View Full Version : Going Green is Bullsh*t!
AR15_Fanatic
08-12-2008, 23:57
A recent episode on Penn & Teller Bullsh*t! went after the whole going green movement & and carbon credit offsets. They compare it with the equally nonsensical medival Catholic practice of indulgences. Thank you Penn & Teller. Going green IS Bullsh*t!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAu68OsFggw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5weG9IllCpo&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ictpPrle3EQ&feature=related
Mrblackguns
08-13-2008, 02:17
Amen,.....I think P&T are intertianing, sometimes they irritate me, but boy when they get it right, THEY NAIL IT TO THE WALL!
You evil people are destroying the Earth and should be sorry.
To repent send all your worldly posessions to Al Gore in exchange for carbon credits.
Here's a list of everything you fiends are causing :lol::
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
AR15_Fanatic
08-13-2008, 09:36
Yeah and if you liked the show on being green, you'll love the episode on sensitivity training - and that's no bullsh*t!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZOkjniUWGs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HrDzfo0n2Y&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUnu2xcvMoM&feature=related
"It's from Time magazine, 1974"
This, the same magazine that's now "discredited" because of its MSM status? O-Kay.
"Three decades ago, everyone thought we had f'd up the earth with careless fossil fuel emissions."
Um, yeah. Now only more so.
"Today the same fossil fuel emissions are causing global warming"
... and unprecedented trade deficits and "ozone days" and oil spills and dependence on foreign suppliers that, well, are a bit less than trustworthy.
"Now you can buy yourself a clean, green conscience for cash"
And if you don't like that idea, how about driving a fuel efficient car and thinking ahead a bit like a prepared citizen ought so you can combine trips? Is that so freakin' burdensome? Can you tighten your belt gas-tank wise just a tad for America and for your fellow human beings in low lying areas like the Maldives and, well, any US coastal city? Bangladesh? Etc?
Is that "bull****"?
"Every day we're bombarded with messages that we're destroying the earth. The ice caps are melting ..."
Even though the Bush adminstration tried their darndest to stifle the evidence
http://www.space.com/news/bush_warming_041027.html
NASA's got it on their website:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/Arctic_Warming_ESU.html
"We'll get local camera crews to find all sorts of interesting people ..."
So we can erect a straw man, and persuade you, dear viewer, to turn on your electric blanket, and bask in the glow of superiority that only indifference can provide. F___ all these "passionate people for the environment" If they aren't climate scientists, they shouldn't be expressing their views on the subject anyway. Unlike the discerning duo of Penn and Teller, who really know their way around a weather studio.
Global warming is a scam!
I mean, a weatherman from "Good morning America" in the 70's agrees! He founded the weather channel, after all.
"Yeah yeah great" We see the chart. We've also seen Powerpoint slides that prove just about anything. But never mind ... on to the next topic.
"But didn't Algore also make prodigious use of charts in his presentations," you say? Yes of course he did. And he was called to task for the few errors to be found. On the whole, his message turned out to be sound, even when challenged by
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/14/schools.film
Ooops, heh heh, wrong link. Let's try again
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/11/europe/EU-GEN-Britain-Gores-Documentary.php
"Gore's film "is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact," Burton said. "Albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political program."
The horror.
The Good Morning America weatherman returns: "What is happening with the burning of fossil fuels doesn't seem to have a thing to do with it."
"Doesn't seem to," he says.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-01-30-ipcc-report_x.htm
A major international analysis of climate change due Friday will conclude that humankind's reliance on fossil fuels — coal, fuel oil and natural gas — is to blame for global warming, according to three scientists familiar with the research on which it is based.
The gold-standard Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report represents "a real convergence happening here, a consensus that this is a total global no-brainer," says U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, former director of the federal government's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in New Jersey.
"The big message that will come out is the strength of the attribution of the warming to human activities," says researcher Claudia Tebaldi of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.
Mahlman, who crafted the IPCC language used to define levels of scientific certainty, says the new report will lay the blame at the feet of fossil fuels with "virtual certainty," meaning 99% sure. That's a significant jump from "likely," or 66% sure, in the group's last report in 2001, Mahlman says. His role in this year's effort involved spending two months reviewing the more than 1,600 pages of research that went into the new assessment.
Among the findings, Tebaldi says, is that even if people stopped burning the fossil fuels that release carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas blamed most for the warm-up, the effects of higher temperatures, including deadlier heat waves, coastal floods, longer droughts, worse wildfires and higher energy bills, would not go away in our lifetime."
Back to the 70s again - There was no scientific consensus for global cooling back when that Time article appeared. Now, for the past decade, there has been an increasing consensus - yes, consensus - among the scientific community that "MMGW" is really occurring, and that it's a really serious problem. That someone can trot out examples of silliness, hyperbole and alarmism is irrelevant to whether or not global warming is occurring. Are you going to laugh at the vast majority of scientists in the relevant fields too?
At one time, you, Penn and Teller, debunked quackery and pseudoscience. Now, you've joined sides with the forces against science. Why?
Personally, I think (doesn't mean I am correct) that global warming is a political scam. But I also feel that we are to be stewards of what we have so this means to act responsibly. Driving less, being efficient, not polluting, living simply, leave things cleaner, respect the earth, keep the rivers, lakes and oceans clean, don't cut down every tree you see, walk, bicycle, use a fan instead of a/c when possible, on and on. So if it takes such a scam to get us to reduce our impact so be it. Besides, the earth is great at healing itself if we allow it. Who wants to live in a garbage dump and sewer?
Personally, I think (doesn't mean I am correct) that global warming is a political scam.
I agree with the rest of your post, except for the part about "if it takes such a scam to get us to reduce our impact so be it." What is commonly referred to as "global warming" is not a scam, and if I thought it was, I'd say so. What it is is the best estimate of what is occurring, based on real science. We are certain of the chemistry that forms the basis for the theory. What other factors are influencing the climate are to lesser or greater degrees wild cards.
One big factor many people are not aware of is the distinction between particulate pollution and greenhouse pollution. Particulate pollution is the classic type that directly affects peoples' health. It's the same as that emitted by volcanoes, mostly. But don't count on volcanoes to save us from global warming, because as we decrease particle pollution globally, as we must if city dwellers aren't to choke to death and fresh waters aren't to be ruined by acid rain, the effects of greenhouse gases will increase. We've masked the effects of greenhouse gases so far by our simultaneous emissions of particulates.
I hope you'll remain open-minded as the scientific evidence continues to accumulate.
I hope you'll remain open-minded as the scientific evidence continues to accumulate.
I hope Heidi Cullen will become open minded and stop threatening to decertify any climatologist who disagess with gloabal warming (as if she has the authority to). Open mindedness cuts both ways.
mnottfam
08-14-2008, 09:59
The Weather Channel has announced it will bar any meteorologist who doesn't subscribe to "global warming" from any affiliation with them or their network affiliations.
Real "open-minded.":ph34r:
Read "State of Fear," by Michael Crichton. Mr. Crichton puts tons of research into his books, and begins this one with the statement to the effect of: This is a work of fiction. However, at every point in this book where climatological information is quoted, the information is real world and accurate.
The gist: for every "weather station" report (around the world) that shows increasing temperatures, there are several that show a trend of decreasing temperatures. Mr. Crichton's other point is summarized very well by one of my relatives' favorite statements: FOLLOW THE MONEY. Who stands to make the most $$$ from this fallacy? Watch, in 25 years, the whole "global warming" thing will be a footnote in history, just like the "global cooling" alarm from the early 1970's. Maybe THAT one was right. Who knows, but only human arrogance would say that we're affecting the global weather, when the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in, what, 1989, put more of the liberal's precious "green-house gases" into the atmosphere than all man-kind has in over 200 years of industrialization.<_<
I hope Heidi Cullen will become open minded and stop threatening to decertify any climatologist who disagess with gloabal warming (as if she has the authority to). Open mindedness cuts both ways.
Heidi Cullen's statement has to be taken in the context of what certification should mean:
December 21, 2006
Junk Controversy Not Junk Science...
Dr. Heidi Cullen
Capitalweather.com, a website for hard-core weather junkies in the DC area, recently published an interview with a local meteorologist that highlights the unfortunate divide that exists right now between the climate and weather communities. Yup, that divide is global warming. When asked about the science of global warming, the meteorologist responded:
The subject of global warming definitely makes headlines in the media and is a topic of much debate. I try to read up on the subject to have a better understanding, but it is complex. Often, it is so politicized and those on both sides don't always appear to have their facts straight. History has taught us that weather patterns are cyclical and although we have noticed a warming pattern in recent time, I don't know what generalizations can be made from this with the lack of long-term scientific data. That's all I will say about this.
In an interesting follow-up blog on the reason for this all too common global warming contrarianism within the broadcast meteorology community, journalist Andrew Freedman suggests local TV meteorologist may want to look to the American Meteorological Society for guidance. Freedman goes on to point out that the AMS has in fact, issued a statement on climate change that reads:
There is convincing evidence that since the industrial revolution, human activities, resulting in increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and other trace constituents in the atmosphere, have become a major agent of climate change.
I'd like to take that suggestion a step further. If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming. (One good resource if you don't have a lot of time is the Pew Center's Climate Change 101 (http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/climate_change_101/).)
Meteorologists are among the few people trained in the sciences who are permitted regular access to our living rooms. And in that sense, they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy. If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn't agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns. It's like allowing a meteorologist to go on-air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise and tsunamis are caused by the weather. It's not a political statement...it's just an incorrect statement.
I agree with every meteorologist who says the topic of global warming has gotten too political. But that's why talking about the science is so important!
I don't see how it could be any more clear. Cullen is simply saying that certification should indicate a certain level of understanding climate science, not an unreasonable expectation for a meteorologist.
Watch, in 25 years, the whole "global warming" thing will be a footnote in history, just like the "global cooling" alarm from the early 1970's. Maybe THAT one was right.
Please take a look at the wording in the actual article that gets mentioned so often:
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,944914,00.html
"... a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age. ... [many examples of evidence for global cooling are given] ... Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth. ..."
Note that scientists suspected the cause to be particulate pollution, which, in comparison to now, made up a higher proportion in ratio to greenhouse gases. The high levels of particle pollution offset to some degree the warming effect from greenhouse gases, but as emissions from vehicles and power plants got cleaner in the west, and countries like China industrialized on a massive scale with old-style coal plants, the ratio of greenhouse gases to particulates increased. What's important is that the levels of both continue to rise. Who's to blame for that is a political problem; the science is clear.
Some scientists like Donald Oilman, chief of the National Weather Service's long-range-prediction group, think that the cooling trend may be only temporary. But all agree that vastly more information is needed about the major influences on the earth's climate.
And now we've got a lot more information. The difference between the '70s and now is the degree of certainty. Scientists do not have "suspicions" about global warming. They know it's happening because the weight of evidence for it is massive.
Who knows, but only human arrogance would say that we're affecting the global weather, when the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in, what, 1989, put more of the liberal's precious "green-house gases" into the atmosphere than all man-kind has in over 200 years of industrialization.<_<
That's not true by a long shot. Remember what I posted earlier about the difference in effects between particulate pollution and greenhouse gas pollution?
Read this:
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/e-print/open/greenhouse_2000e.htm
Greenhouse gases weren't traditionally considered "pollution" because, for example, carbon dioxide is, well, just carbon dioxide. It's harmless in more or less normal levels in the atmosphere. We don't have any reason to be concerned about them except in their effect on the macro-environment. That is, unlike particulates, greenhouse gases don't impact individual cities. They're not what we see causing problems in temperature inversions. But - scientists have the means of estimating approximate yearly emissions, and comparing that with the volume of the atmosphere (which isn't as thick as you might think). And they can make comparisons with levels in the past. Greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere today are the highest in 650,000 years:
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051121/full/news051121-14.html
And they're going up rapidly:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080423181652.htm
Still not convinced about "global warming", but I am all for trying to reduce the effects that we may have on the earth. There still are plenty of real scientists, climatoligists, and meterologists that disagree with the theory. Perhaps if it wasn't so political I would give more credence but there is plenty of fuzzy math on both sides. I don't consider Al Gore an expert, I read his book decades ago and found it lacking plus very hypocritical with his suggestion of using pack animals while he was (and still) jetting around in his private plane and living quite high in his mansion. If he want's more credibility perhaps he should downsize to a reasonable level and demostrate his true commitment to the enviroment. I am thinking about more along the Dennis Weaver style, who lived as he spoke. Yes, as a spokesman for the earth, I find Gore quite phony. This doesn't mean he is right about some things but to listen to him talk about the enviroment is like taking english lessons from GW or firearms safety from Cheney.
... to listen to him talk about the enviroment is like taking english lessons from GW or firearms safety from Cheney.
LOL, touche
Because that's what industries are indicating they find most palatable (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/02/business/bizgreen.php). That does not mean it's the most logical approach; it isn't. Here's a good summary:
http://www.michaeldorf.org/2008/07/gore-carbon-taxes-cap-trade.html
July 19, 2008
Gore, Carbon, Taxes, Cap & Trade
Al Gore's bold call to take the entire electrical grid off of carbon sources within a decade will be, and already has been, dismissed as prohibitively expensive and wildly unlikely. No doubt it will be defended as a useful statement of principle---the sort of truly ambitious plan against which much more modest proposals can be measured. Another way to put that point: Gore's ambitious goals can be used to give some political cover for those who want to do something valuable but less ambitious.
Here I want to raise a question, more in the interest of sparking a debate than anything else. The question is whether there is anything to be said for a cap-and-trade program versus a simple carbon tax. A useful summary of the advantages of a carbon tax over cap-and-trade can be found here (http://www.carbontax.org/issues/carbon-taxes-vs-cap-and-trade/). The argument in the other direction can be found here (http://www.pewclimate.org/press_room/opinion_editorials/oped_miamih07122007). I think I'm persuaded that a straight tax is, all things considered, better policy than cap-and-trade. Certainly the dramatic effects in American driving habits that we've seen since gasoline prices topped $4/gallon illustrate the simple economic truth that energy consumption responds to price.
At the same time, however, I'd favor the adoption of a cap-and-trade program with serious caps if it were more politically palatable. One supposed advantage of a carbon tax over cap-and-trade is that the tax is simpler. But the very complexity of cap-and-trade might make it harder to portray as a "tax" and thus easier to get enacted.
The choice of cap-and-trade versus tax thus strikes me as having a policy dimension and a political dimension, but I don't see much of an ideological dimension. Someone who thinks that global warming is a creation of the liberal media or that it is real but not worth doing much about would likely oppose both cap-and-trade and tax. On the other side, someone who, like me, thinks that we need to do something serious to limit carbon emissions will favor doing whatever is the most effective thing that can actually get accomplished.
And yet, there appears to be an ideological dimension at play here too, with moderate conservatives on this issue (e.g., McCain) favoring cap-and-trade rather than tax. I get the political reasons why McCain would take this position: He doesn't want to come out for something called a "tax." But I sense that this is not simply politics or simply a shrewd assessment of where the electorate is. I get the feeling that there are conservatives who both understand the economics and think that cap-and-trade really is better, not just because it lacks the word "tax." That's the part I don't get. Wouldn't a conservative who wants to do something about global warming prefer a straightforward tax, which seems to require much less of a government assessment of market conditions than does cap-and-trade? Or, at the least, wouldn't such a person end up where I am, i.e., wanting to do the most effective politically viable thing?"
I am not going to weigh in on this because I have done so on similar threads here before but suffice to say that every day credible people who were onboard with the man made global warming scam are defecting.
Al Gore's movie has been debunked, the "science" used to show man as a problem has been debunked, the "slight of hand" used to make one thing look like another has been debunked. If you want to see it, look up my other posts. You will notice something when you look up those other posts: Freesw, who stated his posts on this thread in a very verbose manner (same as on the other threads) shrinks away when confronted with the information. If you don't believe me, use the search functions and check out the other threads.
It is about global governance...period.
There is no logical connection between the necessity for agreements or treaties among the nations of the world to make sure each does its fair share in reducing greenhouse emissions, and whether or not industry-caused global warming is real.
Just because you don't like the remedy does not make the problem fictional. No one likes having to deal with this problem. The better option is to propose a better remedy. I just did: taxes are better than cap and trade.
Al Gore's movie has been debunked
No it hasn't.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/...ocumentary.php
"Gore's film "is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact," Burton said. "Albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political program."
Gee, that's terrible. A "talented politician and communicator" makes a "political statement" and supports a "political program."
But it's still "substantially founded upon scientific research and fact," and that's according to the ruling of the British judge that deniers are so fond of referencing.
*Yawn*
We have already played this game. You love to deal from bottom of the deck and use partial truths and claim full truth etc.
I am basically bored chatting with you...we have already been down this route.
EDIT:
Hate to do it, but I have to invoke the ignore feature for awhile.
Freesw, who stated his posts on this thread in a very verbose manner (same as on the other threads) shrinks away when confronted with the information.
There's a lot of terrain to cover.
But you say I "shrink away from information." What information is that? If you repeat an already debunked claim (such as that Gore's movie has been "debunked," see above) then wouldn't I be becoming even more verbose by continuing to respond with the facts each time?
I think you're trying to stack the deck.
I've always been a believer in Appropriate Technology, using the most efficient (resource, energy, and economic) method to accomplish the desired goal. Think "minimal impact". I subscribed to original The Mother Earth News 30 years ago, a virtual Bible on the concept. I firmly believe that if this concept had been adopted nationally back then, the so-called "experts" wouldn't be arguing like they are now. We'd already be making the most of what we use, we likely wouldn't be importing as much petroleum, or putting anywhere near the pressure we are on petroleum-based energy sources in environmentally sensitive areas.
Unfortunately, for the last 100 years or so, this country has based it's development, population density and distribution, and economic core on the availability of cheap petroleum-based energy. Nobody could sell anyone in charge on anything resembling a long-term view. Population centers are going to have a tough time of it, no doubt. At least the more rural areas have a chance to go back to real horse-power, at least for transportation.
As far as food production, centralized industrial-scale fertilizer and pesticide based, petroleum fueled agriculture will be really tough to break from. Local farms will likely see a resurgence, organically fertilized and more fuel-efficient out of necessity. In the last 30 years I've seen hundreds of acres of good bottom land, once subject to periodic flooding, developed into housing as flood control efforts made it too expensive for farming. Local politicians were hungry for something with more tax revenue. I hope older areas of town rotting away will be bulldozed and returned to food production. If they aren't polluted beyond use. If fuel stays expensive, it can happen.
Wind farms and solar power generation is starting to get people used to decentralized infrastructure. It can't happen soon enough for me.
I agree Mark, we have designed our lifestyles around cheap gas and have forgone making any plans to really drive less. The Portland MAX was a great idea, I listened to many complaints but I am all for public transit. IMHO they should have made it go from Sandy to Forest Grove and Vancouver to Salem. It doesn't get any cheaper putting it off. Walking paths (not all need to be paved or graveled) should be set. Bicycle paths and sidewalks should be in place also. I do not believe that going green is b.s., just the science and attitude behind it. I enjoy driving my vehicle but I also don't mind riding my bike or walking either. The main problem is the hooligans who seem to not have a grasp on being civil. But that is another story.
If I ride much more I'm going to have to get my CCW. A decent Schwinn, not even top of the line set me back $500. The thing Metro didn't do was put sidings in at the MAX stations so that one train making a stop wouldn't block the track for the smaller express trains they should've had running. Takes way too much time to get from Gresham to Portland, or farther. That and they should've had a track bypassing downtown altogether for those heading straight through.
I don't think Penn and Teller were saying going green itself is bull**** as much as the half-fast mass-marketed efforts most people seem to be settling for. They can say they're "green" without really having to be green:
buying a car that gets 4mpg better mileage is not green. Buying a gas tankless water heater might be sorta green, but putting in a solar hot water system big enough to keep the gas one offline most of the year is definitely green.
Oh, and "carbon credits" ARE BS IMHO.
Personally, I can do without Al Gore's chicken-little approach. All the arguing it stimulates distracts from actually getting something accomplished.
mnottfam
08-14-2008, 17:49
Public mass-transit IS a good idea. The problems arise when, like most things of this nature, you start to get into the cost of the thing, in comparison to its expected revenue. People don't want to ride the train when its a hassle to get to where they're going. The trains try to make up for it (the Metra in Chicago is a good example) by running 79 mph. You try to offset the hassle with speed, but the expenses are amazing. A mile of new track (as of 10 years ago) is around $1 M. Steel prices (yes that's what that rail is made of, at about 230 lbs per running foot--115 lbs per rail foot) are still sky-high, and real-estate prices, well, lets just say that there are reasons why so many mass-transit light-rail projects have been shelved or reduced to mediocrity over the last 20 years. Being a railroader, I'm of course pro-rail transit, but the realities need to be entered into the equation. It's a shame that the railroads were allowed to destroy the already established light-rail transit systems that were already in place in many of our nations larger cities. Oh well, it's America, land of private ownership.
Uuhhhh, it still is, isn't it? Hello? isn't it? Uuuhhhhh......Uh-oh.
Mrblackguns
08-14-2008, 18:00
Anyone with common sense will tell you that we need to be good stewards of the earth and clean up our act and take care of our home. :)
At the same time anyone with common sense who looks at the psudo "science" behind the green/global warming movement and the political agendas forcing it apon us will realize what a twisted hypocritical crock of B.S. it really is.:angry:
Explain, please, how the findings of the vast majority of scientists in the relevant fields can suddenly amount to "pseudoscience."
mnottfam
08-14-2008, 18:53
Simple, SW, to quote the immortal words of one Mr. P. Opus,
"Fer cryin' out loud, research scientists need Porsches, too!!"
It's a shame that the railroads were allowed to destroy the already established light-rail transit systems that were already in place in many of our nations larger cities.
I thought it was the General-Motors/Goodyear Tire/Standard Oil Triad promoting buses, buying up trolley systems and junking them that did that.
Simple, SW, to quote the immortal words of one Mr. P. Opus,
"Fer cryin' out loud, research scientists need Porsches, too!!"
So you don't trust their integrity when their findings are inconvenient? And do when they fit in with how you want things to be?
That is really quite an astonishing shift in viewpoint by much of the American public. It's been promoted mostly by industry-funded think tanks, talk radio, and now, many blogs. It's the opinion that peer-reviewed science, published in respected academic journals, is of little more value than advertising promoting some product. It is, in fact, a new form of advertising. It's also a new form of relativism. Instead of moral relativism, it's logical relativism, the belief that evidence and facts hold no more weight than one's opinions, however they are formed. We are in deep doo doo if people continue to fall for this fallacy.
The biggest obstacle to acceptance is the fact that there is still so much that is unknown. People aren't as likely to go with something based on some factual information backed up with a lot of educated guesswork.
That said, It'd be better, IMO, to err on the side of not ruining things bad enough to kill ourselves off.
Mrblackguns
08-14-2008, 21:17
When a majority opinion I.E. "consensus" rules over actual proven scientific fact, I call it "psuedoscience",.....p.s. thanks for correcting my misspelling,...LOL:D
For the true science showing the lies behind the politicaly driven "Global warming" agenda please see,"A convenient lie"
http://davemoyer.org/acl/
the actual truth is staggering.
The "Consensus" about man made global warming is made up of 2000 people only 300 or so of which are actually in the field of climatology. Most of those 300 are computer modellers, you know the same guys that can't predict the weather next week.
There are many more people who disagree with it.
Why are we even going over this again? It's a hoax and anyone who believes it would follow the pied piper to their own deaths.
Who drove the SUVs that caused the last 10 ice ages to end?
Please enough of this rubbish already.
For the true science showing the lies behind the politicaly driven "Global warming" agenda please see,"A convenient lie"
http://davemoyer.org/acl/
the actual truth is staggering.
I don't know what their source is for those temperature claims of theirs; here is the data from the IPCC:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recenttc.html
And the chart up close:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recenttc_triad.html
(note: this is on the EPA web site. This isn't from either a "climate skeptic" nor a "wild eyed environmentalist wacko").
Alright, on to whether the sun is impacting warming:
'No Sun link' to climate change
3 April 2008
Scientists have produced further compelling evidence showing that modern-day climate change is not caused by changes in the Sun's activity.
The research contradicts a favoured theory of climate "sceptics", that changes in cosmic rays coming to Earth determine cloudiness and temperature.
The idea is that variations in solar activity affect cosmic ray intensity.
But UK scientists found there has been no significant link between cosmic rays and cloudiness in the last 20 years.
Presenting their findings in the Institute of Physics journal, Environmental Research Letters, the University of Lancaster team explain that they used three different ways to search for a correlation, and found virtually none.
"The IPCC has got it right, so we had better carry on trying to cut carbon emissions" - Terry Sloan
This is the latest piece of evidence which at the very least puts the cosmic ray theory, developed by Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark at the Danish National Space Center (DNSC), under very heavy pressure.
...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7327393.stm
(Svensmark disputes the findings, but even if he is correct and solar cycles do impact global warming, if that is occurring it is all the more reason for we humans to do what is in our power to not speed it up even more. We have no control over solar rays; we do have quite a lot of control over how much carbon and other greenhouse gases we emit over the next x number of years.)
OK, and regarding the oft-heard objection that Al Gore's chart shows CO2 levels following temperature rather than the other way around as one might expect at first:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/
"When I give talks about climate change, the question that comes up most frequently is this: “Doesn’t the relationship between CO2 and temperature in the ice core record show that temperature drives CO2, not the other way round?"
On the face of it, it sounds like a reasonable question. It is no surprise that it comes up because it is one of the most popular claims made by the global warming deniers. It got a particularly high profile airing a couple of weeks ago, when congressman Joe Barton brought it up to try to discredit Al Gore’s congressional testimony.
...
This subject has been very well addressed in numerous places. Indeed, guest contributor Jeff Severinghaus addressed this in one of our very first RealClimate posts (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores), way back in 2004. Still, the question does keep coming up, and Jeff recently received a letter asking about this. His exchange with the letter writer is reproduced in full at the end of this post. ...
-----------------------------
You know the old saying, you can lead a horse to water ...
The "Consensus" about man made global warming is made up of 2000 people only 300 or so of which are actually in the field of climatology. Most of those 300 are computer modellers, you know the same guys that can't predict the weather next week..
Not sure where you get your numbers (you didn't provide a source), but in response to your remark about computer models, here is what the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration website has to say about it (part of their global warming FAQ - worth a look):
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
Due to the enormous complexity of the atmosphere, the most useful tools for gauging future changes are 'climate models'. These are computer-based mathematical models which simulate, in three dimensions, the climate's behavior, its components and their interactions. Climate models are constantly improving based on both our understanding and the increase in computer power, though by definition, a computer model is a simplification and simulation of reality, meaning that it is an approximation of the climate system. The first step in any modeled projection of climate change is to first simulate the present climate and compare it to observations. If the model is considered to do a good job at representing modern climate, then certain parameters can be changed, such as the concentration of greenhouse gases, which helps us understand how the climate would change in response. ... [further explanation follows, but I wouldn't want this post to get too "verbose" - plus the webpage has graphs]
AR15_Fanatic
08-15-2008, 00:13
"It's from Time magazine, 1974"
This, the same magazine that's now "discredited" because of its MSM status? O-Kay.
.
.
.
.
.
At one time, you, Penn and Teller, debunked quackery and pseudoscience. Now, you've joined sides with the forces against science. Why?
This rant, while certainly insightful as to how those who believe global warming is a dire situation really misses the point. Even P&T stated in their show that they really had no idea if in fact global warming was false. It is known that the average planetary temperature has risen slightly. But the effects of this are not fully understood by science or scientific communities, even the IPCC. And even whether the cause of this temperature rise is fully understood is not know (we'll get to the malarkey called a 'scientific consensus' in a moment, dear reader). But here's the problem. Any kind of information on the subject of global warming is being hijacked by environmental activists and twisted into propaganda designed to scare and intimidate the public in order to sway them to their position. For example, in regards to sea level rise due to melting ice caps, environmental activists are presenting the idea that low lying regions of the world will be flooded out by hundreds of feet of water, killing thousands of people. The truth is that the IPCC believes it might be possible for sea levels to rise by 7-24 inches by the year 2100, far different from the BS story that that is pushed frequently by environmental groups as well as the media.
We also need to consider the exact evidence for and against global warming. The primary scientific information that supports global warming, as Al Gore correctly identifies in an Inconvenient Truth, is a series of samples of Antarctic ice that document the concentration of CO2 in the air bubbles trapped in it. There is information based off of this that can document CO2 levels back to as far as 600,000 years ago. The data does show an increase in CO2 levels in recent years (~1800 AD to present). However when laid against a graph of global temperatures it does not directly correlate a rise of CO2 with a rise in temperature. In fact the temperature increase takes place a few hundred years before CO2 levels increase. This makes sense when you consider that seawater will release more CO2 when it is warmer then when it is cooler. So then how do we correlate temperature increase with an increase in CO2? We should expect to see a dramatic increase in temperature during, say the post-war period as fossil fuel use skyrocketed during that period of time, but you don't. The earth cooled slightly over that period of time (this is why a large number of scientists in the 1970s thought we were headed into an ice age back then) and only in recent years has it warmed up and continued to get warmer on the planet.
Another argument against CO2 causing planetary temperature rise is that CO2 is a naturally occurring gas in our atmosphere. Plants use this gas in order to manufacture sugar in photosynthesis, we expel it from out bodies by cellular respiration, etc. As the P&T Bullsh*t episode correctly stated, the planet naturally injects large quantities of CO2 into our atmosphere. So much so that we humans with out enormous fossil fuel consumption only introduce a mere 3-7% of the total quantity of CO2 entering annually. In other words 93-97% of the CO2 entering our atmosphere gets there naturally! If this is so, how can humans be responsible for global warming, even if CO2 is the primary culprit? These kinds of questions need to be asked and, if global warming is real, dealt with and refuted with good science and scientific skepticism.
And now that we are on the subject of science and pseudoscience, we need to understand the difference between the two of them. Any good science can always be challenged with argument and experimentation. And any good science changes over time as the evidence for or against it increases. And in certain cases, only certain parts of older scientific concepts are valid. It all depends on the information that we gain on a subject by the scientific process over time. There are no solid facts in science, only theories that can be validated with experimentation, then skeptically examined by others and tested to determine whether their results match the original scientists. Science is not a democratic or politically correct process; the only thing that matters is verifiable results. As such any concept of a ‘scientific consensus’ or ‘the science is settled’ on a subject is laughable; such garbage is limited to political activists and con artists trying to push an opinion on the public at large using group-think. There are no ‘experts’ in good science, just those who have followed the scientific process and come to conclusions that either can or can’t be verified by others. The reasons for this are that 98% of all scientific theories proposed are proven to be false conclusions. Remember that people such as Archimedes, Isaac Newton, Galileo, Albert Einstein, James Clark Maxwell, Werner Heisenberg, Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, Watson, Crick & Franklin, etc. are not famous simply because they created scientific theories. Thousands of scientists throughout the globe create thousands and thousands of theories annually. The reason that they are famous is that their theories have been so difficult to disprove.
Now back to the subject of global warming. Not only is MMGW founded on largely inconclusive science, in many cases it is being perpetuated and forced along by people with political agendas and absolutely no interest in scientific understanding. Even the vaunted IPCC is an organization run by the UN with members appointed by world governments. Many of these members are nothing more than environmental activists with an axe to grind.
And this axe is political control and power. What a lot of people don’t know about the environmental movement is that its major push anti-business and anti-capitalism cloaked in a ‘green’ agenda (camouflage?). Now equipped with a kernel of good science (There may be a correlation between global temperatures and CO2 levels) they can quickly twist this into dogmatic propaganda which is pushed down people’s throats (there is a scientific consensus that global warming is a threat to us and is caused by mankind by the burning of fossil fuels.). This combined with threats, intimidation, dismissal (the science is in; we’re not going to discuss this any further.), coercion and brute force is being used to drive public policy which almost always ends up being anti-corporate and pro-socialist. Environmentalists achieve this through unnecessary regulation and restrictions on vital communities i.e. oil, energy production, etc. And this hurts all of us. Modern life as we know it would cease to exist without these items and, unfortunately, no other currently available alternative exists to them. There are some promising technologies on the horizon such as petrol algae, improved solar power technology, etc. But again that lies in the future and currently is not available. Nuclear power is viciously fought by environmentalists as a reliable and safe source of electric power production to replace coal fired plants, even though it is remarkably successful in other nations such as France. Wind, though plentiful, is still not reliable because weather conditions change from day to day. And all of this upheaval is based upon a string on vague and at best, largely misunderstood science about our climate and the potential repercussions of climate change.
Now let’s move on to the subject of so called carbon credits and carbon taxes. Again it may be useful if you could clearly deduce that lowering CO2 emissions would end climate change (which it won’t by our current understanding of our climate). So we are left with paying for a system that doesn’t achieve anything, severely restricts business and trade, and just bankrolls people like Al Gore who profit off of people’s guilt and misunderstanding about environmental issues. Penn & Teller are right that these emissions caps would hurt the third world the most because it severely restricts their ability to take advantage of modern technology to improve their daily lives.
In conclusion, if you can provide good proof that mankind causes global warming/environmental change and can successfully refute arguments to the contrary with good science, I am happy to go along with it. But given what I’ve seen on the subject, there just isn’t enough evidence to conclude, and a tremendous amount of evidence to conclude the opposite, that mankind is responsible for global warming. As such I have no interest in supporting it, changing my lifestyle to conform to it or voting for politicians who support it or want to pass ‘green’ laws and taxes that can severely restrict my life and lifestyle and achieve nothing except promoting them along. And that is bullsh*t.
Mrblackguns
08-15-2008, 02:19
Good job AR!
I wish the truth and common sense was all it took to convience the kool-aid drinkers.
Spot on AR.
Everything you posted has been posted here before; maybe not as eloqently as yours. The truth is that it won't make one bit of difference.
The reality is that our planet warms and cools and warms and cools...that is what it does. As the Weather Channel Founder accurately noted, the rise in temps is directly related to the sun, not man.
In another thread I went through and debunked (with links) everything in the Gore movie, from high C02 Levles (Gore's own ice core samples show times when it was 10 times higher than now...you see that in the movie?) to ice caps melting (Gore's used the lowest cross section of the entire continent then tried to fool people into thinking that was artic wide, but there is more ice total up there now than ever before). Rises in C02 Lag behind rises in temp by hundreds of years. How does something that happens after an event cause the event?
All of the above data is in the same "scientific evidence" Gore used in his movie. Gore simply truncated out all the bits he didn't like and made a mosaic of the information he did. Hence using "sound science" to create his bogus side show.
It will make no difference to some because they don't truly free think. They assume people are smarter than they are and simply submit to that.
Even P&T stated in their show that they really had no idea if in fact global warming was false.
That makes their title open to misinterpretation, then, but no big deal.
TV personalities have been doing "man on the street" interviews for decades, where the idea is to ask questions and then present the responses as examples of "see how ridiculous some people are?" There are underinformed members of the public that, when asked their opinion about something, will give it. Penn and Teller found some of them. They're comedians so that's fine, though what it has to do with whether or not global warming is bull___t, I have no idea.
It is known that the average planetary temperature has risen slightly. But the effects of this are not fully understood by science or scientific communities, even the IPCC. And even whether the cause of this temperature rise is fully understood is not know (we'll get to the malarkey called a 'scientific consensus' in a moment, dear reader). But here's the problem. Any kind of information on the subject of global warming is being hijacked by environmental activists and twisted into propaganda designed to scare and intimidate the public in order to sway them to their position. For example, in regards to sea level rise due to melting ice caps, environmental activists are presenting the idea that low lying regions of the world will be flooded out by hundreds of feet of water, killing thousands of people. The truth is that the IPCC believes it might be possible for sea levels to rise by 7-24 inches by the year 2100, far different from the BS story that that is pushed frequently by environmental groups as well as the media.
I'll stipulate there are alarmists. There are also people that refuse to acknowledge any possibility that most climate scientists are right (more on that in a moment), and rigidly adhere to an ideologically based opinion on the matter. There are alarmists that insist climate scientists are in on a big global plot. There are irrational people on both sides of the issue.
We also need to consider the exact evidence for and against global warming. The primary scientific information that supports global warming, as Al Gore correctly identifies in an Inconvenient Truth, is a series of samples of Antarctic ice that document the concentration of CO2 in the air bubbles trapped in it. There is information based off of this that can document CO2 levels back to as far as 600,000 years ago. The data does show an increase in CO2 levels in recent years (~1800 AD to present). However when laid against a graph of global temperatures it does not directly correlate a rise of CO2 with a rise in temperature. In fact the temperature increase takes place a few hundred years before CO2 levels increase. This makes sense when you consider that seawater will release more CO2 when it is warmer then when it is cooler. So then how do we correlate temperature increase with an increase in CO2? We should expect to see a dramatic increase in temperature during, say the post-war period as fossil fuel use skyrocketed during that period of time, but you don't. The earth cooled slightly over that period of time (this is why a large number of scientists in the 1970s thought we were headed into an ice age back then) and only in recent years has it warmed up and continued to get warmer on the planet.
Here's the data I've seen that shows an increase in temperature toward the end of the 20th century, and a drop earlier, just as you say:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recenttc_triad.html
I really don't understand why you think that is evidence against the theory that increased greenhouse gas levels contribute to global warming. My theory regarding that short-term apparent anomaly (and I'm not a climate scientist, not even a scientist at all), based on what I do know of how this works, would be that there were no "clean" emissions during the 19th century and first half of the 20th. Therefore, the ratio of particulates emitted to greenhouse gases was high. As vehicle and smokestack emissions got cleaner during the 70s and later, we'd expect to see a slight lowering of the ratio, but an overall massive increase in both particulates and greenhouse gases, as hydrocarbon fuel consumption soared not only here but throughout the world. High particulate levels cause cooling (sourced in earlier post). To some extent particulates offset the greenhouse effect, but the effect is not that one neutralizes the other, rather, one is causing cooling and the other warming. That the effects of each factor may be more or less strong in different parts of the world may cause changes in weather patterns.
Be that as it may, the distinction between particulates and greenhouse gases is fundamental to understanding the issue (I'm not saying you don't already know that; you probably do), and it may be why the impact of global warming wasn't as pronounced in the decades after the industrial revolution really got underway.
Can you explain more fully the case that this cooling period before 1970 is evidence against the greenhouse gas global warming theory? I'd suggest that any slight decrease in global temperatures we're seeing in the past few years may very well be due to the ratio of particulates to greenhouse gases going back up, as China revved their coal-burning economy into high gear. I'd hope no one wants to adopt cranking out ever increasing amounts of particle pollution as the answer to global warming!
Another argument against CO2 causing planetary temperature rise is that CO2 is a naturally occurring gas in our atmosphere. Plants use this gas in order to manufacture sugar in photosynthesis, we expel it from out bodies by cellular respiration, etc. As the P&T Bullsh*t episode correctly stated, the planet naturally injects large quantities of CO2 into our atmosphere. So much so that we humans with out enormous fossil fuel consumption only introduce a mere 3-7% of the total quantity of CO2 entering annually. In other words 93-97% of the CO2 entering our atmosphere gets there naturally!
Would you mind letting me know your source for that? I'm not doubting it, but I'd need to see the context before evaluating. What I mean is, if the 93-97% that enters our atmosphere is from the sources that have kept CO2 levels within a certain range for hundreds of thousands of years, and now there is 3-7% additional CO2 is entering our atmosphere from industry, vehicles, etc, annually, that's a tremendous increase over just a few years. And would go a long way towards explaining how it is that CO2 levels are at their highest in 650,000 years. But that seems really high to me, so I doubt that's what you intended. Can you provide a link?
If this is so, how can humans be responsible for global warming, even if CO2 is the primary culprit? These kinds of questions need to be asked and, if global warming is real, dealt with and refuted with good science and scientific skepticism.
See above; I'd need to know where the data comes from in order to respond.
And now that we are on the subject of science and pseudoscience, we need to understand the difference between the two of them. Any good science can always be challenged with argument and experimentation. And any good science changes over time as the evidence for or against it increases. And in certain cases, only certain parts of older scientific concepts are valid. It all depends on the information that we gain on a subject by the scientific process over time. There are no solid facts in science, only theories that can be validated with experimentation, then skeptically examined by others and tested to determine whether their results match the original scientists. Science is not a democratic or politically correct process; the only thing that matters is verifiable results. As such any concept of a ‘scientific consensus’ or ‘the science is settled’ on a subject is laughable; such garbage is limited to political activists and con artists trying to push an opinion on the public at large using group-think. There are no ‘experts’ in good science, just those who have followed the scientific process and come to conclusions that either can or can’t be verified by others.
The reasons for this are that 98% of all scientific theories proposed are proven to be false conclusions. Remember that people such as Archimedes, Isaac Newton, Galileo, Albert Einstein, James Clark Maxwell, Werner Heisenberg, Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, Watson, Crick & Franklin, etc. are not famous simply because they created scientific theories. Thousands of scientists throughout the globe create thousands and thousands of theories annually. The reason that they are famous is that their theories have been so difficult to disprove.
Which side of the debate is getting the predictions right?
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070716_gw_notwrong.html
The scientific process is alive and well, even in this heated field. For example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7327393.stm
"... UK scientists found there has been no significant link between cosmic rays and cloudiness in the last 20 years.
Presenting their findings in the Institute of Physics journal, Environmental Research Letters, the University of Lancaster team explain that they used three different ways to search for a correlation, and found virtually none.
This is the latest piece of evidence which at the very least puts the cosmic ray theory, developed by Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark at the Danish National Space Center (DNSC), under very heavy pressure.
Dr Svensmark's idea formed a centrepiece of the controversial documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.
...
The Svensmark hypothesis is that when the solar wind is weak, more cosmic rays penetrate to Earth.
That creates more charged particles in the atmosphere, which in turn induces more clouds to form, cooling the climate.
The planet warms up when the Sun's output is strong.
Professor Sloan's team investigated the link by looking for periods in time and for places on the Earth which had documented weak or strong cosmic ray arrivals, and seeing if that affected the cloudiness observed in those locations or at those times.
...
Over the course of one of the Sun's natural 11-year cycles, there was a weak correlation between cosmic ray intensity and cloud cover - but cosmic ray variability could at the very most explain only a quarter of the changes in cloudiness.
And for the following cycle, no correlation was found.
...
The Svensmark hypothesis has also been attacked in recent months by Mike Lockwood from the UK's Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory.
He showed that over the last 20 years, solar activity has been slowly declining, which should have led to a drop in global temperatures if the theory was correct.
...."
And now the ball is in Dr. Svensmark's court.
He proposed a theory, it could not be verified by observation (that time, using those methods), so presumably he'll be back to the drawing board to find a way of defending it, or he'll adjust his theory in response to the new data. Likely the former, since he says:
"Terry Sloan has simply failed to understand how cosmic rays work on clouds," he told BBC News.
"He predicts much bigger effects than we would do, as between the equator and the poles, and after solar eruptions; then, because he doesn't see those big effects, he says our story is wrong, when in fact we have plenty of evidence to support it."
And that's fine, I'm sure other scientists await his evidence. This is the type of debate that deserves attention.
So no, the debate on climate change generally is not over. I think the claim we often hear that "the debate is over" stems from repudiated claims being repeated over and over, and those "mini-debates" are, in that sense, over. There are people on both sides who do that, oftentimes unknowingly, as they pass on incorrect information they've heard somewhere. People get frustrated by it all and close their minds to the entire question. We've seen it from both sides, and I too have succumbed to the temptation a time or two in moments of mental fatigue. No, the debate is not over, and both sides deserve a full hearing, and arguments should only be rejected outright when they are proven wrong by accepted scientific standards, some of which you listed.
I have to say a few words about your remark that "such garbage is limited to political activists and con artists trying to push an opinion on the public at large using group-think." There isn't just one side of that coin. Surely you can see that there is a well-organized, well-funded campaign to fight the public's acceptance of MMGW. They aren't any more interested in the truth or falsity of it than the tobacco companies were about whether or not smoking kills people. Here are just a few examples:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/14/schools.film
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php
Now back to the subject of global warming. Not only is MMGW founded on largely inconclusive science, in many cases it is being perpetuated and forced along by people with political agendas and absolutely no interest in scientific understanding. Even the vaunted IPCC is an organization run by the UN with members appointed by world governments. Many of these members are nothing more than environmental activists with an axe to grind.
And this axe is political control and power. What a lot of people don’t know about the environmental movement is that its major push anti-business and anti-capitalism cloaked in a ‘green’ agenda (camouflage?). Now equipped with a kernel of good science (There may be a correlation between global temperatures and CO2 levels) they can quickly twist this into dogmatic propaganda which is pushed down people’s throats (there is a scientific consensus that global warming is a threat to us and is caused by mankind by the burning of fossil fuels.). This combined with threats, intimidation, dismissal (the science is in; we’re not going to discuss this any further.), coercion and brute force is being used to drive public policy which almost always ends up being anti-corporate and pro-socialist.
Well, it's clear you don't trust anything associated with the UN, and I can understand that point of view. When you say "world governments," I take it you mean any other government besides ours. Will you listen to US climate scientists? It's not just the IPCC:
"...
IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].
Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).
The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.
This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.
The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.
Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
That's an excerpt from an essay, so it's obviously full of opinions, but I cite it for the US-based list of scientific organizations. Science Magazine is well regarded for accuracy (check for yourself). I did find one response to this, in a blog called "Skeptical Science." The page won't load, but here is the google cache:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:THJyjzjs5dAJ:www.skepticalscience.c om/naomi-oreskes-consensus-on-global-warming.htm+skeptical+scientist+naomi+oreskes&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
They say things like "Oreske's survey only included peer reviewed studies. This is even conceded by Schulte."
Don't peer reviewed studies hold more weight? If you can find a more coherent response to her essay I'd be happy to read it. For an even more extensive (but not reviewed by an editor such as an essay in Science is) list:
http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/consensusD1.htm
I understand the objection to the word "consensus," and grudgingly accept that a consensus on how much human industry is contributing to climate change does not really exist. I say grudgingly, because the preponderance of the scientific community, in the US as well as internationally, does agree that human activity is making global warming worse. That's getting close to a consensus, even though we do continue to hear of scientists that don't agree. Dr. William Grey, for example, is the world's foremost hurricane forecaster. No one can beat his record of predicting hurricanes. And he vociferously disagrees that CO2 is causing global warming.
Environmentalists achieve this through unnecessary regulation and restrictions on vital communities i.e. oil, energy production, etc. And this hurts all of us.
Whoa, that's an awfully broad brush. "Environmentalists" - all environmentalists? "Unnecessary regulation and restrictions..." - All regulations supported by environmentalists "hurt us all"? Do you realize what our air, water, soil, food, cities, forests, etc would be like were it not for the work of environmentalists? The environment was going downhill fast in 1970, and the only reason that the alarmist projections didn't completely come to pass is that regulations were put in place. That would not have been done were it not for environmentalists. We can see in China what happens when regulations are routinely ignored (in other words, the effect of no regulations), and when environmentalists are shut out of the political process by government officials corrupted by industrial interests.
Modern life as we know it would cease to exist without these items and, unfortunately, no other currently available alternative exists to them.
That doesn't pertain to whether or not human activity adds to global warming. You and others suspect a sinister, globalist agenda behind the theory. Well, I suspect a more mundane but more powerful agenda behind it's denial: human nature, the reluctance to change how we do things, and the fear that doing something about a long term problem will cost money now. Yes, in the short run it will, and that will affect this generation. But - if it is real, and we do nothing about it, will the savings have been worth it? So I advocate at the very least taking as objective a look as possible at the evidence. Even if we don't like the implications of what we see, if it's there, we're better off seeing it now than later.
There are some promising technologies on the horizon such as petrol algae, improved solar power technology, etc. But again that lies in the future and currently is not available. Nuclear power is viciously fought by environmentalists as a reliable and safe source of electric power production to replace coal fired plants, even though it is remarkably successful in other nations such as France. Wind, though plentiful, is still not reliable because weather conditions change from day to day. And all of this upheaval is based upon a string on vague and at best, largely misunderstood science about our climate and the potential repercussions of climate change.
I don't agree that the science is "largely misunderstood."
http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/climate_change_101/
Now let’s move on to the subject of so called carbon credits and carbon taxes. Again it may be useful if you could clearly deduce that lowering CO2 emissions would end climate change (which it won’t by our current understanding of our climate). So we are left with paying for a system that doesn’t achieve anything, severely restricts business and trade, and just bankrolls people like Al Gore who profit off of people’s guilt and misunderstanding about environmental issues. Penn & Teller are right that these emissions caps would hurt the third world the most because it severely restricts their ability to take advantage of modern technology to improve their daily lives.
In conclusion, if you can provide good proof that mankind causes global warming/environmental change and can successfully refute arguments to the contrary with good science, I am happy to go along with it. But given what I’ve seen on the subject, there just isn’t enough evidence to conclude, and a tremendous amount of evidence to conclude the opposite, that mankind is responsible for global warming. As such I have no interest in supporting it, changing my lifestyle to conform to it or voting for politicians who support it or want to pass ‘green’ laws and taxes that can severely restrict my life and lifestyle and achieve nothing except promoting them along. And that is bullsh*t.
I've provided quite a few sources to support my point of view. I remain puzzled and concerned by the trend of dismissing scientists for what appears to be no other reason than that their conclusions are not what people want to hear. It's disappointing to see the team of Penn and Teller, who at one time debunked frauds, put their talents to ridiculing easy targets (private individuals on the street) and the low hanging fruit and nuts in the environmental movement. Al Gore and other high profile, vocal advocates for action on global warming are of course fair game. But these videos really come across as anti-environmentalism, and if there were no environmentalists, this country would be far more polluted than it is.
I await your sources for your numbers for the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere from natural vs industrial sources, and for the relevance of a cooling period prior to 1970, given that most of the pollution before then had high particulate to greenhouse gas ratios. Read about the "year without a summer" for some interesting background on the effects particulates have. Or even the cooling after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. It can't be emphasized enough that understanding particulates vs greenhouse gases is key to understanding the history of this.
Mrblackguns
08-15-2008, 14:49
Uhhg,.....here we go again!
Can someone shut this merry-go-round off before I start puking?:wacko:
Are you trying to stifle debate?:lol:
In that long post just now I limited my questions to two. It was a long post to reply to.
I found some things to agree with, too.
Did you find a problem in my reply to your earlier post?
http://perfectunion.com/vb/showpost.php?p=479941&postcount=32
If you've got "global warming debate overload," I understand; I get it too sometimes.
This is a rather confined venue to try to discuss all the different factor in play on this topic. I too fear it will only go back and forth with little chance of anyone actually drawing any conclusions. P&T got at least one thing correct: On the topic of green, climate change etc, there is a lot of BS to wade through.
The reality is that our planet warms and cools and warms and cools...that is what it does.
Sure, but if we're doing something as an intelligent species, that's pushing the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere higher than they've been in 650,000 years, we ought to take a hard look at what those growing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere could end up doing to us. We can't control natural processes but we can control what we do.
As the Weather Channel Founder accurately noted, the rise in temps is directly related to the sun, not man.
Not entirely, and perhaps not at all:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7327393.stm
Regarding Gore's film, as the judge often cited by Gore's critics noted in his ruling:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/...ocumentary.php
"Gore's film "is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact," Burton said. "Albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political program."
So he's a "talented politician and communicator" (I'm not so sure about either, but that's another matter), according to the judge, "making a political statement to support a political program." Advocacy for public policy is inherently political. It's an important part of the democratic process. Rather than lobby congress, Gore's taking his case straight to the public. How is it that you find fault with that? So he made a few factual mistakes; there's no evidence to suggest deliberate deception. There's a lot of evidence that his central thesis is essentially correct, as are most of his facts. I don't recall seeing a post that debunked Gore across the board. That would be news.
This is a rather confined venue to try to discuss all the different factor in play on this topic. I too fear it will only go back and forth with little chance of anyone actually drawing any conclusions.
I'm all for a truce. There are plenty of other topics I'd rather discuss than this. But if there are more posts about global warming, I may not be able to restrain myself.;)
I'm more concerned about the environment generally than global warming per se, but it's become so wrapped up in the overall debate that it's unavoidable.
P&T got at least one thing correct: On the topic of green, climate change etc, there is a lot of BS to wade through.
They only waded through the BS on one side of the debate. It's a free country; they're free to wade wherever they like.
I'm more concerned about the environment generally than global warming per se, but it's become so wrapped up in the overall debate that it's unavoidable.
Being green isn't B.S., it is important for us to take care of what we have, but the political wanks make it difficult to do so without making me skeptical. I think this thread has reached the end.
BlenderWizard
08-18-2008, 20:45
Global warming does exist, but it is not due to anything we are or are not doing.
We're at the end of an ice age. Things are warming up.
mnottfam
08-18-2008, 20:51
Actually Blender, you're right. We're still recovering from what I've heard referred to as a "micro" ice age that happened about 800-1200 years ago. Do you know there used to be ORANGE GROVES in England?
collegeb
08-18-2008, 21:46
I try to live a green lifestyle, but I wouldn't force it upon anyone. It makes financial sense to conserve your resources. However I'm not giving up my guns, my truck or more money to anyone who thinks they have a right to take it from me even in the name of the planet.
:usa::2guns:
If it warms up enough that Oregon turns into California, I'm moving to the North Cascades.
p35bhp55
08-19-2008, 04:40
"Being green isn't B.S., it is important for us to take care of what we have."
This is an answer I can live with, and it does make dollars and sense to only buy what you really need and then use it up. I'll go back to making squirrel feeders out of the 2 liter bottles our friends bought to a party this w/e now.
COBRADOC
08-19-2008, 13:44
Here's the best analysis I have read about "going green". If this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, going green, or even trying to go green is pure BS.
http://www.newmediajournal.us/staff/kraft/2008/06302008.htm
Here's the best analysis I have read about "going green". If this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, going green, or even trying to go green is pure BS.
http://www.newmediajournal.us/staff/kraft/2008/06302008.htm
The article proves nothing of the sort. All the article shows is that switching to alternative fuels is easier said than done. No one doubts that. This is why I advocate, first and foremost, conservation.
Ramping up domestic drilling is what is B.S., if anything is. Oil that is rare today will be even rarer tomorrow.
I really like this quote:
" I am making the assumption that the data in National Geographic is reasonably accurate, for National Geographic has a good reputation to maintain."
You should see what National Geographic has to say about global warming! :D
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