alone had a carbon footprint of nearly 7 tons. It just seems to me that if global warming were such a real concern, the chief proponents of lifestyle change would be... you know... changing their lifestyles.

I will probably get flamed for this, but it kinda reminds me of Al Gore having a ridiculously expensive electric bill while telling everyone else to turn down their power usage....

FWIW, I am pretty much in the middle on this topic. I believe in the concept of global warming, but have my doubts as to how much is actually our fault. Obviously we should do what we can to lessen our impact on the earth, but a lot of it appears to be media hype and political propaganda. Just my $0.02.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

The Daily Show addresses Climate-gate............

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wt0ZaXu_CA

[DaddyTorgo]

Big Energy != Big Oil

Exxon, Chevron, Texaco, BP, etc. are all oil companies. None of them own an energy plant (that I am aware of). However, they are Big Oil. Big Oil is interested in selling oil. The thing is, there are so many other items that oil goes into, that they will still be in business for a long time. Also, oil is not the primary source of power in the US, coal is. Now, when cars are factored in, oil moves up in the rankings.

All that said, I don't think there is a single study that shows that smoking is good for you, and outweighs the bad. That is where your strawman differs from the global temperature debate.

Let me ask this, who here can tell me how scientific process works? How you conduct an experiment?

but big energy is against global warming research for polluting reasons anyways

[JPhillips]

This, in a nutshell, is why I really can't take the global warming crowd all that seriously (and frankly, why I don't pay as much attention to the issue as I probably should).

San Francisco, Amsterdam Work Toward Sustainability (http://www.govtech.com/734210)



So the mayor of San Francisco flew to Bangalore, India to put on a presentation with a muckety-muck from Cisco about how citizens can (and presumably should) be more aware of the effect their actions have on the environment.

He flew to Bangalore with the guy from Cisco. They couldn't hold a fucking video conference? According to the carbon footprint calculator I used, Newsom's flight alone had a carbon footprint of nearly 7 tons. It just seems to me that if global warming were such a real concern, the chief proponents of lifestyle change would be... you know... changing their lifestyles.

Jimmy Swaggart was a crook, therefore, God doesn't exist.

[CamEdwards]

Jimmy Swaggart was a crook, therefore, God doesn't exist.

I would say the closer analogy is "Jimmy Swaggart acts like hell doesn't exist, therefore why would I believe him when he says it does?"

[JPhillips]

I would say the closer analogy is "Jimmy Swaggart acts like hell doesn't exist, therefore why would I believe him when he says it does?"

Okay, I'll take that. But while the actions of the above may call into question his sincerity, it doesn't have anything to do with global warming. Disbelieving everyone because of the faults of a few that they have no control over is silly.

Would all preachers that talk about hell be discredited because of Swaggart?

[CamEdwards]

Okay, I'll take that. But while the actions of the above may call into question his sincerity, it doesn't have anything to do with global warming. Disbelieving everyone because of the faults of a few that they have no control over is silly.

Would all preachers that talk about hell be discredited because of Swaggart?

Nope. But when more and more preachers act like Swaggart, it's not surprising when fewer people believe in hell. Pretending like it's just a "few" believers of global warming who live jet-setting lives with enormous carbon footprints is like pretending that there've only been a couple of crooked preachers over the past few years.

Keep in mind, the religious argument may work on someone who actually goes to church, but I haven't gone to church looking for spiritual guidance in about 9 years. :)

[SteveMax58]

Are you seriously using only one person as an example of how smoking does not cause cancer? :eek:

"Sarcasm meter to aisle Goth...sarcasm meter to aisle got...thank you." ;)

[JPhillips]

Nope. But when more and more preachers act like Swaggart, it's not surprising when fewer people believe in hell. Pretending like it's just a "few" believers of global warming who live jet-setting lives with enormous carbon footprints is like pretending that there've only been a couple of crooked preachers over the past few years.

Keep in mind, the religious argument may work on someone who actually goes to church, but I haven't gone to church looking for spiritual guidance in about 9 years. :)

The topic doesn't really matter as you can make the same argument about any set of beliefs as there's always a group of people that could be seen as discrediting their argument. I had a scout master that was strict about behavior in camp, but I knew he'd gotten caught with alcohol with my oldest brother when he was a scout. Does that invalidate all discouragement of teen drinking?

There's a tendency on the right to invalidate arguments if the person making them doesn't live like Gahndi. Global warming arguments are a sham because Al Gore has a big house with a lot of lights. Poverty reduction is a sham because Ted Kennedy was rich. Not until the adherents of these beliefs live the lives of paupers can they have credibility, but of course the way the media and political world works the paupers don't get any time to make their arguments. It's a good way to shut out arguments you'd rather not hear.

The jet set guy is likely a d-bag(just because I have that feeling about all of SIlicon Valley CEOs, but flying on an airplane doesn't mean you aren't conserving. As I understand it the main message is to reduce, not eliminate, your carbon footprint. If everyone reduces their footprint by 10%, even if that means Al Gore still has a big house, the collective reduction will be a big change. I think it's fair to ask the biggest users to reduce more than those at the poverty level, but nobody is arguing that carbon use has to be zero for every individual.

[Warhammer]

but big energy is against global warming research for polluting reasons anyways

They really aren't. Think about it, if you can market clean energy, that gives you a pretty big advantage in the marketplace. Plus, any technologies you develop you can make money from the licensing of that technology to other companies. Also, any form of clean energy gets you away from fossil fuels, particularly oil. Most of our coal plants burn pretty clean, with scrubbers and other emission reducing technology. You get outside of the US, and that is where the coal plants are bad.

[RomaGoth]

"Sarcasm meter to aisle Goth...sarcasm meter to aisle got...thank you." ;)

Hard to tell sarcasm sometimes on the internetz....:p

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

They really aren't. Think about it, if you can market clean energy, that gives you a pretty big advantage in the marketplace. Plus, any technologies you develop you can make money from the licensing of that technology to other companies. Also, any form of clean energy gets you away from fossil fuels, particularly oil. Most of our coal plants burn pretty clean, with scrubbers and other emission reducing technology. You get outside of the US, and that is where the coal plants are bad.

Agreed. People forget far too often how much work has gone into making the U.S. a much cleaner energy producing country. You don't even have to read the captions under these pictures to see just how much worse the situation is in other countries when compared to the U.S. If even one of these scenes occurred in the U.S., it would be national news and there would be a criminal investigation..........

Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China | ChinaHush (http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/)

[JPhillips]

Having been in China, no pictures I have ever seen of the air quality do justice to the level of pollution. I'd love to live a few years in China, but I'd be terrified to breathe the air long term.

[DaddyTorgo]

yeah....china=icky

[RomaGoth]

Agreed. People forget far too often how much work has gone into making the U.S. a much cleaner energy producing country. You don't even have to read the captions under these pictures to see just how much worse the situation is in other countries when compared to the U.S. If even one of these scenes occurred in the U.S., it would be national news and there would be a criminal investigation..........

Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China | ChinaHush (http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/)

Thanks for the pictures, very eye-opening. Of course, they don't care about any of this, China isn't exactly the human rights capital of the planet. :(

[Warhammer]

Those pictures illustrate a matter I have talked about for a while. We shouldn't be the ones to have the restrictions placed on our economy. We are productive and clean, we need to place the restrictions on developing economies to make them more clean and productive. We don't want to have 20 more Chinas in the developing world.

[JPhillips]

Here's another good story on Chinese pollution.

http://www.searchmagazine.org/May-June%202009/full-china.html

[BishopMVP]

Here is Scientific American's take on the situation.

Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense: Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense)Yay, more strawmen! I realize that a large segment of the opposition (extending to prominent people like Inhofe) devolves into people saying it doesn't exist or other similarly idiotic and/or extremely condensed points, but it doesn't mean every article "answering contrarians" needs to lower themselves to that standard. I've never/rarely seen articles or attempts to answer why

1: an increase in temperature of 2-3 degrees celsius would be bad on a global scale when there have been much more massive and rapid temperature swings in the past
2: those in the past occurred and how that relates to AGW today
3: putting caps on OECD countries and not developing ones actually helps at all.

The third is particularly galling when the article chooses to end with a statement like this.But then again, responsible action on climate change is what the contrarians seem most interested in denying.Overall, it was an article preaching to true believers and the lcd rather than attempting to constructively approach the scientists like Lomborg that actually are making scientific arguments against them. I've had long conversations with prominent people in that field and they are so used to answering exasperating questions from deniers and winning on their (epochally) small-scale points and talking about "the big picture" they don't ever bother to look at the actual bigger picture.

[BishopMVP]

First, it's nice to know that people have devolved to "other countries are worse, so we shouldn't do anything." Responsible!Like I said, Yay, strawmen! :rolleyes:Also, the USA + EU is approximately 34% of all carbon emissions. China is only 20%Yes, and the US/EU counts for a much larger percentage of output, so if you look at energy efficiency they're not the problem. But it's nice to know that "China shouldn't do anything because other countries+economic groupings are worse."Also, past massive swings temperature didn't happen when were a massively advanced globalized world with six billion people in it. Ya' know, that little thing.Yet somehow those primitive cavemen managed to survive and adapt. That little thing.

[cartman]

One of my concerns is that the levels of CO2 we are seeing now equate to the levels seen in the past in the time after a major volcanic eruption. Those levels were naturally brought down over time. But we are keeping those CO2 levels year after year, without a chance for the natural reduction to take place. We really won't know how that will affect things until another major volcanic eruption (or other natural CO2 producing event) takes place.

[DaddyTorgo]

We can't force China to do anything. We can _do_ something. Also, we're fucking America. We can do more than survive and adapt. We go in and fix the problem. Yes, it might require sacrifice and more silly stuff like that. That's the price we pay for being responsible.

+1

[sterlingice]

in an* historically freezing era

*(I know it should be a historically, but I can't bring muself to write that. Sorry grammar police.)

Just out of curiousity- why? "An historical" sounds awful to my ears whereas "a historical" sounds right.

I'm just remembering back to grade school: "an" for vowels, consonants for everything else. The only reason we have that freaky "h" issue is that words like "hour" and "honest" have silent h's so the "o" is the first sound you hear (i.e. a vowel) so you get "an hour" or "an honest politician" (oh, who are we kidding- the latter doesn't exist)

SI

[sabotai]

Just out of curiousity- why? "An historical" sounds awful to my ears whereas "a historical" sounds right.

I'm just remembering back to grade school: "an" for vowels, consonants for everything else. The only reason we have that freaky "h" issue is that words like "hour" and "honest" have silent h's so the "o" is the first sound you hear (i.e. a vowel) so you get "an hour" or "an honest politician" (oh, who are we kidding- the latter doesn't exist)

SI

Some people pronounce "historic" and "historical" with a silent 'h'.

[Warhammer]

We can't force China to do anything. We can _do_ something. Also, we're fucking America. We can do more than survive and adapt. We go in and fix the problem. Yes, it might require sacrifice and more silly stuff like that. That's the price we pay for being responsible.

This is exactly why we need to figure out what the heck the cause is. Let's say that of the x amount of warming we had, human activity was responsible for .1x, then guess what, I don't think we need to be doing anything. Now if we are talking we're responsible for .5x, then I can see your point a little better.

However, no one has been able to conclusively say that people are responsible for x% of the warming. There have been zero studies that rule out other possibilities.

Let's look at creation. Back in the 20s, a scientist proposed that the universe started as a primeval egg. Someone else proposed a steady state theory. Over time, experiments and observations were made that forced the egg theory to evolve to a point singularity and eventually to the Big Bang Theory. The Steady State Theory died over time due to the observations made about the acceleration of the universe, space, etc., etc.

What we have today are several different discussions. First, that we have had statistically significant warming since 1980. Some say we have, others say we have, but we are on the back side of the curve and temperatures will return to normal, etc. That is one debate. The second debate, is what is causing the change?

The problem I have is that many people assume that the debate is settled. I don't think it is. Without fundamentally proving he first, you cannot prove the second. Think about it, we are talking about a .5 deg. C change in temperature. That is roughly 1 deg. F. That is not statistically significant in the big scheme of things.

[RomaGoth]

Let's look at creation. Back in the 20s, a scientist proposed that the universe started as a primeval egg. Someone else proposed a steady state theory. Over time, experiments and observations were made that forced the egg theory to evolve to a point singularity and eventually to the Big Bang Theory. The Steady State Theory died over time due to the observations made about the acceleration of the universe, space, etc., etc.

:popcorn:

[path12]

Some say the "Movies you should like but don't" thread is the most depressing one on the board.

I think it's this one.

[Warhammer]

I should go back and edit that. Meant to end that with, "Now the Big Bang Theory is the accepted theory to describe creation. However, this is based on data and observations we have, a new competitor could come and overthrow it with additional data and observations."

[DaddyTorgo]

what's the harm in doing what we can to reduce global warming no matter what % of it we as human beings are responsible for though? as a species we should thrive to be "carbon-neutral" so that we don't have any effect on the Earth. Now obviously we're never going to get there, but any sort of reductions that we can make we should make.

you're saying we have to know what % we're responsible for conclusively before we can start reducing it? I say why? if we have the tools and the ability to start reducing it now why would we wait? at some point it would become a runaway chain of warming that we couldn't stop...why let it get even one day closer to that out of inaction?

[JediKooter]

I should go back and edit that. Meant to end that with, "Now the Big Bang Theory is the accepted theory to describe creation. However, this is based on data and observations we have, a new competitor could come and overthrow it with additional data and observations."

That's the great thing about science. You aren't shoe horned into following impractical, incorrect and illogical dogma regardless of the evidence against it. If something turns out to be false, it's discarded, much like the steady state theory was and aether.

[BishopMVP]

One of my concerns is that the levels of CO2 we are seeing now equate to the levels seen in the past in the time after a major volcanic eruption. Those levels were naturally brought down over time. But we are keeping those CO2 levels year after year, without a chance for the natural reduction to take place. We really won't know how that will affect things until another major volcanic eruption (or other natural CO2 producing event) takes place.Yes, that is one of the actual worries I have, but like you said it's one where we don't know what will happen, or even if it will be a problem. Ceteris paribus I would like the CO2 levels to be lower, but I don't think it's worth the drastic change in lifestyles that would need to occur to eliminate mankinds carbon footprint (and even then it would take 50-100 years to stabilize) based off guesses and potential scenarios.Just out of curiousity- why? "An historical" sounds awful to my ears whereas "a historical" sounds right.

I'm just remembering back to grade school: "an" for vowels, consonants for everything else. The only reason we have that freaky "h" issue is that words like "hour" and "honest" have silent h's so the "o" is the first sound you hear (i.e. a vowel) so you get "an hour" or "an honest politician" (oh, who are we kidding- the latter doesn't exist)Pretty much what sabotai said, except I actually flip back and forth between pronouncing historic with or without an H sound* - I think depending on how fast I am talking at that point, or possibly on whether I am emphasizing historic or the word after it. In my mind I was probably reading that sentence quickly, so "in an (h)istoric era" sounded better than "in a historic era".

*(Or would that be without a H sound :D)as a species we should thrive to be "carbon-neutral" so that we don't have any effect on the Earth.Why? What makes an entirely untouched world a better place than one that has been terraformed or altered by humans? I'm not getting into the obvious pollution is bad and should be avoided aspects, but every type of flora and fauna affects the world around them, and I'd rather spend the energy molding it in a good way than by trying to cancel out our effects.

[Warhammer]

what's the harm in doing what we can to reduce global warming no matter what % of it we as human beings are responsible for though? as a species we should thrive to be "carbon-neutral" so that we don't have any effect on the Earth. Now obviously we're never going to get there, but any sort of reductions that we can make we should make.

you're saying we have to know what % we're responsible for conclusively before we can start reducing it? I say why? if we have the tools and the ability to start reducing it now why would we wait? at some point it would become a runaway chain of warming that we couldn't stop...why let it get even one day closer to that out of inaction?

How much are you willing to pay for that?

Every biological process that I can think of has one of two bi-products, either CO2 or O2. So guess what, anything we do, will result in a larger CO2 footprint. We raise chickens or cows? More CO2 output. We grow crops, well we need to farm the land, so more CO2 output. We need more energy? Guess what, more CO2 output. And when we die, those little natural critters that eat our body up, produce CO2.

CO2 is not a bad gas. It isn't. We could not live without CO2. The whole premise of the CO2 debate is that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, with additional CO2 in the atmosphere we will get warmer. The problem is that we do not understand the processes behind what drives temperature in the atmosphere. We do not know how much CO2 drives climate. We have no clue. If additional CO2 causes warming, why has there not been constant warming since 1750? Why does the start of the industrial revolution coincide with the Little Ice Age? Why if CO2 is so bad, why is global biomass up?

[sabotai]

5 part (slowly ongoing) video series that deals with the science, debate and myths about global climate change. Since he goes after the myths created by both sides, I'm sure everyone find things to like and hate about these. :)

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[gstelmack]

Let's look at creation. Back in the 20s, a scientist proposed that the universe started as a primeval egg. Someone else proposed a steady state theory. Over time, experiments and observations were made that forced the egg theory to evolve to a point singularity and eventually to the Big Bang Theory. The Steady State Theory died over time due to the observations made about the acceleration of the universe, space, etc., etc.

A better example I like to use for this is food and diet. First, protein was bad for you, so you needed to cut out meat. Then it was discovered that the fat that went with the protein was the real culprit, so you needed to cut out fat. Then they decided that it was really the CARBS everyone was eating with those, so you needed to cut carbs. Then they discovered that it was really bad carbs, and there are also good and bad fats.

Now they've finally come to the conclusion that we just need to eat balanced and in moderation to really be healthy, but the advice to cut back on sweets was probably good.

I feel the same way with global warming. The answer is probably just that we need to be careful about pollution and emissions and all the trash we throw away, but we can't go overboard or people start dying of disease at much higher rates again when we get rid of all the modern conveniences. Instead every time we turn around folks want to cut everything to the bone (83% reduction in carbon emissions? really?).

Burning wood in your fireplace is bad for the environment for crying out loud. How exactly are we supposed to live again? And we can't build nuclear plants, so how do we get our energy? Windmills kill birds, natural gas wells are catching fire under cities, etc.

Carpooling is good. If they can ever work out the logistics for trains and mass transit, I like the concept but we have to figure it out. We have some great recycling programs. Continued work on alternative energy sources. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

[JPhillips]

A better example I like to use for this is food and diet. First, protein was bad for you, so you needed to cut out meat. Then it was discovered that the fat that went with the protein was the real culprit, so you needed to cut out fat. Then they decided that it was really the CARBS everyone was eating with those, so you needed to cut carbs. Then they discovered that it was really bad carbs, and there are also good and bad fats.

Now they've finally come to the conclusion that we just need to eat balanced and in moderation to really be healthy, but the advice to cut back on sweets was probably good.

That's actually a very good comparison to global warming. The overwhelming majority of health scientists did and still do see red meat as a major cause in heart disease and certain cancers among other diseases. There's only confusion because a small group of scientists said the opposite and had enough confusing research to muddy the waters. Among almost all health professionals there isn't a debate as to whether consuming a lot of red meat has negative health effects.

[gstelmack]

That's actually a very good comparison to global warming. The overwhelming majority of health scientists did and still do see red meat as a major cause in heart disease and certain cancers among other diseases. There's only confusion because a small group of scientists said the opposite and had enough confusing research to muddy the waters. Among almost all health professionals there isn't a debate as to whether consuming a lot of red meat has negative health effects.

Ah, but back then it wasn't just red meat. It eventually got separated more into lean white meat vs fatty red meat, but for a while it was suggested that you limit even the lean meat intake (small chicken breast, limited amounts of tuna fish, etc). And red meat still has some benefits, notably with iron levels, which yes you can also get from other sources.

[Warhammer]

Agreed. Also in regards to red meat, we should have it as more of a side portion rather than the main course of a meal. But if having a steak is the difference between living to 75 or to 90, I guess I have 15 years of dementia I won't have to worry about.

[sabotai]

The person who made the videos I posted before made one about the hacked emails.

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[Marc Vaughan]

I thought that video was very well done to be honest and somewhat scarey regarding how (cough) well researched a lot of media is today.

[Mac Howard]

I thought that video was very well done to be honest and somewhat scarey regarding how (cough) well researched a lot of media is today.

He started off very well but I thought he began to undermine his claim to objectivity in the last video. There is nothing you can't ridicule if you use the pronunciations of the likes of Limbaugh and Beck :) I don't think that the scientific sceptics would see these guys as their spokesmen. The climate change proponents have their own clowns though I doubt we will see a video ridiculing the environmentalists arguments using them. He does not seem that far committed to balance.

The problem is that the debate has been high-jacked by politicians, a media addicted to sensationalism and scientists who feel they have to shout too loud to have their voices heard. It's almost impossible to know whether opinions are genuinely scientific or the result of distorted or even manufactured data. There is an aura of the disingenuous about every contribution these days and I don't think this guy is completely free from suspicion. He begins well but ends badly.

[gstelmack]

Why I am a skeptic:

- Ice core data clearly shows the earth goes through regular warming / cooling cycles, and that we are currently in the middle of one of the warming cycles. This is the same ice core data used to show the correlation of CO2 and global temperatures. This makes a lot of sense to me.
- The scare here is that CO2 is rising faster and farther than ever before. However it looks like all guesses that this won't correct itself, and/or hit saturation point where it stops affecting temperatures. And climatologists do not have an exactly stellar record of prediction in either the short or the long-teram.
- There is some dispute as to whether or not its ever been this high before. There is agreement its come close, but smoothing in the old data means we don't know for sure if we've hit short-term peaks.
- Circular arguments. We have a short-term (in geological terms) spike in CO2, but when folks point out we've been temperature flat recently we are told "that's too small a sample size". When ice sheets shrink, it's because temperatures are up. When ice sheets expand, it's because the increased temperatures mean more rain. It's like El Nino, where even contradictory trends are easily explained, which just makes me wonder why the opposite isn't just as true.
- Suspect data. Nearly all of this data is guesses based on implied correlations. We only have real, observed data for a very small period of time (see sample size above). We have lots of data that is assumed to be temperature that may also be precipitation (tree-rings, some of the ice core data). Heck, it took them several YEARS to replace an obviously broken thermometer at our local NWS station at RDU (anecdotal, small sample size, I know).
- Politics heavily involved. Lots of folks that would love nothing better than to see the US continue its downward spiral are all for draconian measures that would cost us an arm and a leg. It's on both sides as I realise big energy is not exactly neutral either. But it's hard to cut through all of this down to the actual science, and it means that whenever some possible data is found it's trumpeted all over (from both sides) before it gets accurately peer reviewed. And then the peer reviews themselves are often suspect. Not to mention the hypocrisy of all the folks trumpeting all of these changes barely trying themselves. Carbon offsets has to be one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard for saving the planet. But I will say thanks to the realclimate link, that's been a good read for getting some actual science.
- Every time a trend looks wrong, the models get changed and data re-corrected.

So while I see plenty of research and statistics that guess that we are in deep trouble, the conclusions reached just don't seem proven yet. It all sure LOOKS good, and the underlying DATA is sound, but the correlations between all the data are far from a sure thing, and the cause/effect simply is not proven right now. Especially when solutions for this (beyond the simple "drive less and try to use a bit less energy") aren't necessarily going to help. Burning wood in fireplaces is a bad thing now even.

[Glengoyne]

It's been a while since I visited this page, but.

Gstelmack,
I like your summary. You make a more reasoned statement of your position that I do myself.

I will comment on some of the Lindzen detractors/debunkers. I don't believe that because a professor or scientist consults with industry...any industry... at what would be considered typical consultant rates, should be automatically regarded as "in the pocket of" that industry. That is a bit of guilt by association, that isn't persuasive to me on its face value. What is he consulting on? Does he legitimately possess the skills/information to serve as a consultant/expert on those topics? Are those topics client change or client change research related? I honestly don't know. I'm just stating that I'm not willing to discredit the guy because he has an association with the energy industry. Of course I'm also the guy naive enough to state earlier that I don't perceive the "energy industry" as the enemy of the anthropogenic global warming arguments.

Call me a skeptic, not a denier, or a flat earther. Sure there is a warming trend. I believe that there are too many variables in play to realistically or reliably predict what is going to happen given a change in any of those variables. Nor do I believe we have good enough of an understanding of those variables to draw concrete conclusions from even historical data. I also believe that alarmists, even Al Gore's "An inconvenient Truth" are more likely to be parodied in 50 years by the likes of Mystery Science 3000, than they are to be triumphed as pioneers and visionaries.

Politics plays a huge role in this debate. Just look at who we're respectively disagreeing with in this thread. With some exceptions, it is the same crowd drawn up on either side.

[RainMaker]

I think it's funny when people use the line about scientists lying about this for the money. I don't view scientists working on research like this as the "in it for the money crowd".

But what gets me is they ignore the massive interest Big Oil and Big Energy have to stop this. You're talking about pennies in grants when it comes to what these companies can lose by allowing innovation into the marketplace. They have massive amounts of money to throw at lobbyists and PR firms. Heck, they are the ones that buy off our politicians to start trillion dollar wars so we can lay claim to some oil-rich lands. But somehow the scientists without all this firepower are the ones obstructing the issue.

That's not a stance on the issue as I'm not a scientist and couldn't grasp the complexity of it. I would rather trust the opinions of climatologists than oil executives and talking heads. But if you don't think Big Oil has influence, just look back at the campaigns where they somehow managed to herd enough sheep into a room to chant "Drill Baby Drill" at rallies. That's some fucking public relation skills.

[Mac Howard]

I would rather trust the opinions of climatologists .

That would be nice. But do you know that the head of the UN IPCC - possibly the most important influence on this whole debate - is a Hindu vegetarian railway engineer from India who, not surprisingly, advocates reducing CO2 emissions by eating less red meat, taxing airlines out of existence and using trains instead, imposing the majority of CO2 cuts on the developed world while simultaneously defending the Indian government's recent decision to base it's development on coal fired power stations? You'll also be pleased to know he hates America ;)

But climatologist? A railway engineer?

But not being a climatologist does not make you a stranger on the IPCC.

I'm a sceptic. I'm proud to be a sceptic. After all I'm a scientist and the very essence of science is scepticism. Any man who sets out to demonise the word "sceptic" is no scientist.

But my scepticism on this is less about the message - I accept that the world is warming and CO2 a significant cause in that - but more about the messengers and the manner of their communication of the message that savages the science.

An hour ago I watched a news item on TV. They interviewed a contributor to the Copenhagen summit. A politician I think. He told us how he was horrified that the world had warmed up by "three to five" degrees in the last century. He didn't bat an eyelid as he said it.

I too would be horrified if those figures were even remotely correct. But no one bothered to correct him or question his numbers. These numbers went out onto the airways as fact.

That's the crap that causes my scepticism! Too much of the message is coming from guys who haven't got a clue, couldn't care less about that because they're on the band wagon - and probably the gravy train too.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Also, it's only a political football in the US. The rest of the Western world, even conservatives in those countries, admit the Earth is warming due to human activity.

:eek:

:lol:

[Neon_Chaos]

As I said before, even if global warming is a massive hoax created by a conspiracy of Al Gore, Greenpeace, small start-up wind companies, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, we should still be working toward a world with a small carbon footprint.

Also, it's only a political football in the US. The rest of the Western world, even conservatives in those countries, admit the Earth is warming due to human activity.

Even in 3rd world countries, we pretty much are resigned to the fact that the weather has gotten shittier the past decade. Of course, we couldn't care if they call it global warming or not, just that pollution and the burning of fossil fuels is a definite factor.

[gstelmack]

Even in 3rd world countries, we pretty much are resigned to the fact that the weather has gotten shittier the past decade. Of course, we couldn't care if they call it global warming or not, just that pollution and the burning of fossil fuels is a definite factor.

I remember back in the 80s reading about how folks were getting spoiled because we were in a mild weather pattern, and when it returned to normal they'd be all upset at the increase in hurricanes and other severe weather incidents when in reality we'd just be regressing to the mean. Maybe the climatologists actually got one right ;-)

[gstelmack]

This is an interesting take on why it's so difficult to have a good discussion from either side in this debate:

The distorted global-warming debate - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/12/06/frum.global.warming/index.html)

[RainMaker]

That would be nice. But do you know that the head of the UN IPCC - possibly the most important influence on this whole debate - is a Hindu vegetarian railway engineer from India who, not surprisingly, advocates reducing CO2 emissions by eating less red meat, taxing airlines out of existence and using trains instead, imposing the majority of CO2 cuts on the developed world while simultaneously defending the Indian government's recent decision to base it's development on coal fired power stations? You'll also be pleased to know he hates America ;)

But climatologist? A railway engineer?

But not being a climatologist does not make you a stranger on the IPCC.

I'm a sceptic. I'm proud to be a sceptic. After all I'm a scientist and the very essence of science is scepticism. Any man who sets out to demonise the word "sceptic" is no scientist.

But my scepticism on this is less about the message - I accept that the world is warming and CO2 a significant cause in that - but more about the messengers and the manner of their communication of the message that savages the science.

An hour ago I watched a news item on TV. They interviewed a contributor to the Copenhagen summit. A politician I think. He told us how he was horrified that the world had warmed up by "three to five" degrees in the last century. He didn't bat an eyelid as he said it.

I too would be horrified if those figures were even remotely correct. But no one bothered to correct him or question his numbers. These numbers went out onto the airways as fact.

That's the crap that causes my scepticism! Too much of the message is coming from guys who haven't got a clue, couldn't care less about that because they're on the band wagon - and probably the gravy train too.

I don't care what someone on the UN says. I'm talking about actual climatologists. Scientists who study the climate. Not their messengers, not their advocates, but the actual scientists.

I don't understand what messengers like Al Gore or the Indian railway driver have to do with the actual science and beliefs of these scientists. It's another case of trying to discredit the messenger because the other stuff can't be. It's typical politics and should have no business in real science.

[gstelmack]

I don't understand what messengers like Al Gore or the Indian railway driver have to do with the actual science and beliefs of these scientists. It's another case of trying to discredit the messenger because the other stuff can't be. It's typical politics and should have no business in real science.

But you immediately discredit any climatologist who has ties to big energy?

[AlexB]

:D

it probably has more to do with some dispute they are having with a competing local university because of personal dislike of other scientists than anything else i'd bet

It could simply be self-reassuring: East Anglia will be the first to go here if sea levels rise!

[molson]

Do people really think "big energy" isn't going to continue to control energy in the future, no matter its form? Their fates aren't necessarily tied to oil and coal.

[sterlingice]

Do people really think "big energy" isn't going to continue to control energy in the future, no matter its form? Their fates aren't necessarily tied to oil and coal.

I don't care who delivers energy to us- be it Exxon, the Catholic church, or the Seattle Clown College if they can deliver it cleaner and with a higher regard to the environment. Right now the system in place only incentivises them to deliver it in the way that maximizes their profits.

SI

[CamEdwards]

I don't care what someone on the UN says. I'm talking about actual climatologists. Scientists who study the climate. Not their messengers, not their advocates, but the actual scientists.

I don't understand what messengers like Al Gore or the Indian railway driver have to do with the actual science and beliefs of these scientists. It's another case of trying to discredit the messenger because the other stuff can't be. It's typical politics and should have no business in real science.

You may not care, and you may be right not to care, but unfortunately whether or not YOU care what someone at the UN thinks doesn't really matter. We live in the world we have, not the world we want to have, and in the world we have, the entire Copenhagen conference is being run by the UN, Al Gore's hanging out there and will be promoting his ideas, and the science is most definitely politicized on both sides.

[DaddyTorgo]

Don't worry Cam, when the UN/Obama/Al Gore reeducation camps come, we'll let you have a toy gun to play with.

i couldn't help myself - :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[gstelmack]

Don't worry Cam, when the UN/Obama/Al Gore reeducation camps come, we'll let you have a toy gun to play with.

So you're okay with these folks spouting off half-truths, misleading facts, and outright lies?

[Dutch]

So you're okay with these folks spouting off half-truths, misleading facts, and outright lies?

Obviously you didn't see the movie. It was well over 50% true.

[DaddyTorgo]

Steve - I think you left the ZOG out of your list of organizations - or were you theorizing that the ZOG will take over the UN and make it a puppet?

[CamEdwards]

i couldn't help myself - :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

It doesn't take much to amuse you, does it?

[DaddyTorgo]

It doesn't take much to amuse you, does it?

oh c'mon it was funny. the image of you with a little toy gun in some "reeducation camp" type setting? it got me laughing.

no offense or anything - was just a funny mental-picture

[AlexB]

TBH Steve is the only reason I'm reading this thread - he's hilarious! His posts are either a fantastically ironic commentary on alarmists, or he is Al Gore - I'm still 50:50.

I'd be putting my money on The Inconvenient One if it weren't for the 'should we have waited on Iraq' analogy earlier - that threw me: pure genius!

[Mac Howard]

I don't care what someone on the UN says. I'm talking about actual climatologists. Scientists who study the climate. Not their messengers, not their advocates, but the actual scientists.

In a perfect world that would be the fine. But the scientists' voices are being drowned out by the politicians and the media. And why would the average guy know better?

On this morning's news we have our indian friend pontificating on climate change. He was introduced as the IPCC's "head scientist".

He's a @#$%^&* railway engineer!

I don't understand what messengers like Al Gore or the Indian railway driver have to do with the actual science and beliefs of these scientists

Unfortunately it's the Al Gores and railway engineers who are driving the message. The real scientific message is buried beneath the crap these guys are putting out. You can't get at the scientific message for the crap and you're left wondering what the real truth is.

Let me illustrate that thus:

A couple of weeks ago I read about the American government setting up a high level think tank at MIT. Apparently they have brought together a number of the best scientists in the appropriate fields, both pro and anti climate change. Believing that the world's politicians simply will never agree to the level of cuts necessary to cut CO2 sufficiently their remit is to see if there's a way of combating CO2's global warming through technology. Some thing that creates a counteractive global cooling.

Apparently they believe they have a solution and it will only cost $50 million dollars instead of the trillions cutting CO2 will cost though considerable research is still needed before the idea is considered safe.

Sounds great right? Trouble is that the credibility of the whole debate means that I haven't a clue whether this is true or a piece of crap put out by the "sceptics". That is the consequence of the loss of control of the debate by scientists.

Even if it is true the situation illustrates how the rigidity of the pro climate change argument is damaging research. That's because the solution has come from studying why the last ten years of world temperatures have leveled out. This leveling out, of course, is something the pro climate change crowd like to ignore because it doesn't quite fit their ideas.

In other words a potential solution has been missed because the scientists have chosen to ignore a piece of inconvenient data.

The leveling out of world temperatures, at the very least, tells you that CO2 warming is not the only cause operating on climate change because CO2 is continuing to be emitted in increasing amounts but the temperature is not rising - multiple causes of climate change is something the pro climate change scientists like to deny. Something apparently has happened recently that has countered the CO2 warming.

But that, of course, is only true if the leveling out is true and in the current climate who can believe anything?

That is the consequence of this high-jacking of the debate by politicians and media - who can believe anything that either side says? :banghead:

[CamEdwards]

oh c'mon it was funny. the image of you with a little toy gun in some "reeducation camp" type setting? it got me laughing.

no offense or anything - was just a funny mental-picture

You don't have to explain away or apologize for your sense of humor. I just don't think it takes much to amuse you.

BTW, thought this line at Deceiver.com was great.

hxxp://deceiver.com/2009/12/07/no-sleep-till-carbonhagen/


Taking a private jet to a conference on stopping global warming is a bit like traveling in a sedan chair carried by indentured servants to a summit on stopping human trafficking.

The whole piece is pretty good though. 1200 limos driven in from as far away as Germany and Sweden? And this was interesting as well:


The airport says it is expecting up to 140 extra private jets during the peak period alone, so far over its capacity that the planes will have to fly off to regional airports – or to Sweden – to park, returning to Copenhagen to pick up their VIP passengers.


The funny thing is that people like Steve Bollea would rather get annoyed at me for not being skeptical, rather than getting fucking furious at the people who are both advocating for new laws governing our behavior while they put on a conference with a carboon footprint the size of Morocco. I guess it's not just the scientists who want to politicize this issue.

[dawgfan]

Yes, they all should've flown coach on Southwest instead. By the way, nice line with "new laws governing our behavior." All laws govern behavior. That's the whole point of them. But I'm sure it sounds scary.
What's the matter with video-conferencing? Especially in a case like this where the discussion is so focused on carbon footprint?

[CamEdwards]

Yes, they all should've flown coach on Southwest instead. By the way, nice line with "new laws governing our behavior." All laws govern behavior. That's the whole point of them. But I'm sure it sounds scary.

The funny thing is that people like Steve Bollea would rather get annoyed at me for not being skeptical, rather than getting fucking furious at the people who are both advocating for new laws governing our behavior while they put on a conference with a carboon footprint the size of Morocco. I guess it's not just the scientists who want to politicize this issue.

I realize I'm largely recycling my last post, but a) it still fits and b) it's good for the environment.

I also compost SteveBollea's posts. They make for great fertilizer.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I also compost SteveBollea's posts. They make for great fertilizer.

Cam Edwards is a green weenie ... who woulda thunk it?

[Glengoyne]

oh c'mon it was funny. the image of you with a little toy gun in some "reeducation camp" type setting? it got me laughing.

no offense or anything - was just a funny mental-picture

I gotta agree with DT here. Well maybe one or two too many laughing smilies.

...

I also compost SteveBollea's posts. They make for great fertilizer.

This one deserves a few smilies too

[CamEdwards]

Cam Edwards is a green weenie ... who woulda thunk it?

I prefer the term "gweenie", thank you very much.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

What's the matter with video-conferencing? Especially in a case like this where the discussion is so focused on carbon footprint?

That makes far too much sense.

[sterlingice]

Well, we don't know if anything will come from this meeting (probably not). But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that most high pressure deals and decisions don't get made over video conference lines.

SI

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that most high pressure deals and decisions don't get made while traveling abroad for political PR events.

Fixed.

[CamEdwards]

Well, we don't know if anything will come from this meeting (probably not). But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that most high pressure deals and decisions don't get made over video conference lines.

SI

But they've never had to be made over video conference lines before. However, if our planet is dying, then isn't it time learn to do things differently?

[dawgfan]

Well, we don't know if anything will come from this meeting (probably not). But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that most high pressure deals and decisions don't get made over video conference lines.

SI
Perhaps, but isn't this an area where we need to start modifying our behavior? Why should it be necessary to negotiate and make deals in person when there are other options available?

I know on a much more micro level, it annoys me how little real progress has been made by companies adopting telecommuting and video conferencing as standard practices - still a ton of waste that happens on a local level in that area, based mainly (IMO) on fear of change, or at the very least not enough willpower to overcome the status quo.

An event like this, especially given the subject matter, would be a good way of promoting smarter practices that show efforts to lower carbon footprint is something more than lip-service.

[mauchow]

So.. Greenhouse Gases are going to kill us all.

[RomaGoth]

More great news from the pinnacle of factual information, the U.N.:

<cite class="vcard">By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent Charles J. Hanley, Ap Special Correspondent </cite> – <abbr class="recenttimedate" title="2009-12-08T05:19:00-0800">1 hr 2 mins ago</abbr>
COPENHAGEN – This decade is very likely to be the warmest since record-keeping began in 1850, and 2009 could rank among the top-five warmest years, the U.N. weather agency reported Tuesday on the second day of a pivotal 192-nation climate conference.
In some areas — parts of Africa and Central Asia — this will probably be the warmest year, but overall 2009 "is likely to be about the fifth-warmest year on record," said Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.
The decade 2000-2009 "is very likely to be the warmest on record, warmer than the 1990s, than the 1980s and so on," Jarraud said at a news conference, holding up a chart with a temperature curve pointing upward.
If 2009 ends as the fifth-warmest year, it would replace the year 2003. According to the U.S. space agency NASA, the other warmest years since 1850 have been 2005, 1998, 2007 and 2006. NASA says the differences in readings among these years are so small as to be statistically insignificant.
The data were released as negotiators at the two-week talks in Copenhagen worked Tuesday to craft a global deal to step up efforts to stem climate change, digging into the dense technicalities of "metrics" and "gas inventories."
Governments, meanwhile, jockeyed for position leading up to the finale late next week, when more than 100 national leaders, including President Barack Obama, will converge on Copenhagen for the final days of bargaining.
Scientists say without an agreement to wean the world away from fossil fuels and other pollutants to greener sources of energy, the Earth will face the consequences of ever-rising temperatures: The extinction of plant and animals, the flooding of coastal cities, more extreme weather, more drought and the spread of diseases.
In Britain, Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged fellow Europeans to raise their bid on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to pressure the U.S. and others to offer more at the Copenhagen negotiations.
"We've got to make countries recognize that they have to be as ambitious as they say they want to be. It's not enough to say 'I may do this, I might do this, possibly I'll do this.' I want to create a situation in which the European Union is persuaded to go to 30 percent," Brown was quoted as saying by Britain's Guardian newspaper.
The EU has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, compared with 1990, and is considering raising that to 30 percent if other governments also aim high. EU leaders will have an opportunity to make such a move at a summit on Thursday and Friday in Brussels.
On Monday, when the climate conference opened, the Obama administration gave the talks a boost by announcing steps that could lead to new U.S. emissions controls that don't require the approval of the U.S. Congress.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said scientific evidence clearly shows that greenhouse gases "threaten the public health and welfare of the American people" and that the pollutants — mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels — should be reduced, if not by Congress then by the agency responsible for enforcing air pollution.
As Congress considers the first U.S. legislation to cap carbon emissions, the EPA finding will enable the Obama administration to act on greenhouse gases without congressional action, potentially imposing federal limits on climate-changing pollution from cars, power plants and factories.
The announcement gave Obama a new card to deal in what is expected to be tough bargaining next week at the climate conference. In preparation, Obama met with former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel for his climate change efforts, on Monday at the White House.
The EU called for a stronger bid by the Americans, who thus far have pledged emissions cuts much less ambitious than Europe's. The U.S. has offered a 17 percent reduction in emissions from their 2005 level — comparable to a 3-4 percent cut from 1990 levels.
The result in Copenhagen "will mostly be on what will be delivered by the United States and China," the world's two biggest greenhouse-gas emitters, EU environment spokesman Andreas Carlgren told reporters. He said he would be astonished if Obama did not put more on the table.
Whether the prospect of EPA action will satisfy such demands — and what China may now add to its earlier offer — remains to be seen. And success in the long-running climate talks hinges on more than emissions reductions. Most important, it requires commitments of financial support by rich countries for poor nations to help them cope with the impact of a changing climate.


:banghead:

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

More great news from the pinnacle of factual information, the U.N.:

:banghead:

This thread needs a UN-based laugh track. Some of this stuff is so bad it's laughable.

Saw this op-ed over at Real Clear Politics about the situation.........

RealClearPolitics - Torquemada in East Anglia (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/08/torquemada_in_east_anglia_99445.html)

[RomaGoth]

This thread needs a UN-based laugh track. Some of this stuff is so bad it's laughable.

Saw this op-ed over at Real Clear Politics about the situation.........

RealClearPolitics - Torquemada in East Anglia (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/12/08/torquemada_in_east_anglia_99445.html)

We can also play the laugh track everytime the UN asks us to send troops somewhere while they sit home on their asses. But, that is a bit off topic here I suppose....

[Mac Howard]

More great news from the pinnacle of factual information, the U.N.:



:banghead:


This is precisely why I get so angry about the presentation of the climate change argument. This is the deliberate misrepresentation of data.

The sceptical argument is that temperatures have ceased to increase in the last ten years. How many years are the hottest on record is irrelevant - no one is arguing that temperatures didn't rise before 1998.

The statistics show that there has been no year hotter than 1998. Therefore temperatures have leveled out, or even reduced, since 1998.

That is the very opposite of global warming predictions. That is "the inconvenient truth" that needs answering and no slight of hand with statistics will change that and the refusal to deal with it and factor it in is precisely why scepticism is justified !!!!

And another fact worth mentioning: records began in 1860. We were exiting a mini ice age in 1860.

[DaddyTorgo]

This is precisely why I get so angry about the presentation of the climate change argument. This is the deliberate misrepresentation of data.

The sceptical argument is that temperatures have ceased to increase in the last ten years. How many years are the hottest on record is irrelevant - no one is arguing that temperatures rose before 1998.

The statistics show that there has been no year hotter than 1998. Therefore temperatures have leveled out, or even reduced, since 1998.

That is the very opposite of global warming predictions. That is "the inconvenient truth" that needs answering and no slight of hand with statistics will change that !!!!

umm...10 years in the blink of global climitology is the equivelent of like 1 second in your life. would you mesure how good your day was going based on 1 second? how about how good your life was going?

(note...the numbers are not to scale...just saying...you can't draw any conclusions from 10 years of data)

[Warhammer]

Yet you can on 3 seconds?

EDIT: Sorry, I should have said the previous 2?

[Buccaneer]

umm...10 years in the blink of global climitology is the equivelent of like 1 second in your life. would you mesure how good your day was going based on 1 second? how about how good your life was going?

(note...the numbers are not to scale...just saying...you can't draw any conclusions from 10 years of data)

You should have seen all of those magazine issues and online articles after the aberrational 2005 hurricane season saying that the next year will be even worse. Anyone can justify their position (pro or con) based on a 1-year, 10-year, 150-year sample.

[Mac Howard]

umm...10 years in the blink of global climitology is the equivelent of like 1 second in your life. would you mesure how good your day was going based on 1 second? how about how good your life was going?

(note...the numbers are not to scale...just saying...you can't draw any conclusions from 10 years of data)

The whole argument is based on 160 years not a "global climatology" scale. Ten years is not the "blink of an eye" when records are only from the last 160 or when we are dealing with the next 41 years (until 2050).

If you want to extend the period then it's plain that the global temperature was higher than today both in the first few centuries AD when Romans were growing grapes in Scotland and during the 12/13 centuries when the Vikings settled a green and fertile Greenland. Was humankind in danger of extinction then. Not in my history books.

I'm not a sceptic about global warming but the leveling out of temperatures in the last 10 years needs dealing with and not shovelling under the carpet with misrepresented statistics. This morning's statement by "British scientists" that 2009 was "one of the hottest on record", was clearly meant to answer the leveling argument during the Copenhagen summit but, not only does it not do that, it actually confirms it because 2009 was still lower than 1998.

The predictions are increased temperatures and that hasn't happened. This suggests that something has (temporarily perhaps) countered the effects of CO2 warming indicating that CO2 is not the only influence..

Scientists need to deal with ALL the information not cherry-pick that that suits the theory.

[tarcone]

LOL on global warming. I remember in the 70s when the next ice age was coming. Scaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrryyyyyyyyy.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Al Gore is love.

[CamEdwards]

I thought this was interesting:

The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Some of the “Homogenizedâ€� Temperature Data isÂ*False (http://volokh.com/2009/12/08/the-homogenized-data-is-false/)

[tarcone]

Have you heard the latest on how the dinosaurs became extinct? They were so large that the poop the left caused too much CO2 which in turn caused global warming. That killed them all off and with no dinosaurs the Earth cooled and regenerated itself.


:lol:

[RainMaker]

http://pleatedjeans.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/jesus-and-dinosaurs.jpg

[CamEdwards]

either the scale in that painting is way off, or that's MC 30 Foot Jesus riding a Diplodocus.

[RomaGoth]

I still don't get why he is carrying an alligator in one hand. Is he going to swing that thing at someone or something? :confused:

[JPhillips]

I still don't get why he is carrying an alligator in one hand. Is he going to swing that thing at someone or something? :confused:

He has an alligator because chainsaws hadn't been invented yet.

[RainMaker]

If you're bored and a nerd, this is kind of a fun online tool. You can follow NASA's satellites and see all the data they've grabbed. Takes awhile to load and they might make you download something but it's fun to play with once you get the hang of it.

Eyes on the Earth (http://climate.nasa.gov/Eyes/eyes.html)

[Glengoyne]

How can this thread be on page three this week? Is everyone who cares about global warming in Copenhagen?

Also, by looking at the last page or so, have all of the global warming alarmists quit following the thread? If I'm going to be called a flat earth skeptic, then I'm going to dub those who disagree with me "alarmists".

I was made happy by Al Gore's misstep. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6956783.ece) Happy enough to come here and


Bump.

[Dutch]

I think Al Gore thinks he can still get away with saying anything he wants, but leave it to the internets he invented to check him.

[Dutch]

7-hr delay entering Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen...
Incompatible Browser | Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/notes/the-climate-pool/boos-queues-a-seven-hour-saga-getting-into-the-conference/228381494413)

With U.N. security letting in only those cleared last week, hundreds of accredited delegates, journalists and NGO representatives were left to stand for hours in near-freezing temperatures before being let through. "It was crazy," AP's Seth Borenstein said. "You couldn't leave the line. You couldn't go to the bathroom, you couldn't eat. Then snowflakes started falling. One woman even said, 'if lightning strikes me, would they take me out of line?'"

People started handing out food -- one gave out tangerines, another croissants. A man screamed "I don't need food. I need socks! I'm freezing my ass off out here." At one point, a U.N. official announced the wait would be longer, prompting the crowd to boo and chant "Let Us In!"

:)

[gstelmack]

I was made happy by Al Gore's misstep. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6956783.ece)

Some of the models suggest there might be a 75% chance, heh. That's part of the problem here, picking and choosing the models and statistics that show what you want to show. Models that haven't done a very good job of predicting anything at all.

But yeah, remembering some stat from a few years ago and spouting it as recent fact is fun.

[CamEdwards]

I found this to be fairly compelling.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8mxmo9DskYE&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8mxmo9DskYE&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Al Gore's continued missteps show just how big of a mistake many of those who believe in climate change made by using him as a poster boy for the movement. He continues to make inaccurate statements and hold on to the 'truths' in his movie that have already been shown to be significantly flawed. 20-25 years from now, Al Gore's folly is going to be mentioned in the same breath with Al Capone's vault or the 'scientists' in the late 1970s that were sure we all would have frozen in an ice age by the year 2000.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

I know I'm pissed I voted for him.

[DaddyTorgo]

Al Gore's continued missteps show just how big of a mistake many of those who believe in climate change made by using him as a poster boy for the movement. He continues to make inaccurate statements and hold on to the 'truths' in his movie that have already been shown to be significantly flawed. 20-25 years from now, Al Gore's folly is going to be mentioned in the same breath with Al Capone's vault or the 'scientists' in the late 1970s that were sure we all would have frozen in an ice age by the year 2000.

:lol:

i think that's a bit of a reach. i don't think anyone (except possibly you) will be mentioning Al Gore in 20-25 years.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

:lol:

i think that's a bit of a reach. i don't think anyone (except possibly you) will be mentioning Al Gore in 20-25 years.

If no one is mentioning Al Gore in 25 years, then the Climate-gate controversy will likely be looked back on as only the tip of the iceberg.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Now John Kerry has arrived to really bring the whole thing home.

Is it too much to ask for the Republicans to be the ones believing in global warming? Something could actually get done were that the case.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Now John Kerry has arrived to really bring the whole thing home.

I'll give some credit to John Kerry. Amongst all the hypocrisy involved with energy consumption and carbon footprints, John Kerry is one of the few people that went out of their way to fly on a commercial airline to the conference. It was a small gesture and I'm sure he flies private jets just about everywhere else, but at least he bothered to back up his words with action while many others attending the conference did not. Good for him.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Seriously, who gives a flying fuck how they got there. It's just a moronic side show.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Seriously, who gives a flying fuck how they got there. It's just a moronic side show.

Yeah, but he did look less moronic than most. :D

[gstelmack]

Seriously, who gives a flying fuck how they got there. It's just a moronic side show.

But their moronic side show is putting TONS of carbon into the atmosphere! Don't you CARE about the Earth?

:devil:

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Article about a possible cooling and mini ice age over the next 20-30 years due to temperature patterns seen in the oceans. Good read.

DAVID ROSE: The mini ice age starts here | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1242011/DAVID-ROSE-The-mini-ice-age-starts-here.html)

[RainMaker]

Why are you posting an article about a scientist who believes in global warming when you've made it clear you don't believe in it? So you think guys like him are quacks looking for money but think their stuff is "good reads". I know this is the topic du jour at the conservative sites so you have to post it, but it seems a bit funny to see people bash scientists and then want people to believe in those same scientists later on.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

That's too funny.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/11/climate-change-global-warming-mojib-latif

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

That's too funny.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/11/climate-change-global-warming-mojib-latif

Just as amusing is a scientist who believes his interpretation of data is the only possible assessment. I'm not saying he's wrong, but there's always multiple ways to assess the situation, especially when neither side has proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Who would you think would do a better job of interpreting this scientific data: a writer for a tabloid newspaper, or the scientist who collected, analyzed, and wrote on the data?

That's the beauty of science. Not all opinions were created equal.

[RainMaker]

Just as amusing is a scientist who believes his interpretation of data is the only possible assessment. I'm not saying he's wrong, but there's always multiple ways to assess the situation, especially when neither side has proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
:lol:

The entire article wasn't based on his data, it was based on his assesment of the data. His own predictions that were butchered by a tabloid newspaper. Are you saying the tabloid reporter can read the mind better than the actual person who's mind we are talking about?

[Warhammer]

I wouldn't say that any one was butchered in the Guardian article. They said he did not report it correctly. That data has been used by both sides to back their arguments.

For the record, I side with the skeptics on this. There are too many cases of "Forget what you see here, move along" by the warmers for my liking. Anytime they have anything to disprove their hypothesis, they change it to incorporate the data. While that is fine, I have a hard time taking what they say as gospel since it seems that 2-3 times a year, their models need to be refigured.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Study that showed 2 1/2 foot increase in sea levels by end of 21st century has been found to be unreliable and has been retracted by the scientists who wrote the article...........

Retraction: Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level change : Article : Nature Geoscience (http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo780.html)

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Shouldn't the fact that a minor point like this was vetted, analyzed by peers, determined to be flawed, and retracted actually INCREASE the confidence people have in the 99.9999999% of research that hasn't been retracted?

[cartman]

They aren't saying the entire study was unreliable. FTFA:

Both our simulations of the last deglaciation, and the result that the equilibrium response of sea-level change to temperature is non-linear over the last deglaciation, are robust to the length of the time step used, and are still valid.

[AlexB]

Shouldn't the fact that a minor point like this was vetted, analyzed by peers, determined to be flawed, and retracted actually INCREASE the confidence people have in the 99.9999999% of research that hasn't been retracted?

Or alternatively they always planned to release 100% guff and retract 0.0000001% just to make the other 99.999999% look more reliable...

Global warming is basically a religion: there's probably a small amount of fact that has been surrounded by exaggeration, assumption and lies; some people are convinced it is completely true based on pure faith; and the only way it will be proven right is in the event of an apocalypse when we all wish we had believed all along.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Perfectly well reasoned.

[molson]

It's kind of nice symmetry that both the global warming believers and deniers will have equal roles in the ultimate destuction of earth as a habitable planet. The exagerators and fabricators among the believers cause as much damage as the doubters.

[sterlingice]

It's kind of nice symmetry that both the global warming believers and deniers will have equal roles in the ultimate destuction of earth as a habitable planet. The exagerators and fabricators among the believers cause as much damage as the doubters.

Do they each have roles? Yes. Do they have equal roles? I don't think that's really fair.

It sounds like all the "frivolous lawsuits" of the 90s. The robber who sues because someone left a knife out on their counter and was injured while robbing a house, the McDonalds is culpable for a decent chunk of responsibility because their coffee was too hot, etc. When, really, if you hadn't been robbing the house or driving with coffee, you wouldn't even be in this situation in the first place.

Shouldn't we know better than to put crap into the atmosphere that we can't control?

SI

[molson]

Shouldn't we know better than to put crap into the atmosphere that we can't control?



Sure, but the damage can only really be stopped/reversed if everyone makes serious economic and lifestyle sacrifices. That ain't happening as long as everyone is exagerating or dismissing the evidence, and being called on it. Everyone's motives are political, at the moment, one way or other.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Do they each have roles? Yes. Do they have equal roles? I don't think that's really fair.

Shouldn't we know better than to put crap into the atmosphere that we can't control?

SI

I don't believe the two to be mutually exclusive. I'm a guy who recycles all the time and drives a fuel efficient vehicle just because I think it's a good idea to minimize my impact on my surroundings (trash, fuel reserves, smog, etc.).

With that said, I find the global warming argument and the attempt to somehow legislate a "solution" to be intolerable at best.

[molson]

I wish I had some giant, magical computer that listed how much everyone recycles/takes available public transportation/etc in relation to their posture on global warming.

I mean, I see a lot of discarded soda cans and bottles, even in "liberal" cities and "liberal" college campuses.

[sterlingice]

And I'm the damn fool who everyone notes as the "trash collector" because I have a pair of boxes behind my desk (one for paper, one for containers). But I'm not sure what that has to do with what we're talking about.

EDIT: This goes back to message vs messenger. Just because you can slime a messenger doesn't mean the message isn't a good message, even if it has the wrong messenger. Just because the GOP gets caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar either in Minnesota airport bathrooms, hiking the Appalachian trail, or sexing up the Congressional pages doesn't mean that it's bad to have good family values (pick your nebulous definition that doesn't just consist of "hating the gay and being pro-life").

Now it does eat away at the credibility of the messenger which can indirectly affect the message but just going off and looking for something to crush a messenger just because you don't like their message, well that's just intellectually lazy.

SI

[molson]

And I'm the damn fool who everyone notes as the "trash collector" because I have a pair of boxes behind my desk (one for paper, one for containers). But I'm not sure what that has to do with what we're talking about.


Just that there's caring about the environment, and caring about the debate about the environment. When people on both sides get into the lying and one-upping, that distinction is blurred. (As the "trash collector" this certainly does not apply to you)

[Arles]

I think human activity certainly impact the climate to a point - much like dumping a cup of sand on a beach impacts the amount of sand of the beach.

The problem is that so many non-man caused activities do significantly more damage than we could ever dream of doing. We could all run around on Fred Flintstone cars, recycle every piece of trash created and use solar/wind power to heat our homes. But, one volcanic eruption and all the good we'd tried is completely undone on our atmosphere by nature.

At the end, we should try to be good, practical stewards of the environment and leave it at that. If most people are reasonable with their recycling/conservation/power/water useage, we will end up being just fine. But the ideas that we will be "saving the planet" if cars go from 20 MPG to 25 MPG and we charge corporations a fee if they go slight over the amount of power we feel that should need are pretty silly.

[sterlingice]

At the end, we should try to be good, practical stewards of the environment and leave it at that. If most people are reasonable with their recycling/conservation/power/water useage, we will end up being just fine. But the ideas that we will be "saving the planet" if cars go from 20 MPG to 25 MPG and we charge corporations a fee if they go slight over the amount of power we feel that should need are pretty silly.

But that is a question that demands specificity: What does being "practical stewards of the environment" mean?

You know that if it's profitable, every corporation out there will dump everything they can into water, waste any ounce of electricity, and endanger public safety, again, *if it's more profitable to do that than incur risk*. They have no interest in being practical stewards to the environment- there is no incentive to do that inherent in the structure and in their ideal.
(and we aren't even going down the line that a corporation is not a thinking, breathing entity but an organization made up of individuals but ruled by people who most desire power and money as that is how they got ahead of those who less desire power and money- again, inherent in the definition of the structure)

When you can spend $75M on a PR campaign to pretend you're good for the environment and it offsets damage that would cost $100M to clean up, it will be done 99 or 100 times out of 100. And we're not even talking about something where you can spend $3M to offset $1B.

So, again- what does "practical stewards of the environment" mean at a corporate level? It sounds more like "lets not regulate anything and assume it will all turn out ok because people will stop buying our product when it turns out we dump lead into the water". Only it doesn't happen that way because you saved $25M using PR vs cleanup above and every other competitor is gone for doing the right thing or is doing the same thing you are to stay competitive.

SI

[JPhillips]

Do they each have roles? Yes. Do they have equal roles? I don't think that's really fair.

It sounds like all the "frivolous lawsuits" of the 90s. The robber who sues because someone left a knife out on their counter and was injured while robbing a house, the McDonalds is culpable for a decent chunk of responsibility because their coffee was too hot, etc. When, really, if you hadn't been robbing the house or driving with coffee, you wouldn't even be in this situation in the first place.

Shouldn't we know better than to put crap into the atmosphere that we can't control?

SI

This isn't the right thread, but the McDonalds' coffee thing is a terrible example of a frivolous lawsuit.

[ISiddiqui]

+1

[Glengoyne]

This isn't the right thread, but the McDonalds' coffee thing is a terrible example of a frivolous lawsuit.

Agreed. errr +1

Oh and to be on topic. Does the news about the sea level rise study mean that Al Gore will need to recall his movie?

[gstelmack]

I'd much rather see all these efforts focused on the fact that we are poisoning our seafood supply with mercury than on a naturally occurring cycle of nature. There are for more dangerous pollution results out there than alleged "global warming" that even if it is occurring can't be pinned reliably on man, yet it's caught all the attention.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Al Gore is here to straighten us all out............

Op-Ed Contributor - We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change - NYTimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28gore.html)

[gstelmack]

I love how it's now called "Climate Change". Is this an attempt to avoid the staistical problems that the name "Warming" is bringing to them?

[sabotai]

I love how it's now called "Climate Change". Is this an attempt to avoid the staistical problems that the name "Warming" is bringing to them?

He used "global warming" in the first sentence of his op-ed.

[cartman]

I remember it being called "climate change" long before "global warming" became popular.

[Dutch]

I remember it being called "climate change" long before "global warming" became popular.

Climate Change is the natural occurring warming and cooling cycles while Global Warming is a name attributed to man-made warming. They are not the same thing.

[Dutch]

I love how it's now called "Climate Change". Is this an attempt to avoid the staistical problems that the name "Warming" is bringing to them?

Could you imagine all of the things Al Gore could implement if he were ever President or vice-President? Oh wait...he had his chance.

[cartman]

Climate Change is the natural occurring warming and cooling cycles while Global Warming is a name attributed to man-made warming. They are not the same thing.

You are mistaken in that assumption. It is the addition of "anthropomorphic" or "anthropogenic" that indicates a man-made component.

[cartman]

Could you imagine all of the things Al Gore could implement if he were ever President or vice-President? Oh wait...he had his chance.

You seem to forget a little something called the Kyoto Protocol, which he had a big input in drafting. It was ratified by all but 9 members of the UN. So I'd say that was a pretty impressive world-wide accomplishment.

[Dutch]

You seem to forget a little something called the Kyoto Protocol, which he had a big input in drafting. It was ratified by all but 9 members of the UN. So I'd say that was a pretty impressive world-wide accomplishment.

You know, I've never heard that Al Gore drafted the Kyoto Protocol. Only that he symbolically signed it and then refused to submit it to the Senate for ratification because it was bad for America.

[cartman]

You know, I've never heard that Al Gore drafted the Kyoto Protocol. Only that he symbolically signed it and then refused to submit it to the Senate for ratification because it was bad for America.

Sadly, it really isn't surprising this is your understanding of the situation. He didn't want to submit it to the Senate for a vote until key developing countries had ratified the agreement. The part about it being bad for America was because it would have been if the US was held to the terms of the treaty without the certain developing countries (namely India and China) also being held to the terms.

[Dutch]

Sadly, it really isn't surprising this is your understanding of the situation. He didn't want to submit it to the Senate for a vote until key developing countries had ratified the agreement. The part about it being bad for America was because it would have been if the US was held to the terms of the treaty without the certain developing countries (namely India and China) also being held to the terms.

Right, bad for America. Obviously, I'm glad he was logical about this when he was in a position of power. I'm not thrilled with his attacks afterward against America when the following leadership has maintained the same responsiblities.

[cartman]

Yay! The US is keeping it real like the other non-ratifiers:

Afghanistan
Andorra
Palestinian Authority
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
San Marino
Somalia
Taiwan
Vatican City

"attacks against America"? Seriously? A strong disagreement with policy is not an "attack against America".