This is not The Haters Club You're Looking For discussion
note: This topic has been closed to new comments.
I've read this topic sentence too many times.
Thanks. There will be more postings with more proof to come. Tracy, I if I can convince you that it's not as bad as Al Gore wants you to think, and that it's not all our faults, then I will have done a good job.
My favorite part of this one is "Note: CO2 is invisible. This is steam." Hee!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRaeEI...
So, do you think the scientists who dispute his claims are lying? Or wrong? That they know less about the science of climate change than Al Gore? You believe that Al invented this internet thingie we use?
How does Gore, with his law degree, know more about the science of climate change than nineteen thousand scientists?(BTW, Tracy, I know you don't like political debates online. I just really am interested in this topic. It fascinates me.)
I am trying to find the artical, But the industrailzed world produces less "green house" gas then 1 venting valcano... Give e some time and I will find it. Think about this point. The valcano in hawaii, has been "venting" for what 20 years?I think a more objective way to look at climate chage is not argueing about our effects on the climate, but on what we are going to do about it? How are we going to maintain our way of life with these "superstorms" wide spread "droughts" and so on. If it is going to happen it is going to happen, we need to develope real solutions to the real world, not goredom.
After this winter in Wisconsin, I would like to encourage global warming in all of its disparate forms.*walks outside, turns on car...lets it idle*
Jen, people are "making a fuss" because the liberal media love to pander to the fear mongering. "We're not in any immediate danger" doesn't sell newspapers. I agree with the founder of the Weather Channel. Unless the lawsuit is filed against Al Gore, the real facts about Global Warming will never be publicized.
Jen. Do you have a head injury of some sort? Any kind of neurological problems we ought to know about?
Well, you deleted your comment. Now mine just looks mean.
Hey Sarah...just curious (friendly tone, I promise). Did you watch An Inconvenient Truth? I couldn't be sure if that's what you were referencing in your first posts.
He did mention in there one of his big influences was a climate expert he knew or studied under at Harvard...Roger Revelle...who apparently first brought the problem to his attention and presented his research to Gore.I don't know...with politicians it's always difficult to say how heartfelt they are versus you know...trying to spin their image by picking up on the most popular issue. And all of that stuff came out about how much energy his houses use and so forth. Now I'm just babbling. I would suck at debate.
Yeah, and his private jet. And then there's Ted Kennedy's yacht dumping into the harbor.
RandomAnthony: no, no, no, no, do not turn on your car and let it idle for a half hour so it is toasty warm for you to get into at 8 am. First of all: it wakes me up on my one day to sleep in and I can not stand the sound of a running car.
Second: you are what is contributing to these super storms that are going to wipe out all of human kind once and for all - blockbuster movie style.
Third: Sarah - for the record I will agree with you. Cycles come and cycles go, we have only been keeping track of the weather with all of our scientific equipment for the past 200 years or so. Who do we think we are knowing what the world has planned for us - and how can we know what really REALLY happened five hundred years ago? We can't. We speculate.
It is just that, as humans, we are so self centered as a race that any other plan is inconceivable.
There are a couple of ways to approach something like this, in my mind. 1. Optimism. Global warming isn't as bad as they're saying. I probably don't need to change much of anything. 2. Pessimism. Global warming is worse than most people realize. I should change how I am in the world, and convince others to do the same.
The consequence of choosing option two and being wrong is that we pollute a little slower, have slightly cleaner water, and have some ugly light from compact fluourescent bulbs. The consequence of choosing option one and being wrong is much uglier.
So I'm going to be a pessimist, and believe that the planet is going to hell in a handbasket and humans are carrying the basket.
Edit: And it turns out Donna already made this point. So, uh, what she said.
Nicely put, skinny Lisa. And, this sounds like the beginning of that "20 things" speech in Roxanne,
lets say there are twenty options:
nihialist: What, the weather? I don't believe in weather.
I was basically gonna say what Lisa said. I'm reminded of the ridiculous argument theists put forth for the need to believe in God: "what if your wrong? no harm, no foul." Yet it's overwhelmingly this group of people who are so opposed to the very idea of global warming. Either that, or their pissed that the rest of us aren't convinced Armageddon is something real and just to "let go and let God"What is it that non-climate change believers are so pissed off about? That the "liberal media" is asking them to clean up a little? recycle? save a little water? change their light bulbs? get a car that uses less gas mileage? or, could you imagine, share a ride/take the bus? Is all this really so offensive?
"HEY EVERYONE! WHATEVER YOU DO--DON'T BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING! IT'S A LIE! DON'T DO IT! FOR GOD'S SAKE PEOPLE!"
What a ridiculous thing to be up in arms about.
If you truly believe that global warming is a liberal conspiracy meant to, meant to...I don't know what the fuck you think the motive would be behind such an act...but, if you aren't buying it by all means drive your ass around all day. throw all your shit in the same trash can. take long baths where you let the water drain while the tap keeps running, leave the lights on, crank your AC up, WHATEVER it is that you wanna fucking do b/c it's your right--do it!
Theist to Atheist: You're going to Hell for not believing in God.
Agnostic: I don't know if it's raining, and I don't know how to find out.
Shelly, I have no problem with people wanting to be "green" if they so choose. My issue (one of them, anyway) is primarily economic:http://www.globalwarming.org/primer/e...
The geniuses in my city have come up with something that is officially called "Conservation by Coercion" where they are narrowing some of the city's busiest streets in order to compel people to find other forms of transportation. Now, the traffic in Sacramento sucks. I think we're on the top ten lists of the worst traffic in the nation. This Conservation by Coercion pisses people like me off.
I'm also not a fan of raising taxes. This includes emissions taxes.
You used the theist analogy. Well, I'm sure you don't mind if someone has a religious belief, as long as they don't force it down your throat and try to make you believe it too, right? It's the same general concept. If you want to spend twice as much money on your car and lightbulbs and fuel with special additives in it and other things, then fine. But don't force that belief down my throat.
Baby bonnetist: I hate your wittiness about the weather.
My lack of belief in god doesn't affect the quality of the water you drink, though. So it's not quite the same.And if the great majority of scientists in some relevant field were telling me they had strong evidence there's a god, I'd be a believer. Because then it wouldn't be faith, it would be reason. So again, the analogy stretches a bit thin (though the jokes are still pretty funny!)
But Lisa, read my first post. It's not a great majority of scientists. The great majority of the scientific community says that global warming is not a significant threat and that it is not man-made.
Oh hey Sarah - you are in Portland, right? I used to live on NE Broadway and the 4-6pm traffic was INSANE!!!
I'm in Sacramento. The other Sarah might be in Portland. I'm not sure.
Sarah-- I see your frustration. This goes back to something that's always irritated me about problem solving in this country: it's all about quick fixes and band-aids. As for experts, c'mon. Any old serial killer who claims insanity will subject a jury to two experts: his and the other guy's.
For example: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/01/h...
Clearlybored I agree with you. Whether or not fossil fuels from our vehicles are causing the ice caps to melt and the oceans to rise (which I believe to be a totally natural cyclic thing, maybe even the Earth getting rid of the pesky infestation of egocentric humans) Whether Or Not, I do think reducing oil dependency is the necessity here. I cringe every time I use a plastic bag, made of none other than a nice big bubble of petroleum air. I also try to purchase as few new needless objects as I possibly can. Everything is recycled or reused. Nothing new produced out of resources we just simply do not need to use. Here's what I hate: which probably needs a new thread, but maybe not: fungus-like infesteations of new house "neighborhoods" creeping all over the open prairie here. Where the hell does all that lumber and petroleum/glass insulation come from? For every new house built I imagine there are five dilapidated inner city/suburbia houses turned into meth factories and/or sitting vacant like an open sore.
Sarah, I'll believe you that it's not a great majority of scientists if you can find me...oh, even two articles published in a respectable scientific journal that indicates that humans aren't causing global climate change on a scale out of proportion with natural cyclical climate change. There's one guy here in Oregon who was, for a time, the state climatologist who ranted and raved that he couldn't get published about the supposed non-threat because scientific journals won't publish that view. But who edits scientific journals? Scientists. Many, many scientists. Everything I've read on both sides of the argument, whether it's "see, humans are causing global climate change, all the studies say so" or "I can't get published because I say there's no human impact on climate change" indicates that there are virtually no published articles in scientific journals that present credible evidence that humans don't contribute significantly to global warming.As the world of climatology journals is the last place I'd expect to find some underworld conspiracy, I tend to think that the reason those few dissenting voices can't get published is the same reason lots of people in all sorts of scientific fields can't get published: Shoddy science.
I'd be willing to bet that published articles in reputable journals are at least 40-1 in favor of human impact on climate change, and maybe if I have time to look up 40 articles at some point, I'll demonstrate that.
I will research that tomorrow, Lisa. Until then, ask yourself who the nineteen thousand are who are on that petition.
While I'm reading up on the petition, can we both be asking ourselves that question?Apparently a BS, MS, or Ph.D. in any field "qualifies" one to sign that petition. I have a Ph.D. in psychology. I really don't know a damn thing about the science of climatology (though I do have a pretty good background in critical reading of research), and wouldn't consider myself qualified to sign a petition. I know people with PhDs in English, critical theory, various languages and cultural studies...and a BS can be in psych, sociology, mechanical engineering...whatever.
The "peer-reviewed" research paper attached to the petition doesn't list that it was published in any journal, which therefore calls into doubt who the peers were who reviewed it. It's hard not to be skeptical when the information about who it was reviewed by is obscured.
The Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine is six people in Cave Junction, OR. They do not enroll students, teach classes, or grant degrees. They are not to be confused with Oregon Health Sciences University, a large teaching hospital in Portland. Wikipedia can only come up with four short paragraphs, ten sentences. The founder "fell out with" his mentor, Linus Pauling. Not a single person with a meteorology or climatology degree in the bunch (two chemists, two biochemists, a mechanical engineer, and a physician). They also publish a guide for home-schooling.
From the Institute's own website: "Research in the Institute's laboratories includes work in protein biochemistry, diagnostic medicine, nutrition, preventive medicine, and aging. The Institute also carries out work on the improvement of basic education and emergency preparedness." "Current projects include work on the deamidation of peptides and proteins as it relates to fundamental biochemistry and to protein aggregation diseases such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease; research on improved techniques for medical diagnosis; improvement in precollege education curricula, especially in the sciences; and improved civilian emergency preparedness." "The Petition Project does not utilize any Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine resources or funds...Funding for the project comes entirely from private donations by interested individuals, primarily readers of the newsletter Access to Energy that is independently published."
Hmmm...Access to Energy. Does that sound neutral to you? Agenda-less? What happens if we follow this trail? Huh...the http://www.accesstoenergy.com/ Access to Energy website describes itself as, among other things, "Pro-Free-Enterprise." Wonder where the money comes from for that?
Wow, this is interesting. The Access to Energy newsletter is published out of...Cave Junction, OR. A town of 1363 folks. Gotta be a coincidence, right? There was this newsletter, and they collect donations, and they just happened to find the most active and vocal fellow souls in the anti-environment movement...right across the street? And what luck that the newsletter and the Institute have such similar goals! Homeschooling education, disaster/nuclear preparedness and...wait just a minute here. These links lead right back to Institute faculty.
So we loop back to the Institute faculty, and we find out that homeschooling is important not because of the degradation of public schooling, but because of "socialism in education." Quotes from users of this homeschooling curriculum: "The Robinson curriculum was recommended by a friend in our church...I know it sounds too good to be true, I thought the same thing. But through prayer and a step of faith, I have found that the Lord will be faithful." "The no-sugar, no-tv, no-computer aspects are good things." "He then went on to Liberty University where he became student body president and gave the commencement speech this last May (2007)."
And Liberty University, as we all know, is a bastion of unbiased, serious scientific thought. So clearly, this curriculum is working miracles.
Texts in this curriculum? The Encyclopedia Britanica? Awesome. Uh...wait...it's the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britanica. Cutting-edge science education? Of course. Webster's Dictionary...from 1913. Clearly designed to foster a top-notch scientific vocabulary. Literature texts? 11 volumes of The Bobbsey Twins. 8 Tom Swift books. And The Bible For Young People. Anything written after 1950? Um...nope.
Wonder when the most recent edition of Access to Energy was published? I'm sure they've got plenty of references to cutting-edge source materials supporting the positions they're advocating for and funding...wait, nope, sorry. Out of print since January, 1999. Can I order newer information? Turns out I can send a check in the name of...Robinson Internet. Who's Robinson? The founder of OISM.
Oh, another interesting bit about education and reason from Access to Energy: http://www.accesstoenergy.com/view/at...
A little critical thinking is important, whatever side of the debate you're supporting. I do similar research on anything I consider signing.
In closing, a quote from a letter that accompanies this petition: "Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful."
I know, this is an incredibly long, ridiculously detailed screed. But it's always important to know what you're dealing with.
Okay, after much link-following, I don't know who these other five supposed 'faculty' of the Institute are, but all the articles, all the supposed research, the Access to Energy newsletter, and the homeschooling curriculum can all be traced back to Art Robinson. So really, this whole web of stuff is just the pet project of one guy on a ranch in Southern Oregon.Sarah, do you still feel the same about that petition?
Lisa- you are officially my new hero. Way to investigate!
Yay! Proof I learned something in grad school!
Al Gore used the global warming issue to catapult his name into national prominence. Now that he is not president he uses the issue to catapult to riches. Science uses the issue for funding. Some countries support it because they believe that America will be negatively impacted economically by the change that they say we need to do.
Thank you, Lisa, for all that great research! Here's what NASA has to say about global warming:May 11, 2007
Over the last five years, 600 scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sifted through thousands of studies about global warming published in forums ranging from scientific journals to industry publications and distilled the world’s accumulated knowledge into this conclusion: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Libr...
As NASA is government funded, I would expect them to be unbiased by anything Al Gore has said.
Science uses the issue for funding? From who? From the government? Probably not. From industry? Hell no. Like any issue that indicates change is needed, it's done on the budgets of the universities the scientists work for, which makes it underfunded, not lucrative, work to do.Show me. Demonstrate the links you're making. Other countries support the Kyoto accords because it will negatively impact the US (but somehow not their own countries)? Find me articles, quotes (from these supposed other countries, not from fearmongers who think the whole rest of the world is trying to take us down), evidence.
Oh, and doesn't it suck when people win a Nobel prize? I mean, it's all just for the prominence and riches. It's worse than the Golden Globes. It must be voted on by text message, like American Idol. :)
I think the argument on both sides of the debate is that the politics/public policy issues are driving the science, instead of the other way around. I'm happy to do the digging to find indications (not proof, mind you) that the anti-environment science may not be all that unbiased, and may be feeding us truthiness instead of truth. I'd just like to see anyone arguing that the scientists with pro-environment findings are also biased do the same digging and point out the same flaws, that's all. University-funded research published in peer-reviewed journals tends to have a lot of checks and balances on bias, so I think it might be an uphill battle.The problem here is that science is being accused of truthiness without any evidence (cocktails without the bar peanuts?)
http://internationaltrade.suite101.co...America's economy was built from oil. India and China are copying America's model. Some countries are not so dependent on oil. As a result changing to alternative will not have a dramatic effect on them. Why do you think that some countries hate America? Do you really believe it is because of the president or the war?
Oh, I saw an interview with the former vice president. They claimed that he made his millions from investing in google. You need to invest a whole lot of money in order to make a whole lot of money to get rich from google.
Some information on funding:
http://www.marshall.org/article.php?i...
Lisa, I'm not sure what your criteria are for "respectable" scientific journals. But here are some links.From the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007...
And an article from one of the authors of the above paper:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?p...
From Energy and Environment Vol. 19, No. 2
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/ima...
And some more links just for fun:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news...
http://cei.org/pdf/5331.pdf
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-bl...
http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf...
Hey Sarah. I followed some of your links and this is what I found:The first article you reference is from the Cato Institute. The Cato Institute is a non-profit group in favor of ltd. government and free market economics. Rupert Murdoch sits on their board of directors. And way back when when the Tobacco Industry was saying cigarettes weren't bad, they referred to "scientific" research done by the Cato Institute to back it up. Eventually Cato said "smoking tobacco products over a long period of time may entail significant health risks". They also contend second hand smoke poses no danger.
CEI is also a not for profit org dedicated to free market economics. From Wikipedia:
CEI is a think tank funded by donations from individuals, foundations and corporations, including the Scaife Foundations, Exxon Mobil the Ford Motor Company Fund, Pfizer, and the Earhart Foundation[2][3]. (More details below.) CEI cites its major issues of concern as Environmental Policy, Regulation and Economic Liberty, Legal and Constitutional, and Health and Safety
hmmm. funding from Exxon....the wiki article goes on:
n May 2006, CEI released a controversial ad campaign with two television commercials [5] arguing that global warming is not a problem. The commercials used the tagline "Carbon Dioxide - They call it pollution; We call it life." One ad stated that the world's glaciers are "growing, not melting... getting thicker, not thinner."[5] The ad cited two Science articles to support its claims. However, the editor for Science stated that the ad "misrepresents the conclusions of the two cited Science papers... by selective referencing". The author of the articles, Curt Davis, director of the Center for Geospatial Intelligence at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said CEI was misrepresenting his previous research to back their claims. "These television ads are a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public about the global warming debate," he said. [6]
The second ad in the campaign claimed that carbon dioxide is misrepresented as a pollutant, stating that "it’s essential to life. We breathe it out. Plants breathe it in... They call it pollution. We call it life."[5] However, the scientific consensus on climate change is that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are causing Earth's surface temperatures to warm. For example, in June 2005, the science academies of eleven leading industrialized nations (including the United States' National Academy of Sciences) released "Joint science academies' statement: Global response to climate change" which stated that carbon dioxide levels have increased from 280 ppm to 375 ppm in the last 256 years, and that "Increasing greenhouse gases are causing temperatures to rise..."[5]
Individuals associated with CEI have also been criticised. In January 2006, it was reported in The New Republic that Steven Milloy, then an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute had written extensively on global warming and other topics while receiving undisclosed funding from ExxonMobil.[6][7][8][9] Milloy's association with the Cato Institute ended shortly afterwards and he is now an adjunct analyst at CEI.[10]
As to the journal Energy and Environment, from Wiki:
The journal's peer-review process has at times been criticised for publishing substandard papers [3][4].Roger A. Pielke (Jr), who published a paper on hurricane mitigation in the journal, said in a post answering a question on Nature's blog in May about peer-reviewed references and why he published in E&E: "...had we known then how that outlet would evolve beyond 1999 we certainly wouldn't have published there. The journal is not carried in the ISI and thus its papers rarely cited. (Then we thought it soon would be.) We were invited to submit a piece in 1997 or 1998 and we had this in prep and sent it in."[5]
Numerous people considered climate skeptics or contrarians have published in the journal. The debate on the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was initiated by E&E.[citation needed] Skeptics on the journal's editorial staff include Boehmer-Christiansen herself and anthropologist Benny Peiser. Some of the journal's articles opposing the scientific consensus on climate change have been quoted by policy makers known to be skeptical of the subject, such as U.S. Senator James Inhofe and U.S. Congressman Joe Barton.[6] When asked about the publication of these papers Boehmer-Christiansen replied, "I'm following my political agenda -- a bit, anyway. But isn't that the right of the editor?"[7]
And as to the ICECAP article you cited about the founder of The Weather Channel, John Coleman, insisting global warming a "scam":
In reality, Coleman’s views place him in the discredited fringe of global warming deniers — the modern day equivalent of those who believe the Earth is flat. As Science Magazine noted, in addition to the IPCC and National Academy of Sciences, there is overwhelming agreement about the causes of global warming:
In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members’ expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. … The American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling.
Coleman, a meteorologist, has been rebuked by his parent association, the American Meteorological Association, as well as his “baby,” The Weather Channel.
Coleman cites no scientific evidence for his claims in his original article. “I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct,” he says to prove his point. If Coleman believes global warming is a “scam,” then he should bring peer-reviewed scientific proof to the table.
So...Al Gore has money, has had money for long enough to have invested early on in Google...and this means what, exactly? Is Google a primary funder of climate change research, or in some other way biasing Al Gore?My criteria for respectable scientific journals: Peer-reviewed, publishing articles that meet the basic criteria for science (using observable, measurable data to execute repeatable experiments or studies).
The Marshall Institute and the Cato Institute are not unbiased sources. Nor are their house-produced newsletters peer-reviewed.
RE: The Marshall Institute (from Wikipedia): "Historian Naomi Oreskes says the institute has, in order to resist and delay regulation, lobbied politically to create a false public perception of scientific uncertainty over the negative health effects of second-hand smoke, the carcinogenic nature of tobacco smoking, and on the evidence between CFCs and ozone depletion."
American Spectator (the publication in which the Cato article was published) is not a scientific publication. It's an opinion/news magazine with a conservative slant. If I were to link to Mother Jones magazine, you all better call me on it, because that's not science, it's opinion.
The Marshall Institute's own newsletter is also not a scientific, peer-reviewed publication.
The Journal of Geophysical Research article might be worth perusing. In the abstract, I'm noticing something that could be a Cartesian-circle argument (it sounds a bit like they're saying that if you factor out the human influence on the physical environment, you're not going to find a human influence on climate change), but I could be misreading that.
Science and Public Policy Institute is a conservative think-tank that gets a big chunk of its funding from Exxon-Mobil. The article they're highlighting was originally published in the journal Energy and Environment, a publication that seems legitimate enough. A careful read of that article indicates that since 2004, 45% of the articles published in peer-reviewed journals implicitly or explicitly supported the human impact on global climate change. Only 6% implicitly or explicitly rejected it. I'm unclear what the remainder of the articles they reviewed had to say. It's possible the other 49% of the articles didn't address the question of human impact. So of the articles that did address it, about 7 1/2 times as many studies found a link than did not find a link. It's also important to note that due to chance variations in data, approximately five percent of studies will "fail to reject the null hypothesis when it is the alternative hypothesis that is actually true in nature" (find no link when in actuality a link does exist). This is known as Type II error, and is built into the scientific process. That's remarkably close to six percent. And when you put the two periods under study together, covering 1993 to 2007, 727 of the papers reviewed either implicitly or explicitly came to a conclusion about man-made climate change. 696 of the papers found a significant human influence on global climate change, while 31 did not. In other words, approximately 4.3% of the studies published in the last 14 years have demonstrated no link.
That sounds like science working exactly how it ought to, that the null hypothesis (no effect) is found in approximately 5% of studies, simply due to sampling error. I love it when people who are trying to show the opposite actually prove my point for me.
The London Times is a newspaper, not a scientific publication. However, I will point out this: "Where does all that leave the impact of greenhouse gases? Their effects are likely to be a good deal less than advertised, but nobody can really say until the implications of the new theory of climate change are more fully worked out." Not exactly a strong statement about the lack of effects of humans, there.
The conclusion drawn in the CEI article (which is a summary, but does include references, so I'll give it a pass): "Global warming is happening and man is responsible
for at least some of it. Yet this does not mean that global warming will cause enough
damage to the Earth and humanity to require drastic cuts in energy use, a policy that
would have damaging consequences of its own." This article is actually in agreement that humans are causing global climate change, just disagreeing about what we ought to be doing about it, citing it as a political and economic issue, not a scientific one (just as Donna pointed out).
From the ICECAP site (can't find any citations here, but there is a link to a TV meteorologist's blog...): "[This organization] provides access to a new and growing global society of respected scientists and journalists that are not deniers that our climate is dynamic (the only constant in nature is change) and that man plays a role in climate change through urbanization, land use changes and the introduction of greenhouse gases and aerosols, but who also believe that natural cycles such as those in the sun and oceans are also important contributors to the global changes in our climate and weather." Okay, um...duh? Should I start writing letters to the sun, or to the ocean? Or should I concentrate on writing my elected officials about the part of climate change humans have some control over?
And that article out of Duke U: Click on the link and read the word at the very top, in green. In big letters. Even so, they're arguing that solar variability contributes to global warming, not that human behavior does not.
Anyone else want to challenge me to a science throwdown? ;)
ETA: Ooh, nice work, Shelly! You found some stuff I couldn't.
standing ovation for Shelly and Lisa's research
gaping mouth jealousy at the stunning and fast research prowess of Shelly and Lisa
Some things to consider:Reliable temperature measurements are not available prior to the 20th Century. So, in fact it could be possible that the earth was much warmer in the past. Fossils of a heavily vegetated Britain might support this.
In the 1970’s The New York Times reported that the earth was going through a possible global cooling period. If the internet would have been around then we might be talking about cooling right now.
If weather can not be predicted accurately for more than a week in advance, how are they so sure that they can predict it 10, 20 or 100 years from now?
Negative feedback mechanisms which I learned about from my meteorology class, a few years back, state that as the earth heats, air at the ground level warms, warm air rises, as it raises it cools. The cooled air becomes a cloud. The cloud produces rain. The rain cools the earth. I never hear about this scientific fact in the climate debate.
Scientists who dispute climate change are being labeled as “deniers.” That is a tactic used to intimidate and “shut up” those you differ with. That is not very scientific, in my opinion.
The name has changed from global warming to climate change. Is this because last winter was colder than the previous one? Now they can point to every hurricane or tornado and blame them on climate change.
Some who believe in it have found other than man-mage reasons for it. Volcanic eruptions, for example, have caused temporary and artificial cooling in the past has now dissipated putting us at normal temperatures. Also, sun spots, solar rotation and other reasons have been put out there.
"climate change" is a bullshit phrase created by republicans to use language to manipulate opinion. Like, "death tax," and "war on terror""a 2002 memo encouraged Republicans to go with climate change because it "sounds a more controllable and less emotional challenge," whereas global warming sounds like it has "catastrophic connotations."
Europeans use the phrase "climate chaos"
All this "consider this," and all these "experts" fail to convince me of something I read a fellow goodreader post somewhere way back when, and that is that I know better than to shut myself in my garage with my car running b/c the shit coming out of my exhaust is poisonous and will kill me.
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The IPCC - those "2500 scientists" who say the globe is warming and it's all our fault - aren't all scietists, actually. And even if they were, over NINETEEN THOUSAND scientists disagree: http://www.oism.org/pproject/
But, Sarah, what about those poor polar bears who were stranded on the piece of ice? The ice caps are melting and drowning the polar bears!! No, they're not. That photo was taken by a student, not a scientist. And the polar bears (who are very strong swimmers) were not that far away from the shore. Polar Bear experts say that 11 out of the 13 polar bear "communities" are actually thriving - even increasing.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=WKAC4kfHruQ
What about the cause and effect of carbon dioxide on temperature? Well, actually, if you look closely at Al Gore's chart, you'll see that the temperature increases BEFORE the CO2. Sometimes, hundreds of years before!
But the sea level is rising! We're all going to be underwater! Our children and grandchildren will drown! Wrong! At the current rate that the ice is melting, it would take one hundred years for the sea level to rise even an inch and a half!! "At the current sea-level-equivalent ice-loss rate of 0.05 millimeters per year, it would take a fullmillennium to raise global sea level by just 5 cm, and it would take fully 20,000 years to raise it a single meter." - http://www.co2science.org/education/r...
I could go on and on and on. I may come back and post more. But for now, watch these:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_FI0U5JOtoo
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Io-Tb7vTamY