2007-10-10 04:12:00
James writes:
"The grandma allusion gives an innocuous sounding image. Think rather about forests of giant smoke stacks, and try a drive through a big city like LA without a gas mask:"
JJ:
Pollution is a different subject. CO2 is not a pollutant but a fertilizer and stimulates plant growth.
James:
"I understand that we disagree about who is generating propaganda and why. My underlying point is that those sounding the alarm have the community of climate scientists supporting them."
JJ:
Larry gave some great statistics refuting this. Here are some more:
"A survey of more than four hundred German, American, and Canadian climate researchers was reported in the UN Climate Change Bulletin in 1996. Only 10 percent of the researchers surveyed said they "strongly agree" with the statement: 'We can say for certain that global warming is a process already underway.' Close to half of the researchers surveyed-48 percent--said they didn't have faith in the forecasts of the global climate models, the only strong argument in favor of quick, decisive international action to counter a dangerous global warming.
"A 1997 survey of U.S. State Climatologists (the official climate monitors in each of the fifty states) found 90 percent agreeing that 'scientific evidence indicates variations in global temperature are likely to be naturally occurring and cyclical over very long periods of time.'"
"In 1998, more than 17,000 scientists signed the 'Oregon petition,' expressing doubt about man-made global warming and opposing the Kyoto Protocol. More than 2,600 of the signers of this anti-Kyoto petition have climate science credentials. The petition was hosted by the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine."
(Unstoppable Global Warming, Every 1,500 Years By S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery, Page 65-66)
James:
"Both sides are dealing with highly charged emotional issues, but its not correct to suggest that Gore's presentation was based exclusively, or even largely, on that:
"'The Associated Press contacted more than 100 climate researchers and questioned them about the film's veracity. All 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie said that Gore conveyed the science correctly...Real Climate, a group blog maintained by eleven climate scientists, lauded the film's science as 'remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research.' [15] Michael Shermer, scientific author and founder of The Skeptics Society, wrote in Scientific American that An Inconvenient Truth "shocked me out of my doubting stance".[16]'"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_inconvenient_truth#Scientific_basis)
JJ:
These 19 climate scientists must not have been too bright. I could see all kinds of flaws in his presentation and I'm not a climatologist. This quote expresses my sentiments:
"I am almost at a loss as to how to begin to address the series of errors, misleading science and unfounded speculation that appear in the former Vice President's film Here is what Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist from MIT has written about 'An Inconvenient Truth.' 'A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse.'"
(http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597)
Here are a few of his [Al Gore's] inaccuracies:
"He promoted the now debunked 'hockey stick' temperature chart in an attempt to prove man's overwhelming impact on the climate.
"He attempted to minimize the significance of Medieval Warm period and the Little Ice Age.
"He insisted on a link between increased hurricane activity and global warming that most sciences believe does not exist.
"He asserted that today's Arctic is experiencing unprecedented warmth while ignoring that temperatures in the 1930's were as warm or warmer.
"He claimed the Antarctic was warming and losing ice but failed to note, that is only true of a small region and the vast bulk has been cooling and gaining ice.
"He hyped unfounded fears that Greenland's ice is in danger of disappearing.
"He erroneously claimed that ice cap on Mt. Kilimanjaro is disappearing due to global warming, even while the region cools and researchers blame the ice loss on local land-use practices.
"He made assertions of massive future sea level rise that is way out side of any supposed scientific 'consensus' and is not supported in even the most alarmist literature.
"He incorrectly implied that a Peruvian glacier's retreat is due to global warming, while ignoring the fact that the region has been cooling since the 1930s and other glaciers in South America are advancing.
"He blamed global warming for water loss in Africa's Lake Chad, despite NASA scientists concluding that local population and grazing factors are the more likely culprits.
"He inaccurately claimed polar bears are drowning in significant numbers due to melting ice when in fact they are thriving.
"He completely failed to inform viewers that the 48 scientists who accused President Bush of distorting science were part of a political advocacy group set up to support Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004."
(http://epw.senate.gov/ Senate Floor Speech Delivered by James Inhofe, Monday, September 25, 2006)
James quoting JJ:
"This is typical of the proof offered by global warming alarmists which basically says that authorities agree therefore we must not think for ourselves, but blindly follow."
James:
"I think that the agreement of climate scientists about the nature and causes of global warming is strong evidence along these lines. The collection and evaluation of this evidence by climate scientists doesn't mean that one must accept their presentation blindly or in a religious fashion. Naturally, everyone should think for themselves."
JJ:
The only real agreement comes from those who are being paid or receiving grants and know that they are expected to produce results which indicate that humanity is the main culprit. When you survey scientists whose livelihood is not at stake you get an entirely different response.
James:
"Very few are in a position to directly verify most aspects of that communal accumulation that is science, especially in matters of a highly technical and global nature. And very few of us have the intellectual skills, education, time and motivation to even superficially assess what the sources say."
JJ:
I disagree here. I think most of the people on this list have more common sense and logic than the average research scientists working for the U.N. especially those who have sold their souls to keep their jobs.
Once the data is in anyone with a logical mind is able to interpret as well as the expert who has similar logical ability -- sometimes better because they are more free from the dogma.
James quoting JJ on the phrase "Global warming denier":
"If I have ever seen a piece of propaganda it is the use of this phrase. If Hitler or Goebbels were alive today they couldn't have produced any greater piece of emotional diatribe to promote their cause."
James:
"Because a subject has emotional impact does not mean that it is not also characterized by thought, science, reason, and objective assessment."
JJ:
There is no reason behind this outrageous phrase. None of the skeptics I know of are denying global warming so the phrase is outright wrong and inflammatory. Those who use such a phrase are those incapable of forming an intelligent sentence to articulate their real thoughts.
James:
"In recent years actual concentrations of carbon dioxide-a greenhouse gas linked to global warming-have followed almost exactly the projections of the 2001 IPCC report."
JJ:
You picked the one thing that can be easily predicted with reasonable accuracy. This is to be expected.
James:
"If anything, the IPCC may have underestimated some climate threats in 2001. For example, actual temperatures were at the high end of the predicted range. And sea levels have actually risen faster than predicted.
"'The real climate system is changing as fast or in some components even faster than expected by [the] IPCC,' Stefan Rahmstorf, an ocean physicist at Potsdam University in Germany..'"
(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070201-global-warming. html)
JJ:
Your link was bad but I found anther one similar to it. Here is a quote:
"Rahmstorf and his colleagues calculate that sea-level rise over the past 20 years has been 25 percent faster than for any other 20-year period for more than a century. But they accept that this could be due simply to natural variations over decadal timescales. 'Sea-level rise has been tracking along the uppermost limit for 16 years now, but it could still be decadal variability, so we don't predict that this will continue,' Rahmstorf says."
"Another study published last month suggests that sea-level rises during the twentieth century were indeed very variable. According to calculations by Simon Holgate of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool, UK, sea levels rose by an average of more than 2 millimeters per year in the first half of the century, but by less than 1.5 millimeters per year on average in the latter half.
"John Christy, a climate-change researcher at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, says the data do not span a meaningful length of time. 'You don't make climate judgments based on a 16-year period, and you don't do it in a 16-year period in which the largest volcano eruption in modern times occurred,' he says. The huge eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 spewed out a fog of dust that cooled the world until 1993. Temperatures then bounced back at a faster rate than would otherwise have occurred, he argues."
(http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=3113)
This makes sense. We had a surge in temperature and sea level rise due to normalization after the effects of Mount Pinatubo. Also recent recalculations by NASA show that 1998 was not the warmest year of the century but it was 1934.
James:
"Facts: It's not the sun ('According to PMOD at the World Radiation Center there has been no increase in solar irradiance since at least 1978 when satellite observations began. This means that for the last thirty years, while the temperature has been rising fastest, the sun has shown no trend.') and it's not a natural cycle (if it was, it would be incredibly slower than what we're seeing now and it would still need a cause)."
(http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/06/4_stages_denial.php)
JJ:
Here's a quote from "Science Daily," a little better source than "treehugger.com" who has an obvious agenda:
"Since the late 1970s, the amount of solar radiation the sun emits, during times of quiet sunspot activity, has increased by nearly .05 percent per decade, according to a NASA funded study."
(http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/03/030321075236.htm)
There are effects not only from solar irradiance, but also UV rays, magnetism, cosmic rays and their effect on clouds which effect warming. Some scientists think that a very small change in solar activity can produce an amplified effect in warming and cooling through the effect on clouds.
There has not been enough research made to produce a solid conclusion.
It is interesting that government funded scientists are all predicting a linear temperature increase over the next 100 years when such a thing has rarely occurred in the past. We have had several warming and cooling cycles in the past century. What will they think when we enter another cooling period? Some scientists think we will enter one around 2030.
Copyright © 2007 by JJ Dewey, All Rights Reserved