Science Features
What warming? Climate change slips among global priorities
Oct 13, 2008, 5:06 GMT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
...the global warming scare has so little real science to back it up, and the politicians know it.
We know for certain SP4 has nothing to back him up ,science has already ruled on this ,the only parameter that leads to disagrement is the speed at which it will happen.Things are bleak:the latet prognosis is that sea level might rise 6 meters within the next thirty years.Other bas new is the release of methane from seabeds and tundra;we are talking billions oftons of it,the effect of which is 20 times more potent than CO2 in terms of global warming .SP4 is just the best incentive available for the USA to spend more money on education.
more of this bad news from this same site.Tell me these are all lies SP4
www.monstersandcritics.com/science/news/article_1437561.php/Arctic_gets _red_report_card_for_record_melting_of_ice
Which part do you have trouble understanding ?
...these so called scientists are having their data dismembered by their peers. Apparantly, the leaders of the world are willing to entertain this nonsense until a real threat to their incumbancy comes along and drop it all at a moments notice.
That tells me a lot about what they really know...how about you?
Global warming may soon become such a problem that we might forget the finantial problems.
How much is a house worth when it's underwater and how much is a farm worth when it won't grow crops?
I would like to ask you - What part of record Arctic ice loss, what part of 97% of glaciers are melting, some very rapidly, what part of previously unknown massive releases of methane in Arctic regions, what part of the increasing ferocity of storms, what part of increasing desertification, what part of previously unknown insect infestations, ETC, ETC, ETC has not been scientifically proven?
What makes you think any of this is related to C02 content in the atmosphere? 30 years ago, they were predicting global cooling. Tell us, how, exactly, did THAT work out?
Thirty years ago they were right about global cooling, they discovered that the climate was like a bouncing ball bouncing down a slope. It had highpoints but the general trend was consistantly downhill. Co2 and now methane in the atmosphere have changed all that and now we are now in a global warming situation.
I was around at the time and remember well the conclusions. At the time South American and Norwegian glaciers were advancing. Scientific instuments can reach contravertial conclusions, glaciers never lie.
Gaiacomm International to develop Defeat IED technology for America
Gaiacomm International will develop Counter (defeat) IED technology for the US Military to be used in Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflict zones. This technology is currently classified because of its accurate nature of detection. When deployed it will be able to detect and disable any device in the ground, on person (suicide bombers), inside vehicle or building's within a determined range, also classified. Soldiers are dying thus, the emphasis on accurate detection. Other technologies currently in the field simply do not operate as planned, thus the need for Gaiacomm's technology.
Meanwhile the american voters have recognized the problem and warmed up to the response.Obama's plans will reduce carbon emissions to a fraction of the current by 2050 .All the lunatics such as SP4 are now off to the garbage bin of history,good ridance.Yhank you for electing Obama...
Anyway,who care a bout anything SP4 has to say;didn't he claim the US economy going through the roof a few months ago?Expect nothing from such source of wisdom.
GW is just one symptom of over-population. Same-sex sex only please at least for the next decade. No, wait. That won't work either. Let's just solve GW and see what happens next.
that SP4 guy is both ignorant and bragging about it
look at the ice core data - it shows that at no time ever in the history of our planet have we have CO2 levels even close to where they are now
it is not a natural cycle or occurance
it is only related to industrialization and overpopulation
you just cannot have a high quality of living for as many people as are on the planet
personally I think we are doomed because people still don't understand why they should have zero, one or two children and no more than that
there are too many very stupid people on this planet and they will keep breeding until the whole thing collapses rather than understanding the issues and making intelligent choices, like limiting family size
ShannonNov 19th, 2008 - 23:17:30
that SP4 guy is both ignorant and bragging about it
look at the ice core data - it shows that at no time ever in the history of our planet have we have CO2 levels even close to where they are now
SP4_ global warming has happened repeatedly for billions of years, and human C02 has only recently been present. Tell us Shannon, how do you reconcile this? Second, what makes you think ice cores are an accurate measure of C02 over time?
it is not a natural cycle or occurance
SP4 - and how do you arrive at this conclusion, given the questions above?
it is only related to industrialization and overpopulation
sp4 - again, professor Shannon, global warming and cooling has happened for billions of years, with man only contributing for the last 100 years....how do you square that little fact?
you just cannot have a high quality of living for as many people as are on the planet
SP4_ by what calculation do you arrive at such a conclusion? 25 years ago, these same climatologists were predicting global cooling....tell us Professor, what was the rationalization for THAT?
personally I think we are doomed because people still don't understand why they should have zero, one or two children and no more than that
SP4 - Really...?....perhaps you can tell us what effect more children have to do with global warming????
there are too many very stupid people on this planet and they will keep breeding until the whole thing collapses rather than understanding the issues and making intelligent choices, like limiting family size
SP4 - well, you and I certainly agree on the first premise! Now, Shannon, go ponder those niggly questions I posed and, by all means, get back to us.
This problem has already been solved.
An economic meltdown reduces human's impact on ice meltdown. It is the number one best way for an environmental solution.
Case closed. As long as humans don't get their nasty hands on free money they won't be able to feed their consumer and credit addiction and then manufacturing smoke stacks will stop billowing out pollution. They will stop taking plane vacations they can't afford (except for the president and CEOs of car manufacturers), and they will stop cutting down trees to make 2nd and 3rd houses, etc., etc., etc.
They will be forced, simply due to lack of money, to not be the plague on this planet they have proven to be.
..Tonny has all the carbon reduction he wants with the economy the way it is, Obama's proposed tax hikes, the Big Three going belly up.....heck, US power companies are seeing power sale reductions they think are permenant.
I guess we can all be happy, eh? I know I feel better. Pity about that 500,000 folks out of work though.
www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?MLC=/opinion/columnists/christopher_ booker&xml=/opinion/2008/11/16/do1610.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox
Amateur team finds NASA error similar to one they discovered a year ago.
NASA'S Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) is one of the world's primary sources for climate data. GISS issues regular updates on world temperatures based on their analysis of temperature readings from thousands of monitoring stations over the globe.
GISS’ most recent data release originally reported last October as being extraordinarily warm-- a full 0.78C above normal. This would have made it the warmest October on record; a huge increase over the previous month's data.
Those results set off alarm bells with Steve McIntyre and his gang of Baker Street irregulars at Climateaudit.org. They noted that NASA's data didn't agree at all with the satellite temperature record, which showed October to be very mild, continuing the same trend of slight cooling that has persisted since 1998. So they dug a little deeper.
McIntyre, the same man who found errors last year in GISS's US temperature record, quickly noted that most of the temperature increase was coming from Russia. A chart of world temperatures showed that in October, most of Russia, the largest nation on Earth, was not only registering hot, but literally off the scale. Yet anecdotal reports were suggesting that worldwide, October was actually slightly colder than normal. Could there be another error in GISS's data?
An alert reader on McIntyre's blog revealed that there was a very large problem. Looking at the actual readings from individual stations in Russia showed a curious anomaly. The locations had all been assigned the exact temperatures from a month earlier-- the much warmer month of September. Russia cools very rapidly in the fall months, so recycling the data from the earlier month had led to a massive temperature increase.
A few locations in Ireland were also found to be using September data.
Steve McIntyre informed GISS of the error by email. According to McIntyre, there was no response, but within 'about an hour', GISS pulled down the erroneous data, citing a 'mishap' and pointing the finger of blame upstream to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration (NOAA).
NOAA's Deputy Director of Communications, Scott Smullens, tells DailyTech that NOAA is responsible only for temperature readings in the US, not those in other nations.
The error not only affected October data, but due to the complex algorithm GISS uses to convert actual temperature readings into their output results, altered the previously published values for several other months as well. The values for August 2008, for instance, changed by 0.11C and the global anomaly as far back as 2005 increased by a hundredth of a degree.
GISS is run by Dr. James Hansen, a strident global warming advocate who has accused oil companies of 'crimes against humanity'. Hansen recently made headlines when he travelled to London to testify on behalf of a group of environmentalists who had damaged a coal plant in protest against global warming. Hansen also serves as science advisor to Al Gore.
Dr. Hansen could not be reached for comment.
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Scandinavian nation reverses trend, mirrors results in Alaska, elsewhere.
After years of decline, glaciers in Norway are again growing, reports the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE). The actual magnitude of the growth, which appears to have begun over the last two years, has not yet been quantified, says NVE Senior Engineer Hallgeir Elvehøy.
The flow rate of many glaciers has also declined. Glacier flow ultimately acts to reduce accumulation, as the ice moves to lower, warmer elevations.
The original trend had been fairly rapid decline since the year 2000.
The developments were originally reported by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK).
DailyTech has previously reported on the growth in Alaskan glaciers, reversing a 250-year trend of loss. Some glaciers in Canada, California, and New Zealand are also growing, as the result of both colder temperatures and increased snowfall.
Ed Josberger, a glaciologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, says the growth is 'a bit of an anomaly', but not to be unexpected.
Despite the recent growth, most glaciers in the nation are still smaller than they were in 1982. However, Elvehøy says that the glaciers were even smaller during the 'Medieval Warm Period' of the Viking Era, prior to around the year 1350.
Not all Norwegian glaciers appear to be affected, most notably those in the Jotenheimen region of Southern Norway.
..puts the myth in perspective.
Blame America . The world never changes because human beings never change . The crooks like my country Canada get away with massive pollution because the world loves to hate . Canada is by any measure a FAR MORE polluting country than ' America ' (look it up) but the world is so full of blind hate we forget how America has lead the world in pollution reduction and we ignore the indisputable facts (look it up) that ' America ' has been YEARS ahead of the rest of the world .
America has been on the cutting edge of environmental change for almost four decades. We put catylitic converters on cars long before Europe and the rest of the world. We hammered out basic pollution standards decades before the rest of the world.
America gets about 20 times the GDP output for a pound of coal versus China. We use petroeum more efficently, with less pollution, than most nations. In fact, unless the other powers of the world adopt the same stringint standards as us, the whole idea of c02 reduction is already over.
No, Sal, you got it right, and the foreigners just keep ignoring the facts.
It's easy to win an argument with yourself when you dismiss everybody else's opinion apart from your own.
..except for the fact that I do not dismiss everyone else's opinions. I only dismiss them when they are flawed.
from dailytech.com 1/1/2009:
Rapid growth spurt leaves amount of ice at levels seen 29 years ago.
Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.
Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.
The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.
Each year, millions of square kilometers of sea ice melt and refreeze. However, the mean ice anomaly -- defined as the seasonally-adjusted difference between the current value and the average from 1979-2000, varies much more slowly. That anomaly now stands at just under zero, a value identical to one recorded at the end of 1979, the year satellite record-keeping began.
Sea ice is floating and, unlike the massive ice sheets anchored to bedrock in Greenland and Antarctica, doesn't affect ocean levels. However, due to its transient nature, sea ice responds much faster to changes in temperature or precipitation and is therefore a useful barometer of changing conditions.
Earlier this year, predictions were rife that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008. Instead, the Arctic ice saw a substantial recovery. Bill Chapman, a researcher with the UIUC's Arctic Center, tells DailyTech this was due in part to colder temperatures in the region. Chapman says wind patterns have also been weaker this year. Strong winds can slow ice formation as well as forcing ice into warmer waters where it will melt.
Why were predictions so wrong? Researchers had expected the newer sea ice, which is thinner, to be less resilient and melt easier. Instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
In May, concerns over disappearing sea ice led the U.S. to officially list the polar bear a threatened species, over objections from experts who claimed the animal's numbers were increasing.
I have just been looking at some of this data that prooves beyond doubt that Arctic sea ice is begining to expand again.
It was data from august 08 and compared the amount of sea ice in august 07 and indeed there was more ice about. What it did not compare was the ice data from september just before the ice began to reform, if they had they would have clearly seen that the ice in 08 covered less area than it dod in 07.
Another little inconvenient factor is that seawater will not freeze until it reaches -1.8c. Melting ice causes the polar regions to become less salty and therefore prone to freeze at higher temperatures. The 900 cu km that melted from Greenland this summer must have been a major contributer. So when these people like SP4 tell you that Arctic ice is at record levels they are not telling the whole truth.
People look at all the cold weather we are having and claim that the world is getting cooler but any glacioogist will tell you that it is the amount of melt you get in the summer thac causes glaciers and ice shelfs to retreat, the amount of cold in the winter does not matter.
The whole truth is that climate is the most nonlinear phenomena in the world, and likely the universe. Climate ALWAYS changes, and there is no real way to model or predict it with any real laboratory accuracy..
The point above is that we've been told the earth is warming, yet we have glaring inconsistancies. We're told the sea is rising, but that the measurement's range of accuracy is higer than the actual number measured. We're told the Arctic ice is disappearing, then we find out it's almost completley replaced to a 1979 measurement, the first year satellite measurement started!
The whole truth???
The truth is that this global warming science is rationale-based, not hypothesis-based. The outcome is desired and the science is fitted to the outcome.
That is the whole truth, and progressively more and more scientists are hesitant to stake their reputations on it.
What is Al Gore going to do for a living now? He and Jimmy Carter both won the Nobel Peace Prize for things that just didn't pan out! The ice cap has grown two consecutive years in a row, and Israel is still having to kick all those woosies butts that live around them!
Seriously!
Latest report from National Snow and Ice Data Center (Jan 7 2009) -
'As the sun set in the Arctic with the advent of autumn, seasonal ice growth was initially quite rapid, but slowed during early November. Average ice extent in December was well below average and very close to that measured in 2007. Heading into 2009, the Arctic sea ice cover is again young and thin; given this set-up, a continuation of well-below-average sea ice extent in 2009 is a near certainty'
Note particularly that even if the area of ice increases slightly above 2007 figures (still a long way below the long term average), this ice is very thin. Even non-scientists must realise from this that the VOLUME is way down
Ice levels are where they were at 29 years ago, when satellite survys were first started. That being the case, all this ice-fright is exactly that.
Climate is ALWAYS changing. If ice is thick it will get thin, and vis versa otherwise there can be no change. This new religion is like the ancient astronomers who held the public ransom by telling them the moon would not move away from the sun in an eclipse unless they were paid to move it.
Also from the National Snow and Ice Data Ceter -
'Arctic sea ice in 2008 was notable for several reasons. The year continued the negative trend in summer sea ice extent, with the second-lowest summer minimum since record-keeping began in 1979. 2008 sea ice also showed well-below-average ice extents throughout the entire year.'
Meanwhile at the south pole satelite images clearly show meltater covering all ice shelfs both sides of the Antarctic peninsula and also the eastern Amery ice shelf.
With several weeks of melting left in the Antarctic summer this can only lead to the possible disintigration of more ice shelfs.
Of course many will argue that this has happened before and is a natural cycle ect but for me it's global warming.
SP4 has not tried 'The temperature that ice melts is changing' yet but it won't be long before that is the only excuse he has left.
...I do not propose causes, you do. I have never said that global warming may not be real, I just look for real science to prove it.
I look for hypothesis-driven science, and find none, and see only rationale-based science. Then I see the glaring inconsistancies of ocean level measurement and the glaring mistakes of NASA on thermal measurements, caught in the act of the most rudimentry errors, omissions on their sites, etc., and am skeptical, unlike yourself. I see provocateurs like Gore rebuilding his career on his evangelical traverses, and am sickened at how the scientific community has given up their place to these tent evangelists in their place.
I go to places like climateaudit.org to glean whatever real hypothesis-based science I can, and see the shortcominigs exposed, while the non-scientific community ignores them, using a media, driven by their own prejudices to perpetrate what is a hoax, no matter what the outcome may be.
No, Mr. Meltdown, I do my own thinking, thank you very much, and that thinking says to look for real peer-reviewed science. When you find some, like I have above, bring it.
Jan 09, 2009
‘Consensus’ in Freefall: Left-of-Center Scientists Now Rejecting Warming Fears
EPW Minority Blog Press Release
Senator Presents Groundbreaking Senate Minority Report of More Than 650 Scientists Dissenting from Climate Fears and Profiles Left of Center Scientists & Environmental Activists Who Are Now Skeptics.
U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, today delivered a global warming speech entitled: “Global Warming ?Consensus? in Freefall: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims.” Inhofe presented his ground breaking new global warming report detailing the More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims to Congress on the Senate Floor.
Inhofe also detailed the growing number of left of center scientists and environmental activists who are speaking out to reject man-made climate fears.
Selected Highlights of Inhofe’s Speech:
Inhofe: Many politically left-of-center scientists and environmental activists are now realizing that the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming is not holding up. The left-wing blog Huffington Post surprised many by featuring an article on January 3, 2008 by Harold Ambler, demanding an apology from Gore for promoting unfounded global warming fears. The Huffington Post article accused Gore of telling, “the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind,” because he claimed the science was settled on global warming. The Huffington Post article entitled “Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted” adds, “It is Mr. Gore and his brethren who are flat-Earthers,” not skeptics. Again, it is not Jim Inhofe saying this about Gore, it is the left-wing blog Huffington Post saying these things. The Huffington Post article continues, “Let us neither cripple our own economy by mislabeling carbon dioxide a pollutant nor discourage development in the Third World, where suffering continues unabated, day after day.”
Another left-of-center atmospheric scientist who has dissented on man-made climate fears is the UK?s Richard Courtney. Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant, is a self-described socialist who also happens to reject man-made climate fears. Joining Courtney are many other progressive environmentalist scientists:
Former Greenpeace member and Finnish Scientist Dr. Jarl R. Ahlbeck, a lecturer of environmental technology and a chemical engineer at Abo Akademi University in Finland who has authored 200 scientific publications, is also skeptical of man-made climate doom. Ahlbeck wrote in 2008, “Contrary to common belief, there has been no or little global warming since 1995 and this is shown by two completely independent datasets. But so far, real measurements give no ground for concern about a catastrophic future warming.”
Life-long liberal Democrat Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a retired Navy meteorologist with a PhD in physical chemistry, also declared his dissent of warming fears in 2008. “As a scientist and life-long liberal Democrat, I find the constant regurgitation of the anecdotal, fear mongering clap-trap about human-caused global warming to be a disservice to science,” Hertzberg wrote. Read Full Speech Section Here: Politically Left Scientists Now Rejecting Climate Fears.
3 million scientists/engineers in the USA alone and the opinion of a mere 650 is SP4's preference ! There's logic and understandig for you !
Scientific validation by the majority? Is that your understanding of what Science is supposed to represent, Fred? A pity you cannot run it by Copernicus, Huygens, Galileo, Newton, Eistein, or Hawking who waited decades for their theories, admonished by the 'majority', to be wrong at the time.
Be sure to get back to us as I am dying to quote you.
Yes, SP4, but you're in the sort of minority that still believes the Earth is flat.
Your 'illustrious 650' have been around for months in a campaign of self promotion for their blogs and web sites and trying to get their 'expertise' (which ranges from astrology to biology to body-building - all highly applicable to climate study !) recognised so they can earn some cash.
Go to -
Scientists Refute Argument Of Climate Skeptics
ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2009). [Prefix the following with the usual three w's dot to avoid being blocked on this site]sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090109115047.htm
Meanwhile that icon of your misguided thoughts and arch-enemy of global warming ExxonMobil has finally seen the light -
(news report 10/Jan/2009
The boss of ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company, has called for a carbon tax to tackle global warming, marking a volte-face by the firm once described by Greenpeace as Climate Criminal No 1. Assailed from all sides by scientists and a new cadre of US politicians, led by the President-elect, Barack Obama, the landmark concession by Rex Tillerson represents a nod to realpolitik after years when the company denied the existence of man-made global warming.
Exxon had already dropped its funding of lobby groups which deny the science of climate change and begun to take a softer public line, but even Mr Tillerson admitted that propounding a carbon tax had stuck in the craw until recently. However, with European-style 'cap and trade' rules governing carbon emissions moving up the agenda in the US, a carbon tax may be the least worst option, he said. Environmental groups gave a sceptical response to Exxon's U-turn, calling it a deliberate attempt to torpedo the movement for outright carbon caps and any early switch to alternative energy. 'A carbon tax is also the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisions � from investments made by companies to fuel their requirements, to the product choices made by consumers,' Mr Tillerson said in a speech to the Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars, a Washington think-tank. 'As a businessman it is hard to speak favourably about any new tax. But a carbon tax strikes me as a more direct, a more transparent and a more effective approach.'
The chief executive's comments are aimed at moving ExxonMobil decisively to the centre of the political debate about global warming in a year that will see world leaders meet in Copenhagen to establish a successor to the Kyoto treaty on climate change � something that threatens to fatally weaken the long-term prospects for oil companies who are refusing to invest in alternative energy, such as Exxon.
Last year, Exxon came under pressure from descendants of the oil magnate John D Rockefeller, who said it would go the way of the dinosaur unless it shifted positions on climate change. Use of its oil and gas output is estimated to dump 500 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year.
A 'cap and trade' system sets limits on carbon output and allows polluters to buy permits from companies which reduce their own emissions. The nascent system established in Europe was failing to lead to the reductions its proponents expected, Mr Tillerson said, and its extension into the US would create 'a new Wall Street' of brokers and speculators who would make long-term planning impossible.
By backing a carbon tax, the Exxon chairman has put himself in the unusual company of the former US vice-president Al Gore and Mr Obama's designated head of the National Economic Council, Larry Summers.
But Greenpeace � which has waged a multi-decade war against Exxon, its denial of man-made climate change and its secret funding of renegade scientists � warned Mr Tillerson's intervention was a smokescreen for its attempt to slow down the switch to alternative fuels. 'A carbon tax is a political poison pill,' said Kert Davies, a research director at Greenpeace. 'No politician in the US would propose something with the word tax in it. Being in favour of something makes Exxon look like it is being intellectual, but this threatens to derail the prevailing international discussion.'
Exxon argues that raising the cost of carbon-emitting fuels could change consumer behaviour and spur the entrepreneurship needed to boost solar, wind and other alternative power sources, but that these alternatives are not now sufficiently technologically advanced to meet the ambitious targets demanded of them. Separately, this week Mr Tillerson dismissed Mr Obama's proposed targets for alternative energy use, saying 'let's not kid ourselves'.
Under the previous chairman, Lee Raymond, Exxon took a belligerent approach to environmental protest, dismissing man-made climate change as a fantasy, and his $400m (�264m) retirement package in 2006 aroused major controversy. Greenpeace called him the Darth Vader of climate change.
Since his appointment, Mr Tillerson has largely sought to strike a more amenable public relations stance, stressing the work that Exxon has done to reduce emissions from its own operations and the new technologies it is selling to help businesses use fuel more efficiently.
It does not matter whether global warming is caused by man or nature because the chances that mankind will change his ways are zero.
I think it has been proven beyond any doubt that the Earths atmosphere is begining to warm up so the problem lies in how we are going to ajust to it.
It is only logical that if you see a glacier rapidly melting and retreating that it cannot go on foreaver and a time will come that it will no longer exist. You can then consider the implications of it's non-existance and they are extreemly serious an may cost the lives of several billion people.
Add to that crop failures caused by extra heat and rising sea levels and I think people have a right to be concerned.
What we don't need is people who deny that there is a problem and try to convince us that it is all a hoax.
Meltwater is now covering Larsen C ice shelf and a storm is due there on the 14th. Watch this space. Of course if the ice shelf disintigreates like several others there will be no scientific evedence will there - SP4 ?
..but none of it can be tied to global temperature rise. This is rationale-based science i.e. 'the world is heating up...see?' not 'Here is a theory, now how do we find evidence and replicate the results predictably and repeatedly?'.
In case after case, we find glaring mismeasurements, mis-stated data, fantasy-disco computer simulations, conclusions written by scientists not involved in data collecton, etc., etc. We have identifiable persecutions of polticians like Gore who benefit from this hype and who have fired reputable scientists, or the Governor of Oregon who sought to silence scientific opinion in order to advance this as fact. Now, we see more scientists every day, unwilling to hang their reputation on what is being presented as science, aware that they have already given up too much of their authority.
So ramble on about this glacier, or that measurement, then go out and find me some published, peer-reviewed text. Science is supposed to be about knowing and it does not matter whether it is six or 600.
From New Scientist May 2007 -
Climate change sceptics sometimes claim that many leading scientists question climate change.
Well, it all depends on what you mean by 'many' and 'leading'. For instance, in April 2006, 60 'leading scientists' signed a letter urging Canada's new prime minister to review his country's commitment to the Kyoto protocol.
This appears to be the biggest recent list of sceptics. Yet many, if not most, of the 60 signatories are not actively engaged in studying climate change: some are not scientists at all and at least 15 are retired.
Compare that with the dozens of statements on climate change from various scientific organisations around the world representing tens of thousands of scientists, the consensus position represented by the IPCC reports and the 11,000 signatories to a petition condemning the Bush administration's stance on climate science.
The fact is that there is an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community about global warming and its causes. There are some exceptions, but the number of sceptics is getting smaller rather than growing.
Even the position of perhaps the most respected sceptic, Richard Lindzen of MIT, is not that far off the mainstream: he does not deny it is happening but thinks future warming will not be nearly as great as most predict.
Of course, just because most scientists think something is true does not necessarily mean they are right. But the reason they think the way they do is because of the vast and growing body of evidence. A study in 2004 looked at the abstracts of nearly 1000 scientific papers containing the term 'global climate change' published in the previous decade. Not one rejected the consensus position. One critic promptly claimed this study was wrong - but later quietly withdrew the claim.
From New Scientist May 2007 -
Sp4: I imagine, after all, what happend to the old scientists?
Climate change sceptics sometimes claim that many leading scientists question climate change.
SP4 - Like, for instance, John R. Christy, director of Earth Science center at U of Alabama and co-repieint of the Nobel Prize.
Well, it all depends on what you mean by 'many' and 'leading'.
SP4 - Many...a relative term, find a scientist to explain it, Leading...see above under 'Christy'
For instance, in April 2006, 60 'leading scientists' signed a letter urging Canada's new prime minister to review his country's commitment to the Kyoto protocol.
SP4 - Leading, another relative term..by the way, who? It's an article. Can they not publish a few? What does that say to the authenticity of their research?
This appears to be the biggest recent list of sceptics. Yet many, if not most, of the 60 signatories are not actively engaged in studying climate change: some are not scientists at all and at least 15 are retired.
SP4 - of course. You do not have to be a climate scientist to object to their methods. You could be a computer modeler, a statitician, a meteorologist, etc. Also, what in the hell is wrong with a 'retired' scientist?
Compare that with the dozens of statements on climate change from various scientific organisations around the world representing tens of thousands of scientists, the consensus position represented by the IPCC reports and the 11,000 signatories to a petition condemning the Bush administration's stance on climate science.
SP4 - well, Sherlock, those 11,000 are not all scientists either. It's the IPCC, a body Christy says is tainted by bad science, etc.
The fact is that there is an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community
SP4 - There is no such thing as 'scientific' consensus.
...about global warming and its causes. There are some exceptions, but the number of sceptics is getting smaller rather than growing.
SP4 - Nonsense. None of these folks spoke out 10 years ago. Just the opposite is true.
Even the position of perhaps the most respected sceptic, Richard Lindzen of MIT, is not that far off the mainstream: he does not deny it is happening but thinks future warming will not be nearly as great as most predict.
SP4 - Then he shouls speak with his Collegue John R. Christy
Of course, just because most scientists think something is true does not necessarily mean they are right.
SP4 -Gee, ya think? Ask Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein and Hawking.
But the reason they think the way they do is because of the vast and growing body of evidence.
SP4 _ a body of evidence that is spotty at best.
A study in 2004 looked at the abstracts of nearly 1000 scientific papers containing the term 'global climate change' published in the previous decade.
SP4 - List of reasons for this:
1) only papers that agreed were looked at in the study
2)scientists who disagree are persecuted, not published, de-funded, etc.
3) dissenters were not asked to submit
Not one rejected the consensus position.
SP4 - see above, dildos
One critic promptly claimed this study was wrong - but later quietly withdrew the claim.
SP4 - probably was going to be defunded.
So, in other words, the chucklehead who wrote this, says John R. Christy is not a respected climate scientist, has never met a credible scientist who is dissenting from this position, and the position is sound because most folks agree with it, just like the church did on a flat earth in the 1500's, when Galileo said it was not.
Newsflash: The Church knew the earth was round. They just did not want anyone else to know.
Whats that tell you Sherlock???
This is the stupidest article I have ever heard of. This really must be from people who call themselves 'The New Scientist'! Boy, is that ever the correct name!
Please tell me you have something more than this total lack of reason.
According to SP4 the mere fact that 97% of the worlds glaciers are in retreat does not matter because in his mind this has not been 'scientifically proven' and only a small amount of glaciers have been studied properly?
He also concludes that all the evidence for global warming is 'rational based' and not proven? I wonder how far things have to go before he [or she] realises that there is somthing happening? I suppose we will have to wait for the flooding of Manhatten or New Orleans before he takes notice.
PS Sorry New Orleans has already happened, I forgot.
SP4's rant just shows his continuing ignorance and inability to understand numbers. 97% is (in his view) bigger than 3% - just like he believes the American economy is booming, the automobile makers are producing wonderful fuel efficient models that everybody wants and have absolutely no problem with debt, George Bush was the best President ever and can do no wrong, the Republicans are no more racist than the Nazi party, America saved Europe in both World Wars (even though they turned up rather late), America always wins its own wars like Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Americans are welcomed as tourists everywhere in the World because they are so self effacing, quiet, always learn the language of the country visited and never tell any non-American how 'wonderful it is is back home', etc etc.. and of course, Global Warming isn't happening because his refrigerator is still cold inside. Totally delusional
typo in the above - is (in his view) should read ISN'T (in his view
Daily Tech.com
Researchers debate each other in new study; most disagree greenhouse gases are the cause.
The Japanese Society of Energy and Resources (JSER) published a new study on the causes of Global Warming. Entitled, 'Global warming: What is the scientific truth?”, the report highlights the differing views of five prominent Japanese scientists.
All but one of the scientists disagreed that global warming is the result of human activity.
Contributing to the report were Syunichi Akasofu, professor emeritus at the University of Alaska, and former director of the Fairbanks Geophysical Institute and the International Arctic Research Center, Shigenori Maruyama, professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Kiminori Itoh, professor of Physical Chemistry at Yokohama National University, Seita Emori, head of the National Institute for Environmental Sciences, and Kanya Kusano, director of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC).
While all the researchers agreed with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) statement that 'warming of the climate system is unequivocal', four of the five disagreed with the claim that the primary cause of the increase was due to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. The only researcher to agree with the IPCC's assertion was Emori, who is himself a member of the IPCC.
Akasofu countered with the statement, 'CO2 emissions have been increasing, but the rise in air temperature stopped around 2001. Climate change is due in large part to naturally occurring oscillations'. Akasofu says the earth's warming trend began prior to the industrial age, and believes much of the warming seen may simply be a natural recovery from the so-called Little Ice Age, that ended in the 17th century.
Professor Itoh attacked the temperature record itself, saying 'Data taken by the U.S. is inadequate. We only have satellite data of global temperatures from 1979 onwards'. Itoh, who has previously called global warming 'the worst scientific scandal in history', is also an expert reviewer for the IPCC.
Dr. Kasano believes that cosmic rays, which are modulated by cycles in the strength of the sun's magnetic fields, may potentially have large-scale impacts on the earth's climate.
The report includes the data in which the researchers base their arguments, and can be publicly viewed (in Japanese) on the Internet.
..after the posts above, is that science is doing exactly what it is supposed to, question and review what are theories and not fact. The article above only serves to further prove that many repsected scientists have real reservations and that this pseudoscience is being dissected correctly.
So quick, run back to your glaciers, or be at Obama's inaguration, but be sure to take a coat, because Barak does not hand them out at the door and it sure as hell ain't global warm in D.C. this week!
Flooding of New Orleans????
The goddamn city was built below sea level. It's made dry ARTIFICALLY!
it was flooded by a class v hurricane
dikes broke in Holland 200 years ago too. Was that from global warming?
Is this your idea of global warming sicence?
Do you notice how desparate libnazis are to sell this before someone, like the above, start disputing it? They are pushing this faster than Al Gore's G4 can push kerosene into the engines on takeoff.
If you wish to view dispassionate climate science at work, go to climateaudit.org and read. Read about how these heat maps have glaring deficiencies spotted in them and impune the rest of the data. Read how ocean measurements are exceeded by the error range, making them virtually useless. Most of all read how these scientists lose the power of speech when asked for their data, or specifics on their calculations, which should be available but are held back.
The real world of science is a whole lot of folks taking every liberty with fact they can get away with. It's careerists giving up their ethics for power and position. It's politicians using their powers to stifle debate.
...it sure as hell ain't global warm in D.C. this week!
So, it is Winter. So what ? That is weather. If you want to draw some spurious conclusion about Climate change by looking at Weather in a minor part of a small (5%) of the Earth's surface then that shows the vacuity of your thinking.
Why not draw conclusions from Africa - temperatures between 25 and 38 Centigrade or Australia up to 40 degrees ? Or even California, dry and hot. But that is also just Weather.
Global Warming trends are a totally different ball game of which you clearly have no understanding
If data is required on global warming look at glaciers, sea ice, ice shelfs, woods, deserts, storms and sea levels for your information and not scientifis instruments and charts.
..that is your problem: rationale-based science. It is almost a half a step past the biblical 'i see a sign' but it is not what we call real science. None of your vaunted methods tie c02 to global climate change. Unfortunately, none of the other scientific methods do either and they count on folks like you, and disingenuous dildos like Gore, to perpetuate the myth.
This is why real scientists are now backing off, because if they go down this path, their reputations are in jepardy. Old apparatachicks like Hanson and Gore cling to this because they full well know they'll retire before the verdict is in.
We've seen this before, with Huygens, Galileao and Einstein: the intelligista questions their conclusions but lack the the backround to truely make an argument. The authority, in their case the church, counts on the ignorance of the masses to go along. The only difference is Gore has his own church-of-the-divine-libnazi to rely on whoa re actually more ignorant, with him as Pope.
SP4 - the sort of data you ought to be stdying -
Averaging together antarctic and arctic sea ice hides an important truth
From the blog:
Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Since my last post designating arctic sea ice loss as the top climate story of 2008, I've heard a lot comments like this one: 'Jeff, you just can't seem to understand the that man-made global warming is a fable and complete hoax. In all that blathering about the falsified IPCC reports and the study of the arctic ice sheet, you somehow neglected to mention that the ice recovered not only what it lost last year, but is now larger than the previous known record measured in 1978'.
Well, I can understand this point of view, given complexity of the climate change issue, and the large amount of conflicting information one sees in the media. Let's look at the facts about global sea ice. You can look at the data yourself at the excellent University of Illinois Cryosphere Today web site. Reliable sea ice records go back to 1979, when satellite measurements began. Antarctic sea ice reached its greatest extent on record during the winter of 2007. Summertime ice coverage also increased in 2007-2008 compared to 2006 levels . However, there is high variability in antarctic sea ice from winter to summer, and antarctic sea ice can best be described as having stayed constant since 1979 (as stated in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC did find that there had been a significant decline in arctic sea ice, in all seasons, between 1979-2006. Despite this decline, there have been three periods during the past two years when the sum of the arctic and antarctic sea ice was the same or even higher than it was at the start of the satellite era (1979). An article published January 1 on Daily Tech noted that 'global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago'. This was pretty close to the truth on December 31, 2008, despite the fact that arctic ice was 1 million km^2 below 1979 levels, since antarctic ice was 0.5 million km^2 above 1979 levels. Although arctic sea ice extent has steadily declined since 1979, especially in summer, this decline is not as great during the winter months. One can find periods in winter when summing together antarctic and arctic sea ice area makes it appear that arctic sea ice loss is no big deal.
However, this is the wrong way to look at the issue. We don't care much about global sea ice in winter. We care about arctic sea ice in the summer. Sharp declines in summertime arctic ice are likely to cause significant and damaging alterations to Earth's climate. Cleverly quoting irrelevant facts about global wintertime sea ice data to hide the summertime loss of arctic sea ice is a tremendous disservice. It's like hiding the potential impact of a major hurricane in a one-week forecast by saying, 'the average peak wind speed for the next seven days will be 17 mph', and neglecting to mention that the wind will be calm six of those days, but 120 mph on the other day. The loss of arctic sea ice the past two summers, is, in my view, the most important human-caused climate change event yet--even more significant and dangerous than the opening of the antarctic ozone hole in the 1980s. It's great that we're not seeing loss of sea ice in Antarctica. But, both the Antarctic and the Arctic can be thought of as important internal organs in our living Earth. The fact that the Antarctic has not undergone significant warming and sea ice loss in no way diminishes the urgency with which climate scientists view the diseased state of our Arctic. Fully 88 presentations on arctic sea ice were made last month at the world's largest scientific climate change conference, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco. None of these scientists averaged together the arctic and antarctic sea ice together to show that the overall state of Earth's cryosphere was a healthy one. There was widespread concern for the health of the Arctic among all the scientists I spoke with, and none of the speakers at the talks I attended expressed the idea that the recent melting of arctic sea ice was predominantly natural, with human-caused climate change an insignificant factor. One view (Stroeve et al., 2007) is that human-emitted greenhouse gases are responsible for 47-57% of the arctic sea ice loss since 1979. Heat-absorbing black soot from fires and pollution settling on the white ice is thought to also be a significant contributor.
Antarctic sea ice area as observed via satellite since 1978. The maximum area in winter has ranged between 14-16 million square kilometers, about the same amount of ocean that the Arctic ice covers in winter. However, the antarctic sea ice almost entirely melts away in summer, something the Arctic sea ice does not do (yet). Antarctica is a huge continent that rises thousands of feet above the ocean. It holds about 90% of the world's fresh water, locked up in its massive ice cap. The presence of such a titanic block of ice at the bottom of the world completely dominates the weather and climate of the region, and the year-to-year fluctuations of sea ice don't have a lot of impact on temperatures there.
What is the current state of Antarctic climate?
At the December 2008 AGU meeting, scientists gave Antarctica a mixed bill of health. Isabella Velicogna of UC Irvine reported that satellite gravitational variation measurements of Antarctica's ice cap showed significant loss of ice between 2002-2008, but that the large natural variations in melting with the seasons made it difficult to be confident of the results. A somewhat different result was reported by J. Zwally of NASA. Using data from a higher-resolution satellite-borne laser altimeter, he found that there was no major loss of Antarctica's ice sheet between 2003-2007. Regardless of which data set is correct, Antarctica is in better shape than the Arctic because Antarctica has stayed relatively cool in recent decades . For example, the surface temperature at the South Pole cooled 0.05° C between 1980 and 1999 (Kwok and Comiso, 2002). The majority of Antarctica has shown no statistically significant warming over the past 50 years (Turner et al., 2005), and cooling has just been dominant between 1982-2004. In the period 2004-2007, much of the Antarctic warmed , but it is too early to say if this is the beginning of a warming trend. Check out the January 22 issue of Nature when new results about whether or not Antarctica is warming will be published.
Why did Antarctica cool between 1982 and 2004 if there was global warming going on?
The weather of the Antarctic is dominated by a strong band of westerly winds that blow around the pole. This circumpolar vortex extends from the surface to the stratosphere, and can attain very high wind speeds, thanks to the absence of large land masses to slow it down. This vortex tends to isolate Antarctica from the rest of the globe, keeping global warming from influencing Antarctica's weather, and allowing the surface to cool. The Antarctic Peninsula, which sticks out from Antarctica towards South America, frequently lies outside the vortex. This has allowed the peninsula to warm significantly, compared to the rest of Antarctica . The antarctic circumpolar vortex has strengthened in the past 25-30 years, forming an even stronger barrier than usual. Tree ring records (Jones and Widman, 2004) suggest that the circumpolar vortex has shown similar strengthening in the past, so the current cooling trend in Antarctica may be natural.
Another possibility, favored by climate modelers, is that the strengthening of the circumpolar vortex and recent cooling in Antarctica are primarily due to a combination of the recent increase in greenhouse gases and the opening of the Antarctic ozone hole. The ozone hole opened up at about the same time as the recent cooling began. Ozone absorbs UV radiation which heats the atmosphere around it, so the absence of ozone has led to cooling in the stratosphere over Antarctica. This cooling has been about 10° C in October-November since 1985 (Thompson and Solomon, 2002). This has acted to intensify the circumpolar vortex, leading to surface cooling. If the climate modelers are right, the circumpolar vortex will weaken as the ozone hole diminishes in coming decades. This will allow the Antarctic to begin warming with the rest of the globe, in a decade or two.
...if it had a single, solitiary tie to c02 as a warming agent. No matter what you say about ice, forests, the ocean, weather......the cost of coffee in Brazil, the irish, mood swings, the Loch Ness monster the theory of Atlantis or angels on the head of a pin, all of the above still does not point to c02 driven global warming, only a change in the ice, whichis constantly changing anyway.
I think you just don't understand hypothesis-based science.
I am sure that somebody somewhere has measured the amount of radiation that is absorbed by different gasses when it passes through the different gasses that make up the earths atmosphere.
It seems very negligent if they have not.
They need to do it even if it is just to keep SP4 quiet.
Perhaps someone could write a thesis and, perhaps, that observation might even be useful in proving something. That, in my mind, would be positively refreshing, for a change.
The ability of CO2 to absorb radiation and cause global warming was first realised around 1820. Later in the 19th century measurements of this for CO2 and other greenhouse gases were derived and refinements have taken place throughout the 20th century.
SP4, of course, has a mental capacity and understanding of science that still resides in the 16th century level of witchcraft and sorcery, so he wouldn't understand these 'recent' developments
..no scientific experiment or observation exists to prove that c02 is driving climate change. No proof for that hypothesis exists that can be demonstrated in a laboratory. No climate model, especially climate models, no study, no temp data, no satellite data, no ice sheet data, ocean measurements, consesus of opinions, Al Gore's wet dreams, Dr. Hanson's lies, firing dissenting scientists, or wishing of any kind proves anything of the sort no matter how much you jerk off to it daily.
That being the case, making any connection with those methods make it rationalale-based science, not hypothesis-driven science. This is why more and more real scientists like John R. Christy head of Earth sciences at the University of Alabama are digging their heals in.
I guess, Mike, going back to the 16th century is your job, not mine. Go ahead, those folks could teach you a thing or two about hypothesis-based science.
Yes - I looked up John Christies' biography. An excerpt -
While he now acknowledges that global warming is real and the human contribution is significant, Christy has been a long-time skeptic who previously argued that satellite climate data do not show a trend toward global warming, and even show cooling in some areas. His findings have been widely disputed. Christy now asserts that global warming will have beneficial effects on the planet and that increased CO2 emissions from human activities are a net positive.
First sentence seems at odds with your interpretation ?
..you've learned another important fact about scientists: They change their views, frequently. John's problem is that none of that addresses his original points, so he has even more explaining to do now. He needs to do this by using science and not conjecture. Now, to widen your experience, go to climateaudit.org and read there. In case after case, he has caught what is billed as acceptable science, being flawed, where the peer system has not. This, to me Mike, speaks volumes as to the real quality of the science being conducted worldwide.
Make note here that I do believe in climate change, because climate is always changing on earth, Mike. Nonetheless, no one, including Mr. Christy, has a clue as to what role c02 levels play, as he plainly stated in his Wall Street Journal Op ed, but a whole lot of theories. If you wish to believe the earth is warming due to man made c02, that is fine with me, but call it dogma, not science.
Antarctica is an interesting place. Sea ice there may indeed be at record levels but that is a 'red herring'. The reason Antarctica alarms some people is because it has the potential for rapid changes.
The massive Antarctic glaciers are very wide and discharge their ice directly into the sea making them prone to sea temperature changes. Greenland is unlike Antarctica because it's glaciers are comparatively narrow and the discharge of ice is limited.
The interior of Antarctica is also below sea level with only a mountainous fringe around the edge.
When scientists monitor the air temperature in Antarctica they are looking at the wrong thing, they should be looking at the sea temperatures and this seems to be the reason for the recent ice shelf disintigrations.
Also they should look at the rain in Antarctica. Rain can destroy snow and ice much more eficiently than the sun and it does rain in Antarctica, it never used to.
Another little point is that when ice shelfs disintigrate they increase the amount of ice that is in contact with the surrounding water and this has a temporary cooling affect and this is one of the contributing factors to an increase in floating ice. But it is what is happening under the ice that matters.
Google 'NASA Climate Time Machine' and look at the illustrations - then be very worried
'It is my turn to cringe, when I hear the overstated confidence from those who describe the projected evolution of global weather patterns over the next 100 years, when I consider how difficult it is to accurately predict that systems behavior over the next five days' - John R. Christy Director of Earth Sciences U of A and Co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel peace prize
Would this be the same NASA caught fudging climate data? The same NASA that was shown, by amateur scientists, to have flubbed basic statistical calculations on temperature data? Honestly, it is a disgrace.
I don't scare easy Jim, neither should you. What I'd like to see is some real science here, some real nut-cutting peer review, some Hypothesis-based science, not someone's biased, weight-faulty runaway modeling jerk-a-thon.
SP4 - it would be helpful if you looked at the item before letting your mouth flap open in your usual knee jerk reaction
Only one of the 4 NASA visuals is a projection or a model - the rest represent data and events which have already taken place.
You have a point...but so do I. The progenators of that information have an outcome-based, rationale-driven motivation, not a hypothesis-driven motivation.
I just finished looking at three separately made temperature maps of the world, and not one of them matches. Now I only looked at the North American continents, but it was utterly bewildering how three entities arrived at three different conclusions, place-by-place. Now, do not get me wrong, I do believe climate is changing...because it ALWAYS is changing! The earth has warmed and cooled for billions of years, indicating to me that other factors, not related to man's activity, are at work. Now ask yourself this, Jim: if they cannot all agree, why would I think that some model they push is supposed to be THE one?
Then we catch NASA and other entities pulling data, hiding or restricting data, that should be available for peer review. We catch journals refusing data to peers for review. We catch others fudging data for their own ends, and none of this is considered by a press that does not use a scientist to write these articles, or presents the peers point of views in the same piece. None of this, of course makes anyone right or worng, but it neither informs us or furthers the truth.
Besides, Jim, why worry? We cannot do anything, you or I, to affect this in any way. Perhaps government can, and I have real doubts about science after watching a century of science getting it wrong on Eugenics, Nuclear Power, medicine (Thalamyde, etc.,) species management,(Lobotomy) (the spotted owl)forest management(N. America) global cooling, (remember that one, Jim?), DMSO as a treatment for Cancer and numerous others that fade into the backround after the progenators get the political mileage they were looking for and have retired.
My problem, Jim, is that I cannot forget these other things and the total sham some of them were. Now, we are shown the sketchiest of science, none of which can be conclusively proven, and we are told we must spend trillions to right these wrongs. I, for instance, wonder about the deforestation of the Brazilian heartlands, and other places as affecting this, or solar activity. These do not get much press, because they do not serve the luddite, anti fossil fuel lobby's ends, and I am curious as to why they are ignored so often. Habitat destruction is far more responsible for species destruction than any climate change. Pollution of the oceans has me concerned as well, but think of the press you never get on that, either.
So if you want to look at this and draw your own conlusions, which could be conceivably right, that is fine with me, but do not think for a moment that they always represent science-driven logic.
It's overpopulation and overdevelopment that is fueling our self-destruction. The planet cannot support this many people. Building more homes just increases demand for beef and energy, both of which are destroying the planet because they both increase greenhouse gases.
Have you noticed that the governor of California is NOT trying to regulate methane from cows? It is such BS literally and figuratively.
Stop subsidizing developers and cattle ranchers and meat production and corporate crooks.
Stop the overdevelopment now. Please use more birth control before we all die. The trees in the Pacific NW are all dying from rising temperatures and that is what is causing all these massive fires.
We are self-destructing.
Do not subsidize housing. Let prices be for real and maybe people will catch a clue. Maybe.
..even though this was trotted out 40 years ago and so far, none of the predictions ever came true. In fact, more people were lifted out of poverty than at any time in history.
Sensible solutions are the solution.
Thank you for those comments Amy, global warming concerns me but the biggest threat to the Earth is overpopulation. SP4 was correct that this was all thrashed out 40 years ago but then civilisation was saved by 'wonder high yielding' crops. But we are now facing a new threat and that is that the topsoil is becoming degraded and yields are falling. New areas of cultivation are becoming increasingly rare and can only be exploited at the expense of deforestation.
There are no new 'wonder crops' and GM will not help.
The Earth's population increases by about 70million each year and crop production is not keeping pace. There are only 63 days of grain left in the world when crops are harvested and one of the first victims of global warming will be crop production due to exessive heat and rain, both results of global warming.
Mr Meltdown
Global Warming Is Highly Beneficial
According to a scientific report given at the International Conference on Climate Change last month, anthropogenic global warming is not only not bad for the earth, it's actually extremely beneficial, and more is needed!by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
It didn't get any attention in the media, but there was a highly significant presentation made last month. According to the ICCC, David Archibald, the presenter, is a scientist (and entrepreneur) operating in the field of cancer research, climate science and oil exploration. His presentation made some startling points about the truth regarding global warming.
First and foremost, the greens refuse to understand that global warming is directly caused by the sun. That should be patently obvious to everyone, but apparently it isn't obvious to the greens. This isn't just sad; it turns out it's the basis for a potential global calamity (but not the one the greens want us to believe in). According to Archibald, green global warming fanatics are 100% diametrically wrong. The data shows that the Earth is actually getting colder, and that this trend is likely to accelerate. It also shows that carbon dioxide's warming effect is minimal at best. Most startling of all is his point that global warming increases agricultural production, and this is where things get interesting , because if Archibald is correct, we're in for some really bad times starting in about 20 years or so.
It turns out that as the earth cools, agricultural production declines. It's almost a perfect correlation. Archibald says that the peak in warming was reached in 1998, and that since then there has been a 0.06 degrees per year in temperature. Further, this will likely accelerate to about 0.2 degrees per year by 2009. Says Archibald:
'The carbon dioxide that Mankind will put into the atmosphere over the next few hundred years will offset a couple of millenia of post-Holocene Optimum cooling before we plunge into the next ice age. There are no deleterious consequences of higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are wholly beneficial.'
Among other things, he is urging that we increase our burn rate of coal here in the United States to help continue the warming, because we apparently need all the warming we can get. He also gives a backhanded compliment to the greenies:
We have to be thankful to the anthropogenic global warming proponents for one thing. If it weren’t for them and their voodoo science, climate science wouldn’t have attracted the attention of non-climate scientists, and we would be sleepwalking into the rather disruptive cooling that is coming next decade. We have a few years to prepare for that in terms of agricultural production.
It remains to be seen what the final verdict on global warming will be, but I'm glad to see that there's a little bit of sanity being introduced into the subject.
...this was all said 30 years ago, too. we were at 46 days of food for the world, at the time. In fact, famine was more prevelent in the 1960's than it is now.
Like global warming, liberals run to the easiest thing to believe when they get frightened and they are frightened all of the time.
As usual SP you have been rather selective with your facts. It's true that in the 60's and early 70's there was more starvation in the world than what there is now but if we were growing tha same variety of crops that we were in the 60's and 70's there would be mass starvation thruout the world.
New wonder crops saved the world but now we are in the same situation that we were in the 60's and there are no new wonder crops and no new lands to plough. Probably the worst problem is that the worlds topsoil is becoming less fertile and the aquifers that feed it are begining to dry up.
Since the millenium the worlds food reserved have dwindled and global warming will make things worse.
Many people believe that global warming has stopped and the world is becoming cooler but the worlds glaciers, ice shelfs and deserts do not know this yet, they think that we still have global warming.
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