The fit will hit the shan

[Cliff]

Looks like its over.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Leaked-Emails-Fuel-Climate-Change-Firestorm-68725.html?wlc=1259018178 (http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Leaked-Emails-Fuel-Climate-Change-Firestorm-68725.html?wlc=1259018178)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125883405294859215.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_wor ld (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125883405294859215.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_wor ld)

Or is it? There is still money to be made and power to grab.

[swampfox]

It's a BS story. The concerns are very real. The evidence can be seen. The final conclusions are not known.

A good analogy would be Russian roulette (a true thing, by the way, engaged in by high Russian military officers even in Czarist times, and it goes on today after MUCH vodka). With one bullet in a six-shot revolver you have an 80+% chance of coming out all right, but what if you don't? Better not to play.

[Captain Worley]

No, the power grab will continue. The GW folks will say it is all made up.

I still say we have big brains. We'll adapt. I'm not worried about GW. there are a lot more things we could do that would do more for humanity in the long run.

[General Jack Ripper]

I couldn't help but notice, but I don't believe any of the big three networks reported this tonight.

Is this going to be like the ACORN story... ?

[Cliff]

Looks like it huh?

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p47/KE4MIV/BarackNBC.jpg

[Captain Worley]

I couldn't help but notice, but I don't believe any of the big three networks reported this tonight.

Is this going to be like the ACORN story... ?

I did see a quick reference to it on, I think, ABC.

But, pretty much it has been swept under the carpet because it makes the Al Gore/GW crowd look mighty darn bad. there's some really incendiary stuff there that could provide news fodder for quite a time to come. Personally, if this GW stuff just slinks away, never to be seen again, I'd be a happy boy.

Interesting, but long...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html

[BAD HaBiT]

Interesting, but long...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html

Indeed very interesting!

[Cliff]

As expected, attack the messenger.
Never mind that they destroyed data or made up their own data.
Nail the guy that exposed them.

Lots of interesting stuff in Google news.


A slew of hacked E-mail snippets are rolling around the Internet. Posted earlier this month, the E-mails were swiped from a server at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and contain exchanges between several top climate scientists discussing, among other things, how to make their data appear more impressive for publication. Not surprisingly, climate change skeptics, ever on the lookout for a good story, are holding up the E-mails as support for their claims that climate science is being cooked.


He adds: "Having said this, I can only state that such a debate (about the IPCC) should not be prompted by a criminal act, breaching the constitutional rights of individual scientists."



For the world's economy, of course, trillions of dollars are now at stake in pursuit of emissions reductions based on the flawed science that these leaked emails have helped lay bare. For the rest of the world too, the stakes are too high to treat this as just another academic spat.

[anti-babble]

How will we ever complete the shift in power from the evil producers to the other parts of the world and punish those that fueled the industrial revolution and modern civilization if we can not protect the myth of global warming and use it as a guise to reshape the world in favor of the non producers of the world?

[swampfox]

The email "leaks" story is pure BS. Of course you can find some scientists who have different interpretations (and a lot more who will say anything on behalf of who funds their work) but the general concensus based on growing tons of evidence is that the planet is getting warmer. But isn't the real issue whose fault it is? I would concentrate on that. (Words to the wise: You'd look pretty silly standing in a lake and insisting that it's still frozen.)

Also of course, we know that the climate of the Earth changes due to natural cycles, some short, some long. The real problem with this one is that we may be around for it, or at least our kids might. (We raise hell over leaving a debt for the next generation, but we're against being careful that they have a livable planet?) The last really big warming (as in deadly) was millions of years ago so there were no humans around to experience it. Now, particularly with hyper-overpopulation, it will not be pretty.

(By the way, the last big cooling (as in deadly) was about 25,000 years ago, but there were not an awful lot of people on the Earth then so they just stayed away from the glaciers.)

I mean, if it really was volcanos and cow farts would it ever have become a political issue? Of course not. And even when it's over nobody will ever know for sure who was right. The essence here is that some people see caution as an important value, and some do not. And of course there are many vested interests putting gigantic amounts of money into buying politicians and into convincing you that pollution is not such a bad thing. I remember when there was not much disagreement about that. I wonder what changed. Actually I know what changed, and so do you all.

It's been kind of fun watching the posse (now with their own badge) patting themselves on the head lately without making pointless attempts at countering even the silliest parts of it. I should point out that I created the Lexington Posse, so technically I get to decide who gets to be a member.

One day you'll come crawling back to me, "We were wrong, and you were right! Lead us!", you'll say, and I'll say "Depart, for I know you not." Just wait.

[BAD HaBiT]

It's been kind of fun watching the posse (now with their own badge) patting themselves on the head lately without making pointless attempts at countering even the silliest parts of it. I should point out that I created the Lexington Posse, so technically I get to decide who gets to be a member.

One day you'll come crawling back to me, "We were wrong, and you were right! Lead us!", you'll say, and I'll say "Depart, for I know you not." Just wait.

Given your political veiws its clear to see why.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17183

Is it because you don't moderate anymore that you have so much bitterness?
It seems like you crave attention in being known as the all knowing wise one. :roll:

Its ok if you know me not, I mean heck im just a yout.


(Words to the wise: You'd look pretty silly standing in a lake and insisting that it's still frozen.)
Irony was the Global Warming Convention being cancelled due to heavy snow in Washington 2 years ago.

[Captain Worley]

I'm glad to see all this GW BS being exposed for the fabrication it is. Yeah, the Earth's climate changes, but our impact is minimal. Cooked computer models can show anything you want.

The thing is, as I've pointed out numerous times, we will adapt to whatever changes, if any, come. The hand wringing and panic inducement is nothing more than politics. Also, if the planet IS warming, that is a good thing overall. More cultivatable land, and longer growing seasons. Plus, a lot more folks die from cold than die from the heat.

Let's turn our attention from things we can't do a dang thing about to those we can. Disease erradication and cheap water purifying equipment will save much more lives thanb 'green energy' ever could.

[Captain Worley]

And of course there are many vested interests putting gigantic amounts of money into buying politicians and into convincing you that pollution is not such a bad thing.


Never in my life did I ever epect to hear reasonable people call CO2 pollution.

[swampfox]

Excess CO2 is indeed pollution. It is one of the most significant greenhouse gases. It is one of the reasons that the surface of Venus is about 900 degrees. It can be proven in a lab.

It is too simple to say that the excess CO2 is because of over-industrialization. We wouldn't have the over-industrialization if we were not hyper-overpopulated. I don't know what you do about that, but we should do whatever we can in other areas.

(The global population is expected to double again, to 12-13 billion, by about 2050, but it may be sooner than that. After that a decline is expected due to depleted resources.)

This conspiracy story with the email "leaks" is just ridiculous.

[Captain Worley]

Water vapor is far, far more significant than CO2.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

And, yeah, overpopulation is much more of a problem, but you can't grab power by decreasing your number of potential constituents.

Of course, we'll adapt to that, too. i recall in the 70s reading articles that we'd be out of food in twenty years. Didn't happen.

Scary scenarios sell. The future has always turned out to be nowhere near as exciting as it was predicted to be.

[swampfox]

But population science, like other sciences, have gotten a whole lot better since 1970. The whole purpose of science is to be able to predict outcomes so that every effort is not a shot in the dark. This has been true since our hunter-gatherer ancestors were improving their stone weapon points based on observation and experience. Predictions are more reliable than they once were, but not perfect.

[Captain Worley]

Guess we'll know in fifty years one way or the other.

The predictions are really funny when you think about it, in hindsight. You remember when the dolts who didn't predict the economic woes were predicting $7 gas in the summer of 2008?

[JDidGirl]

It's been kind of fun watching the posse (now with their own badge) patting themselves on the head lately without making pointless attempts at countering even the silliest parts of it. I should point out that I created the Lexington Posse, so technically I get to decide who gets to be a member.

One day you'll come crawling back to me, "We were wrong, and you were right! Lead us!", you'll say, and I'll say "Depart, for I know you not." Just wait.

What tickles me is when someone has to been over backwards to pat themselves on the back because no one else will do it for them anymore.

[Cliff]

We were all supposed to be freezing by 1995, what happened to that?


The whole purpose of science is to be able to predict outcomes so that every effort is not a shot in the dark.

And if that doesn't work~cook the books.
Oh, and get rid of the real records.

[General Jack Ripper]

How will we ever complete the shift in power from the evil producers to the other parts of the world and punish those that fueled the industrial revolution and modern civilization if we can not protect the myth of global warming and use it as a guise to reshape the world in favor of the non producers of the world?

Dude... You nailed it!

[swampfox]

What tickles me is when someone has to been over backwards to pat themselves on the back because no one else will do it for them anymore.

Does tickling make you giggle?

[JDidGirl]

Does tickling make you giggle?

It may start off as the giggles, but then it just ends up making me want to slap someone. It can go either way really.

[Captain Worley]

A scientist who is one of the central figures in the controversy over hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit announced Tuesday (http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/homepagenews/CRUupdate) that he is stepping down while the university investigates the incident.

Climate skeptics have seized on several e-mails from Phil Jones, director of the university's Climatic Research Unit, to other researchers as evidence that prominent scientists have sought to silence their voice in the debate over global warming. The e-mails were pirated and posted online last month.


More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/01/AR2009120102737_pf.html

[Captain Worley]

The Penn State administration plans to investigate Climategate and determine if it needs to take further action, the Daily Collegian reports (http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2009/11/30/psu_investigates_climategate.aspx). A little more than a week ago, E-mails exchanged among an English university's climate change researchers were illegally obtained from a server and posted online, the report says.

Climate change opponents say the E-mails indicate that climate change researchers—including Penn State Prof. Michael Mann—exaggerated or fabricated global warming data. And, according to the report, some E-mails indicate that the director of the research unit in question may have contacted researchers and asked them to "delete certain E-mails."


More: http://www.usnews.com/blogs/paper-trail/2009/11/30/penn-state-will-investigate-climategate.html

[swampfox]

It may start off as the giggles, but then it just ends up making me want to slap someone. It can go either way really.

I would examine these feelings and try to get at their roots.

[JDidGirl]

I would examine these feelings and try to get at their roots.

No need... I know exactly where the roots begin, but thanks for the concern!;-)

[Captain Worley]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html



Last year, ExxonMobil donated $7 million to a grab-bag of public policy institutes, including the Aspen Institute, the Asia Society and Transparency International. It also gave a combined $125,000 to the Heritage Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis, two conservative think tanks that have offered dissenting views on what until recently was called—without irony—the climate change "consensus."


To read some of the press accounts of these gifts—amounting to about 0.00027% of Exxon's 2008 profits of $45 billion—you might think you'd hit upon the scandal of the age. But thanks to what now goes by the name of climategate, it turns out the real scandal lies elsewhere.


Climategate, as readers of these pages know, concerns some of the world's leading climate scientists working in tandem to block freedom of information requests, blackball dissenting scientists, manipulate the peer-review process, and obscure, destroy or massage inconvenient temperature data—facts that were laid bare by last week's disclosure of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, or CRU.


But the deeper question is why the scientists behaved this way to begin with, especially since the science behind man-made global warming is said to be firmly settled. To answer the question, it helps to turn the alarmists' follow-the-money methods right back at them.


Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents hacked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he'd been awarded in the 1990s.

Why did the money pour in so quickly? Because the climate alarm kept ringing so loudly: The louder the alarm, the greater the sums. And who better to ring it than people like Mr. Jones, one of its likeliest beneficiaries?


Thus, the European Commission's most recent appropriation for climate research comes to nearly $3 billion, and that's not counting funds from the EU's member governments. In the U.S., the House intends to spend $1.3 billion on NASA's climate efforts, $400 million on NOAA's, and another $300 million for the National Science Foundation. The states also have a piece of the action, with California—apparently not feeling bankrupt enough—devoting $600 million to their own climate initiative. In Australia, alarmists have their own Department of Climate Change at their funding disposal.


And all this is only a fraction of the $94 billion that HSBC Bank estimates has been spent globally this year on what it calls "green stimulus"—largely ethanol and other alternative energy schemes—of the kind from which Al Gore and his partners at Kleiner Perkins hope to profit handsomely.


Supply, as we know, creates its own demand. So for every additional billion in government-funded grants (or the tens of millions supplied by foundations like the Pew Charitable Trusts), universities, research institutes, advocacy groups and their various spin-offs and dependents have emerged from the woodwork to receive them.

Today these groups form a kind of ecosystem of their own. They include not just old standbys like the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, but also Ozone Action, Clean Air Cool Planet, Americans for Equitable Climate Change Solutions, the Alternative Energy Resources Association, the California Climate Action Registry and so on and on. All of them have been on the receiving end of climate change-related funding, so all of them must believe in the reality (and catastrophic imminence) of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.


None of these outfits is per se corrupt, in the sense that the monies they get are spent on something other than their intended purposes. But they depend on an inherently corrupting premise, namely that the hypothesis on which their livelihood depends has in fact been proved. Absent that proof, everything they represent—including the thousands of jobs they provide—vanishes. This is what's known as a vested interest, and vested interests are an enemy of sound science.


Which brings us back to the climategate scientists, the keepers of the keys to the global warming cathedral. In one of the more telling disclosures from last week, a computer programmer writes of the CRU's temperature database: "I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seems to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. . . . Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight. . . . We can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!"


This is not the sound of settled science, but of a cracking empirical foundation. And however many billion-dollar edifices may be built on it, sooner or later it is bound to crumble.

[Captain Worley]

Here are some of the emails....

http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2009/11/rolo-compressor-de-verdades.html

[Captain Worley]

The publication of private e-mails from researchers at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at Britain's East Anglia University, which raised questions about whether scientists had distorted or scrubbed data on global warming, "could scarcely be more damaging," in the words of English environmental writer George Monbiot. But it was only one in a series of troubling indicators that skepticism about global warming is on the rise. A survey released in October by the Pew Research Center found that the number of Americans who believed there is solid evidence that the world is warming had dropped from 71% in April 2008 to 57% in October 2009; over the same period, the percentage who believed climate change is a very serious problem had dropped from 44% to 35%.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1929071_1929070_1945175,00.html#ixzz0YkPPZ NPW (http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1929071_1929070_1945175,00.html#ixzz0YkPPZ NPW)

[General Jack Ripper]

Climate change or no climate change, man-induced or non-human causes, it all makes interesting debate. As for myself, I can't interpret the data because I don't have the education. I'll wager I'd score higher on a test about quantum physics than a test on global meteorological trends and prediction.

I do know that numbers, especially numbers representing measurements, can be compiled and interpreted in many, many ways. Twain's "lies, dam lies, and statistics" can be brought into the 21th century by substituting "and data". Computers aid in these multi-angled viewpoints. As computing power grows, so does the ability to add billions of "statistics" to the model and thus increasing the possibility of varied potential outcomes.

The bottom line, as we've discussed elsewhere and here, is there are too many people. If the climate is warming, no matter the cause, that problem will take care of itself. Not in some apocalyptic meteor crash or super volcano, but in five or ten generations. Some people will survive; most won't.

The earth may change, as it has done dozens of times. Some species survive and some are gone, their time passed. All things come to an end. Why do we believe the human race is any different.

[BAD HaBiT]

Imagine!
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c8a_1259996586

[Captain Worley]

Interesting editorial: http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/03/climate-science-gore-intelligent-technology-sutton.html

Many of you are too young to remember, but in 1975 our government pushed "the coming ice age."

Random House dutifully printed "THE WEATHER CONSPIRACY … coming of the New Ice Age." This may be the only book ever written by 18 authors. All 18 lived just a short sled ride from Washington, D.C. Newsweek fell in line and did a cover issue warning us of global cooling on April 28, 1975. And The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1976, reported "many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age."

OK, you say, that's media. But what did our rational scientists say?
In 1974, the National Science Board announced: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end…leading into the next ice age."

You can't blame these scientists for sucking up to the fed's mantra du jour. Scientists live off grants. Remember how Galileo recanted his preaching about the earth revolving around the sun? He, of course, was about to be barbecued by his leaders. Today's scientists merely lose their cash flow. Threats work.

In 2002 I stood in a room of the Smithsonian. One entire wall charted the cooling of our globe over the last 60 million years. This was no straight line. The curve had two steep dips followed by leveling. There were no significant warming periods. Smithsonian scientists inscribed it across some 20 feet of plaster, with timelines.

Last year, I went back. That fresco is painted over. The same curve hides behind smoked glass, shrunk to three feet but showing the same cooling trend. Hey, why should the Smithsonian put its tax-free status at risk? If the politicians decide to whip up public fear in a different direction, get with it, oh ye subsidized servants. Downplay that embarrassing old chart and maybe nobody will notice.

Sorry, I noticed.

It's the job of elected officials to whip up panic. They then get re-elected. Their supporters fall in line.

Al Gore thought he might ride his global warming crusade back toward the White House. If you saw his movie, which opened showing cattle on his farm, you start to understand how shallow this is. The United Nations says that cattle, farting and belching methane, create more global warming than all the SUVs in the world. Even more laughably, Al and his camera crew flew first class for that film, consuming 50% more jet fuel per seat-mile than coach fliers, while his Tennessee mansion sucks as much carbon as 20 average homes.

His PR folks say he's "carbon neutral" due to some trades. I'm unsure of how that works, but, maybe there's a tribe in the Sudan that cannot have a campfire for the next hundred years to cover Al's energy gluttony. I'm just not sophisticated enough to know how that stuff works. But I do understand he flies a private jet when the camera crew is gone.

The fall of Saigon in the '70s may have distracted the shrill pronouncements about the imminent ice age. Science's prediction of "A full-blown, 10,000 year ice age," came from its March 1, 1975 issue. The Christian Science Monitor observed that armadillos were retreating south from Nebraska to escape the "global cooling" in its Aug. 27, 1974 issue.
That armadillo caveat seems reminiscent of today's tales of polar bears drowning due to glaciers disappearing.

While scientists march to the drumbeat of grant money, at least trees don't lie. Their growth rings show what's happened no matter which philosophy is in power. Tree rings show a mini ice age in Europe about the time Stradivarius crafted his violins. Chilled Alpine Spruce gave him tighter wood so the instruments sang with a new purity. But England had to give up the wines that the Romans cultivated while our globe cooled, switching from grapes to colder weather grains and learning to take comfort with beer, whisky and ales.

Yet many centuries earlier, during a global warming, Greenland was green. And so it stayed and was settled by Vikings for generations until global cooling came along. Leif Ericsson even made it to Newfoundland. His shallow draft boats, perfect for sailing and rowing up rivers to conquer villages, wouldn't have stood a chance against a baby iceberg.

Those sustained temperature swings, all before the evil economic benefits of oil consumption, suggest there are factors at work besides humans.

Today, as I peck out these words, the weather channel is broadcasting views of a freakish and early snow falling on Dallas. The Iowa state extension service reports that the record corn crop expected this year will have unusually large kernels, thanks to "relatively cool August and September temperatures." And on Jan. 16, 2007, NPR went politically incorrect, briefly, by reporting that "An unusually harsh winter frost, the worst in 20 years, killed much of the California citrus, avocados and flower crops."

To be fair, those reports are short-term swings. But the longer term changes are no more compelling, unless you include the ice ages, and then, perhaps, the panic attempts of the 1970s were right. Is it possible that if we put more CO2 in the air, we'd forestall the next ice age?

I can ask "outrageous" questions like that because I'm not dependent upon government money for my livelihood. From the witch doctors of old to the elected officials today, scaring the bejesus out of the populace maintains their status.

Sadly, the public just learned that our scientific community hid data and censored critics. Maybe the feds should drop this crusade and focus on our health care crisis. They should, of course, ignore the life insurance statistics that show every class of American and both genders are living longer than ever. That's another inconvenient fact.

Gary Sutton is co-founder of Teledesic and has been CEO of several other companies, including Knight Protective Industries and @Backup.

[BAD HaBiT]

Well Put article.


The key point is that of the Grants. I pretty much sum's it up for me.

[swampfox]

These are scientific questions, but it is absolutely pointless to try to have a scientific discussion about them because if the conclusions don't suit the political "climate" their sources will be completely discounted, often with insufficient knowledge to do so.

Nobody knows all the answers, but for this to be a political issue at all is thoroughly ridiculous. The fact that it snowed in Dalllas one day, for example, doesn't mean squat. And when we find out who perpetrated the hoax about the "leaked" emails it won't mean squat either. People will believe whatever makes them the most comfortable right this minute. That's always been true and always will be. It took the church 500 years to apologize to the bones of Galileo for discovering that the Earth orbits around the Sun.

I just wish that the folks who, without knowledge, completely discount the whole idea of global warming would not be the ones whining the loudest about what kind of debt that we might leave our children and grandchildren. It is the comfort of these folks, and not the best interests of their descendents, that is really the controlling issue here.

[Cliff]

These are scientific questions, but it is absolutely pointless to try to have a scientific discussion about them because if the conclusions don't suit the political "climate" their sources will be completely discounted, often with insufficient knowledge to do so.
I'll agree with that.


Nobody knows all the answers, but for this to be a political issue at all is thoroughly ridiculous. The fact that it snowed in Dalllas one day, for example, doesn't mean squat.
I agree with that also.


And when we find out who perpetrated the hoax about the "leaked" emails it won't mean squat either.
I don't think any hoax was perpetrated.


People will believe whatever makes them the most comfortable right this minute. That's always been true and always will be.

Again, I can agree. But some people don't accept everything without question.
I believe you were a science teacher, if I had been one of your students I think you would say I stood out.
So, you and I know too much about many things to overlook the flaws and misinformation.

[swampfox]

The "leaked emails" thing was just too perfect, and even if there were some it does not invalidate the research of many many thousands of scientists around the world. It is a purely political factor, and therefore meaningless.

I have to wonder, why exactly do you think no hoax was perpetrated?

[swampfox]

I meant the question to be in scientific terms.

[BAD HaBiT]

Great Essay (http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/Climate_Change_Science.html#Lead) on the sun vs Co2.



Every Climatologist will tell you the Earth's temperature has been much hotter and colder than it is now.

There was an Ice Age and it warmed up, there was a Mini Ice Age just 500 years ago and it has been warming up ever since. The Industrial Revolution was not around during those periods.

NASA reports because of Solar Flares the Sun is the hottest it has been in over 100 years. There are no cars on the sun.

Global warming is causing ice to melt on Mars. There are no cars on Mars.

Thousands and thousands of studies and experiments prove that more carbon dioxide produces better fruits, vegetables, trees and almost any sort of plant life.

Most of the temperature increase happened before 1940 (Before most carbon dioxide was released by cars and factories)

The hot year of 1998 was caused by El Nino.

Joining the Kyoto Protocol would cost the U.S. approximately $400 Billion every year and would have virtually no effect on earths temperature.

April 28, 1975 Newsweek printed an article about scientists predicting doom and gloom because of Global Cooling.

Global Warming Lies and many millions of other people who don't believe global warming is man made have never received money from any oil company.

Climate models do not take into account water vapor that is 95% of the atmosphere.



There are six billion people on Earth, a colder climate and/or less carbon dioxide would have devastating effects worldwide.

[Cliff]

I don't think the hacking of those emails or the disclosure of the contents was a hoax.
In light of the reactions it would seem quite the opposite.
If anything, the manipulation and/or destruction of data invalidated legitimate work in the field.
What will happen if a real threat comes up? Remember the story of the boy that cried wolf.

[BAD HaBiT]

Some great stuff on Cspan right now about these emails.

[swampfox]

Where did you get this crap, BH?

There have been a number of "real" ice ages. The last one in which the whole planet froze was hundreds of millions of years ago. The most recent, in which the glaciers covered most of the land on Earth was about 25,000 years ago. These are natural cycles.

There have also been many "little ice ages", the last one ending about 1850. These did not come with massive glaciation, but much cooler temperatures. (There were also others in the mid 1700s and mid 1600s, but not during the 1900s or 1500s.) Those three caused especially northern Euro countries to have to change the crops that they depended on, but there weren't a whole lot of people so it worked out. The Industrial Revolution was well underway in 1850.

The Sun has not changed average temperature. During the last several years there have been more and bigger solar flares, which are much hotter than the rest of the Sun, but the average temperature has not changed since we've known how to measure it. The line about the cars is cute, but don't let anybody be misled by it. The Sun, unlike the Earth and the other planets, is a star and produces its own heat. The heat inside the Earth is mostly left over from the time when the whole planet was molten. The temperature of the surface of the Earth is almost entirely a function of the atmosphere and how much of the Sun's heat it is able to hold. Mars, which you incorrectly state has no cars, has very little atmosphere and can hold almost no heat, so it's hot during the day and extremely cold at night, just like on our Moon. Venus has a very dense atmosphere which holds a LOT of heat. It is about 900 degrees F on the surface. The few spacecraft that have landed on Venus only lasted a very short time, which was expected, just long enough to send back some data before the heat destroyed them. Interestingly, Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, always has the same side turned toward the Sun, much like our Moon always has the same side turned toward Earth. On Mercury it is scorching hot on the Sun side and very cold on the other side, all the time. Mercury has very little atmosphere, if any.

There are two "cars" on Mars that we put there several years ago. We only recently learned for sure that there was any water at all on Mars, so there is no evidence about any ice melting. In Mars' low atmospheric pressure ice would probably not go through a liquid phase anyway, but would rather go straight from ice to vapor if the heat were increasing (a process called sublimation, which is what dry ice does).

Plants do indeed need carbon dioxide (CO2) in order to carry out photosynthesis and feed themselves and us, but they need just a certain amount, the amount in the atmosphere that they evolved in. No more, no less. Adding CO2 does not make them grow faster or bigger.

The 1990s was the hottest decade on record in a very long time. The one that we're in now may top it. No way to know yet. But it is true and measurable that glaciers, including at the poles, are melting rapidly. More and bigger icebergs are breaking off and the sea ice is a small fraction in thickness of what it was in the 50s and 60s when we started sending nuclear submarines up there. We nearly had an ice-free period in the Arctic Ocean last summer. Could very well happen next summer. Never been known to happen in history. Likewise, land-based glaciers are melting back rapidly. These are things that can be looked at and measured, and they are true.

El Nino (a current of warm water in the Pacific that moves from west to east) can have a huge effect on the weather in North America in any given year depending on how big it is and its exact location. It is not yet easy to predict: the patterns are not obvious so far.

Earth's atmosphere is about 76% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, a couple of percent CO2 and the rest trace gases, such as neon, argon, etc. The warmer it is the more water it can hold, but it rarely exceeds 1%. You may be confused by the percentages given for "relative humidity" on the weather report. This is a ratio of how much water vapor is in the air to how much it could hold if it contained all that it possibly could hold. If the atmosphere was 95% water we would be swimming, not breathing. And unless they were created by incompetents, climate models certainly do take the water content of the atmosphere into account. They would be useless otherwise. Climate (forget the debate for a minute) is mostly a function of two things; temperature and humidity. Everything else is secondary.

It's interesting how many people who know little or no science have "beliefs" about what is essentially a complicated scientific subject. In other words, it has become a political issue, which is ridiculous. I understand most of the science related to the issue because I studied and taught it for so many years, but I know when I'm unqualified to challenge people who know more about a given subject than I do. I have gotten into arguments with doctors, for example, when I knew what I was talking about, but most of the time I don't know enough to challenge what they tell me. If I did I wouldn't be paying them for their advice.

These people you refer to may not be getting funded by oil companies or other industries, but the politicians they support sure are. ALL of them. They are also heavily funded by the health-care industry, pharmaceutical industry, and insurance industries. Could this have anything to do with the current politicization of the health-care debate? I think it does.

As for Newsweek, scientists today are able to learn things a lot more accurately and completely than they could in 1975. It is often said, and is true, that scientific knowledge has increased more in the last ten years than in the previous several thousand years.

What you posted is a perfect example of somebody having been fed an incredible line of BS and choosing to believe it. It is a choice, not a studied conclusion. That is why this whole debate over global warming and so many other issues is absurd. I encourage everybody to study and learn about whatever they choose, but if they choose not to they should be smart enough not to challenge those who did. That's true with science, buying cars, building houses, fixing plumbing, pretty much everything. That's why we have economies with "division of labor", one of the biggest developments in the history of humankind. We're starting to go backwards.

[Cliff]

Plants do indeed need carbon dioxide (CO2) in order to carry out photosynthesis and feed themselves and us, but they need just a certain amount, the amount in the atmosphere that they evolved in. No more, no less. Adding CO2 does not make them grow faster or bigger.

I dissagree~
We know plants require carbon dioxide to conduct photosynthesis. Greenhouses of large size must enrich their atmospheres with additional CO2 to sustain plant life and growth. A drop in carbon dioxide concentration in a greenhouse compartment would kill green plants, or completely stop their growth.
At very high concentrations carbon dioxide can be toxic to animal life, so raising the concentration by 1% or higher for several hours will kill pests such as whiteflies and spider mites and drive out stuff like mice in the greenhouse.
They have found that additional CO2 promotes crop growth even in fields.



by Tom Kuennen


It's a Fact: Plants Flourish Under Higher Carbon Dioxide Levels

Here's something to think about next time you mow your lawn: Elevated levels of carbon dioxide enhance plant growth.
What once was a commonplace high school biology teaching has become a news item from coast to coast: From endangered rain forests in the Amazon Basin to the prairies of the Great Plains, elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will help plants grow more vigorously, resist disease better, and even better utilize water.
An avalanche of scientific literature buttresses what we know about how enhanced concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) boost plant yields. Enriched CO2 levels in the air greatly enhance growth and water use efficiency in almost all the world's vegetation.
What's exciting is how these enhanced CO2 levels -- the result of the
combustion of fossil fuels for low-cost electricity and transportation -- will accelerate plant science and farm productivity, mitigate hunger, increase personal incomes and enhance the greening of America.
The facts are irrefutable:
o In The Netherlands, researchers at the Glasshouse Climate &
Technology Research Station for Floriculture & Glasshouse Vegetables grow vegetables such as cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, squash, lettuce and radishes at two to four times the atmospheric CO2 level, that is, between 700 to 1,400 parts per million (ppm).
"The results of growing at elevated CO2 levels are more rapid growth, earlier maturity, larger fruit size, greater weight, and a greater total yield of about 25 percent," said the station's chief, Gustaaf Anton van den Berg.
o At the University of Florida, elevated CO2 levels are stimulating rice growth and grain yield by factors of 30 to 40 percent. "We get increased carbon uptake through photosynthesis," said Dr. Jeffrey Baker, of the UF Agronomy Department. "We also get a decline in total water use, and all this translates into an increase in grain yield."
o Higher CO2 levels have greatly increased the growth of cotton crops, reports Dr. Bruce Kimball, Water Conservation Laboratory, U.S. Department of Agriculture. "We found that in enriching the crop to about 550 parts per million -- which is 200 parts per million above our control plots -- that the growth is increased by about 40 percent more."
There's no doubt that carbon dioxide levels now are higher in our
atmosphere now than in the recent past. Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide appear have risen from 272 parts per million (ppm) from 1700 A.D., as postulated from ice cores, to 348 ppm in 1998.
This is proportional to the increase in world population, from 0.5 billion in 1770 to 5.1 billion in 1998. This rise in carbon dioxide is due partly to accelerated human activity, but also comes from natural sources. More recently, carbon dioxide levels have risen from 300 ppm to 360 ppm in this century.
Due probably to volcanic and oceanic releases, CO2 concentrations in distant prehistoric eras were vastly higher than today's levels. These include the great carboniferous periods -- some 250 million to 365 million years ago -- when lush forests absorbed the CO2 from the air, and fixed the carbon in their biomass, later to be recycled in our era as coal and petroleum.
Global warming advocates state that today's increase in carbon dioxide levels will lead to ecological disaster, including wild swings in weather patterns, desertification, spread of hot-climate infectious diseases, and greater risks of severe, damaging weather.
They maintain that higher concentrations of CO2 and other "greenhouse gases" will more efficiently trap solar heat in the atmosphere, and they attempt to prove their theory using climate change computer modeling.
But real-world conditions are complicating the climate change
prognosticators and throwing computer forecasting models into error. For example, the degree of rise of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere is slowing from earlier estimates, due in part because the CO2 is being locked up in the plant biomass through accelerated plant growth.
Also, other unpredictable or overlooked elements such as cloud cover, water vapor (comprising some 96 percent of all greenhouse gases), heat transport and sunspot cycles throw monkey wrenches into climate change predictions. To date, not a single computer model has predicted any current condition with any degree of accuracy, nor has there been any statistical evidence for a warming planet.
But we do know two things: That CO2 levels in the atmosphere are
increasing, and that higher CO2 levels enhance plant growth. And that alone should be enough to make Mother Earth smile.


http://www.expresswaysonline.com/expwys/greening_earth.html

[swampfox]

Nature is perfect by definition. When we start messing with it (at least for the thousands of years since we took ourselves out of the food chain), no single act has only one consequence. If it gets to the point where we can grow grapes in Greenland the people near the equator will have probably been very unhappy for a while.

Again, it's overpopulation. It forces us to take more care to make sure we don't screw things up.

[BAD HaBiT]

Where did you get this crap, BH?
It being crap is just your opinion.


There have been a number of "real" ice ages. The last one in which the whole planet froze was hundreds of millions of years ago. The most recent, in which the glaciers covered most of the land on Earth was about 25,000 years ago. These are natural cycles.
I agree they are natural cycles.



There have also been many "little ice ages", the last one ending about 1850. These did not come with massive glaciation, but much cooler temperatures. (There were also others in the mid 1700s and mid 1600s, but not during the 1900s or 1500s.) Those three caused especially northern Euro countries to have to change the crops that they depended on, but there weren't a whole lot of people so it worked out. The Industrial Revolution was well underway in 1850.

The scientists contend that after the die-off, massive reforestation on abandoned agricultural land occurred on a large enough scale to contribute significantly to the period of global cooling between 1500 and 1750 known as the "Little Ice Age."

The period of time covered by the Industrial Revolution varies with different historians. Eric Hobsbawm held that it 'broke out' in Britain in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s, while T. S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830.




The Sun has not changed average temperature. During the last several years there have been more and bigger solar flares, which are much hotter than the rest of the Sun, but the average temperature has not changed since we've known how to measure it. The line about the cars is cute, but don't let anybody be misled by it. The Sun, unlike the Earth and the other planets, is a star and produces its own heat. The heat inside the Earth is mostly left over from the time when the whole planet was molten. The temperature of the surface of the Earth is almost entirely a function of the atmosphere and how much of the Sun's heat it is able to hold. Mars, which you incorrectly state has no cars, has very little atmosphere and can hold almost no heat, so it's hot during the day and extremely cold at night, just like on our Moon. Venus has a very dense atmosphere which holds a LOT of heat. It is about 900 degrees F on the surface. The few spacecraft that have landed on Venus only lasted a very short time, which was expected, just long enough to send back some data before the heat destroyed them. Interestingly, Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, always has the same side turned toward the Sun, much like our Moon always has the same side turned toward Earth. On Mercury it is scorching hot on the Sun side and very cold on the other side, all the time. Mercury has very little atmosphere, if any.
So why does the tempature increases match those years of higher sunspots? Its undeniable evidence.


There are two "cars" on Mars that we put there several years ago. We only recently learned for sure that there was any water at all on Mars, so there is no evidence about any ice melting. In Mars' low atmospheric pressure ice would probably not go through a liquid phase anyway, but would rather go straight from ice to vapor if the heat were increasing (a process called sublimation, which is what dry ice does). Really? Then why in 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html


Plants do indeed need carbon dioxide (CO2) in order to carry out photosynthesis and feed themselves and us, but they need just a certain amount, the amount in the atmosphere that they evolved in. No more, no less. Adding CO2 does not make them grow faster or bigger. Ive seen numerous studies that prove otherwise.
It has been proven time and time again throughout experiments.
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001938.html


The 1990s was the hottest decade on record in a very long time. The one that we're in now may top it. No way to know yet. But it is true and measurable that glaciers, including at the poles, are melting rapidly. More and bigger icebergs are breaking off and the sea ice is a small fraction in thickness of what it was in the 50s and 60s when we started sending nuclear submarines up there. We nearly had an ice-free period in the Arctic Ocean last summer. Could very well happen next summer. Never been known to happen in history. Likewise, land-based glaciers are melting back rapidly. These are things that can be looked at and measured, and they are true.
Um your feeding into the whole GW pandemic. In recent years Glaciers have been growing.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091019122838.htm

http://abc.gov.au/science/articles/2005/10/21/1485573.htm?site=science&topic=latest

http://www.cdapress.com/articles/2009/05/11/columns/columns06.prt

And sometimes its faulty equipment
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aIe9swvOqwIY




El Nino (a current of warm water in the Pacific that moves from west to east) can have a huge effect on the weather in North America in any given year depending on how big it is and its exact location. It is not yet easy to predict: the patterns are not obvious so far. Still it led to one of the warmest years on record. And we are getting better at predicting it by monitoring SST (Sea Surface Tempatures)
Recent technological advances have made it possible to monitor, diagnose, and predict El Niño and La Niña events in near-real time. Some of the major technologies used are:

Satellites provide data on tropical rainfall, wind, and ocean temperature patterns, as well as changes in conditions for hurricane formation.
Ocean buoys help to monitor sea-surface and upper ocean temperatures.
Radiosondes help to monitor global weather and climate patterns, and to monitor and predict El Niño and La Niña influences on U.S. weather. High-density surface data network helps to monitor and predict El Niño and La Niña influences on U.S. weather.
Super computers are used to gather all of the weather data around the world and put it into useful formats used by scientists. They also run sophisticated computer models to help scientists better understand and predict El Niño and La Niña.
An entire suite of diagnostic and prediction tools run on high-speed computers that allow El Niño and La Niña to be monitored in near-real time.

Earth's atmosphere is about 76% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, a couple of percent CO2 and the rest trace gases, such as neon, argon, etc. The warmer it is the more water it can hold, but it rarely exceeds 1%. You may be confused by the percentages given for "relative humidity" on the weather report. This is a ratio of how much water vapor is in the air to how much it could hold if it contained all that it possibly could hold. If the atmosphere was 95% water we would be swimming, not breathing. And unless they were created by incompetents, climate models certainly do take the water content of the atmosphere into account. They would be useless otherwise. Climate (forget the debate for a minute) is mostly a function of two things; temperature and humidity. Everything else is secondary. Yeah I have to admit this was alittle whack , but the point is Water Vapor is almost completley overlooked when it comes to the discussion of Greenhouse gas effects. Water vapor contributes more on average.
The contribution to the greenhouse effect by a gas is affected by both the characteristics of the gas and its abundance. For example, on a molecule-for-molecule basis methane is about eight times stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but it is present in much smaller concentrations so that its total contribution is smaller. When these gases are ranked by their contribution to the greenhouse effect, the most important are:

water vapor, which contributes 36–72%
carbon dioxide, which contributes 9–26%
methane, which contributes 4–9%
ozone, which contributes 3–7%
It's interesting how many people who know little or no science have "beliefs" about what is essentially a complicated scientific subject. In other words, it has become a political issue, which is ridiculous. I understand most of the science related to the issue because I studied and taught it for so many years, but I know when I'm unqualified to challenge people who know more about a given subject than I do. I have gotten into arguments with doctors, for example, when I knew what I was talking about, but most of the time I don't know enough to challenge what they tell me. If I did I wouldn't be paying them for their advice.Regardless of how much or little you or I know is a moot point. I have an open mind and tend to question everything to better understand things. One thing I do get tired of is the belief that those who question or disagree with the status quo are discredited.


These people you refer to may not be getting funded by oil companies or other industries, but the politicians they support sure are. ALL of them. They are also heavily funded by the health-care industry, pharmaceutical industry, and insurance industries. Could this have anything to do with the current politicization of the health-care debate? I think it does. All in all its due to the NWO Framework put in place by the first Bush. All of this BS fear mongering is pointing to one thing. One world government, and the diminishing of our rights.


As for Newsweek, scientists today are able to learn things a lot more accurately and completely than they could in 1975. It is often said, and is true, that scientific knowledge has increased more in the last ten years than in the previous several thousand years.
Yes , your right but it goes to show that even the science group can be wrong from time to time. The biggest thing to remember is GW is nothing more than a Theory.


What you posted is a perfect example of somebody having been fed an incredible line of BS and choosing to believe it. It is a choice, not a studied conclusion. That is why this whole debate over global warming and so many other issues is absurd. I encourage everybody to study and learn about whatever they choose, but if they choose not to they should be smart enough not to challenge those who did. That's true with science, buying cars, building houses, fixing plumbing, pretty much everything. That's why we have economies with "division of labor", one of the biggest developments in the history of humankind. We're starting to go backwards. Istill dont see how its BS , except of course for the 95% atmospere which I would gladly agree and remove.

Thanks for the debate , even though you call it BS ;-)

[Lakal]

Well now, even if Co2 is terrific for plant life are we sure increased levels are good for human life? Didn't coal miners use birds (canary?) in the mines to detect toxic levels of Co2? When the poor little bird expired the miner knew to get the heck out of there.

[Cliff]

Well now, even if Co2 is terrific for plant life are we sure increased levels are good for human life? Didn't coal miners use birds (canary?) in the mines to detect toxic levels of Co2? When the poor little bird expired the miner knew to get the heck out of there.

No. That was for carbon monoxide and methane gas.

[Lakal]

No. That was for carbon monoxide and methane gas.

Whitedamp was carbon monoxide while chokedamp was carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide poising was so lethal the canaries weren't much help. http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/smother.asp

[Captain Worley]

Cliff beat me to it.

I do agree with SF that this is an issue that shouldn't be politicized. unfortunately, it is, like other 'global crises', global cooling, the hole in the ozone layer, etc.

The bottom line is the earth changes, and we'll adapt to it. we've been doing so for years. The politization from the issue comes from people who insist that we have altered it for the worst, and must take steps to improve the situation. Usually these steps involve what amounts to wealth redistribution. That's usually just one party.

I don't think there is any way a creditable person would dsay there is evidence we have. there isn't enough data. Plus, the system is incredibly complex.

And water vapor is, by orders of magnitude, the most important greenhouse gas. The funny thing is scientists don't know, and argue vehemently, over whether global warming will cause more water vapor, less water vapor, more clouds, or less clouds, and how all THAT will effect the climate.

So, basically, controlling CO2 is a BS way to control 'climate change.'

And if the earth is warming, overall that is a very good thing.


Whitedamp was carbon monoxide while chokedamp was carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide poising was so lethal the canaries weren't much help. http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/smother.asp

Interesting article.

[swampfox]

I just heard on the news last night that the present decade will be the warmest on record, even warmer than the 1990s.

Of course if it's warmer there will be more water vapor in the atmosphere. And also of course it's an important greenhouse gas, but I haven't heard about anybody ignoring it. There's just not much we can do about it. Plus the warmer it gets the more water vapor the atmosphere will hold.

The glaciers and temperature are things that can be measured, and they do indicate warming.

But isn't this whole issue, the reason that it's politicized, all about who's to blame?

[Captain Worley]

There's no blame to be had. It is a natural phenomenon and there isn't a thing we can do about it.

[BAD HaBiT]

I just heard on the news last night that the present decade will be the warmest on record, even warmer than the 1990s.

Of course if it's warmer there will be more water vapor in the atmosphere. And also of course it's an important greenhouse gas, but I haven't heard about anybody ignoring it.
The fact is there is little if any studies done on water vapor in the atmospere.


In a detailed study (http://arxiv.org/pdf/0908.4410) of the mechanisms and effects of water vapor, to be published in Reviews of Geophysics, Tapio Schneider and Xavier Levine of the California Institute of Technology, and Paul A. O’Gorman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have expanded our knowledge of water's role in climate regulation while showing just how poorly understood the Earth climate system really is. Our level of collective ignorance is explained at the start of the paper:
Although the mechanisms are not well understood, it is widely appreciated that heating and cooling of air through phase changes of water are integral to moist convection and dynamics in the equatorial region. But that water vapor plays an active and important role in dynamics globally is less widely appreciated, and how it does so is only beginning to be investigated.
The glaciers and temperature are things that can be measured, and they do indicate warming.
Correction they (Did) indicate warming. In the past 2 years Glaciers have been growing. Look at the links I provided in my previous post. I don't understand why you keep saying they are melting. Also there have been equipment malfuntions which gave false readings.



But isn't this whole issue, the reason that it's politicized, all about who's to blame? In the governments eyes and agenda yes. Blaming the population would set the stage for Cap and Trade which would be devistating to our economy as we know it.

[swampfox]

Well, that's to say that Nature is to blame, and of course we couldn't do anything about that. The whole idea is to err on the side of caution.

It gets crazy to argue the scientific points. Global warming is happening. The real issue that people, especially the big polluters, are concerned about is whose fault is it.

One thing that doesn't seem to be debated much is the holes in the ozone layer, which are almost certainly caused by our emissions of chlorofluorocarbons. Skin cancer is in fact increasing all over the world, mostly near the poles. At our latitude the increase has been about 15%, so far.

So we know that we CAN change the composition of the atmosphere. The question regarding any particular gas (this should rightly be a lot of separate arguments, not just one) is whether we or Nature is the significant contributor. Nature has done it before. Is it doing it now? Nobody knows for sure, but if we say that it's not us, what if we're wrong?

People seem to have forgotten some of the situations before we had any controls, before the EPA even existed. Lake Erie on fire. In big cities guys wearing white shirts had to take a couple of extra with them or else look dirty most of the day. All of that changed back, for the better, BECAUSE we instituted some control over pollution. So we know that we can do that, at least locally.

Globally, nobody knows for sure. The ozone holes ebb and flow, but generally continue to get bigger. Some scientists have said that it takes 50 years for chlorflurocarbons to even reach the upper atmosphere, so we may be seeing just the beginning of ozone depletion. If that's the case, the warming issue will be almost a moot point.

Again, it's silly to argue about the science. It's especially silly when we give radio hosts and politicians some kind of authority to decide scientific issues. The whole thing is do we hold caution as an important value, or not? I personally think we're crazy if we don't.

Put money into research on how to control emissions. We may find a breakthrough that would make controlling them cheaper than we think.

[Captain Worley]

I worked removal of Ozone depleting Chemicals (ODCs) from AF tech orders back in 93 or so.

It was a huge scam. Cost us plenty, and no change whatsoever to the ozone holes (which are caused by the van Allen belts and the polar nature of O3 molecules, which are extremely short lived when exposed to radiation because they are so dang unstable already).

They tried to cover this up with the "oh, it can take 50 years for the ODC's to get into the atmosphere," which is pretty much a bogus statement, too.

[swampfox]

From your article in Science Daily:

"Our work suggests that while West Antarctica is still losing significant amounts of ice, the loss appears to be slightly slower than some recent estimates," said Ian Dalziel, lead principal investigator for WAGN. "So the take home message is that Antarctica is contributing to rising sea levels. It is the rate that is unclear."

Good thing that it's slower than we thought. But the mechanism, the rising bedrock as the ice melts, has been known for a long time. We have known that the bedrock in North America rose substantially after the glaciers from the last ice age retreated. Nothing new there.

Climate science is incredibly complicated. Even meteorology, from which we get our daily weather reports, is only accurate most of the time for a couple or three days. After that the percentage of accuracy falls off rapidly.

Again, the question really is "Are we going to be cautious about this extremely significant process or not?" That's all.

[Captain Worley]

I don't think the trade offs are worth the benefits.

[BAD HaBiT]

I'm don't think the trade offs are worth the benefits.
Agreed!
There is to many "what if's" and speculations



by Paul Krismanits (http://www.helium.com/users/286542/show_articles)




Here's a few things most people don't know, because most people like to get their news from propaganda movies which win Oscars (*achem* "An Inconvenient Truth"). So here's some facts I bet Al Gore and your science teacher didn't teach:

1. Contrary to the popular belief that glaciers all over the world are melting, in some places they are actually GROWING. In Iceland and Greenland, the first half of the twentieth century was warmer than the second half. In Iceland, most glaciers lost mass after 1930 because temperatures temporarily rose by .6 degrees Celsius. But since then the climate has gotten colder, and since 1970 the glaciers have been growing. Including eleven glaciers which are surging in size.
(P. Chylek, et al. 2004, "Global Warming and the Greenland ice sheet," Climate Change 63, 210-21)


2. Contrary to popular belief, Antarctica is NOT melting. Only the Antarctic peninsula (a relatively small portion of the continent) is melting, but the continent as a whole is getting colder and the ice is growing thicker. In fact:
a. From 1986 to 2000 central Antarctic valleys cooled .7 degrees Celsius per decade with serious ecosystem damage from the cold.
(Doran, P.T., Priscu, J.C. Lyons, W.B. Walsh, J.E., Fountain, A.G. McKnight, D.M. Moorhead, D.L. Virginia, R.A. Wall, D.H. Clow, G.D. Fritsen, C.H. Mckay, C.P. and Parson, A.N., 2002, "Antarctic climate cooling and terrestrial ecosystem response," Nature, 415: 517-20)
b. Side-looking radar measurements show West Antarctica ice is increasing at 26.8 gigatons/yr. Reversing the melting trend of the last 6000 years.
(Joughlin, I., and Tulaczyk, S., 2002, "Positive mass balance of the Ross Ice Streams, West Antarctica," Science 295: 476-80)
c. Antarctic sea ice has increased since 1979.
(Liu, J., Curry, J.A., and Martinson, D.G., 2004, "Interpretation of recent Antarctic sea ice variability," Geophysical Research Letters 31: 10.1029/2003 GLO18732)
d. The greater part of Antarctica experiences a longer sea-ice season, lasting 21 days longer than it did in 1979.
(Parkinson, C.L. 2002, "Trends in the length of the southern Ocean sea-ice season, 1979-99," Annals of Glaciology 34: 435-40)

3. The arrival of global warming was announced in 1988 dramatically by James Hansen a prominent climatologist. He predicted temperatures would rise by .35 degrees Celsius over the next ten years. The actual increase was .11 degrees Celsius (that's less than 1/10 of a degree folks). After ten years Hansen claimed that the forces which govern

climate changes are so poorly understood that long-term prediction is impossible. Quote, "The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate change (http://www.helium.com/items/540228-global-warming-whats-the-real-truth?page=2#)." His prediction was off by over 300 PERCENT, proving that scientists don't know what they're talking about when it comes to predictions in this field.
(James E. Hansen, Makiko Sato, Andrew Lacis, Reto Ruedy, Ina Tegen, and Elaine Matthews, "Climate Forcings in the Industrial Era," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95 [October 1998]: 12753-58)


4. More CO2 in the air actually STIMULATES plant growth.

5. Deserts in Africa are SHRINKING. (Fred Pearce, "Africans go back to the land as plants reclaim the desert," New Scientist 175, 21 September 2002, pp. 4-5)

6. A presumed effect of global warming is that it will increase the rate of emergence of new diseases. Including bringing back diseases like malaria in a big way. In fact, the rate of emerging diseases has not increased since 1960. (Paul Reiter, et al, "Global Warming and malaria: a call for accuracy," Lancet, 4, no. 1 [June 2004]

7. There are around 160,000 glaciers in the world. Only about 67,000 have been inventoried, and only a few studied with any care. There is mass balance data extending five years or more for ONLY 79 GLACIERS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. No one knows whether they're all melting, or if even most of them are.
(H. Kieffer, et al., 2000, "New eyes in the sky measure glaciers and ice sheets," EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union 81: 265, 270-71. Also R.J. Braithwaite and Y. Zhang, "Relationships between interannual variability of glacier mass balance and climate," Journal of Glaciology 45 [2000]: 456-62)

8. The belief that Mt. Kilimanjaro is melting because of global warming is false. It has been melting since the 1800s, before "global warming." There is also no recorded warming trend at the altitude of the Kilimanjaro glacier. It is melting because of deforestation at its base which has taken away the moist air blowing upward. (Betsy Mason, "African Ice Under Wraps," Nature, 24, November 2003. Also Kaser, et al., "Modern glacier retreat on Kilimanjaro as evidence of climate change: Observations and facts," International Journal of Climatology 24: [2004]: 329-39)

9. Sea levels are not rising any faster due to global warming. For the last 6,000 years the sea level has been rising at the rate of 10 to 20 centimeters (4 to 8 inches) every hundred years. There is no recorded
proof that they have risen faster. Computer models which claim to have proven otherwise have been proven inaccurate. In fact, the northern Pacific has been measured as rising, but the southern Pacific has fallen by several millimeters in recent years. (http://www.csr.utexas.edu/gms l/main.html. "Over the last century, global sea-level change has typically been estimated from tide gauge measurements by long-term averaging...")
GA_googleFillSlotWithSize(HELAD_publishercode, "ArticleATFMiddleArticle300x250", 300, 250);

10. Even if global warming was happening and causing more El Nino weather events, the effects would actually be positive. In 1998 El Ninos direct losses caused in the U.S. were about $4 billion, and the benefits were worth approximately $19 billion. (Stanley A. Changnon, 1999: "Impacts of 1997-98 El Nino-Generated Weather in the United States," Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 80, no. 9: pp. 1819-28)

11. The Kyoto Agreement is absolutely worthless and will only result in being harmful to world economies. The predicted effect of Kyoto would be to reduce warming by .04 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. That's the effect if the U.S. DID sign it. (Nature, 22 [October, 2003]: 395-741, stated, with Russia signed on, temperature affected would be -.02 Celsius by 2050.)

12. The modern theory of global warming is based upon the fact that the temperature has been rising steadily for the past 100 years due to rising CO2 and other emissions. The fact is, around 1880 (the beginning of the temperature rise) was actually the end of what many scientists call the "mini-ice age." Where, for about 400 years, the earth had cooled. The theory also presupposes that the greatest change occurred during the height of industrialization (roughly the 1940s-1970s). However, temperature graphs show that:
a. From 1940-1970 CO2 rose moderately yet the earth's temperature actually cooled.
b. The temperature in the United States peaked in the mid-1930s, cooled for about 60 years, and now has risen slightly again, although still not as much as it was in the 30s.
These graphs can be found at www.giss.nasa.gov (http://www.giss.nasa.gov).
More of these graphs show that, while large urban areas have shown mild increases in temperature, many rural areas have actually cooled in the past 150-200 years. This is true globally. One specific example is New York City, which has increased in temperature about 4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1822, yet Albany, which is just north of New York City, has actually cooled a degree in the past 180 years. This shows no actual climate change as they are so close together.
These are just some of the facts people, from real scientists who do REAL research. These facts are not from politicians or actors. Whether the majority of scientists believe in it or not, there simply is not enough evidence to show that global warming is a threat in any way. Also, remember that it is merely a THEORY, and there are very little facts supporting it.

[Cliff]

"An Inconvenient Truth"

A "B" Si-Fi flick.

[Cliff]

35 Scientific Errors (or Intentional Lies) in An Inconvenient Truth

By Scott Thong
BONUS: An Inconvenient Truth 2: Suggested Film Titles (http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2008/01/05/an-inconvenient-truth-2-suggested-film-titles/)!
So last you heard, Al Gore’s propaganda film, ‘A Collection of Convenient Outright Lies’ ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was found to contain at least 9 serious errors (http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/10/10/official-british-court-finds-11-inaccuracies-in-al-gores-an-inconvenient-truth-labels-it-as-political-propaganda/)… By the British High Court no less.
Now, ramp that up to at least 35 serious errors.
As I’ve learnt from Is It Getting Warmer (http://globalwarming-factorfiction.com/), the Science and Public Policy Institute has reviewed all of Al Gore’s convenient misrepresentations and determined 35 key facts that Gore portrayed wrongly. The blog host also meticulously researched each of the SPPI’s criticisms and gives a rundown of the accuracy of each claim at this link (http://globalwarming-factorfiction.com/2007/10/30/35-inconvenient-truths-the-errors-in-al-gores-movie-part-5-of-5/).
Gore could have gotten his facts through his scientific incompetence, or perhaps by getting his information from only certain biased sources.
But my personal opinion is that Gore INTENTIONALLY LIES throughout the film. He is dishonest, manipulative, sneaky and utterly self-serving.
If you think my remarks are unfair and unfounded, just remember that Al Gore has been shown to change his stance 180-degrees and lie for personal political gain (http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/al-gore-high-commander-of-war-peace-hypocrisy/), he stands to profit immensely (http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/follow-the-clues-is-al-gores-promotion-of-global-warming-hysteria-merely-a-scam-to-make-him-money/) if governments enforce carbon offsets out of fear, and he totally does not subscribe to his own directives (http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/al-gore-high-priest-of-global-warming-hypocrisy/) to us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
So yes, I do think he intentionally lies throughout his film, in order to spread hysteria and panic about global warming.
Below are the 35 errors pointed out by the SPPI article, with my short summary of the actual truths behind each dishonest fib. See the full explanations at Science and Public Policy Institute article (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html):
THE 35 BLATANT ERRORS OR LIES IN ‘AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH’
1. Sea level “rising 6 m”
Even the IPCC’s maximum estimate is a mere 59cm… In the year 2100.
2. Pacific islands “drowning”
They aren’t. The sea levels around the Maldives haven’t changed for 1250 years. Same goes for Vanuatu (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=%5CCulture%5Carchive%5C200512 %5CCUL20051207a.html).
3. Thermohaline circulation “stopping”
In reality, it is strengthening.
4. CO2 “driving temperature”
It is a clear and well accepted fact that temperature drives CO2 levels.
5. Snows of Kilimanjaro “melting”
Temperature at the summit never rises above freezing. Most of the melt occured before 1936.
6. Lake Chad “drying up”
It also dried up in 8500BC, 5500BC, 1000BC and 100BC. Where was our carbon-polluting human industry then?
7. Hurricane Katrina “man made”
Maximum hurricane wind speed and number of hurricanes has not increased.
http://scottthong.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/8.gif?w=440 (http://scottthong.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/8.gif)
8. Polar bears “dying”
Four bears died in a storm. Four. Measly. Bears. Meanwhile, there are 25000 polar bears today compared to 5000 in 1940.
9. Coral reefs “bleaching”
It was caused by an unusual El Nino pattern, not global warming.
10. 100 ppmv of CO2 “melting mile-thick ice”
Gore overstates the effect of CO2 ten times greater than even the IPCC’s highest estimate.
11. Hurricane Caterina “manmade”
Air temperatures in the area were the coldest in 25 years, not warmest.
12. Japanese typhoons “a new record”
Tropical cyclone frequency has fallen in the past 50 years.
13. Hurricanes “getting stronger“
They haven’t in 60 years.
14. Big storm insurances losses “increasing”
Insured losses in hurricane-prione areas were lower in 2005 than 1905.
15. Mumbai “flooding”
There’s been no increase in rainfall over 48 years.
16. Severe tornadoes “more frequent”
Severe tornadoes have fallen in frequency for the last 50 years. Tropical storms are also at the lowest frequency in decades (http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2007/10/despite_goracle.html).
http://scottthong.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/12.gif?w=440 (http://scottthong.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/12.gif)
17. The sun “heats the Arctic ocean”
The ocean emits more heat than it receives from the sun.
18. Arctic “warming fastest”
It’s actually 1 degree cooler now than in 1940.
19. Greenland ice sheet “unstable”
The ice sheet did not break up during the last three times when the temperature was 5 degrees hotter than today.
20. Himalayan glacial melt waters “failing”
The snow melt which provides water has not decreased in 40 years.
21. Peruvian glaciers “disappearing”
For the past 10,000 years the Peruvian ‘glacier’ region has been mostly ice free.
22. Mountain glaciers worldwide “disappearing”
Human CO2 output has had no effect on the already-present glacier shortening trend.
http://scottthong.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/15.gif?w=440 (http://scottthong.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/15.gif)
23. Sahara desert “drying”
In the past 25 years, the Sahara shrunk by 300,000 square kilometres due to increased rainfall.
24. West Antarctic ice sheet “unstable”
Antarctic ice is at its thickest in nearly 28 years (http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/09/13/irrefutable-it-is-a-fact-global-warming-causes-all-time-high-antarctic-ice/).
25. Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves “breaking up”
Gore concentrates on the 2% of Antarctica that is experiencing some warming, while conciously neglecting to mention the 98% of Antarctica that is cooling (http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/09/13/irrefutable-it-is-a-fact-global-warming-causes-all-time-high-antarctic-ice/).
26. Larsen B Ice Shelf “broke up because of ‘global warming’”
The ice shelfs have been breaking up since 10,000 years ago.
27. Mosquitoes “climbing to higher altitudes”
The graph says it all: Wrong.
http://scottthong.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/18.jpg?w=440 (http://scottthong.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/18.jpg)
28. Many tropical diseases “spread through ‘global warming’”
None of the diseases quoted are tropical, none are affected by increasing temperature, and some even cause more harm at colder temperatures.
29. West Nile virus in the US “spread through ‘global warming’”
West Nile virus flourishes in any climate, from desert to ice.
30. Carbon dioxide is “pollution”
Forests are thriving due to the increasing CO2 levels.
31. The European heat wave of 2003 “killed 35,000″
Cold snaps kill people, but the IPCC does not include the number of lives that would be saved due to less cold weather.
32. Pied flycatchers “cannot feed their young”
A few tens of kilometres north, and there is no notable difference.
33. Gore’s bogus pictures and film footage
Gore plays fast and loose with falsely used images.
34. The Thames Barrier “closing more frequently”
It is closed to retain tidal water in the Thames.
35. “No fact…in dispute by anybody.”
Do I even have to mention these?
Climate Audit (http://www.climateaudit.org/)
Climate Skeptic (http://www.climate-skeptic.com/)
Global Warming Hysteria (http://www.globalwarminghysteria.com/)
Is It Getting Warmer? (http://www.globalwarming-factorfiction.com/)
Global Warming Fears (http://scottthong.wordpress.com/category/global-warming-fears/) CONCLUSION: It’s clear that Al Gore and his film have got the facts totally wrong, reversed, upside-down and etc on almost every count. An Inconvenient Truth is truly an amazing piece of bullcr@p, and it’s even more amazing that anybody still trusts anything it and Gore have to say.

[swampfox]

I'm no friend of Al Gore, but most of your points above are just not true. Don't you know that there are tons of money floating around, as well as political pressure (where grants come from) that many scientists with credentials will find as justification to say whatever somebody wants?

That's how Rush Limbo gets the "top" scientists on his show.

Don't you remember that the Bush administration forbade NASA scientists from publishing findings they had made about climate change? Again, pure politics. A situtation that Galileo would recognize. Have we really not gotten smarter than that in 500 years?

[Cliff]

They are not MY points.


That's how Rush Limbo gets the "top" scientists on his show.
I didn't know he did pay anyone. I'll take your word for that one, I don't tune him in and you do.


Don't you remember that the Bush administration forbade NASA scientists from publishing findings they had made about climate change?
No, got a link ?

[swampfox]

I don't know if Rush pays them, but he gets scientists that have either been paid or they know what they have to do to ever get a research grant again.

As for the other:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/nasa-investigation-press-office-mischaracterized-and-limited-flow-of-findings-on-climate-science/

And there's plenty about that. That was a big news story several times. Don't know how you missed it. A lot of top NASA and NOAA scientists resigned over it.

[Captain Worley]

It looks like NASA may have cooked their data the same wasy as the other scientists....



The Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Britain has its computerized climate model exposed as—to put it politely—an unreliable mess. It is no wonder that they didn’t want to release it under the terms of the UK’s Freedom of Information law. In the US, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has long been resisting disclosing its data following a US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made by Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a well-known skeptic. The CEI have announced that they intend to sue, something that should keep this scandal in the spotlight for a long time to come.

A supporter of the leader of the GISS program, James Hansen, claims that, “What made the GISS model unique was its use of some fine mathematical physics to reduce the amount of computation involved, so that it worked ten times faster than the other GCMs,” a reference to global climate models. If this is so, why hide it? Under normal circumstances it would be an outstanding achievement and the authors would be happy to see other scientists replicating their work and confirming their brilliance.

This is important since the CRU surface temperature charts have tracked closely with those from the GISS. If one result is now exposed as being polluted, then it is reasonable to imagine that the source of nearly identical data may be equally flawed. For NASA to be seen as hiding this, especially when it is obvious from the emails that the CRU made heroic efforts to prevent the release the information and the models on which it based, endangers the agency’s reputation for providing solid, untainted scientific information.


More: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1522/1

[BAD HaBiT]

Hmm intresting.
Than this could taint item B in line 12 of post 56

[Lakal]

Nobody is claiming CO2 poses the immediate health threat that smog, smoke, and other conventional pollutants do. But a few years ago the science academies of 11 leading industrial nations (including the National Academies of Sciences from the US) released a statement listing CO2 as a greenhouse gas :

Joint Statement: Carbon Dioxide levels have increased from 280 ppm in 1750 to over 375 ppm today - higher than any previous levels that can be reliably measured (i.e. in the last 420,000 years).

[BAD HaBiT]

Nobody is claiming CO2 poses the immediate health threat :

I thought the EPA did just this week?

[Lakal]

I thought the EPA did just this week?


I thought they stated that climate changing pollution threatens the public health and the environment and were addressing many pollutants not just Co2.

[Captain Worley]

I thought they stated that climate changing pollution threatens the public health and the environment and were addressing many pollutants not just Co2.

They did. There were six: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.

But carbon dioxide and methane are two byproducts of living creatures, so it seems a bit silly to me to regulate it.

[Lakal]

They did. There were six: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.

But carbon dioxide and methane are two byproducts of living creatures, so it seems a bit silly to me to regulate it.


I would have thought excess of anything, natural or not, could be harmful at some point.

[Captain Worley]

I would have thought excess of anything, natural or not, could be harmful at some point.

That IS true, but the levels of those gases in the atmosphere is nowhere near being harmful to life. If that was the case, I, and many others, would support it.

But they are planning to regulate these gases, mostly CO2, to punish industry for whatever crimes the pols percieve. There is a giant anti-business group in the left wing. Witness the hatred of Walmart and just about any big business.

You can almost extrapolate it to a hatred of success, but I don't really think it goes that far.

[Lakal]

This is really confusing. You are saying that people who want to regulate greenhouse gases are doing so because they are liberals and want to punish big industry. I am certainly in favor of cleaner air because I think it would be healthy. What's wrong with that?

Many companies will benefit from environmental protection measures.The following is from Business Week.


surprising number of companies in old industries such as oil and materials as well as high tech are preparing for this profoundly altered world. They are moving swiftly to measure and slash their greenhouse gas emissions. And they are doing it despite the Bush Administration's opposition to mandatory curbs.

This change isn't being driven by any sudden boardroom conversion to environmentalism. It's all about hard-nosed business calculations. "If we stonewall this thing to five years out, all of a sudden the cost to us and ultimately to our consumers can be gigantic," warns Rogers, who will manage 20 coal-fired power plants if Cinergy's pending merger with Duke Energy is completed next year.

One new twist in the whole discussion of global warming is the arrival of a corps of sharp-penciled financiers. Bankers, insurers, and institutional investors have begun to tally the trillions of dollars in financial risks that climate change poses. They are now demanding that companies in which they hold stakes (or insure) add up risks related to climate change and alter their business plans accordingly. For utilities like Cinergy that could mean switching billions in planned investments from the usual coal-fired power plants to new, cleaner facilities.

[Captain Worley]

This is really confusing. You are saying that people who want to regulate greenhouse gases are doing so because they are liberals and want to punish big industry. I am certainly in favor of cleaner air because I think it would be healthy. What's wrong with that?


Regulating those gases will not make the air cleaner. It won't make you any more healthy. All it will do is increase the costs to produce goods, power, and food.

Did you notice that article you quoted was from 2005?

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_50/b3963401.htm

[Cliff]

I'm no friend of Al Gore, but most of your points above are just not true. Don't you know that there are tons of money floating around, as well as political pressure (where grants come from) that many scientists with credentials will find as justification to say whatever somebody wants?
But if they speak against GW they lose that grant money.


That's how Rush Limbo gets the "top" scientists on his show.

I don't know if Rush pays them,


Don't you remember that the Bush administration forbade NASA scientists from publishing findings they had made about climate change?
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/20...imate-science/ (http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/nasa-investigation-press-office-mischaracterized-and-limited-flow-of-findings-on-climate-science/)





Our investigation found that during the fall of 2004 through early 2006, the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public through those particular media over which the Office of Public Affairs had control (i.e., news releases and media access).


We also concluded that the climate change editorial decisions were localized within the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs; we found no credible evidence suggesting that senior NASA or Administration officials directed the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs to minimize information relating to climate change.


To the contrary, we found that once NASA leadership within the Office of the Administrator were made aware of the scope of the conflict between the Office of Public Affairs and scientists working on climate change, they aggressively implemented new policies with a view toward improved processes in editorial decision-making relating to scientific public affairs matters.


Where did Bush get in the picture? http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p47/KE4MIV/Smilies/think.gif

[swampfox]

NASA is a federal agency. The NASA bigshots take orders from the president.

I may be the only one who knows this.

[Captain Worley]

Don't you remember that the Bush administration forbade NASA scientists from publishing findings they had made about climate change?
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/20...imate-science/ (http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/nasa-investigation-press-office-mischaracterized-and-limited-flow-of-findings-on-climate-science/)


from that very article:



No evidence was found showing that officials higher at NASA or in the Bush administration were involved in interfering with the release of climate information, the report said.

[BAD HaBiT]

from that very article:

:shock: A direct contradiction!

[Captain Worley]

12 things about climate change you won't read in the mainstream media...

http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=970&idli=3

[BAD HaBiT]

12 things about climate change you won't read in the mainstream media...

http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=970&idli=3


At the end of that article =

What will it take for the media to let go of their biases and begin doing their job, reporting the truth?

I think this deserves more attention than GW.

[Captain Worley]

And Europe is being hit with the worst winter storm in a loong while.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126131735544199141.html?mod=loomia&loomia_si=t0:a16:g2:r1:c0.156487:b29452782

Global warming!!! Panic!!!

[swampfox]

You know that going into panic mode right now is not indicated. The possible, and some of them likely, things that will change humanity's future are going to be after most of us are gone.

You also know that you can get a "scientist" to say anything if the price or exposure makes it worthwhile. Having a worldwide concensus is a completely different thing. The grant system for funding research, the thing that corrupts an awful lot of science here, is not nearly so pervasive in other countries.

I think that the people who talk so much about not leaving their children and grandchildren in debt but are willing to risk something much worse are not very smart people. In some cases I think it's a lot more sinister than that.

It's crazy for this to be a political issue. It's like asking politicians to diagnose ailments or build your house. Nobody is saying that any of these predictions are 100% (not if they are real scientists, in science there is no certainty), but pointing out the risks and taking steps to prepare for them is the right thing to do.

When future archaeologists dig up our bones and culture they are going to be about as confused by them as we are about what happened to the people on Easter Island.

[Captain Worley]

It isn't so much a political thing for me as an excersize in logic. I too get frustrated at the politicization of the issue. IMO, we are moving way too fast with actions that will probably accomplish nothing, but cost a lot.

See, I realize climate changes, but I also realize that it is a very complex system, with many different inputs, of which we are an extremely tiny portion.

I also realize that any changes will have good points and bad points, but we'll adapt to the changes. We'll have plenty of time to do so.

It also concerns me that these scientsists have cherry picked the data and mixed and matched different data, as revealed in the emails, to 'prove' what they want. I know how that works. i worked as a test engineer for a while and could give you whatever numbers you want, but the testing would have to be skewed to achieve them.

Then, there is the fact that nobody seems to be able to tell how local climates would be affected. Just try to pin them down on what the long range changes for, say, NYC will be. They can't do it.

Shoot, they can't even tell you if there will be more or less cloud cover, which is of utmost importance in determining whether the temps will, in fact, go up.

There are just waaaay too many unknowns here to decide that we must do anything.

[swampfox]

It's all a matter of weighing the cost of caution against the probabilities, just like with any technology-related stuff. The probabilities are just too significant to ignore.

[Captain Worley]

If you do a risk analysis on it, the status quo is far less expensive. The odds of changing behavior in CO2 production making a change in the environment is infinitessimal.

If we really wanted to cool the planet, we'd spew more particulates. Me, I prefer clean air and slightly warmer temps to dirty air and cooler temps.

[Cliff]

I prefer clean air and slightly warmer temps to dirty air and cooler temps.
Same here.

[Cliff]

Another voice.
One without anything to gain or lose.

http://www.kusi.com/home/78477082.html?video=pop&t=a

.........................http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p47/KE4MIV/avantwug.gif

[Captain Worley]

After this man made global warming scam dies down, I'm betting the next eco-scare will have to do with nitrogen.

You know, global warming has a lot of upsides, and very little downsides. Global cooling scares me a LOT more. And ice ages seem to happen very quicky and warming is very slow.

[Cliff]

Nope, Dihydrogen Monoxide
http://news1800.com/2010/01/most-popular/dropping-water-vapor-levels-are-naturally-negating-carbons-warming-effects-dailytech/

Dropping Water Vapor Levels are Naturally Negating Carbon's Warming Effects (http://www.friendsofsc.com/Dropping+Water+Vapor+Levels+are+Naturally+Negating +Carbons+Warming+Effects+/article17553.htm)

Read the comments too.

[BAD HaBiT]

Nope, Dihydrogen Monoxide


Dropping Water Vapor Levels are Naturally Negating Carbon's Warming Effects (http://www.friendsofsc.com/Dropping+Water+Vapor+Levels+are+Naturally+Negating +Carbons+Warming+Effects+/article17553.htm)

Read the comments too.
Link doesnt work.

[Cliff]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704194504575031404275769886.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/science/earth/29vapor.html

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/28/save-rainforest-climate-change-scandal-chopped-facts/

[BAD HaBiT]

Posted this once but it didnt show up.


Here is what Dr. Jeff Masters Says about it.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1421

[swampfox]

Even informed folks can disagree.

Incidentally, and not to defame that website (I use it often myself and it is generally excellent), do you recall what group they took the name "Weather Underground" from?

[Cliff]

Don't think they did. I couldnt find anything about that.

Some info on Jeff Masters
http://www.wunderground.com/about/jmasters.asp

[swampfox]

The original Weather Underground was the radical activist branch of the Students For a Democratic Society back in the 60s. They did big things. Blew up buildings. Kidnapped. Arson. They were constantly on the FBI's Most Wanted list.

They took their name from a line in a song by Bob Dylan, "You don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows..."

It is a catchy name for a weather service, but I'm surprised they used it considering the negative parts of it's origin.

[Cliff]

Maybe because of the time laps no one thought about it.

[BAD HaBiT]

The original Weather Underground was the radical activist branch of the Students For a Democratic Society back in the 60s. They did big things. Blew up buildings. Kidnapped. Arson. They were constantly on the FBI's Most Wanted list.

They took their name from a line in a song by Bob Dylan, "You don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows..."

It is a catchy name for a weather service, but I'm surprised they used it considering the negative parts of it's origin.

Here is what you speak of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground_Organization

[BAD HaBiT]

Don't think they did. I couldnt find anything about that.

Some info on Jeff Masters
http://www.wunderground.com/about/jmasters.asp


Beyond Jeff M.
Here is the History of WU (The weather group)

Weather Underground is committed to delivering the most reliable, accurate weather information possible. Our state-of-the-art technology monitors conditions and forecasts for locations across the world, so you'll always find the weather information that you need.
In addition to providing free, real-time online weather information to millions of Web users around the world, Weather Underground is pleased to offer a variety of Newspaper Weather Services and Custom Site Weather Packages.
Company Background
In 1991, while working under the direction of Perry Samson at the University of Michigan (http://www.umich.edu), PhD candidate Jeff Masters (http://www.friendsofsc.com/about/jmasters.asp) wrote a menu-based telnet interface which displayed real-time weather information around the world. By 1992, the two servers his system used were rattling off their desks as "um-weather" became the most popular service on the Internet.
In 1993, Perry and Jeff recruited Jeff Ferguson (http://www.friendsofsc.com/about/ferguson.asp) and Alan Steremberg (http://www.friendsofsc.com/about/alans.asp) to help build a system to bring Internet weather into K-12 classrooms. Chris Schwerzler (http://www.friendsofsc.com/about/chris.asp) joined Alan in his work on the Mac gopher client, "Blue Skies," which won numerous awards for its interactive imagery and text information. In the interest of expanding "Blue Skies" to other platforms, Dave Brooks, author of the Windows "WS Gopher" client, developed "Blue Skies for Windows" in 1994. The growing Internet weather program was given the name Weather Underground, a reference to the 1960's radical group that also originated at the University of Michigan, which had taken its name from the lyrics to Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues, "You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows."
During early 1995, Netscape's prime, Alan and Chris embarked upon the "Blue Skies for Java" project to replace the aging gopher client with a sleek web interface. "Blue Skies Java" was included in Sun Microsystems' first set of Java Success Stories and led to the development of a full fledged web weather service. At the same time, Michael McDonald, a web developer, was building a comprehensive database of weather related information and tropical weather links on the web, which he later integrated into the tropical storm section of the Weather Underground site.
Incorporating on the Web
In late spring of 1995, the Weather Underground, Inc. evolved as a separate commercial entity from the university. By fall, the official web site, www.wunderground.com (http://www.wunderground.com), was released with daily forecasts and hourly conditions for 550 US cities. After announcing the new web site on the telnet service, traffic immediately soared, creating a substantial user base. During 1996 and 1997, Jeff, Alan, Chris, and Jeff transformed the site into a dynamic service where information was updated in real-time with several innovative new features. These included one of the first zip code searches, severe weather warnings and advisories, international conditions, marine weather, and detailed local forecasts. They also began developing custom weather sites for TV stations and Internet portals.
Weather Underground Today
The web site has never stood still and many new features have been added in recent years. Of particular note, Weather Underground has developed the world's largest network of personal weather stations (almost 10,000 stations in the US and over 3,000 across the rest of the world) that provides our site's users with the most localized weather conditions available. Embracing the community aspect of the web, we have developed WunderPhotos, a section where our members upload and share photographs of weather related content; our popular Blogs section allows members to post weather-related blogs in addition to Jeff Masters' widely-read WunderBlog.
In 2008, we launched WunderMaptm, the web's most interactive weather map, that allows users to choose from a number of different weather layers that are plotted on top of a dynamic map interface. Other popular features include a tornado tracking product, in-depth sports and ski weather and our Trip Planner application. The list is endless but we hope that you will take the time to delve deeper into our site and discover all of our weather products for yourself.


(Also I am a yearly subscriber to WU and have a weather station that reports live conditions to their website)
http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KSCPELIO3

[swampfox]

It's a great website. I use it all the time when bad weather is coming. You can watch the storms coming to your location in real time.

[Cliff]

(Also I am a yearly subscriber to WU and have a weather station that reports live conditions to their website)
http://www.wunderground.com/weathers...p?ID=KSCPELIO3

I use it to find out the wind direction and temp. so when I go out for a smoke I know what door to use.

[anti-babble]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/RFK-79834057.html

I bet alot of people are thinking little Kennedy if full of yellow or brown snow right now.

[swampfox]

Like Frank Zappa warned us, "Don't eat the yellow snow, Watch out where those huskies go..."

[Captain Worley]

Oh, the irony is delicious!

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=b3e826ad-802a-23ad-45b8-8fa00c661d62



UPDATE: The following Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearings have been postponed due to inclement weather this week:
- The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife, will hold a hearing entitled, "Collaborative Solutions to Wildlife and Habitat Management."
- The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a hearing entitled, "Global Warming Impacts, Including Public Health, in the United States."

[BAD HaBiT]

Oh, the irony is delicious!

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=b3e826ad-802a-23ad-45b8-8fa00c661d62


The same thing happened a year or 2 ago in DC

[Cliff]

Snow breaks mid-Atlantic records

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100211/ap_on_re_us/us_winter_weather

Man! Think what it would be like without global warming.

[Captain Worley]

I'm sure Uncle Al would be quick to tell us how this is actually an effect of global warming.

Or, he could disappear, like he seems to do every time some global warming conference has been cancelled due to snow (I think this is like the eighth or nnineth I've heard of).

[BAD HaBiT]

I'm sure Uncle Al would be quick to tell us how this is actually an effect of global warming.

Or, he could disappear, like he seems to do every time some global warming conference has been cancelled due to snow (I think this is like the eighth or nnineth I've heard of).


Is that like alot?

[swampfox]

Worley, I know you're smarter than this. What's the motivation?

[Captain Worley]

I just think the whole manmade climate change thing is a farce at best and an effort to ruin the manufacturing capability of this country at worst. So, I find it highly ironic and amusing to see global warming conferences cancelled due to snow. You have to admit, it IS funny.

And Uncle Al is the de facto head of this movement, so anytime I can get a chance to take a jab in at his hypocritical bee-hind, I do so.

[swampfox]

Al Gore is certainly one of the worst choices to be the spokesman for anything important, but that does not dislodge the facts. And saying that the current winter proves wrong the whole body of evidence for climate change is nothing short of juvenile.

But what can you do?

BTW, I downloaded the form for registering subversive groups. I'm filling it out with "The Entire Population of Lexington County" as the group name. I'll post a scan of it when I finish it, probably not today.

[Captain Worley]

And saying that the current winter proves wrong the whole body of evidence for climate change is nothing short of juvenile.

Juvenile what what I was aiming at.


BTW, I downloaded the form for registering subversive groups. I'm filling it out with "The Entire Population of Lexington County" as the group name. I'll post a scan of it when I finish it, probably not today.

You know...that would save a lot of money and cover a lot of butts.

[Captain Worley]

http://pix.motivatedphotos.com/2010/2/16/634019374960505690-notglobalwarming.jpg (http://www.motivatedphotos.com/?id=28783)

[Quintessence]

http://pix.motivatedphotos.com/2010/2/16/634019374960505690-notglobalwarming.jpg (http://www.motivatedphotos.com/?id=28783)
Next, it'll be climate shift... Yep, there is an "f" in that word.

[Quintessence]

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2009/1/27/128775603831468929.jpg

[Captain Worley]

http://pix.motivatedphotos.com/2010/1/1/633979556933394245-ClimateChange.jpg (http://www.motivatedphotos.com/?id=5167)

[Cliff]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derweze

[Captain Worley]

The saga continues...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1254660/Climategate-professor-Phil-Jones-admits-sending-pretty-awful-emails.html

[Quintessence]

http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/twi/lowres/twin499l.jpg

[BAD HaBiT]

Scientists Misread Data on Global Warming Controversy

http://www.wltx.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=84786&catid=306

[Captain Worley]

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing (http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603/pdf). The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.
Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA's Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA's Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.


Looks like the garbage-in-garbage-out approach to computer modeling applies to the Global Warming proponents.


http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

[Cliff]

Anyone that had biology, chemistry, math in High School saw through the scam right off.
If everyone woke up one day and found they could only speak fact and truth~
A lot of people would be out of a job.

[Trouble]

Debt and Congress: Time for Swampfox to come out of retirement now and head on out to Washington,DC and give them a few tuff words about getting the job done right.
Swampfox Report for Duty you are needed again to fix this mess we are all in now.

[Cliff]

Some how I don't think he will be back any time soon.
He got tired of trying to teach us bone heads a thing or two.
I know, I'm the biggest bone head here.

[Quintessence]

Some how I don't think he will be back any time soon.
He got tired of trying to teach us bone heads a thing or two.
I know, I'm the biggest bone head here.

Really? You miss him that badly? I know he intrigued us and involved us in interesting discussions, but you really miss him to that extent? To call yourself a bonehead? Really? I am flabbergasted! C'mon, Cliff! You're not a bonehead! You know it; I know it; we all know it! If you miss SF, contact him and just tell him like it is. Be straight up. There is no challenge for him if you see or insinuate that you are not worthy. Besides, he already has that preconception about many. Do you not agree? Although I do not understand some of his insults, I do like that I know (pretty much) what to expect from him (unlike some other who attacks w/o any motivation or apparent cause). He seems to be a genuine nice person with a passion for his beliefs. I do wish him the best with his health and within his daily life.

[JDidGirl]

SF took some of his insults way too far. I lost every bit of respect when we couldn't have a disagreement about Obama without him labeling us as racists. And for the record... I've met SF and I thought he was a nice guy, but he showed his true colors with that one.

[Captain Worley]

Yeah, I came close to leaving the board after the racists comment. That was pretty low.

[Quintessence]

SF took some of his insults way too far. I lost every bit of respect when we couldn't have a disagreement about Obama without him labeling us as racists. And for the record... I've met SF and I thought he was a nice guy, but he showed his true colors with that one.


Yeah, I came close to leaving the board after the racists comment. That was pretty low.

I have tried not to respond, esp. with a detailed response which I find very, but I will say that I agree with you both. So, I will simply post a few threads that come to mind. Things got really angry and ugly.
Links:

Complexion - http://www.friendsofsc.com/forums/showthread.php?5797-Obama-Quotes&p=115141#post115141

Obama's Border Plan Similar to Bush's - http://www.friendsofsc.com/forums/showthread.php?6794-Obama-s-Border-Plan-Similar-to-Bush-s&highlight=parent+illegal

The above was followed by a new thread begun by SF titled "This deserves its own thread" where some members were basically called murderers - http://www.friendsofsc.com/forums/showthread.php?6801-This-deserves-its-own-thread&highlight=parent+illegal

Yes, both of you are correct. Very correct. Like I said, I never understood the insults, or rather, never understood the need for insults. Simply support your argument with facts, intelligence, research, and opinions w/o insult.

I still wish him the best with his health and daily life.

[Captain Worley]

Definitely some ugly moments there...

[JDidGirl]

Oh, I wish him the best with his life and I hope that his health is back to where it needs to be. I would never wish anything bad on someone just because we have a difference of opinion. I just don't appreciate anyone telling me that the issue I may have with someone is based on the color of their skin. But... as with a lot of Obama supporters (not all, but a lot)... that is the going thing. Divert the real reasons people have issues and turn it into a race thing.