Climategate: ‘The Copenhagen Diagnosis’ Fails Logic 101
Our leaders have gathered in Copenhagen. There, in their winter of discontent, they pledge to do something about climate change.
Before everybody arrived, to make sure those leaders were briefed, they were given a document outlining the evidence for man-made global warming (a.k.a. climate change, or AGW). This is “The Copenhagen Diagnosis.”
Stephen It’s-Getting-Cold-No-Wait!-Hot-Out Schneider and many other environmental persons took up pen to detail the best — or at least, most frightening — arguments for action. It is thus important to understand this document to discover whether the information offered is convincing … or even relevant.
The main evidence is contained in several bullets of the executive summary (readers are encouraged to download the document and follow along):
- Surging greenhouse gas emissions: A picture is shown of CO2 and CH4 increasing (fig. 2) since 1980. But showing these gases are increasing in not proof that AGW is valid. AGW theory states that increasing gases cause dangerous warming. Therefore, what is needed, and what is lacking, is a demonstration that the causal link between the two — warming and increased gases — has been proven.
- Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-induced warming: They claim that the small amount of observed warming before the last decade is “consistent” with AGW. This is true. But there are many other theories of climate change; AGW is just one of them. The observed changes in temperature are consistent with many theories, not only AGW. And what of the last ten years of no change, or even cooling? It is dismissed as a “short-term fluctuation,” which is “usual.” The problem is that this “fluctuation” was not predicted by AGW models; this weakens our belief that AGW is correct.
- Acceleration of melting of ice sheets, glaciers and ice caps: Even if this were true — and it is not so in recent years — it is not evidence that AGW is true. It is only validation that ice melts when it gets hot. Remember, we are after proof that the AGW theory is true. An observation of what happens when it is hot outside is not acceptable proof. We want to know what caused the air to get hot, not what caused ice to melt once it was hot.
- Rapid Arctic sea ice decline: This merely repeats the previous point, and is also not valid evidence for AGW, particularly in light of that decadal cooling “fluctuation” we are experiencing.
- Current sea level rise underestimated: When that ice melted, the water went into the sea (where else?), and so this point is again not evidence of AGW.
- Sea level predictions revised: They must have had room left over for them to repeat the same point a fourth time. There is no other explanation for why they insert this non sequitur once more. Let us repeat: observations of what happens to something when the air is hot are not evidence that mankind causes global warming.
- Delay in action risks irreversible damage: This is the most common — and most irresponsible — method of argument. It says bad things will happen if AGW is true. But it is logically impossible that what might happen could be proof for AGW. This is a scare tactic, a logical fallacy so blatant that we can only hope the “Diagnosis” authors blushed when they wrote it.
- The turning point must come soon: Alas, this last point assures us that they did not blush, but were willing to commit the same fallacy again, and with gusto. Threats of doom are simply not proof of anything except excitability in the their authors.
So much for the summary. What can we learn from the document itself?
“The Copenhagen Diagnosis” fails on many levels. As every student of statistical analysis knows: correlation does not — in and of itself — imply (much less prove) causality.
So, even if global warming DID exist to an alarming degree, frivolously attributing a causal effect to human behavior is scientifically invalid.
Moreover, when you consider that these so-called environmental researchers have been playing fast and loose with the raw data — and that they have been manufacturing correlations where none even existed — the magnitude of their fraudulent claims only grows.
So does the illegitimacy of their conclusions.
Will this post be supressed as well pajamas??? or is it just roger.
whats wrong?
are you, also, under his spell?
WE will be in charge before you end.
Know this. Charlie.
“But showing these gases are increasing is not proof that AGW is valid… Therefore, what is needed, and what is lacking, is a demonstration that the causal link between the two — warming and increased gases — has been proven.”
Are you really demanding that? I cite Wikipedia, one sentence is sufficient: “Carbon dioxide (…) transmits visible light but absorbs strongly in the infrared and near-infrared.” This is enough to prove a link between warming of a gas and amount of carbon dioxide in that gas. Are you really challenging this most basic knowledge about the physical properties of carbon dioxide, which a five year old could prove to you in a simple experiment? Or are you simply… not knowing anything about it?
More to the point: there is now no clear evidence that thee is in fact a rise in temperature.
The corruption of the CRU scientific process shows this. In fact, the averaging used in that data shows that this temperature rise is not a fat but the statistical manipulation of the data.
This is not, nor never was about science. This is about a socialist/tranzi coup.
They mean to destroy America. they canot abide capitalism. They cannot abide honest labor.
It is not a case that they do not comprehend what you suggest. They are not engaged in rational science They are engaged in conquest.
Goodness, look at the feverish attempts of the media to marginalize Climategate. This is not the action of a rational, disinterested press. This is the action of a propaganda ministry.
(and they may well get away with it. Look what thy did with the Ft. Hood terrorist attack.)
We need to understand that they will go through with this irrespective of rationality, science or the public wishes.
What do we do then. We need to stop thinking tht they are misguidedd, and tart thinking tht they mean to destroy us.
maxwed:
I think you need to show more than that.
Suppose a window had been bricked shut, and then painted. When asked why no light was coming through the window, would you say it was the paint, pointing to the fact that painting a window can lower the amount of light? And if you spent the farm to remove the paint, would you be disappointed when still no light came through?
The powers on high that be within the Global Warming alarmist machine could care less about facts or logic.
In like manner as to whether or not God exists or when does life actually begin, these people know that pure logic and brute ignorance will fight each other with neither side able to declare victory.
Copenhagen stokes the fire between smart and stupid with enough BS to insure chaos continues to rule the day worldwide; hence furnishing them with a virtually endless source of control, power and wealth.
Lack of any evidence, propaganda, emergency laws:
Copenhagen is the celebration of the “new” but same old same old totalitarianism.
Remember:
The issue is never the issue.
The issue is control.
William Briggs writes:
“Skeptics will be pleased that critical studies of proxy reconstructions are cited (Soon & Baliunas and McIntyre & McKitrick), but they’re there only to show how open-minded the “Diagnosis” authors can be. For no sooner do they admit these criticisms, then do they immediately claim that these papers “have been rejected in subsequent work.””
Do you mean that the hockey stick is back? Did MacIntyre’s criticisms accomplish nothing? What do you make of this? Do they have no shame? Do they have no fear of a broad public rejection in the USA?
maxwed writes:
“Are you really demanding that? I cite Wikipedia, one sentence is sufficient: “Carbon dioxide (…) transmits visible light but absorbs strongly in the infrared and near-infrared.” This is enough to prove a link between warming of a gas and amount of carbon dioxide in that gas.”
No. What Briggs wants is an energy budget which shows that CO2 particles in the atmosphere ARE collecting IN the right places and ARE reflecting enough energy to heat the environment TO a dangerous degree. No such energy budget exists, as Trenberth plaintively states in the emails. No, Briggs is not talking about the characteristics of each CO2 molecule.
#6 AWG
You write:
“In like manner as to whether or not God exists or when does life actually begin, these people know that pure logic and brute ignorance will fight each other with neither side able to declare victory.”
Very interesting way of putting it.
But can we say that brute ignorance is simply unable to concede defeat ?
And that Truth is Truth, no matter what “brute ignorance”, nihilism and/or totalitarianism, want ?
The obscurantist absolutism WILL be defeated. It is just a long…march.
Rejection is not refutation. Should be a t-shirt.
Reducing dangerous toxic emissions and reducing oil and other non renewable resource consumption is vital to our planet.s future and our national security. Its in our interest as the location and cost of oil has been declared by many to now be a clear and present danger. Therefore our total support for this cause is crucial. If mass oil production is shut down we will all breathe a sigh of relief, in more ways than one. And, most importantly, our grand kids will thank us. Its really that simple.
@maxwed #3;
Wekipidia is not a primary source. But if you are interested I suggest you look up the IR spectra of CO2 and that of both radiant sunlight striking earth and re-radiating from it’s surface. You will find that the absorption maxima for CO2 do not overlay the maxima of either of the other spectra. However, O3 (ozone) has a very healthy absorption peak virtually right on top of the biggest peak in the re-radiation spectra, so, by your argument, we should get rid of ozone. Besides, if you research the dogma presented by your own priests, it is the IR reflectivity of CO2, not it’s absorption that they site (having been caught just like you have been). Of course, they have yet to explain why it reflects heat only on it’s bottom rather than both ways (cleaver little molecule), nor have they explained why capitalistic CO2 does this while communist CO2 from China does not.
Your entire religion is based on hobbling together “data” from things like ice cores (which prove the CO2 spike follow rather than lead temperature spikes), tree rings (miraculously good enough to use if they indicate higher temeratures than the thermometer, but discarded for the years where they indicate lower temperatures than the thermometer.) In short you have had a potentially reliable and reproducable tool for temerature measurment for around 300 years, out of a period of interest of 4.5 billion years, further, there is no published evidence that the thermometer was used in the same way at all stations at all times (i.e. parralax correction, atmosperhic pressure, insturments made by the same manufacturer, instruments regularly calibrated etc.).
A study of the US stations indicate most are not build to the code vis a vie distance from large heat sources and expanses of asphalt and concrete. Further, in the late ’80′s as the cold war wound down, roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of the staions (mostly in Siberia and Canada) were shut down. I suppose it is a coincidence that the abrupt step wise increase in temperature reported to stoke all of this crap happened at exactly the same time.
If your side had the science all locked up, we would all be under a mile of ice as per their story line in 1970, we would also have exhausted the world’s peteroleum supply a decade or so ago, and the mullet would still be in fashion. Coincidentally, your side’s answer then was the same as now; bring down evil capitalistic western democracies, embrace the “emerging” socialist coutries, redistribute the weatlh and let the UN run the whole show. There is nothing like a “one size fits all” solution, is there?
maxwed,
No, sir, I do not mean to imply that CO2 does not absorb radiation of certain wavelengths. I also do not imply that humans do not effect the climate: it is a trivial fact that all organisms, including humans, influence the climate.
I do mean to ask whether CO2, in the amounts it exists, and its increases partly caused by the activities of humans, can cause disastrous global warming. I do not take this to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Another point: the level of somebody’s concern is also not evidence for AGW. Nor is it evidence that so many are concerned. That some people let the crowd influence them is evidence that, well, humans are easily influenced by crowds.
The “skeptics”, like the GOP and conservatives, let the Left define the debate. For example, if you saw the McIntyre interview on CNN you’d walk away thinking “yeah, some things were fudged but the IPCC guy made more sense.” As long as at least 40% buy into the AGW hoax and another 15% are not sure then the facts are simply toast.
After watching the climategate unfold with the “science guys”, I’m convinced the skeptics may eventually win but it will be a “so what” moment. It will be like the “saved jobs” of Obama. Something like “We enacted carbon controls and see, it worked even if we didn’t reach all our goals.”
I’ve yet heard a cogent argument that is simple enough that 55% will buy. For example, all the skeptics say things like “yes temperatures have risen in the last few years but…”. To win they should not even engage in the science as debated by the Left but say “there is no human warming that accounts for the Viking warm period or the Roman Empire warming period or the Minoan warm period which were all warmer than today. It’s all just wrong.” Sadly, it will never happen. They’re not political which means even climategate will just be a blip on the wart of the global warming march.
Poor Citizen,
The current conference and AGW religion, have nothing whatsoever to do with “dangerous, toxic emissions” in fact by putting all of their eggs into the CO2 basket, the environmental movement has done itself great harm in it’s credibility on more serious issus.
But, since you think reducing “dangerous, toxic emissions” is vital, you can relax, it’s already being done:
http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/aqtrends.html
By the way I love your handle, if this socialism keeps going you will indeed be a “poor citizen” right before you become a “poor subject”.
Reducing dangerous toxic emissions and reducing oil and other non renewable resource consumption is vital to our planet.s future and our national security.–Poor Citizen
If this is true, why are the Global Warming Cult ignoring Mother Nature’s volcanoes? They spew out more toxic fumes than anything mankind can do. And earthquakes? They too can release toxic gases from the Earth.
Your logic makes no common sense; in fact, it defies common sense. Earth is based on carbon & oxygen as the fundamental building blocks of life & not a pollutant. Without CO2 for the plants, we would suffocate & die. Your entire body is based on CARBON. Virtually every living thing on Earth is based on CARBON.
This is all about COMMUNISM, Totalitarianism for the sake of “science.”
Wait, I thought you all said the world was cooling. Now you say it’s warming, but it’s not man’s doing. Which is it. Which position do you want to blindly defend for political reasons?
I’m off to strangle my rabbits and concrete over my lawn. Do you have any idea how much CO2 it produced last night? Pure pollution!
By the way, watch out for water… that’s a greenhouse gas too. Must think of a way to remove all that toxic green house filth from our communities… maybe Al can help? Oh, my God… no… it’s just started raining!!!
no. 17 Just AL.
Well ok then, so sorry sir. Your right, there is no such thing as toxic emissions or pollution and fuel combustion actually reduces the risk of cancers and the world is flat and while your snorting just remember to wear your high heels and keep saying…
there is no place like home….
no place like home….
no place like home….
Please spare us. Please. Now there, you got the response you deserved. Now go back to school son. Your way out of your league.
Your way out of your league? Should be You’re way out of your league. How can you discuss science and ignore English?
“Delay in action risks irreversible damage: This is the most common — and most irresponsible — method of argument. It says bad things will happen if AGW is true.”
What about the risks if AGW isn’t true? There isn’t an endless supply of money to deal with all problems of this planet. What damage will be caused by other problems not addressed because of a myopic focus on CO2?
13. Poor Citizen: Following your logic, the Copenhagen solution makes absolutely no sense. We should develop our own resources in a pragmatic straightforward manner.
maxwed:
Are you really demanding that? I cite Wikipedia, one sentence is sufficient: “Carbon dioxide (…) transmits visible light but absorbs strongly in the infrared and near-infrared.”
___________
Any discussion omitting the role of water is incomplete. Climate and weather after all is behavior of water: rain, snow, drought, glaciers, etc..
Any discussion omitting the role of air dynamics is incomplete. Climate and weather is often behavior of air: wind, hurricane, tornado, dust storm, etc..
water is a much stronger emitter/absorber of IR than carbon dioxide for several reasons:
1- water has a permanent dipole moment. co2 does not.
2- water has only single bonds and thus bend easily. co2 has double bonds and is thus pretty stiff.
3- hydrogen bonding is present in water, thus broadening the spectral lines; co2 has no hydrogen-bonding and its spectral lines are narrow.
co2 has SOME effect on climate but most of its effects are moderated by water and air dynamics.
An analogy: if I drink orange juice (an acid), my blood pH will go down. The HORROR! Acidemia! Hospital quick! However the blood has a co3/hco3 buffer system to moderate the pH change.
Cedarhill, I agree. It should be a full scale frontal attack on why the alarmists are denying history. It needs to be stated strongly and repeated often. That will resonant with the average Joe. Meanwhile you will have guys like the poor citizen ranting about acceptable solutions while making it plainly obvious they have no problem solving skills.
Wait, I thought you all said the world was cooling. Now you say it’s warming, but it’s not man’s doing. Which is it.
Since its so difficult for you to comprehend I’ll break it down for you.
There was a period of warming according to the data (now “lost”) and now there is a cooling trend. This is called an observation, kind of like saying “Eagles can fly”.
The argument made by the AGW crowd is that the warming was/is caused by man-made green house gas emissions. There is no more supporting evidence for this argument then the premise “Eagles can fly because of magic pixie dust from Obama’s bung hole.”
Warming can be the result of many things OTHER than man, and in fact we have evidence that the Earth has been much warmer and CO2 10 times higher prior to the Industrial Revolution or even the existence of Humans.
19. Now and Then:(Our beloved resident troll)
Wait, I thought you all said the world was cooling. Now you say it’s warming, but it’s not man’s doing. Which is it. Which position do you want to blindly defend for political reasons?
AHEM: (why do I even bother….)
Wait, I thought you all said the world was WARMING. Now you say it’s COOLING, and it’s man’s doing. Which is it? Which position do you want to blindly defend for political reasons?
(The moral of this story is to avoid two dimensional talking points because they can be easily dismantled with simple word substitution…)
I will believe that temperatures are rising when CRU, NASA, NOAA and GISS admit that the Urban Heat Island has been incontrovertibly demonstrated by comparing Urban temps to closely located rural temperature stations. For a really simple demonstration go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcsvaCPYgcI Are you aware that these institutions believe nor adjust temperatures for the Urban Heat Island?>
I will believe that temperatures are rising when CRU, NASA, NOAA and GISS acknowledge that the MAJORITY of US temperature monitoring stations are hopelessly compromised by their location next to artificial heat sources. Eighty-nine Percent (89%) of these stations have heat sources or other biasing influences located nearby that introduce errors of 1 degree Centigrade or higher. This is HUGE considering one-tenth of a degree is statistically significant in the AWG hoax. Here are the sources: http://www.surfacestations.org/ And especially:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf By the way, the United States historical temperature monitoring is considered to be the most reliable in the world…….
This “Science” is so flawed, you cannot count on the underlying foundations.
Poor Citizen@13: And imagine if you lefties weren’t so hot to trot to abort about 50 million unborn babies! There’d even be some grandkids to thank you! Man, even if that made sense, after being informed of the logical fallacy, you smugly repeat it. Stuck on stupid!
13. Poor Citizen: Your train of logic, sir, is simply illogical. Because “many have said” something you imply everyone “must” then support that point. I would think an important but missing element in your train should be to go the step further and develop “proof” the “something” alleged is, in fact, true. Skipping that step is more indicative of “faith” rather than following a scientific process. I accept you have faith the AGW crowd are on point. I don’t share your religion. Your middle name, I take it, is “Deluded”.
21. Poor Citizen:
>>>”Please spare us. Please. Now there, you got the response you deserved. Now go back to school son. Your way out of your league.”<<<
Hmm…you have some set of stones to go insulting a poster after your howlers:
- "Therefore our total support for this cause is crucial."
- "If mass oil production is shut down we will all breathe a sigh of relief, in more ways than one."
- "And, most importantly, our grand kids will thank us. Its really that simple."
You blithely talk about our total support being necessary for destroying our economy and then state that our grand kids will thank us?
Yea, the few that are left will thank us from their cave dwellings.
It is sometimes hard to believe that we live in such an "unserious” society. On issue after issue we find the President, most members of Congress and about 25% our citizens live in a fantasy world devoid of reality and reason, unable to think through the consequences of what they espouse.
Short List:
Iran
AGW
Health Care
Cap & Trade
KSM trial
Amazing really, and more than a bit disheartening.
Poor Citizen,
Thank you for your concern, but I am satisfied with my chemistry degree and so don’t want to go back to school. Did you not understand my post or simply decide to respond to what you “wanted me to have written”? I repeat, the church of AGW expresses no interest in reducing real pollutants, on the imaginary pollutant CO2. If you have read anything, anywhere, at any time, from anyone who opposes AGW dogma that says nitrous or sulfurous pollutants are “OK” and should not be address, please, please show us a link.
Poor Citizen we are STILL waiting for you to answer the question you have been asked before. Is or is not CO2 a pollutant? If it becomes a pollutant in higher concentrations then tell us at what concentration that is? Then tell us what levels CO2 has been at over the past 1.5 billion years and PROVE to us that CO2 levels NOW are higher than they ever have been and then once you have done that PROVE that MAN MADE CO2 is the MAJOR contributor to that. Then and ONLY then can you spout your Green NAZI religious nonsense. Please dont try and DIVERT to REAL pollution either that is NOT what the AGW moonbats are talking about its CO2.
This whole Copenhagen debacle is NOT about global warming or CO2 gas emissions. It’s not even about control.
It is about redistribution of wealth – the wealth of the United States to all the second-rate, underachieving, despotic governments through the imposition by the UN of tariffs and/or taxes on US productivity.
The AGW has been shown to be a fraud. Will this make an iota’s difference in the Copenhagen outcome? Of course not. Poor science dictates that if you don’t like the conclusions from your data just ignore the data OR make the data fit your conclusions.
3. maxwed:Actually, yeah, that’s one of the fundamental problems. The refractory properties of CO2 in a dynamic system (like the atmosphere) work differently than they would in a laboratory environment.
I learned all I needed to know about global warming from Robert Kennedy Jr.
JustAl:You Sir are hereby nominated for the troll smasher of the day on PJM!
There’s in increadibly nasty winter storm that’s just snowed-in Nevada and heading east but it can’t be possibly happening because this is the “warmest decade ever” or some such, right? Hide the decline!
@13 Poor Citizen
If you believe that AGW fervor is actually about saving the planetary environment or US national security, you’re acting on delusion. The stated goals of the most vehement AGW proponents say it all:
http://ironicsurrealism.blogivists.com/2009/12/03/blood-curdling-spine-chilling-quotes-from-twisted-agenda-driven-climate-change-zealots/
LOL, thanks baal, I really hate to be so confrontational with folks like poor citizen. I’m sure he means well, but he just has to believe the hype about “saving the planet” etc. The leaders of these movements don’t give a plug nickle about the issue, they just want a way to push the crowd into following them. I doubt the majority of Russians knew what the hell the Bolsheviks were until it was way too late, ditto the Germans with the Nazis, it is all about power to the ones at the top and some higher ideals for the ones underneath.
The problem here is that the greenies need some sort of cause to make themselves feel good about. The good news is that they will drop this issue and forget all about it as soon as you give them something more interesting to play with.
Human issues like famine, war, or poverty are passe now so forget those. We already know those are caused by Bush and Fox News. Old school environmentalism like cleaning up trash and actual pollution is just way-too-my-parents to get excited about.
The basic formula must involve something we are doing, a product of technology (x), is screwing up factor(y) hopefully with a cute animal theme for the posters and logo.
The invasive species problem would be a good one. For example, the hairy-nosed wombat is endangered because of some sort of African grass introduced to the area which they dont like to eat. There are whole lists of problems and lots of new laws and things the greenies can do, like more checks at airports to be certain you arent carrying any zebra mussles or unwanted fruit flies, etc.
There could be all sorts of interesting conflicts about whose fault it is that a certain snail got somewhere else and killed off all of the good snails. Plus it is real and some actual ‘victorys’ are possible which would be much more fun than “lets do this and wait around for 500 years to see if it worked”.
Spindok
Save the Wombat Foundation
If justAL and Poor Citizen truly represented both sides of this debate I would feel much, much better. Poor citizen apparently never heard the advice about showing up at a gun fight with a knife. In his case a pocket knife with a rusty 1.5 inch blade!
Somebody call a plumber! First it was climategate; now it is the leaked “Danish Text,” reported to hand
more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN’s role in all future climate change negotiations.
The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.
The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as “the circle of commitment” – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.
Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.
“It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process,” said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.
Gosh darn! How could this happen, in the age of transparency? I am shocked, totally shocked.
Climategate Hullabaloo at Copenhagen Misses Larger Point – The Gaggle Blog – Newsweek.com http://bit.ly/5AYJKH
Mr. Briggs – You’re quite right. Logic is not the strong point of climatologists, and it appears, neither is science.
Poor Citizen – If you feel that strongly, why don’t you make a start by agreeing to do the following:
To use no electic lights, to use no heating for cooking or home heating, to use no cooling, and to use no transportation of any type. Then come back and tell us if the cost to you and yours of giving all that is worth the hypothetical benefit that you think will accrue from doing so.
Poor Citizen: “Now go back to school son. Your way out of your league.”
Maybe you should go back to school. Grammar school. To brush up on your grammar (you did it again further up the same post, too). You moonbat Marxist clowns killed God and you’ve been searching around for a religion ever since. Now you’ve found it, and you cling to it despite massive evidence suggesting prudent skepticism–particularly in light of the grave threat it poses to the world economy. It’s a cold, hard world. Windmills and unicorn dust will not feed us and warm our homes.
“Are you really demanding that? I cite Wikipedia, one sentence is sufficient: “Carbon dioxide (…) transmits visible light but absorbs strongly in the infrared and near-infrared.” This is enough to prove a link between warming of a gas and amount of carbon dioxide in that gas. Are you really challenging this most basic knowledge about the physical properties of carbon dioxide, which a five year old could prove to you in a simple experiment?”
Jeepers H. Christopher Columbus.
Those who are not 5-year-old children are aware that CO2 concentrations in the range of 400ppm are not remotely capable of trapping sufficient heat to account for the claimed warming- even the most ardent warmmongers admit that much. Greenhouse Theory only works py postulating unknown and undiscovered positive feedbacks, whose ontology is somewhere below that of the Keynesian Multiplier.
Poor Citizen: WTF does carbon dioxide have to do with pollution?
Note also that nearly half (12 of 26) of the Copenhagen Diagnosis authors are implicated in Climategate.
Mr. Briggs,
It is going to require a forensic paleo-climatologist to sort to compliation of global temperature data. How sure, to what probability of accuracy, was the global temperature in i.e. 1492? Most of the statistical input is from proxy measurements (tree rings, ice samples, coral growth). How accurate are those? What is the solar model of affectation over the last 100 million years?
What we seem to have as absolute proof is theoritical model of an infant science. Can the computer models predict 1950 to 1980?
The global temperature recordings of 150 years ago were very few National Geographic types in pith helmets with mercury thermometers. That data is mixed with ever advancing satellite metrics. There seems to be quite the room for bias when instrumentation is mixed over decades.
What percent of global temperature is attributal to man? NOAA says over 50% and the UN implies that it is an exclusive.
“Most of the statistical input is from proxy measurements (tree rings, ice samples, coral growth). How accurate are those? ”
Well, at least with regards to tree rings: pretty darn crappy.
3. Magnitude matters. The question has never been, “Is CO2 a greenhouse gas?” but rather, “Does CO2 introduced to the atmosphere by human activity trap enough heat to have a measurable effect on the weather?” We don’t care about something that is only going to change the temperature by .01 degrees. If the influence of CO2 is outweighed by the influence of solar fluctuations by more than an order of magnitude, then CO2 is not important.
All this skepticism about the settled science is unfairly impacting UN administrators and third world politicians. Many of them have already purchased homes/estates in Spain, Switzerland of Florida, banking on the bribes they’d receive for issuing waivers.
It is unethical to build a phantom evil and the multi-billion dollar machine to protect against the phantom and then employ facts to make decisions.
There are already markets to buy/sell carbon credits. Honest scientists can not be allowed to now say that global warming is the sun’s fault and not the evil white man’s!
All I got from Copenhagen was this free trade, organically spun, carbon credited, bio degradable, hemp stitched t-shirt that says, “AGW RIP”
Just consider the chain of inferences that are necessary to get where the AGW community wants to go:
1. The Earth is warming.
2. It is warming in an abnormal fashion, significantly outside the bounds of normal variability.
3. The abnormal warming is substantially due to human actions.
4. The main, relevant human action is emission of CO2.
5. There are no other (natural) processes to absorb “excess” atmospheric CO2.
6. Increasing levels of human-caused CO2 will continue to increase temperatures to a level where environmental damages (how measured?) will exceed benefits from the activities producing the CO2 (how measured?)
7. Doing X, Y and Z will reduce the environmental damages at a social cost that is less than the social cost of foregoing the CO2-producing activities, producing the largest net benefit of any and all alternatives, all of which have been studied and for all of which there is definitive analysis.
There is almost scientific consensus on point 1. Nothing else has been even remotely demonstrated. The significance of the hockey stick was it was supposed to deal with #2, but that was proven fraudulent about 5 years ago. All the rest is not well-demonstrated and by the time you get to #5 the matters are either not addressed at all or are clearly being handled by incompetents and liars (e.g. the Stern Report using a discount rate approximating 0.0%)
What is the temperature today in San Diego? Just asking. The newspaper is reporting 4 ranges, in degrees Farenheit: 56-46; 55-38; 44-26; and 60-30.
Is San Diego a special case? Maybe. Then again, in Columbia, Maryland, it’s reported today as 41-34; And I know from 12 year’s experience with the same gauge on my truck that I could persistently find a variance of + or – 5 degrees Farenheit within a mile from my home.
You can use a thermometer that is properly calibrated to a hundredth of a degree, but the margin of error for temperature measurements in Columbia, Maryland, near my house is at least + or – 5 degrees at any given time. In San Diego, the margin of error is much broader, depending, not on the thermometer, but on the thermometer’s location.
Poor Citizen, explain how carbon-dioxide is a pollutant. Given plants need carbon-dioxide to live, you’re on sand already. But please explain…
I see this as a way to tax oxygen, literally the air we breathe for more tax schemes & corruption from the Democrats & RINO’s.
Copenhagen is not about saving the planet it is about jump starting the global economy on the perpetual growth model. If we will not go out and spend money we don’t have on stuff we don’t need they will take everything we earn from us o pay for the carbon we can’t afford to burn.
The summit is about money, power and blame. Every time politicians screw up we are to blame for disrupting their plans by trying to think for ourselves
Ruth:
newsweek is back on the kilimanjaro claim again?
Copenhagen is not about saving the planet, it is about taxing travel and domestic fuel and controlling dissent.
The real agenda is the carbon tax and progress towards global government.
I see that the UN has declared the last decade the warmest on record and that 2009 will be be the 5th warmist in history. Source for the data? University of East Anglia/Climate Research Unit. Looks like the IPCC will plunge ahead with falsified data come hell or high water.
The truth does not matter. What matters is getting money into the hands of unelected individuals, and controling more human lives. As well as worshiping the creation rather than the Creator.
Same Tower of Babel song, and verse. Just a different time, and global. Like before Noah’s flood.
I recall after the Senate (95-0) dealt Kyoto it’s death knell, two EU reps were honest to admit that Kyoto wasn’t so much about saving the planet, but rather leveling the (economic) playing field with the USA. In the run up to Copenhagen, we’ve heard statements from some, more about social justice and fairness, than the global threat.
IF the Kyoto signatories, particulary the Europeans, truly believed Gaia was doomed within a few short decades, why did none of them meet them emmissions commitments? Why were China, India, and Brazil left out, when even then it was apparent who the fastest growing polluters were?
It’s all about wealth distribution, power, control, and a world government. With our Leftist betters, in control of the world government.
… yet liberals seem not to get it – bellow is a HuffPo title:
“Fox News Embraces Cyber-Terrorism to Subvert the Copenhagen Summit!”
Over at the Jerusalem Post, a poll is being taken. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPPoll%2FJCaptcha
I voted for the 3rd option.
Enough with the BS. We have the proof these CRU frauds cooked the data and fed AGW stew to the IPCC. There is no other climate data supporting AGW, it’s all been cherry picked. AGW is history. CO2 is not a pollutant. The socialist frauds that inhabit the MSM and government will now be challenged and defeated in political debate and exposed for the america haters they are. The leftist democrat party will take 50 years to regain the trust of the american people after trying to shove this fraud down our throats in the name of global environmental socialism.
Scientific proof, poof, meaningless in the world of ideology, totally meaningless. Ideology rules, facts are for fools. Copenhagen is about to be shoved down the throats of reality, common sense and reason, it’s put up or shut up time.
I often read this news commentary source, and find it good:
http://online.wsj.com/public/page/news-opinion-commentary.html
I just love “coincidence”. Like how this very week, the entire U.S. is engulfed in one of the LARGEST AND COLDEST WINTER STORMS IN DECADES.
12/5/09 (AP) “NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana got its earliest snowflakes ever as people across the South awakened to a dusting of powder.”
12/8/09 (AP) “Much of the Upper Midwest was covered in deep snow, and strong winds Tuesday night were expected to create blizzard conditions. The storm had already blanketed much of the mountain west and drenched Southern California with rain. Blizzard warnings were issued for most of Iowa as well as eastern Nebraska, southern Minnesota and southern Wisconsin. The storm had hit much of the West on Monday, bringing subzero wind chills in Washington state and heavy snow that closed schools and government offices in Reno, Nev. In the Phoenix area, fierce wind brought down power lines, left four hospitals temporarily without power and created wide outages. Freezing temperatures in Oregon were suspected in one death. Officials in northern Arizona closed stretches of Interstate 17 and I-40 for part of the day, saying some areas were snow-packed and visibility levels were near zero. The storm dumped more than 20 inches of snow over Flagstaff, more than four times the record of 5 inches set in 1956.”
How IS that Global Warming working out?
Global warming has made a science out of distortion.
One more thing. In declaring 2009 the fifth warmest year on record the IPCC is engaged in the standard warmist big lie. They are comparing 11 months of 2009 to complete years. December is a cold month in the Northern Hemisphere. Don’t be surprised when the final data is published to find that 2009 isn’t in the top 10 even measured by IPCC fraudulent standards.
“Global warming has made a science out of distortion.”
Yes Rachel, and then outright lies to support themselves on top of that. And the dishonest, lamentably, are winning because of their numbers and the complicit support of the MSM. Now, at the time of Copenhagen, they swear that the last decade has been, in fact, the warmest on record and that, really really, really this time AGW is dooming the planet. Tonight CNN had on Bill Nye (“the science guy”) who swore that there was a real consensus among all “reputable” scientists and the deniers were a small fringe group that should be ignored. How dare the world contradict the real scientists! I, personally, believe their latest protestations no more than their initial assurances. And I know too many of these folks personally to be persuaded. They are intellectual whores protecting their funding, their careers, and their fragile egos. Believe me, the war has only just begun. I hope you all are ready to go Galt and guerrilla because these bastards are intent on jamming this down our throats.
Yeah, right. For sh*ts and grins, try estimating the percentage of the entire atmosphere (to, say, 10 miles high) that will pass through engines of any and all sorts over a 20 yr period.
[And what of the last ten years of no change, or even cooling? It is dismissed as a “short-term fluctuation,” which is “usual.”]
The cultists are playing a variation of heads I win, tails, you lose.
When the temp drops or stays stable, it’s a short-term fluctuation. When it supposedly goes up, it’s catastrophic CO2.
#13 Poor Citizen
Dont kid yourself about energy independence. Take the hybrid car future, the largest source of lithium for batteries lies in Bolivia. Another country run by an evil dictator. Somehow if we stop importing oil from the middle east all our problems are solved. We will find cleaner sourses of energy, but lets not force it. The technology will come in due time, but not until it is economically viable. So Obama wants to spend 2 billion in stimulus money to help fund the electric and hybrid car movement. Morales is just another Saudi King waiting for his payday. While Oil and coal get demonized by the left, dollars will filter to another evil empire for a cause that is built on lies. What happened to patience? You cannot force technological changes until they become economically viable. Patience.
All: You must checkout the link from DAn Miller @43! It’s just too beautiful to be true!
It will make us in the West look bad, I admit, but I think I’d rather that than looking stupid! I think it may be that the US/UK are in fact concerned about the CRU leaks (I just can’t call it Climategate!) and the political suicide they’d be committing if they gave away the farm. The best part about the link are the comments. Some seriously devout pilgrims are rather enraged.
Just AL, I second the Motion made by baal #37! Thanks for your efforts. I noticed that the simp didn’t re-appear.
Bonzo @39; Yikes!
Other things (maybe many other things) beside CO2 cause warming, for sure, but CO2 does contribute.
Applying Rumsfeld’s 1% rule (if there is a 1% chance that Iraq has WMD’s…) some restrictions on CO2 emissions makes sense. It will happen; the devil is in the…well, you know.
To Mark Forbes: Google (sometimes and if you’re careful) can be your friend.
Try repeating this until it sinks in:
1) Global warming is real.
2) Humans are the primary cause.
3) The CRU hack was a hack where emails were stolen, no more, no less.
4) If I disagree with 1, 2, 3, I’m a right wing Jackass, that is if Taylor Swift is science, sense, ethics and fair play, I’m Kanye West.
If you take a minute or ten to scan #28 justasimplepatriot’s link: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf you will see that NOAA’s temperature data is complete BS and that most of the discussion of CO2 properties here is beside the point, since we don’t even know if the Earth is even warming at all lately.
It’s something to have good faith in man-made global warming and its alarmism because of how happy we will apparently be, how lovely the world will be, but this is ridiculous. Scientists do not know enough about the Earth. But believers do. I wonder if believers are capable of controlling the global climate. There is no proof that we are able to demonstrate control. The removal/regulation of man-made forcing mechanisms is the answer, but this wouldn’t demonstrate it.
Might what be required are two conditions: 1) political effort for nations to agree on how to maintain man-made forcing mechanisms and 2) knowledge of and capability to fight nature’s forcing mechanisms. But there are three problems with this global climate control fairytale: 1) we don’t have worldwide political agreement, 2) there is no legitimate consensus to believe that man-made forcing mechanisms are effecting the global climate dangerously, and we’re somewhat f***** by nature.
But politics have had their way. Science has officially been through lack of critical thought, lack of motivation to disprove… Read Mike Hulme’s article on the “toxic” mixture that is politics and science: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574571613215771336.html
That’s “sleight of hand” not “slight”. I don’t see how you can trust a man who can’t spell. It demonstrates a lack of basic education. His opinions on more important matters are surely suspect.
(Ecologically friendly strawman built with an absolute minimum of straw!)
@80
Rich, it’s apparent that pajamasmedia.com doesn’t have rigorous peer review. You can’t honestly judge him on the lack of editing, can you? Well, you can, but that’s not the point because people sometimes spell incorrectly – strawman indeed!
#80 Rich,
Yes, a typo. Surely, you can forgive me?
And need I point out what kind of fallacy it is to dismiss my other arguments because of a misspelling?
@BC 72
“Yeah, right. For sh*ts and grins, try estimating the percentage of the entire atmosphere (to, say, 10 miles high) that will pass through engines of any and all sorts over a 20 yr period.”
Or you could estimate what percentage will pass through the lungs of living creatures if all you want is fodder for trivial pursuit. I remember in high school reading a book on statistics that said it was likely that every breath we take has some of the same molecules in it as the last breath of Julius Caesar.
The point is related to my discussion with “poor citizen,” what matters is what comes out of those engines. If the only exhaust was CO2 it would be an environmental triumph of the ages. Of course the church of AGW doesn’t see it that way, they want to confuse people into thinking that CO2 is a pollutant like SO2 etc.
We’re on to you lefties. We won’t let this die down. You’ve been busted trying to perpetrate the biggest scientific (and economic) scam / fraud of all time on the most open and productive nations of the world. Anyone who tries to argue that “the science is settled” and that 2500 phony scientist agree will be scorned and humiliated. The more we dig the more lies and deceit we uncover. 2010 and 2012 are not that far off. Better start updating your resumes.
To BC -
Try repeating this until it sinks in:
1) Global warming is real.
2) Humans are the primary cause.
3) The CRU hack was a hack where emails were stolen, no more, no less.
4) If I disagree with 1, 2, 3, I’m a right wing Jackass, that is if Taylor Swift is science, sense, ethics and fair play, I’m Kanye West.
Dude, you got a nice set of prayer beads to go with that?
Why not try repeating this until it sinks in:
1) Global warming is a scam.
2) Ideology aimed at restricting capitalism is the cause.
3) The CONTENT of the CRU emails (AND data AND faulty code) is relevent.
4) If I disagree with 1,2, OR 3, I’m a left-wing moonbat regardless of my taste in music.
To all those climate fearmongers. The manipulation of data to fit a desired outcome is amoral and irresponsible. It also undermines everyones belief that global warming as proposed has any validity. So the correct thing to do is to go back to the drawing board, objectively re-evaluate all of the original data (not the false data) AND ENCOURAGE DEBATE ON THE ISSUES.
What is wrong to do is to throw the worlds population under the bus in order to create a new governmwent world order. Particularly a tyrannical one.
In fact if the EPA goes after the American people and if Obama signs anything at Copenhagen, then there needs to be a global class action lawsuit going after Gore, Obama, the UN and all of those who support this agenda.
#85 Curtis M: wrote
To BC -
Try repeating this until it sinks in:
1) Global warming is real.
2) Humans are the primary cause.
3) The CRU hack was a hack where emails were stolen, no more, no less.
4) If I disagree with 1, 2, 3, I’m a right wing Jackass, that is if Taylor Swift is science, sense, ethics and fair play, I’m Kanye West.
Dude, you got a nice set of prayer beads to go with that?
Why not try repeating this until it sinks in:
1) Global warming is a scam.
2) Ideology aimed at restricting capitalism is the cause.
3) The CONTENT of the CRU emails (AND data AND faulty code) is relevent.
4) If I disagree with 1,2, OR 3, I’m a left-wing moonbat regardless of my taste in music.
Let’s try a third option:
1. Yes there is global warming
2. We don’t know enough to know if human activity is the major driver, but it’s obviously not helping.
3. The hacked emails lend to the suspicion that the people who claim to know that humans are the major drivers have some “issues”
and their data has some issues.
4. Moonbats to the left of me, moonbats to the right of me…here I am.
I posted this on another blog as a point to question today’s headlines about this being the warmest decade etc.and thought you folks might find it interesting.
“As the cold war ended, weather stations started getting closed down, primarily in Siberia and Canada, I suppose ICBM targeting needed accurate weather information.
If the linked graph is true, and it should be fairly easy to determine that, then the reported global temperature very suddenly jumped into a higher moving range just as roughly a quarter (correction, make that roughly half) of the monitoring stations shut down.
Not only that, but around the same time, the stations that were left decreased the number of days of reporting actual readings and substituted more assumed numbers.
This gave the warmmongers an opportunity to create from whole cloth new formulas to, replace the data from the now closed stations. So one has to wonder what the data would look like if only the data from currently existing stations was used and all data from stations not actually still reporting was discarded.
Add to this the formulas created to supposedly compensate for the urban heat island effect and you now have guesstimation squared.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/nvst.html “
Call me the skeptical scientist. What’s always bothered me about these phony plots showing lower temperatures for centuries and then the faked sudden jump starting around 1960 is the fact that we had ancient measuring devices / tools / approaches / techniques (or ways to estimate what the temperature might have been based on secondary evidence like tree rings or ice core samples, etc.) and suddenly when we hit the digital age with super calibrated modern sensors it looks like everything is suddenly warmer and increasing(not to mention the fact that the super sensitive / calibrated modern technology is placed near exhaust vents / concrete / asphalt which distorts / biases the measurements considerably). This isn’t even considering the fact that they’ve manipulated the data to fake their “proposed theory” anyways. It’s kind of like how our weather service now can see every hurricane (or tropical storm) anywhere in any ocean via constant satellite coverage so of course there are more hurricanes today than there were 100 years ago (when they couldn’t see the ones that didn’t make land fall). Also, they now count tropical storms that they used to not count so that further distorts the modern data in a climate changing favorable manner. Everywhere we look we see ways they’ve manipulated the story line to make it appear like the temperature has been increasing and storms are more numerous and more ferocious. Kind of like the Lenin quote where “It’s not important who votes but who counts the votes.” I hope those folks up north in the US don’t mind the super cold blizzard that’s hitting them now (probably thanks to global warming right?).
Dwight -
“Let’s try a third option:
1. Yes there is global warming”
It appears as though you are well meaning, so let me be clear(er).
When I refer to ‘global warming’ (and this is just me, I’ll try not to speak for anyone else), I mean the WHOLE ENCHILADA as put forth by the AGW proponents.
Meaning:
1. The planet is warming.
2. Increased CO2 is THE driving factor.
3. Man’s activities are THE source for increased CO2.
4. The ‘normal’ (ideal?) global temps is…..whatever it was before man started screwing everything up (has anyone been able to determine just what IS the ‘ideal’ temperature and HOW this might be determined?)
5. The effects of a warmer planet will be catastrophic (just like the effects of a cooler planet were also presumed to be catastrophic when the threat was an imminent ice age back in the ’70s). No upside to warmer temps, nope, none whatsoever…..
6. We can easily (?) drastically reduce CO2 emissions in order to avert the oncoming apocalypse….with only short term effects to our economy as we convert over to ‘clean’ energy.
So, when I refer to ‘global warming’, I’m talking about the above 6 items (and I could probably expand that list to a dozen without too much trouble). The above list is what I believe to be a SCAM.
Unfortunately, before the Climategate issue was blown open, I was just about to start accepting #1. However, when it appears now that the CRU went to extreme measures to eradicate the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age from the temperature records, and I learn more about how the temperature record was massaged to generate the ‘hockey stick’ graph, AND with the evidence that the global temps have been a bit LOWER over the last decade, I think that there is sufficient reasons to be VERY skeptical about whether or not global temps are even rising.
I notice, the greenhouse hotspot is missing. Is that important? You would think the GCMs that depend on the now proved fraudulent CRU data, all predict it will exist between +-15 latitude that people would notice it’s not there. If what your computer models say must be, and it is not, does that make the whole AGW CO2 scenario falsified?
I also wonder if people know the Arctic ice is at a high for the time it has been possible to measure. hmmm, didn’t Al gore just say on TV it would be gone soon. Must not watch Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch”.
87. Dwight: said
Italicized words were inserted by this commenter. There is an answer to #4. Move into the daylight of common sense and out of the moonlight where those bats seem to thrive.
I think I’ll stick with my four.
As for what I have observed personally, I have visited 10-12 glaciers in North America and Iceland over the last 20 years and they ALL have retreated significantly. I have not seen one that is growing. It is what it is.
I have tried to be clear about what (to me) is indisputable and what is open to question. If it bumps into your particular agenda…too bad.
Some people politically want government to control things so they Beleeeeve in global warming. Some people don’t want any government control so they DENYYYYYYYYY even what is well known and common sense. It is what it is.
Dwight,
So what you are saying is that based on a span of 20 years you or anyone for that matter can determine an anomaly in a system that is 4.5 billion years old? I’m not one to dismiss anecdotal evidence out of hand, but that, at most, is what you have.
To Dwight: it’s more like, right wing numbnuts to the right of me, corporate media he/she saiders to the front of me, and besieged climate researchers to the left of me.
I have heard the current warming dismissed as,’it’s just the climate coming out of the little ice age” which ended the Medieval Warming Period. What “coming out of the ice age” actually consists of or is caused by is not stated. If the climate begins to cool for the unknown reasons which makes it cool, causes little ice ages etc. our human caused CO2 is unlikely to reverse that. If, however, natural warming continues or starts up again, the sunspots come back, the earth wobbles, or the great tortoise farts, then our extra CO2 will exacerbate the warming.
To cut down our CO2 emissions some amount, Obama’s 17% in twenty years seems not unreasonable, a politic move by a politician, for sure, but not unreasonable. Sending 30,000 troops over to Afghanistan is another similar move. Politics is the art of the possible blah, blah. The people who hate him will continue to hate him and his rabid lefty support will cool considerably, but it is still, given the nature of the country AS A WHOLE, a reasonable policy to pursue. They are both like Bush’s bailout in that it would be unreasonable NOT to do them.
#81 and #82
Is there really a name for the fallacy of concluding that a statement is wrong because it’s mis-spelled? I didn’t know that.
To be honest, I expected a response along the lines of, “In America it’s spelled ‘slight’ you British twit”. You can’t be serious all the time.
Mr Briggs, of course I forgive you.
Unless one is a postmodernist, deconstructionist twit in some university philosophy department, we can agree that in the cause/effect dynamic the cause must come before the effect. Yes? So if CO2 really causes global warming, we would see its level rise before we would see the temperature rise. Yes?
I’ve looked. All I have ever seen is CO2 rising AFTER a rise in temperature. Therefore if one causes the other (which I think, but do not know), temperature rise is the causal factor and CO2 rise is the effect.
I am open to correction on this. Can anyone cite evidence — real evidence — that will show me wrong?
Believe it or not, I’d be appreciative.
#12 Thomas_L……:Rejection is not refutation. Should be a t-shirt.Dec 8, 2009 – 5:34 am==============
Do you refer to the AGW people’s assertion that we are wrong in denying that AGW exists?
I’ve looked. All I have ever seen is CO2 rising AFTER a rise in temperature. Therefore if one causes the other (which I think, but do not know), temperature rise is the causal factor and CO2 rise is the effect.
I am open to correction on this.
A little bit of common sense can correct you on this. And I doubt youre open to corrections considering your view is so obtuse to miss this obvious fact…
co2 levels have been rizing since before there was anyway to collect data. There for you cant possibly come up with co2 data that supports the first global temperature data. So obvioustly there would be temperature data that predtated the co2/4 rizes. Nost importantly…
You can allways look at the temperature data first and the pst co2 data and say that the temperature data came first. What is obvious is their corralation.
Do you not know what a corralation is? It is when 2 graphs are so alike that you must investigate whether one is caused by the other. Now we know that temperature rizing doesnt contribute to the rize of human emittions… we know this simply because we are fully aware and it is just a no brainer that the co2 is comming from us. Dont ever aregue other wise or im sure someone of moderate common sense like me will give yo the same toung lashing.
I want to add
If co2/4 are continually rizing and they are, then there will allways be a co2/4 rize after temperature rize.
I just thought it increadibly rediculous that this guy would come up with such an arguement… and to top it off it doesnt even refute the idea that the temp is rizing which is what is triggering all this bs… i mean lets face it threads like this get real active and prolific ever time fox news starts ranting about how cold it is not to mention drudge and all the other rt wing nuts out there.
Why do you want to burn everything to the ground… clean abundant energy is right around the corner for all of us if we just stick together against these oil barrons instead of voting them in as presidents and vice presidents etc.
How about getting republican candidates to represent the people of this country instead of the few rich people and get behind things like moving away from oil and coal and all the other dirty energy?
A few points. First, let me say I’m not an expert or even a beginner in climate knowledge, but I am getting interested in it.
1) Wasn’t the little ice age due to the Atlantic Conveyor being interrupted – supposedly due to excessive fresh water injection? And, during this period wasn’t all that heat diverted up higher in the gulf stream and perhaps somewhere elsewhere onto the North American continent? I’m not sure about this, I’m just asking.
2) If CO2 drives the climate so much, then why didn’t we have energy spikes when huge amounts of CO2 were injected into the atmosphere in the past – like when Mt. St Helens erupted? I seem to remember reading that CO2 increase was a lagging indicator of warming, not a cause.
3) We know there have been many times in the past when the earth was much warmer than it is now and the seas were much higher. I was watching discovery channel last night and they were taking about dinosaur skeletons and tracks being found in Texas (near Dallas/Ft Worth). At one point in the past they said that area was under 400-700′ of water. That can’t be just from the oceans height change, can it? I assume that some of this is due to tectonic plate activity?
4) Also on this discovery channel they were saying they found what is most likely the largest natural gas field in the world under Texas. Something like this should surly sustain us until we can develop better alternate technologies (i.e. non-oil based).
5) One thing I do agree with is that we should have a national energy policy that will help us wean ourselves off of oil. Let those mid-east countries choke on their black crud. Sadly, we could have been much more energy independent had we continued building nuclear plants which at one point generated 20% of our
electricity, now down to roughly 10%. Let’s build more nuclear plants.
6) One thing we have to get used to is that we need oil. It’s used in everything from plastics to pharmaceuticals, so until we can create oil ourselves (which I’m sure we will someday using a different energy source), we need what we have, so saving it it a good idea. For my part, I plan on buying an electric car in 2012 (A Tesla Model S) when they become available. Before anyone rags on me saying I’m just transferring the CO2 back to the generating plant, I live in NH and have PSNH, so my electricity comes from clean Nuclear power!
Bob