One of the most disturbing outgrowths of the global warming controversy over the last twenty or so years has been the increased politicization of science. Of course, this is far from the first time this has occurred, but it may be one of the most important, because we are at a particularly fragile moment in the global economy. Indeed, had it not been for the release of the Climategate emails and documents in November, the recent Copenhagen conference might have succeeded in reallocating billions, even trillions, of dollars, possibly leading to a form of global bankruptcy. Less than two months later, with the so-called science now unraveling on an almost daily basis, the whole thing seems close to insane. How could we have done it?
Well, how could we have done it?
Okay, I’ll take a pass at that – with the caveat that this is a very early narrative of a story that many will tell and examine in the future, undoubtedly in book form. In fact, it deserves several books.
But let’s start with the obvious. Most of us love Mother Earth. It’s a beautiful planet to live on with many extraordinary places and creatures “in’t.” Most of us want to preserve it. And for decades we have been trying to do so – liberals and conservatives in sometimes different ways – via governmental and non-governmental means. To greater or lesser degrees, some of these means worked – or at least improved things. Anyone who lives in Los Angeles, as I do, knows the benefits of air quality legislation. You can actually see the hills and your eyes don’t tear, as they once did, when you walk into the back yard.
As we know, while these things were going on, organizations were growing and forming in protection of the Earth, or what was perceived to be the protection of the Earth. Many of these groups would phone us or go door-to-door asking for money, which many of us, I among them, gave. We were all good servants of Gaia. No matter what our religion – or lack thereof – it was the right thing. The Earth was in jeopardy. We had to defend it. And these organizations continued growing. Being “green” became the normative behavior, in practically every aspect of our existence, from the school to the supermarket. We lived in a “recycling world.” (Yes, I know there were many environmental errors and misidentifications of endangered species, etc., but mistakes are the way of the world. Let’s pass over that for the moment.) Environmentalism had become for many a replacement religion rather than the simple common sense that it is.
Enter Al Gore. Recently having lost a highly-disputed election for the most important position in the world, he was ripe for a cause and became influenced by a small group of scientists who had deep and sincere beliefs in an impending catastrophe from CO2 caused Anthropogenic Global Warming. The most prominent of these scientists is James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who is said to have a general dislike for industrial civilization and what it has wrought. Whether this is true or not or whether Gore knew it, I don’t know, but it doesn’t appear to have mattered. Gore – who had no scientific training and indeed had an exceptionally poor academic record in general – seized upon the information proferred by Hansen and the others, not questioning them, as far we know, for a second. (As you will see from this link, many, including director superiors, are questioning Hansen now.)
I think I’m still going to look at Gore as a joke.
The people who have knowingly perpetrated this farce (mainly the CRU “hockey team”) should be stripped of their academic standings and fired. Maybe they can get a job teaching a high school biology class. They certainly have lost any credibility to continue being a player in climate science
Who knew Al Gore ate Mother Earth? Time has not be kind to him; has has aged poorly & shows that political power can eat you alive if you’re on the wrong end of it. Al Gore should sacrifice himself for the good of Global Warming; he expels way too much hot air as is. On second thought, perhaps Al Gore should campaign with President Obama? Yes, that’s the ticket…
Al Gore will insist to his dying day that climate change is man-made and about to engulf us all. To change his mind now and admit that he’s wrong would destroy him.
Algoreski duped many including the power brokers at Kleiner Perkins who fawned over him as the presidential candidate, then, placed him on the boards at Apple, Google, and made him a partner in their venture firm. Fast forward a few years and those deals made Baby Al a billionaire. And what did he do with it? He promoted the biggest lie in modern politics (except, maybe, him having presidential qualities) and the world has invested trillions following this pied-piper of deceit. A better team than Obama/Gore is Gore/Madoff.
Great piece, Roger — excellent points, and just the right tone.
All this is just another chapter in the long history of obscurantism: the difference is that instead of burning the scientists at the stake, today the obscurantists compel the scientists to say what the marxists-leninists want them to say…by funding bogus reasearch.
As long as ideologies will exists, science will be in danger: it can no longer be destroyed from outside, but it can be corrupted and bribed from “inside”.
And it is the same with other fields of the human knowledge.
The communist dictatorship is being imposed selectively: in the colleges, in the media, in the schools.
It’s not al gore that matters anyway, it is the network of the internationalist subversives that moves him that is really dangerous. They will always find an al gore to use.
Couple of points.
1) Is Al Gore an Evil Man?
I don’t know, but he sure is Getting Rich off of this Global Warming Thing.
2) We now Recycle
Unless and until you are paid for your garbage we do not have true recycling (that is your cast off remnant is viewed as a resource) but in truth have Reclaimation. That is why you still have to pay them to take it away.
3) Nuclear Powerplants size and scope.
Not the right way to be going now. Technology has provided an answer, but it seems to be one of the biggest kept Tech Developments of the last 20 years.
http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news5.28.08c.html
This is exciting stuff, if CBS, NBC, ABC, et al would let folks know about it.
jd
“So is Al Gore an evil person?”
I think it always helpful to define terms before answering a question employing them.
What constitutes evil? According to my use of “evil”, Gore could readily qualify.
Evil can be, as in Gore’s case, blatant, grinding hypocrisy. The instances of his Godzilla-like carbon footprint are legion…and growing.
Evil can be, as in Gore’s case, an effort to personally smear opponents, and silence free speech. Or to try to co-opt the press into homogenized echo chambers for your view.
I could go on, but it suffices to say that, provided the dim bulb of the Goracle was sincere in what he expounded, his methods, enrichment using it, and his adherence to it were…by my lights…evil.
Woah, shut my mouth.
Will Collier has an article right her on Pajamas Media about the same thing I mentioned in number 3 above.
Wow!
Se the Nuclear Think Small article.
Al Gore, Jr. represents the progressive Ivy League mindset. It is inherently anti-intellectual and contemptuous of critical thinking. Gore takes it for granted that he has the right to squeeze, bend, and do all sorts of other awful things to the truth on behalf of the views of the anointed ones. Destroying the careers and reputations of those getting in the way is standard operating procedure. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.’s disgracefully mediocre work concerning the New Deal era is a quintessential example. Amity Shlaes was the not the first scholar to reveal the damage of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s economic policies. She is merely the first one to truly bust through the barrier of censorship implicitly instituted by the Ivy League elites.
The leaders of wealthy and powerful academic institutions must never endingly ask this unavoidable question: do our scholars always have the better arguments—or are outsiders leery of providing substantially well thought out dissent? Alas, they have failed to carry out this particular responsibility for minimally the last six decades. This is why it is fully justified to calmly and precisely describe today’s Ivy League schools as often nothing more than intellectual whorehouses.
“So is Al Gore an evil person? I think not. He has meant well…”
And yet so did Mussolini, Torquemada, Lenin.
I don’t think evil and “meaning well” are mutually exclusive.
And Gore was a hate-inciting demagogue before he lost that election.
like ..Charlie said …Gore is a joke.
criminal court for the lot of them.
‘Meaning well’ is irrelevant. Obama, for example, claims that he ‘means well’ and that this emotional intentionality removes his actions from both questions and culpability. That’s just an Obama tactic to divert and reject accountability.
The focus has to be simple; on the result of the action.
The result of Al Gore’s massive political and financial investment in this scam has been, apart from his own enrichment, the promotion of a centralist authoritarian money-transference scheme over the nations of the world.
The scheme has been to obtain money from industrial nations, defined as ‘guilt-money’ for having industrialized, ..which is then given without constraints or as a loan, to other countries so that they can industrialize.
The means of inducing guilt has been the false claim about AGW. The strategy has been to politicize science by financially rewarding ‘papers’ that support this opinion and by excluding any reseach that rejects AGW.
The two key themes are: industrialism and the agenda of obtaining free money to enable other countries to sidestep the work of their own economic advancement and get the industrial nations to ‘do it all for them’. For free. A massive scam.
Well, on the bright side, seeing as your ideas haven’t permeated the culture, we can still look at you as a joke. Not a funny one, but a funny looking one anyway.
This spoof of climate science may be of interest:
http://climaterealists.com/?id=4960
One of the many ironies of this is that Cornell West and many of the Ivies have spent the better part of their academic careers drenched in PoMo stuff, the very movement that has called the legitimacy of science into question.
“The most prominent of these scientists is James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who is said to have a general dislike for industrial civilization and what it has wrought. Whether this is true or not”
Oh, it’s true.Hansen just this month gave an unsolicited endorsement to the lunatic radical-green tract “Time’s Up,” the thesis of which is “The only way to prevent global ecological collapse and thus ensure the survival of humanity is to rid the world of Industrial Civilization.”
[...]
“Unloading essentially means the removal of an existing burden: for instance, removing grazing domesticated animals, razing cities to the ground, blowing up dams and switching off the greenhouse gas emissions machine. The process of ecological unloading is an accumulation of many of the things I have already explained in this chapter, along with an (almost certainly necessary) element of sabotage.”
Hansen’s take on this unhinged rant? “Keith Farnish has it right: time has practically run out, and the ‘system’ is the problem. Governments are under the thumb of fossil fuel special interests – they will not look after our and the planet’s well-being until we force them to do so, and that is going to require enormous effort.”
This is the same Savonarola who testified before Congress that energy-company executives should be put on trial for “high crimes against humanity and nature.”
So the next time Hansen’s GISS comes out with a “hottest month X of all time!!!” (a synthetic temperature number which has been adjusted, corrected, homogenized and sanitized for your protection), just ask yourself “would I buy a used climate theory from this man?
“‘Meaning well’ is irrelevant.”
“Meaning well” is logically of secondary importance. Results are ultimately the true measure of any enacted policies. The meaning-well mindset of the Ivy Leagues institutions worsened considerably during the civil rights era. Overly sentimental individuals rationalized away their anti-intellectualism by voicing their alleged concerns for the rights of minorities. Thinking rationally about these issues was deemed yucky and possibly even evil. The radical left essentially pushed Edward Banfield out of Harvard University. Matters significantly deteriorated after that. Al Gore, Jr. was a student during that time period. This is most assuredly where he learned to ignore and slime job those who disagreed with him. It is now second nature to his adult character. The same, of course, also hold true regarding Barack Obama who was a Harvard student a few years later.
Well written, it’s one take down after another in the Times of London for the head IPCC guy Rajendra Pachauri and exposés of errors and downright lies in the 2007 reports.
I wouldn’t expect the Goracle to accept your invitation, since he has turned down opportunities to debate anyone who might challenge him. I think he wouldn’t have much to say past the phrase “settled science”.
Recall the Irish filmaker who was in one of Al’s climate gabfests, and, when challenged, Gore just kept repeating woodenly: “You don’t think numbers of polar bears are declining?” Then they pulled the guy’s mike, so he couldn’t bother Al anymore.
I think such an attitude typifies “debate” for the dogmatic Goracle.
Is it just the Ivy league universities that have rejected a logical and empirical reality and moved into the subjective fictional world of emotional agendas? I’d say it’s the majority of academia!
Gore and Obama are Ivy League examples. It’s quite something to watch Obama perform, as he did at the Republican televised meeting the other day. The questions were supposed to be short and above all,no follow-up questions. This of course resulted that anything Obama said could not be held accountable by further questions.
Equally, the AGW and Gore crowd have set themselves up in a similar fashion of unaccountability by cloaking themselves in a cocoon of what we now know is false data. False data that is protected from exposure by that cloak of ‘science’.
It’s fascinating to watch how these two, Gore and Obama operate. Both set up apocalyptic scenarios. Both self-define their agenda as Savior. And both utterly reject and ignore reality and focus on the narrative of a fictional world whose content they MUST entirely control. Any unwelcome content is rejected with smears or ignored.
Gore’s is the meltdown of the planet, a situation caused by ‘the Evil Ones’ who are greedy and wealthy, a scenario ignoring reality, relying on false data, but propped up by the emotional agenda of ‘saving purity’.
Obama’s is the collapse of the USA – a situation which he claims was caused by ‘the Evil One’ (not Ones), and all he is trying to do is ‘fix the mess’. Any of his own invalid predictions (8% vs over 10% unemployment) are caused by ‘the inadequate data the Evil One left me”..and so on. And, he rattles off all kinds of false data (millions of jobs saved, putting people to work)…
Claims he’s ‘read the Republican Health care proposals’..(so what? Tell us why you reject them!)- which is an example of his controlling the fictional narrative.
Both Gore and Obama reject reality and rely on words to create their own fictional world. Obama renames terrorism as ‘man-caused disasters’ and poof – terrorism disappears.
The problem with this type of virtual world agenda is that reality has an insistent style. It will continue to knock at your door despite your refusal to answer.
Roger, we have a President who is forging on with Cap and Trade, who says that, the data is obviously flawed, but dare we take a chance that the theory might be correct. Gore’s failed religious training obviously taught him the pretensions of piety and sanctimonious BS, at least enough to keep a level of mass hysteria brewing among the dupes and dupers who comprise the Left.
Is he an innocent, among the duped? I think not, he has increased his net worth a 100 mil or more at our expense and he is ready to increase his wealth exponentially, until he has created his own fiefdom of North America. While he bathes in the self-righteousness and piety of a divinity school drop out.
Surely you must agree that his scam is fraud on a level that makes Madoff look like a carnival barker. Gore doesn’t deserve our pity and understanding: he deserves our criminal system! Just as Bernie has had to pay for his fraud and theft, ‘Gore the Sanctimonious’ should pay for his scam.
If we can’t change the Left’s Propaganda curriculum in media and schools; sending men to prison for promoting and profiting from the fraud might just wake up a portion of our cerebrally challenged: who are the targets of this mass hysteria formula palmed off as science.
chief ecogangbanger gore-kennedy has not been seen lately because he is personally reviewing the settled science. son of laden’s climate position makes the reich-wing fake marxbot’s green destroy “imperial america” agenda crystal clear. uncle hugo said pretty much the same thing to cheers in copenhagen.
I have to disagree that Al Gore only “discovered” the environment and AGW as an issue per se after his 2000 election loss. Here’s an analysis of him from a while before that;
“Al is a radical environmentalist who wants to change the very fabric of America.
“He criticizes America for being America- a place where people enjoy the benefits of an advanced standard of living.
“He has no sense of proportion; He equates the failure to recycle aluminum cans with the Holocaust.
“He believes our civilization, itself, is evil (because it is, in his words, ‘addicted to the consumption of the earth.’)”
This is from a memo by Democratic strategist Jonathan Sallet to the Clinton campaign in 1992, in which Sallet and others strongly recommended to then-Governor Clinton that he NOT consider then-Senator Gore as a potential running mate. Well, he did, and for the next eight years, Gore was basically kept out of the public eye so that the American people wouldn’t find out that the man who was “one heartbeat away from the Presidency” was in fact a neo-Luddite loon. And he proved the “loon” part on the rare occasions that he made a public statement (like the one about “inventing the Internet”).
After his failure to sue his way into the Oval Office in 2000, Al needed an “issue” he could demagogue to convince himself he was still important. He decided on “global warming”, and succeeded probably even beyond his own narcissistically-wildest dreams. But he was a generalized “death to industrial civilization” type long before that- in fact, when for eight years, if anything had happened to Clinton, he could have held the fate of the world in his hands.
And if that doesn’t give you pause, and maybe a shiver or two unrelated to temperature, you’re made of sterner stuff than I am.
(The Sallet quote is from “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism”, by Christopher C. Horner; p. 240, sidebar.)
clear ether
eon
Rajah:…slight correction vis a vis your “Talking Through My Hat” piece….in the movie “Inherit the Wind”, the ‘Clarence Darrow’ character was played by Spencer Tracy…not Paul Muni…and the ‘William Jennings Bryan’ character played by Frederic March
Re the “well-meaning” question…Lionel Triling has spoken of “the moral obligation to be intelligent.” Obviously, no one can be smarter than he has the ability to be, but people *can* perform appropriate due-diligence in matters they form opinions on, and can moderate the certainty and vehemence of their views on a particular subject to their real level of understanding of said subject.
For Al Gore to have taken the absolutist position on climate change that he has done is as irresponsible as it would be for someone to pilot an airliner, with passengers aboard, without ever having taken a single flying lesson.
You’re correct abut the film version, Robbins Mitchell. I was referring, at least in my mind, to the stage version, which starred Muni. I remember it well because I saw it the night of my Bar Mitzvah.
A very good piece indeed.
We are witnessing an event that has implications as profound as the dismantling of the Berlin wall.
Several years ago, Emeritus Professor Phillip Stott wrote that global warming “…has become the grand political narrative of the age, replacing Marxism as a dominant force for controlling liberty and human choices.”
He comments now on the collapse of that grand political narrative and its implications for science, the media, the green church and all of us.
http://web.me.com/sinfonia1/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Entries/2010/1/30_Global_Warming%3A_the_Collapse_of_a_Grand_Narrative.html
See also:http://mickysmuses.blogspot.com/2010/01/clamour-of-times.html
Indeed, had it not been for the release of the Climategate emails and documents in November, the recent Copenhagen conference might have succeeded in reallocating billions, even trillions, of dollars, possibly leading to a form of global bankruptcy.
Bingo.
And if you follow through to the logical conclusion, it also explains why the rush to declare “settled science” a fraud so widespread, that it included …and went up to …the highest offices of this land and the UK.
The worldwide “redistribution of wealth” through a phony “worldwide” phenomena, backed by garbage science…and then declared “settled”…is a prop for a money grab of epic proportions.
10 point program
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
According to the Communist Manifesto, all these were prior conditions for a transition from capitalism to communism, but Marx and Engels later expressed a desire to modernize this passage.
One of the most brilliant ways to siphon off money would be to create a phony “worldwide” impending “disaster”…which was “caused by”…the rich, advanced and CAPITALIST countries…from whom the MOST was “owed” to “redistribute” wealth.
The apparatchiks, of course, would be at the head of the feeding trough, raking in money for “creating the cure” by mixing the snake oil “medicine” for application…and filling their coffers.
Swindlers, hucksters, and thieves don’t know whether to cling to the hoax story or head for the hills. Our lovely entrenched media is still engaged in their conspiracy of silence…as they continue to abet the crooks after the fact.
The creeping hand of the 10 point manifesto was under the skirt of the Statue of Liberty…this was just one of many of the 10 points that was involved in the attempt. Take a long look at the others and see if you can spot others that now make sense in a broader picture.
Al Gore got a Nobel and an Oscar for a scam that would make Bernie Madoff look like he took lunch money on the playground.
<>
There’s just one problem with this narrative: Al Gore has been talking about AGW since the late 1970s, when he called Congressional hearings on the subject. He also wrote a book on the threat of climate change in 1992. The idea that he picked this issue up after the Supreme Course stopped the recount in Florida on Dec. 13 2000 is sheer nonsense.
Also, the science on CO2 and CH4 being gases that retain heat is over a century old. Does anybody seriously dispute that carbon retains heat or that we are putting over 8 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year?
Of course many here believe that the CRU emails disprove AGW. By that logic, I suppose that the Piltdown Man (cited by Clarence Darrwo in the 1925 Scopes Trial and subsequently proved to be a fraud) disproves evolution.
This weekend, scientist Susan Solomon has been presenting her new research which supposedly explains the cooling trend of recent years not predicted by AGW models. According to Susan, there are high-flying clouds in the stratosphere that caused a reduction in warming of 25 percent. This kind of information is reported as bolstering the AGW hypothesis. However, obviously, it does the exact opposite. If the AGW models have not taken into account clouds that can reduce warming by 25 percent then clearly those models are not ready for primetime. No one should be making decisions about spending money based on a science that is in its infancy.
Al Gore is just another politically connected criminal committing a large scale fraud.
#32 rsdeese writes:
“Also, the science on CO2 and CH4 being gases that retain heat is over a century old. Does anybody seriously dispute that carbon retains heat or that we are putting over 8 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year?”
I just love this. You ask an AGW supporter what their explanation for global warming is and, invariably, they start talking about the characteristics of the CO2 molecule. Sir, do you not realize that the existence of CO2 molecules explains nothing. To have a theory of AGW, you to explain how the CO2 molecules are produced on Earth’s surface by man, how they get into the atmosphere, where they are located in the atmosphere, why they occupy those locations, how long they will occupy them, and so on. Then you have to explain how you know these things. In other words, what are your measuring instruments and where are they? On the related matter of surface temperatures, we have learned that the measuring instruments have not been maintained and their locations have been manipulated. Yet you look at the best, most current books on global warming, and what you find is that each and every one of them assumes that CO2 molecules are distributed randomly throughout the atmosphere, all the way up. Even if one believed such a hypothesis, why would one not test it? But AGW folks have not tested it. Their science is in its infancy, if it is a science at all. Now, can you please answer my questions?
Well,I had lunch with Henry Lamb of ‘Renew America’just after his return from the Kyoto Summit as an observer when I went home for Christmas in 1997…he lives about a half hour from my home town of Paris,TN…and he told me that anAL GOREtentive first seriously got on the ‘global warming’ bandwagon in 1988 when he first ran for President,and he basically sold his soul to the eco-nazis who,in turn,agreed to support his candidacy that year and from then on…Henry Lamb is one of the most well informed people around on this subject,and if he says that about anAL GOREtentive,I’m inclined to take what he said at face value.
I’d settle for an explanation of how a MINOR greenhouse gas trumps the major one (water), and how a minor source of said gas (human activity) trumps a major source of the same (the oceans). It would also be nice to know how a purported cause (increase in CO2) can FOLLOW a purported effect (increase in atmospheric temperature). Finally, I would really appreciate a rational explanation of how a difference in measurements that is LESS THAN the margin of error can be significant.
Theo Goodwin’s response to my post says nothing about my main point, i.e. that Al Gore did not suddenly ‘discover’ AGW after the landmark decision of Bush v. Gore. Does he concede that I am correct on that point and that Roger Simon’s article is therefore a bit misleading?
RE: the science on AGW, here is a time-line of climate change science compiled the physicist Spencer Weart:
Timeline (Milestones)
Here are gathered in chronological sequence the most important events in the history of climate change science. (For a narrative see the Introduction: summary history.) This list of milestones includes major influences external to the science itself. Following it is a list of other external influences.
1800-1870
Level of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) in the atmosphere, as later measured in ancient ice, is about 290 ppm (parts per million).
Mean global temperature (1850-1870) is about 13.6°C.
First Industrial Revolution. Coal, railroads, and land clearing speed up greenhouse gas emission, while better agriculture and sanitation speed up population growth.
1824
Joseph Fourier calculates that the Earth would be far colder if it lacked an atmosphere. =>Simple models
1859
Tyndall discovers that some gases block infrared radiation. He suggests that changes in the concentration of the gases could bring climate change. =>Other gases
1896
Arrhenius publishes first calculation of global warming from human emissions of CO2. =>Simple models
1897
Chamberlin produces a model for global carbon exchange including feedbacks. =>Simple models
1870-1910
Second Industrial Revolution. Fertilizers and other chemicals, electricity, and public health further accelerate growth.
1914-1918
World War I; governments learn to mobilize and control industrial societies.
1920-1925
Opening of Texas and Persian Gulf oil fields inaugurates era of cheap energy.
1930s
Global warming trend since late 19th century reported. =>Modern temp’s
Milankovitch proposes orbital changes as the cause of ice ages. =>Climate cycles
1938
Callendar argues that CO2 greenhouse global warming is underway, reviving interest in the question. =>CO2 greenhouse
1939-1945
World War II. Grand strategy is largely driven by a struggle to control oil fields.
1945
US Office of Naval Research begins generous funding of many fields of science, some of which happen to be useful for understanding climate change. =>Government
1956
Ewing and Donn offer a feedback model for quick ice age onset. =>Simple models
Phillips produces a somewhat realistic computer model of the global atmosphere. =>Models (GCMs)
Plass calculates that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will have a significant effect on the radiation balance. =>Radiation math
1957
Launch of Soviet Sputnik satellite. Cold War concerns support 1957-58 International Geophysical Year, bringing new funding and coordination to climate studies. =>International
Revelle finds that CO2 produced by humans will not be readily absorbed by the oceans. =>CO2 greenhouse
1958
Telescope studies show a greenhouse effect raises temperature of the atmosphere of Venus far above the boiling point of water. =>Venus & Mars
1960
Mitchell reports downturn of global temperatures since the early 1940s.=>Modern temp’s
Keeling accurately measures CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere and detects an annual rise. =>CO2 greenhouse The level is 315 ppm. Mean global temperature (five-year average) is 13.9°C.
1962
Cuban Missile Crisis, peak of the Cold War.
1963
Calculations suggest that feedback with water vapor could make the climate acutely sensitive to changes in CO2 level. =>Radiation math
1965
Boulder, Colo. meeting on causes of climate change: Lorenz and others point out the chaotic nature of climate system and the possibility of sudden shifts. =>Chaos theory
1966
Emiliani’s analysis of deep-sea cores shows the timing of ice ages was set by small orbital shifts, suggesting that the climate system is sensitive to small changes. =>Climate cycles
1967
International Global Atmospheric Research Program established, mainly to gather data for better short-range weather prediction, but including climate. =>International
Manabe and Wetherald make a convincing calculation that doubling CO2 would raise world temperatures a couple of degrees. =>Radiation math
1968
Studies suggest a possibility of collapse of Antarctic ice sheets, which would raise sea levels catastrophically. =>Sea rise & ice
1969
Astronauts walk on the Moon, and people perceive the Earth as a fragile whole. =>Public opinion
Budyko and Sellers present models of catastrophic ice-albedo feedbacks. =>Simple models
Nimbus III satellite begins to provide comprehensive global atmospheric temperature measurements. =>Government
1970
First Earth Day. Environmental movement attains strong influence, spreads concern about global degradation. =>Public opinion
Creation of US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the world’s leading funder of climate research. =>Government
Aerosols from human activity are shown to be increasing swiftly. Bryson claims they counteract global warming and may bring serious cooling. =>Aerosols
1971
SMIC conference of leading scientists reports a danger of rapid and serious global change caused by humans, calls for an organized research effort. =>International
Mariner 9 spacecraft finds a great dust storm warming the atmosphere of Mars, plus indications of a radically different climate in the past .=>Venus & Mars
1972
Ice cores and other evidence show big climate shifts in the past between relatively stable modes in the space of a thousand years or so, especially around 11,000 years ago. =>Rapid change
1973
Oil embargo and price rise bring first “energy crisis”. =>Government
1974
Serious droughts since 1972 increase concern about climate, with cooling from aerosols suspected to be as likely as warming; scientists are doubtful as journalists talk of a new ice age.=>Public opinion
1975
Warnings about environmental effects of airplanes leads to investigations of trace gases in the stratosphere and discovery of danger to ozone layer. =>Other gases
Manabe and collaborators produce complex but plausible computer models which show a temperature rise of several degrees for doubled CO2. =>Models (GCMs)
1976
Studies show that CFCs (1975) and also methane and ozone (1976) can make a serious contribution to the greenhouse effect. =>Other gases
Deep-sea cores show a dominating influence from 100,000-year Milankovitch orbital changes, emphasizing the role of feedbacks. =>Climate cycles
Deforestation and other ecosystem changes are recognized as major factors in the future of the climate. =>Biosphere
Eddy shows that there were prolonged periods without sunspots in past centuries, corresponding to cold periods .=>Solar variation
1977
Scientific opinion tends to converge on global warming, not cooling, as the chief climate risk in next century. =>Public opinion
1978
Attempts to coordinate climate research in US end with an inadequate National Climate Program Act, accompanied by rapid but temporary growth in funding. =>Government
1979
Second oil “energy crisis.” Strengthened environmental movement encourages renewable energy sources, inhibits nuclear energy growth. =>Public opinion
US National Academy of Sciences report finds it highly credible that doubling CO2 will bring 1.5-4.5°C global warming. =>Models (GCMs)
World Climate Research Programme launched to coordinate international research. =>International
1981
Election of Reagan brings backlash against environmental movement to power. Political conservatism is linked to skepticism about global warming. =>Government
IBM Personal Computer introduced. Advanced economies are increasingly delinked from energy.
Hansen and others show that sulfate aerosols can significantly cool the climate, raising confidence in models showing future greenhouse warming. =>Aerosols
Some scientists predict greenhouse warming “signal” should be visible by about the year 2000. =>Modern temp’s
1982
Greenland ice cores reveal drastic temperature oscillations in the space of a century in the distant past. =>Rapid change
Strong global warming since mid-1970s is reported, with 1981 the warmest year on record. =>Modern temp’s
1983
Reports from US National Academy of Sciences and Environmental Protection Agency spark conflict, as greenhouse warming becomes prominent in mainstream politics. =>Government
1985
Ramanathan and collaborators announce that global warming may come twice as fast as expected, from rise of methane and other trace greenhouse gases.=>Other gases
Villach Conference declares consensus among experts that some global warming seems inevitable, calls on governments to consider international agreements to restrict emissions.=>International
Antarctic ice cores show that CO2 and temperature went up and down together through past ice ages, pointing to powerful biological and geochemical feedbacks. =>CO2
Broecker speculates that a reorganization of North Atlantic Ocean circulation can bring swift and radical climate change. =>The oceans
1987
Montreal Protocol of the Vienna Convention imposes international restrictions on emission of ozone-destroying gases. =>International
1988
News media coverage of global warming leaps upward following record heat and droughts plus testimony by Hansen. =>Public opinion
Toronto conference calls for strict, specific limits on greenhouse gas emissions; UK Prime Minister Thatcher is first major leader to call for action. =>International
Ice-core and biology studies confirm living ecosystems give climate feedback by way of methane, which could accelerate global warming. =>Other gases
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is established. =>International
1989
Fossil-fuel and other U.S. industries form Global Climate Coalition to tell politicians and the public that climate science is too uncertain to justify action. =>Public opinion
1990
First IPCC report says world has been warming and future warming seems likely. =>International
1991
Mt. Pinatubo explodes; Hansen predicts cooling pattern, verifying (by 1995) computer models of aerosol effects. =>Aerosols
Global warming skeptics claim that 20th-century temperature changes followed from solar influences. (The solar-climate correlation would fail in the following decade.) =>Solar variation
Studies from 55 million years ago show possibility of eruption of methane from the seabed with enormous self-sustained warming. =>Rapid change
1992
Conference in Rio de Janeiro produces UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, but US blocks calls for serious action. =>International
Study of ancient climates reveals climate sensitivity in same range as predicted independently by computer models. =>Models (GCMs)
1993
Greenland ice cores suggest that great climate changes (at least on a regional scale) can occur in the space of a single decade. =>Rapid change
1995
Second IPCC report detects “signature” of human-caused greenhouse effect warming, declares that serious warming is likely in the coming century. =>International
Reports of the breaking up of Antarctic ice shelves and other signs of actual current warming in polar regions begin affecting public opinion. =>Public opinion
1997
Toyota introduces Prius in Japan, first mass-market electric hybrid car; swift progress in large wind turbines and other energy alternatives.
International conference produces Kyoto Protocol, setting targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if enough nations sign onto a treaty. =>International
1998
“Super El Niño” causes weather disasters and warmest year on record (approximately matched by 2005 and 2007). Borehole data confirm extraordinary warming trend. =>Modern temp’s
Qualms about arbitrariness in computer models diminish as teams model ice-age climate and dispense with special adjustments to reproduce current climate. =>Models (GCMs)
1999
Criticism that satellite measurements show no warming are dismissed by National Academy Panel. =>Modern temp’s
Ramanathan detects massive “brown cloud” of aerosols from South Asia. =>Aerosols
2000
Global Climate Coalition dissolves as many corporations grapple with threat of warming, but oil lobby convinces US administration to deny problem. =>Public opinion
Variety of studies emphasize variability and importance of biological feedbacks in carbon cycle, liable to accelerate warming. =>Biosphere
2001
Third IPCC report states baldly that global warming, unprecedented since end of last ice age, is “very likely,” with possible severe surprises. Effective end of debate among all but a few scientists. =>International
Bonn meeting, with participation of most countries but not US, develops mechanisms for working towards Kyoto targets. =>International
National Academy panel sees a “paradigm shift” in scientific recognition of the risk of abrupt climate change (decade-scale). =>Rapid change
Warming observed in ocean basins; match with computer models gives a clear signature of greenhouse effect warming. =>Models (GCMs)
2002
Studies find surprisingly strong “global dimming,” due to pollution, has retarded arrival of greenhouse warming, but dimming is now decreasing. =>Aerosols
2003
Numerous observations raise concern that collapse of ice sheets (West Antarctica, Greenland) can raise sea levels faster than most had believed. =>Sea rise & ice
Deadly summer heat wave in Europe accelerates divergence between European and US public opinion. =>Public opinion
2004
In controversy over temperature data covering past millenium, most conclude climate variations were not comparable to the post-1980 warming.
=>Modern temp’s; =>Solar variation
First major books, movie and art work featuring global warming appear. =>Public opinion
2005
Kyoto treaty goes into effect, signed by major industrial nations except US. Work to retard emissions accelerates in Japan, Western Europe, US regional governments and corporations. =>International
Hurricane Katrina and other major tropical storms spur debate over impact of global warming on storm intensity. =>Sea rise & ice
2007
Fourth IPCC report warns that serious effects of warming have become evident; cost of reducing emissions would be far less than the damage they will cause. =>International
Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and Arctic Ocean sea-ice cover found to be shrinking faster than expected.=>Sea rise & ice
2009
Many experts warn that global warming is arriving at a faster and more dangerous pace than anticipated just a few years earlier. =>International
Level of CO2 in the atmosphere reaches 385 ppm.
Mean global temperature (five-year average) is 14.5°C, the warmest in hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/timeline.htm
#38 rsdeese, given a substantive question, responds with a triviality and a list of propaganda.
resdeese, yes or no, do you know how CO2 concentrations are measured, throughout the atmosphere, and what instruments are used. I believe you do not know because I believe there is no serious regime of measurement.
I repeat, global warming/climate change science is in its infancy.
Valerie,
I am with you. Why can’t the AGW folks set forth their theory? Why can’t the modelers tell us what is in their models? The answer is obvious: what goes into the models is woefully inadequate as a representation of the climate. Solomon’s new research reveals a feature of climate that is not in the models yet it accounts for a 25 percent decrease in warming. All that says is that the models are woefully inadequate.
Al Gore not evil? Or, don’t use the word to describe Al Gore?
No, I disagree. Evil is as evil does. He may have had the best of intentions, but he is now at the end of that road, so to speak. The idea that Gore is too stupid to know what he is doing, or that he was ‘mislead’, just doesn’t cut it.
He should end up in prison. That he ends up a laughing stock and shunned by the ‘A’ listers is not near enough punishment.
Al Gore is the one who used the terms denialists, deniers, flat earthers. Gore is the one who wouldn’t debate. Gore is the one who said the science is settled. Gore is the one who tried to prevent scientific debate, and prevent alternative views from being heard. Gore is the one who ridiculed sceptics as ignorant dupes or bought and paid for shills. Gore is the one who consistently used inaccurate and over the top predictions, faulty science, and ad hominem attacks. Throughout the entire debacle he has acted completely without integrity.
He should be given a bicycle generator, electric heater, and exiled to the Antarctic.
Al Gore makes me wish there was a God who punishes the wicked and the evil.
I would gladly answer for each and every one of my own misdeads and die happy if I knew that Gore would answer for his.
You’re entirely right. I also don’t know which compounds in tobacco smoke have been determined to be carcinogenic and precisely how that has been determined. Still, I don’t smoke b/c I accept the overwhelming consensus that smoking causes cancer.
RE: climate change, I respect your assessment that “global warming/climate change science is in its infancy”. So is molecular biology. So is computer science. None of those fields of research should be dismissed as hoaxes or conspiracies. And yet climate scientists routinely face these accusations from denialists with vested interests such as James Inhofe and Don Blankenship.
As for your response to the time-line I’ve posted, you do yourself a disservice by dismissing Spencer Weart’s work on this subject, which is rigorously researched, as ‘propaganda’. I cite him hear to call attention to the fact that research on AGW is a good deal older than the 2000 election [remember the subject of this article?]. If this is merely ‘propaganda’, I invite you to explain precisely where Weart’s time-line is wrong or misleading.
In 1992 the narrative was that a humbled Gore had put aside his presidentual aspirations- he had done badly in the 1988 primaries- because he had found the environment to be a bigger cause. In fact, The Earth in Balance revived those aspirations. Who better to be the VP of a Rhodes Scholar like Gov. Clinton than the author of an acclaimed book who also knew Washington ways.
There was talk about the time An Inconvenient Truth came out that Gore was looking at a third run for the White House and the documentary was part of the plan.
In 1992 the narrative was that a humbled Gore had put aside his presidentual aspirations- he had done badly in the 1988 primaries- because he had found the environment to be a bigger cause. In fact, The Earth in Balance revived those aspirations. Who better to be the VP of a Rhodes Scholar like Gov. Clinton than the author of an acclaimed book who also knew Washington ways.
There was talk about the time An Inconvenient Truth came out that Gore was looking at a third run for the White House and the documentary was part of the plan.
#32 rsdeese,
The CRU has not responded to FOIA requests. The scientists should be able to show how they arrived at their results. Others should be able to duplicate their results. So far that has not happened. It is also difficult to explain away the bogus claims by the UN that the Himalayan glaciers will disappear by 2035 and that 40% of the Amazon rainforest will be wiped out.
The facts you mention (CO2 and 8 billion tons) are correlative. They are not evidence of cause and effect.
Of course, the stealing of the thread down a path of trivia and misdirection is precisely beside the point.
When “scientists” INTENTIONALLY hide evidence, prostitute the scientific method, say the matter is “settled” when they are distorting the “evidence”…THAT is the point.
The Himalya glaciers…total nonsense. The tree rings…corrupted junk science. The whole of the foundation for the hockey stick…complete fraud.
If you need to dummy up results to get to your conclusion…that…is a hoax. A scam.
And all the frilly rhetorical BS won’t make it smell any better. It was a con job, they got caught…live with it. Nobody is believing the poop being peddled any longer.
It was based on thin gruel, and finally…people are spitting it back…it’s not “settled”…and anyone who says it is…is a liar or a fool.
I do admire your article but knowing Ayn Rand we are going to disaster. Who will survive? Smart one. Beside you are right by saying that Alexander Gore (Al) is using us to extreme. Yes, he makes all the money from nothing. Saying that he is a parasite. Produce nothing and deliver only rhetoric. Mr. Simon you are on target, I salute you.
Current and loyal reader.
Paul
#42 rsdeese has turned into a valuable correspondent. He writes:
“RE: climate change, I respect your assessment that “global warming/climate change science is in its infancy”. So is molecular biology. So is computer science. None of those fields of research should be dismissed as hoaxes or conspiracies.”
If the climate scientists could speak directly and clearly, like you, I would give them credit. As regards, I think both computer science and molecular biology are far beyond their infancies. I would say that both are mature. If climate scientists could show me something along the lines of Crick and Watson’s famous three page paper, I would be happily studying that rather than criticizing them. As regards computer science, I have been studying Turing Machines since Alan invented them. There is nothing comparable from climate scientists. Their science is in its infancy in the same way that the science of star-birthing is in its infancy. With recent technologies like the Hubble telescope, and newer devices of the same sort, we will be making some important empirical discoveries about how stars are born. Climate scientists have not quite reached the Hubble stage. The stations they have for measuring surface temperature are woefully inadequate in number, incorrectly located, not actively maintained, and employ ancient technology. The situation for stations that measure CO2 concentrations on Earth’s surface is much worse in every way. The stations that measure temperature and CO2 concentration THROUGHOUT THE ATMOSPHERE are non-existent for all practical purposes. When referring to the atmosphere, something they rarely do, climate scientists make outrageous assumptions such as the frightful assumption that CO2 is distributed randomly throughout the atmosphere. They have no genuine record of surface temperatures that extends more than a few decades into the past. They themselves have just proved that tree-rings cannot be used as a proxy for surface temperature; the “trick” in Mann’s stick was introduced to hide this fact. Jones, Mann, and some others are just about as narcissistic as Obama – if you can imagine that.
#42 rsdeese. You are diverting the argument. To say that the science of climate change is in its infancy and so is that of molecular biology and that of computer science has no relevance to the CONTENT of research in a discipline.
The content that we are referring to is that of conclusions supported by no data or false data or falsified data. This has nothing to do with a new or mature science.
Your long list doesn’t supply any proof that these conclusions were supported by irrefutable data; they are hypotheses and as such, require ongoing falsification. Indeed, as has been shown recently, many of the conclusions are not supported by empirical data.
As noted, water vapour retains more heat than CO2. Furthermore, of the greenhouse gases, it is interesting how important to plant life one of them is: plants require CO2. The increase in CO2 from before the industrial age is only .08%. Plant life can absorb this quite readily. Also, the accusation of industrial causality ignores the previous warming phases on this planet, long before indstrialism.
What is interesting is that major warming phases were also correlated with major changes in human life on this planet. Homo Sapiens became dominant about 100,000 years ago, during a warm phase. And agriculture developed about 10,000 years ago, another warm phase.
Your example of Piltdown Man not disproving evolution is yet another red herring, for the data base of adaptive biological change is strong. The data base of CO2 causality and global warming is missing.
Not evil? If being a con artist with a monumental conflict of interest, if standing to gain millions from the perpetuation of this lie, if deliberately ignoring the facts and vilifying those who did not is not your definition of evil, then do tell what is.
In the movie “National Treasure” Ben Gates (Nicholas Cage)alerts the FBI agent (Harvey Keitel) that he found a great treasure (after breaking may laws). The agent says to Gates “Someone has to go to jail”. Well, here someone has to go to jail. Be it Al Gore, scientists who fabricated data or others someone has to go to jail. Why isn’t it happening? They’ve redirected billions of dollars thanks to their lies. Their crimes make Maddof’s look cheap in comparison. These people must answer, take responsibility and be punished for their crimes to humanity.
51 Harry writes:
“Well, here someone has to go to jail. Be it Al Gore, scientists who fabricated data or others someone has to go to jail. Why isn’t it happening?”
Actually, couldn’t it be Obama? Of course, he always works his magic on us. We do not make him accept responsibility for his blunders. Sometimes we say “Well, he could not be stupid enough to mean what he said.” Sometimes we say “Well, he is just an inexperienced kid, so what do you expect?” In either case, we let him evade responsibility for practices that directly threaten the health and well-being of the citizens of the US.
Green NAZISM, Political Correctness, Multi Cultism, Affirmative Action, LBGT, Islamophilia, ‘Yuman Rites’ and Obama Worship are all symptoms of the same Left Wing moonbat disease which has affected Western Civilization since its inception in the drug fueled ‘peace and love’ ‘tune in and drop out’ 60′s. Universities virtually exclusively staffed by an Academia which is Left Wing, PC,MC , Islamophile and moonbatted have been churning out brain damaged left wing, moonbat, antisemitic, anti Capitalist, anti Western Democracy self hating students ever since. Some of these demented individuals are now at the age of assuming power which is why in the USA you have the LYING MOHAMMEDAN BOGUS POTUS and the idiotic worshiping non journalistic MSM and the Democratic Party machinery willing to tell BLATANT LIES to get power and stupid dumbed down unthinking, unquestioning, hysterical, naive, emotional voter base ripe to elect him and similarly in the UK the extreme left wing useless totalitarian Gordon McBroon.
OK rsdeese, maybe you can answer my questions:
1. If you are correct and humans are causing global warming, but we take action to stop global warming, how will we know when we are done?
2. Why was the current 10 year trend in temperature decline not predicted in the late 90’s?
3. If human activity can cause and correct global warming, them human activity could cause global cooling. If it happened, what actions would you propose to stop global cooling?
4. Any true science is based on falsifiable hypotheses. What specific data (e.g. Ten years of declining temperatures) would falsify global warming?
Forgive me everyone for re-cycling a post, but these seem like reasonable questions that deserve answers.
rsdeese might be interested in the case of the disappearing thermometers, all of which seem to be in cool areas away from Urban Heat Islands.
MAN BEAR PIG! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9wmczxnT3c&feature=related
Hey Old Patriot, Comment #3
Don’t push them off on us high schools. Then they have direct access to the students some of us are trying to teach to think for themselves! Instead they should be forced to work in a coal mine.
If you’ve been paying paying attention to the latest, it turns out that the IPCC is using some questionable sources, such as athletic magazines and activist papers. So they can’t even crib other people’s research properly.
(One of the great ironies is that the skeptics were the ones who were accused of being anti-science, when it is the reverse…
Roger.
That’s just a bit perverse.
As a rule what passes for skeptics ARE anti-science, primarily because the right-wing skeptic ranks are filled with those who laud intelligent design, deny evolution, and so on. The issue is hopelessly obfuscated because of this.
Global warming is real. Man contributes CO2. Man changes his environment and has done so for a long time. That said, global warming appears to be *primarily* a natural phenomenon; there doesn’t appear to be a need for immediate economy-crippling measures.
Want some proof that it’s real?
Take a look at the graph here.
http://m-francis.livejournal.com/47705.html
(This shows that global warming is primarily natural and cyclical and essentially part of the recovery from the LIA.)
On the other hand developing cleaner energy sources certainly couldn’t hurt. Spaceborne solar, nuclear energy, etc. are things that would *help* the economy and cut down emissions of CO2 — JUST IN CASE these emissions do turn out to be more harmful than they appear. (i.e. Cap and trade is fraudulent flapdoodle by definition.)
Meanwhile we can’t get to a rational solution because of the idiots who claim all climate science is a hoax and the general perception of everyone else that these claimants also seem to be the same vapid twats who picket abortion clinics and try to erase evolution in schools. Of course the rank and file skeptic is anti-science. This ought to be obvious.
Over the last eleven years there have been three almost back-to-back instances of mass-media scare campaigns — Y2K, the great war on terror, and global warming. (The wave of accusations of ritualized satanic child abuse probably belongs on this list, and thinking further back in history, perhaps the anti-communist McCarthy era just after the start of the cold war also counts as a mass-media scare campaign.) Of these three, only the great war on terror has had arguably good effects, namely removing S. Hussein from power and cleaning up Iraq. The Y2K scare had little effect, and as of now all global warming has accomplished is to fill school curricula at all levels with disturbing scientific nonsense. If people want something to worry about, perhaps they should consider the implications of these mass-media scare campaigns, coming thick and fast one after the other. Talk about a “rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem”! This growing susceptibility to mass hysteria suggests that something powerful and truly unpleasant is going on in the the collective unconscious of the developed world …
Roger, I believe you are being very kind to Al Gore.
To propagandize children as he still does and to push climate change as a religion (yes, if you look at my blog below, I have a post “Prayer & Propaganda” which shows how he really is treating this as a religion now), knowing that facts have been questioned for years – takes a certain kind of soulless greed I’ll never comprehend.
http://aprilbaby.typepad.com/a_california_life/
The more I learn about him, the less respect I have.
Frederick Forsythe says this in todays UN Daily Express and is absolutely correct in saying so. So where are the AMERICAN MSM’s denunciations of the AGW SCAM and of the moronic LYING MOHAMMEDAN BOGUS POTUS who is STILL talking about it as though all the revelations and exposure of the SCAM had not taken place and that Al Gore is not the biggest LYING scam merchant in history. Does the AMERICAN MSM and the AMERICAN BOGUS POTUS think that if they ignore it it will go away? Thats what Nixon thought with Watergate and Slick Willy did with the CIGAR. Just how stupid do they want people to think America is?
“ONE tries to be forbearing but honestly, the science behind the “global warming” campaign is beginning to look like roadkill.
If you are going to start and mastermind a science-based global campaign urging governments to require their
exhausted taxpayers to fork out not billions but trillions to prevent a catastrophe that may be 50 to 90 years away, you had better be sure your science is impeccable.
First we are told via leaked e-mails that the leading “scientists” have been cherry- picking only the convenient data
that suit their case. That is not science: that is propaganda.
Then we learn the fanatics have tried to airbrush from history chronicled facts such as the Medieval Warm Period (still unexplained).
Next the scare story about the melting Himalayan glaciers is revealed as having been made up, and now we learn that the linkage between droughts and floods with global warming is also bunkum.
Would it not be smart to get the facts right first and then spend the trillions? “
Thats the UK Daily Express of course and it would of course be ridiculous to expect anything connected with the cretinous Islamophile UN to be anything other than lies.
Paul from Hamburg, I like your post, esp since it’s free of ad hominem attacks and conspiracy theories and just deals with the facts in question. I’ll try to give a brief answer and then I’ve got to get to work. I wish the best to the folks here, even if we don’t agree about AGW.
OK rsdeese, maybe you can answer my questions:
1. If you are correct and humans are causing global warming, but we take action to stop global warming, how will we know when we are done?
If the climate change that all of us agree is happening (such as the thinning of arctic sea ice that is making the fabled Northwest Passage a looming reality for Canada, Russia and the U.S.) is caused at least partly or mostly by human activity, the only thing we can do is mitigate the effects by reducing emissions of carbon monoxide, CO2, CH4, etc. This would mean less use of oil fewer coal plants, and more energy from nuclear power, hydroelectric, wind, photo-voltaic, solar-thermal, lower-carbon biofuels, etc. If you look at the other pollutants that coal puts in the atmosphere, such as mercury and arsenic, this would be a net positive, even for those who call themselves climate skeptics. If you look at the geopolitical mess we’re in over oil, using less of that would be a good thing, too. But, like so many other problems—traffic, crime, and obesity, to name a few examples—there would never be a point where everyone could say: ‘problem solved–we’re done.’
2. Why was the current 10 year trend in temperature decline not predicted in the late 90’s?
According to NASA’s measurements, the 2000′s were the hottest decade since measurements began in the 1880s (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601130&sid=aFe6UUuGRyqU ) The fact that global temps did not rise as quickly as they had in the 1980s and 1990s is likely due to variations of water in the stratosphere ( http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100131145840.htm )
3. If human activity can cause and correct global warming, them human activity could cause global cooling. If it happened, what actions would you propose to stop global cooling?
I honestly don’t know. That’s a very interesting hypothetical, though.
4. Any true science is based on falsifiable hypotheses. What specific data (e.g. Ten years of declining temperatures) would falsify global warming?
Karl Popper argued that falsifiable arguments were essential to science, but he also recognized that many claims of fact aren’t readily falsifiable. “Every person will die one day” is generally accepted as true, but it is not really falsifiable.
In the case of climate change, there is overwhelming evidence that that it is happening. The question that remains is whether 8 gigatons of carbon entering the atmosphere each year is playing a role in that process. For my part, I think it just might be.
‘Mean global temperature (five-year average) is 14.5°C, the warmest in hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.’~rsdeese
Only if you totally ignore the MWP (1000 years ago, 1-3 degrees warmer than now), the RWP (slightly warmer than now), The Climate Optimum (4-5 degrees warmer than now). and so on, and so forth…
This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 2/1/2010, at The Unreligious Right
The bottom line is Al Gore and the entire global warming movement have been discredited. No one is interested in this farce, especially in the northeast and in Minnesota where temperatures hopefully won’t get any lower.
I appreciated this post. Thanks.
Does anyone know where Gore is at present ?
Has he made any appearances or released any statements recently ?
Pachauri, in defence of his precarious position, claimed on Indian TV yesterday that he has Gore’s full support. it cannot find any reference to this, and his recent blogs are restricted to domestic US issues
Only in academia can one lie, cheat and steal money and be rewarded rather than punished. Every single dollar of grant money paid to these AGW Scientist-whores needs to be repaid. If not, a prison term with a nice probationary term for restitution.
Would it be fair to say that, if the IPCC reports represent the distillation of the best science money can buy then no amount of spending is going save us ?
Another perspective:
If the IPCC reports are the risk/problem documents, shouldn’t there be a set of feasibility documents next ? Instead we are presented with action plans.
Given Climategate, our government should adopt a sceptical attitude toward the UN. Clearly, the IPCC undermined itself with the very cheapest corruption and we should expect all UN agencies to do the same. We can permit them to prove themselves, but we must not take them seriously before “looking the horse in the teeth.”
“ManBearPig,” nuff said.
On one of the space shuttle missions a photo of Earth was take and published by the WaPo.
When printed it showed the planet with South Pole on top, natural given respective positions. In any case what’s upside down in an infinite universe?
The moron Al Gore couldn’t restrain himself and called the paper to tell them they had printed the photo upside down.
Pause and breath deeply.
This is the man millions wanted for President, and who hang on every word on the climate scam.
You have a right to wonder who is stupider.
Out of curiosity, I took the opportunity this year to look at 60 years worth of temperature data in Ohio University’s meteorological laboratory archives. This is raw data, unedited, un-fudged, and without the benefit of ice core data, or tree ring proxies. Using Analysis of Variance to compare temperature means by decade for the month of January, showed that at the 95% confidence level I can conclude that over the last 60 years (1950-2010) in Athens Ohio the mean temperatures for the month of January were not statistically different – meaning the temperature has been constant within the variance of the data. Assumptions implicit in the conclusion are as follows: OU calibrates their temperature measuring devices on a regular basis, random errors cancel over time, and that Athens, Ohio isn’t isolated from the rest of world with respect to “Global Warming”, “Climate Change”, or whatever it will be called next year.
# 21 taanstafl
You mentioned “IPCC guy Rajendra Pachauri”
Have you read about his money making out of carbon offsets?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6798052/What-links-the-Copenhagen-conference-with-the-steelworks-closing-in-Redcar.html
“What is the connection between Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian railway engineer who has been much in evidence at the Copenhagen climate conference, as chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and an Indian-owned steel company’s decision to mothball its giant Teesside steel works next month, ripping the heart out of the town of Redcar by putting 1,700 people out of work?”
It’s worth reading to find out how well intentioned they are with regard to their own pockets.
At 10:31 am on January 31st, 2010, the Universe encountered an irony anomaly…
The anomaly was so great that it promptly swallowed up the Universe.
You’ve got most of the narrative right, Roger, though I’d like to add two things: first, Al started searching for “environmental pathogens” after the death of his sister Nancy of lung cancer and became interested in environmental things in the mid-80s.
Gore’s interest grew concurrently with some of America’s shift from believing in God to believing in government as god– or government as a growing force for good to solve mankind’s problems from cradle to grave. As more was expected of government, a larger government project was required for those who either believed in the myth or simply wanted to perpetuate it. What better behemoth project could any mere mortal find than government and eventually a One World Government that would save the world itself?
It was the largest slice of hubris the world has ever known.
Those who converted to government as god supplied the problem as the Reverend Al Marjoe Gore ascended the pulpit with all sorts of deacons and elders in tow. Just as the preaching got intense and the cool-aid was about to be passed to the entire world congregation, someone ran into the church screaming “Foul!”
And the rest is mostly history…..gosh I really think there’s a screen play in here somewhere….whatta you think?!
rsdeese:
Thank you for the reply. I just have a few comments about your answers:
1. I basically agree with your answer, but that illustrates my point. I asked this question because I believe that government programs need to have a goal and criteria for success. It is reasonable to ask individuals to make sacrifices, both large and small, if you are able to define when the sacrifice will end (i.e. “We’ll ration gasoline until Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan are defeated”). The problem with global warming is that there are individuals arguing for pollution controls, regardless of the cost, without being able to clearly state when a sufficient reduction in pollution has been met.
2. Your link from Science Daily illustrates that Global Warming is far from a mature science. The headline characterizes water vapor as a “wild card.” That seems correct. When the unknown variables have a bigger impact on the outcome than the known variables, it is hard to argue that you have a truly complete and scientific understanding of a phenomenon.
3. Consider how much of the earth is basically uninhabitable due to cold and compare that to how much of the earth is uninhabitable due to heat. When you look at globe, just look at how much of the earth’s land (not to mention my house) is above 42 degrees north latitude. In prior ice ages, glaciers have gotten this far south. That scares me more than global warming.
4. Not all facts are scientific facts. Suppose I change your statement to say “No human can live longer that 120 years.” Now we have a scientific hypothesis that can be tested. Without testable hypotheses, climate change is simply astrology.
Forgive me for boorishly commenting again. I had yet another thought, a sort of webutism. Ready? OK:
“The greater people’s faith in ‘government as god,’ the more every aspect of life and our lives become politicized. Hence the greater politicization of science, healthcare, theology, economics, business, the news and of course politics itself.”
60 G.L. Alston writes:
“Meanwhile we can’t get to a rational solution because of the idiots who claim all climate science is a hoax and the general perception of everyone else that these claimants also seem to be the same vapid twats who picket abortion clinics and try to erase evolution in schools.”
Where is the science of global warming? Please answer some of the questions that I have asked and that Paul from Hamburg has asked. Start with the very basics. What are you going to use as a record of historical temperatures? The Climategaters have records that they have corrupted totally. The trick in the stick proves that tree-ring proxy data is worthless. Where are the temperature and CO2 concentration measurement stations located. They are few and far between and skewed toward warming. The Climategaters refuse even to use the terminology of science. They will not reveal their hypotheses, talk about falsification, or consider the first revision in their work. Sir, there is no climate science.
rsdeese…
Since you appear to be something of an expert (perhaps a scientist):
1. I read that for a CO2 molecule to block radiated heat from the earth and trap it in the atmosphere, it would have to be at a certain temperature, according to the wavelength of the infrared wave it encountered. Hotter or colder and the wavelength of the heat is wrong and it won’t bounce back. Can you elaborate on this physical property of CO2?
2. You borught up CH4 (methane). I have not heard an evaluation of methane with regard to the temperature in needs to attain before it can reflect heat back onto the earth. Can you discuss this?
3. You listed a detailed timeline correlating CO2 concentrations with rising temperatures. First, why did you start with the date you did? If you started 500 years earlier, how would your correlation hold up? Second, in your analysis, did you find that temperature rise “led or lagged” the CO2 rise? How do you know?
4. Which CO2 in the atmosphere causes global warming; upper atmosphere or lower atmosphere; higher latitudes or lower latitudes. How do you know?
5. It is an established fact that a huge number of sites around the globe have stopped being recorded. It is further established that these sites tend to be those at higher latitudes or altitudes and also those located in rural or country locations. How does this effect the data that the AGW theory is based on?
I hope you can help me to understand these few questions that arose while I was reading your posts on this site. Thank you for your dedication.
In response to Paul from Hamburg, rsdeese writes:
“1. If you are correct and humans are causing global warming, but we take action to stop global warming, how will we know when we are done?”
“If the climate change that all of us agree is happening (such as the thinning of arctic sea ice that is making the fabled Northwest Passage a looming reality for Canada, Russia and the U.S.) is caused at least partly or mostly by human activity, the only thing we can do is mitigate the effects by reducing emissions of carbon monoxide, CO2, CH4, etc.
2. Why was the current 10 year trend in temperature decline not predicted in the late 90’s?” snip
rsdeese, you did not respond. All you said was that we would have to mitigate the problem. What Paul from Hamburg wanted, as any reasonable person wants, is an estimate of the costs and a method for determining when the job of mitigation is finished. As a true Warmer, it never occurred to you that we would ever want to end mitigation – we can just keep pouring our money down Pachauri’s rat hole forever.
“According to NASA’s measurements, the 2000’s were the hottest decade since measurements began in the 1880s (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601130&sid=aFe6UUuGRyqU ) The fact that global temps did not rise as quickly as they had in the 1980s and 1990s is likely due to variations of water in the stratosphere ( http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100131145840.htm )”
rsdeese, try thinking for just a minute. Susan Solomon rides in like the cavalry to save the Climategaters by explaining that their failed predictions resulted because of “newly discovered” clouds in the stratosphere. Are you so weak in logic that you cannot see the absurdity in Solomon’s claim. The cooling wasn’t predicted by the Warmers BUT NEITHER WERE THE CLOUDS, AND EACH FAILURE OF PREDICTION IS AS DAMNING AS THE OTHER. So Solomon shows only that climate modelers have a model of our atmosphere that is woefully inadequate for prediction. Now, do you think that some Climategater will come forward and honestly this obvious, clear, and documented failure of their science? Of course they will not. They are propagandists, not scientists.
“3. If human activity can cause and correct global warming, them human activity could cause global cooling. If it happened, what actions would you propose to stop global cooling?”
“I honestly don’t know. That’s a very interesting hypothetical, though.”
Would you agree that your science of climate change is woefully inadequate? Or is it a science of climate that works only for Warming? (It is the latter, because that is the way the crooks constructed it.)
“4. Any true science is based on falsifiable hypotheses. What specific data (e.g. Ten years of declining temperatures) would falsify global warming?”
“Karl Popper argued that falsifiable arguments were essential to science, but he also recognized that many claims of fact aren’t readily falsifiable. “Every person will die one day” is generally accepted as true, but it is not really falsifiable.”
You really are challenged by logic. There are movies about the time when humans no longer live. If you can imagine the circumstance, as the movie does, then that is a potentially falsifying fact.
“In the case of climate change, there is overwhelming evidence that that it is happening. The question that remains is whether 8 gigatons of carbon entering the atmosphere each year is playing a role in that process. For my part, I think it just might be.”
What a liar – or should I say propagandist? If you will look at our conversation above, you will notice that you agreed that you do not know the number of measurement stations for temperature or CO2 concentration, whether they are well sited, well maintained, what kind of technology they use, and so forth. Yet now you want to claim that the science is good. If you do not even know how to create temperature records for this science, how the Hell can you say that the science is good? You utterly confuse science with propaganda and you care about the latter only.
“” … for those in the comments who do see Gore as evil, I understand your point, but personally (sic) save the “e” word for the likes of … “”
That might be nothing more than a reminder of the need to more frequently top off your Edmund Burke tank. For by far more evil is done by those who sit idly by and let them, than by the likes of the Mao’s and Pol Pots, Hitlers, Harry Lees and Al-Fredo Goreleones.
The Guardian newspaper, UK, has just nailed Phil Jones. This is comparable to the New York Times nailing Obama. The url is:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese
#31–cfbleschers—excellent post.
wed” to REDISTRIBUTE wealth.(great).
Quote from #31—One of the most brilliant ways to siphon off money would be to create a phony “WORLDWIDE” impending disaster, caused by the rich, advance and capitalist countries, from whom the MOST
Obama is using the same tacit, create each crisis, exploit the crisis, true or false.
A few crisis from OBAMA
Health care
Failing banks
Auto bailouts
Stimulus package
Jobs bill
Spending freeze
Cap and Trade On and on.
Capture the MIND and WILL of the people,leads to a dictator, marxist,communist, or socialist style government.
Gore through his greed saw a good cause to champion to get rich.
Obama through his lust for POWER will follow the same path.
All IN THE NEED FOR POWER, GREED, and WEALTH.
The commonalities between Gore and Obama are interesting. The arrogance. The ego. The grand agenda that leaves destruction in their wake.
#84 — Where is the science of global warming?
Non sequitor *and* a loaded question. You’re a real piece of work.
There is climate science and has been for a while. It’s how we know that the MWP was warm and the LIA cold. You can’t argue that the science is correct to note the MWP and simultaneously claim it doesn’t exist. There’s 150 years of warming that is probably a natural recovery from the LIA. (Unless of course you’re also trying to claim the MWP is real indicating that you’re either simply dishonest or you can’t complete a thought. It’s hard to tell with your kind, and hardly matters anyway.)
However, like others of your ilk you focus on the political fraudsters like Gore and claim the whole thing is a hoax, and mostly because you can’t see past your own politics any more than Gore can. When you can learn that there is science being done and see beyond your political hatred perhaps we can talk. Until then go read Roy Spencer or Richard Lindzen’s stuff.
#81 — Those who converted to government as god…
Wow. Vapid reductionism that not only doesn’t make much sense, but actually underscores my point in #60 — religious nutjobs tend to scuttle legitimate skeptical argument with nonsense like this. Between the nutbars and the hoaxers, the warmist lobby has been able to appear to be the ultimate stable trvth because the rational skeptic argument can’t heard for all of the idiot noise.
It’s no accident that the refusal to debate tactic of the AGW cabal was lifted directly from the biology department; biologists and others have been refusing to debate creationist nutjob filled school boards for a very long time (for roughly the same reason most adults don’t debate 4 year olds.)
#71 — Does anyone know where Gore is at present ?
Minneapolis, judging by the temperature. Ever hear of the Gore Effect? Every time he goes somewhere to preach his crap the weather hits a cold record, snows cause event cancellation, etc. Even happened in Copenhagen recently.
“There is climate science and has been for a while. It’s how we know that the MWP was warm and the LIA cold.”
So you concede that Mann’s “hockey stick” was, at best, wrong?
91 writes:
“#84 — Where is the science of global warming?
Non sequitor *and* a loaded question. You’re a real piece of work.”
Nope. Simple and straightforward question. Where is the beef? I will make it simple for you. Some 45 years ago, scientists began worrying about the effects of aerosols on the ozone layer. Some 35 years ago, their worries about the “ozone hole” had caught the attention of the public. The New Yorker ran a three issue story on it in 1985 or so. From the beginning, these folks were able to use the word “cause” in a reasonable way. They explained how the aerosols got into the upper atmosphere, the chemical actions they underwent there, and how this affected the ozone hole. In other words, those scientists had a THEORY that they could SHARE with the public and the theory EXPLAINED the observed phenomenon.
Jones, Mann, and those folk, who are the very heart of climate research, HAVE NO THEORY. Not one of them has even attempted to tell us how CO2 behaves in the atmosphere, all the way up, and how CO2 causes global warming. You ask them for a theory and all they do is talk about the characteristics of the CO2 molecule. That is why climate scientists are so totally open to the charge that rising temperatures cause rising concentrations of CO2 and not vice-versa. They have given us nothing that would explain global warming. At best, they shriek “Because there is CO2 up there,” but that explains nothing. Is is the cause? Is it an effect? They cannot tell you.
Jones and Mann have spent their entire careers attempting to reconstruct the historical record of temperature change. There is no theory in that. It is just a matter of careful observation of temperature records and creation of proxies such as tree ring records. Yet they failed miserably. The “trick” in Mann’s famous hockey stick graph serves the purpose of hiding the fact that, for the last 50 years, tree rings indicated a decline in temperature while thermometer readings indicated a rise in temperature. Honest scientists, scientists just plain old interested in science, would have announced to the world that they had discovered powerful evidence that tree-ring data are not useful proxies for temperature. By contrast, Jones and Mann decided to “hide the decline.” They are propagandists, not scientists.
Mr. Simon,
Many thanks…
#92 — So you concede that Mann’s “hockey stick” was, at best, wrong?
Concede? It has always been wrong. Mann et al buried the MWP to promote a political agenda.
You and the others here are a real hoot, you know that? Sad, too. In the real (adult) world one can grasp the fact that the Hockey Team had an agenda without trying to claim that an entire branch of science is a hoax. You are so wrapped up in your idiotic political preconceptions that you conflate informed observers (e.g. me) with warming alarmists. You compound this mistake via failure to understand that you’re even making it: you address me as if I am *defending* Mann et al by suggesting that there is actual science that is being done.
There *are* scientists who are climatologists and who are doing good work. Not all climate people are or were part of the Hockey Team. Here’s some interesting background for you: Idso, whose original work on bristlecone pines that was oft-cited by the Team and other dendro freaks (c.f. “Idso & Graybill”), is the guy who runs skeptic site CO2Science.Org. It’s *his* work that is the underpinning for much of what we know about the MWP. And the guy who pretty much *invented* modern climatology thought the AGW thing was nonsense. He was castigated by the Hockey Team and their support group as being past his prime; the science, they claimed, had passed him by. (Whoops. Maybe not.)
You and the others in the hoaxer crowd need to get a clue. You cannot claim Mann buried the MWP and also claim that all of climatology (e.g. how we know the MWP was there) is a hoax. That’s about par for what passes for logic in this idiot nest though. Good news for you: you fit right in.
What can climate science do now? Exactly what it should have done long ago, it can create tens of thousands of measurement stations for temperature and for green house gas concentration, with special emphasis on carbon dioxide. These stations must be located on Earth’s surface and throughout Earth’s atmosphere including the stratosphere. After some 40 years of data collection by scientists who share the data with the public, climate science might have a leg to stand on. Otherwise, all we have is just more propaganda of the Jones Mann variety.
As regards measurement stations in the upper atmosphere, aircraft can be used for many but other technologies will be needed. Balloons are most likely not that technolgy; however, ballons can be used to make a point about what is needed. One can imagine a regular system of balloons that make reports by computer, that are recycled daily or weekly, and that keeps aloft several thousand ballons and any given time.
95 writes:
“There *are* scientists who are climatologists and who are doing good work. Not all climate people are or were part of the Hockey Team. Here’s some interesting background for you: Idso, whose original work on bristlecone pines that was oft-cited by the Team and other dendro freaks (c.f. “Idso & Graybill”), is the guy who runs skeptic site CO2Science.Org.”
Who has criticized this man? This is the first time you brought him up.
You haven’t addressed my substantive points.
I am a tad excited. The Climategaters have done such incredible damage that they should go to jail for life without parole. The institutions that they created should be abolished. The managers at the universities and at government monopolies such as NASA, who enabled Climategater fraud should be prosecuted along with the climategaters. Nothing is more important to the future of the USA than pure science. Never has there been such an assault on pure science as damaging as the climategate assault. Yet Hansen remains a free man. Lock him up.
What Al Gore is is what is not relevant. Even who he is is not relevant. What is relevant is what he gets away with when he espouses his babble about the climate. He gets away with outright lies. Even when he is directly contradicted moments after spewing a lie by the scientists who told him of an issue, no one holds Gore accountable for his lie. Its just swept under the rug, so to speak.
Many radical leftist types spew what can only be called lies, yet they are not held accountable. We are told, there is always room for reasonable doubt. Yet if we question their inane prognostications, we are vilified, marginalized, degraded & ignored. Think about how many stood up & challenged Gore’s forecasts, & the forecasts of many others, and what happened to them. Can’t do that? Why? The answer is, those folks have been destroyed professionally & personally. They are no longer listened to by almost anyone. Their careers are at an end.
Gore made millions trading in carbon credits on the European markets. Where cap & trade failed abysmally. Now he & his cabal want the same for America, where if implemented, Gore would make tens of billions from his cut in those trades.
Cap & Trade, the legislation, was not written by Washington politician types. It was written by enviro types who influence Washington. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has had a part in the writing of this legislation. Now, almost every week, there is another of the WWF statements or positions, or any influenced by them, discredited by facts. In this case, reality really does bite!
These guys may or may not have meant well. However, the fact that any who questioned them were destroyed or ignored, makes these guys dangerous. It makes what they wanted to push on mankind dangerous. It does makes them, evil.
Once they actively pushed to shut up dissent, they crossed over from “meant well” & entered into evil.
The results of the policies they wanted to impose on mankind, would have been horrible for average people. That also makes them evil.
Its time we had some real bi-partisan investigations into the manipulations, fudging, distortions, omissions, & other tactics used to create a science that is not real, not true, not fact at all.
Too much is wrong with Climate Change that we have been sold. Too much political ambition is contained in those mandates, those policies, those taxes, those prescriptions for the betterment of the planet, when in fact those plans overlooked & ignored some exceptionally needy & real facts that needed help now, not after we solve Al’s fake problems.
Al & others like him, plus his sponsors & supporters, had a jolly good time laughing at & mocking any who asked questions. They had a good time portraying those who asked questions as idiots & out of the loop.
Guess what, they were right & Gore & company knew it as they sold all on their scam.
That means, they should see jail time for their scam!
The Guardian hammered Phil Jones and crew again today, this time on corrupt peer review. Fred Pearce is the author.
That is http://www.guardian.co.uk.
What we have in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) is the meeting of a group of scientists desperate for funding with a group of well-funded bureaucrats in search of relevance.
It is the existence of the United Nations, of bureaucrats spending other people’s money without independent checks and balances, which is responsible for this boondoggle. It has allowed a simple matching of supplicant with sponsor to be magnified by a sensationalist media (and a whole host of carpetbaggers such as Al Gore), into the literal crime against humanity that CAGW has become.
95 G. L. Alston,
Would you please tell us about Mr. Idso’s defense of pure science and standard scientific methodology against the Climategaters. Your story must be a great one, indeed. Please inform us.
A question. How is it that Al Gore was made the spokesperson for the “Greens”. Very odd. He was after all a possible President of the US, in that election in 2000 that so frayed the “cool” of the DNC and hierarchy of the “Democratic Party, hosted and controlled ? by the Kennedys and the Clintons. Now could it be that once he was no longer a viable contender he was fair game? There was no love lost between him and the Clintons. BUT HE DID KNOW “WHERE THE BODIES IN THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION WERE BURIED”. A way to get him out of the way and “pay him off” with the Peace Prize. Call me paranoid.
The national media’s continued silence on ClimateGate and increasing revelations of outright fraud and wrong doing at all levels of government, academia and the media itself, tells the truth of the tail. That truth is there’s a lot more to this ClimateGate story than what little is being reported. The small (2 to 3 dozen) international cabal of climate scientists could not have possibly gotten to this point without extraordinary funding, political support at virtually all levels of government, especially at the national level and unparalleled cooperation from the national and world media. This wide-spread networked support continues even as we the people puzzle over what this is all about. I ask you, “What are you seeing and hearing from our national media on the subject?” Anything? What are you seeing and hearing from all levels of our government, local and regional newspapers and media outlets? Anything of substance? At all of these levels the chatter has remained remarkably quite on the subject, wouldn’t you say? Why? What points and positions are you beginning to hear on the radio and see on the television? This cabal of scientists has an unprecedented level of support given the revelations contained in the emails, documented in the computer software code and elaborated in the associated programmer remarks (REM) within the code. And —- this has gone on for years, AND continues even in the presence of the most damning evidence one could imagine, or even hope for. Watergate pales in comparison, given the trillions of dollars in carbon offset taxes, cap & trade fees hanging in the balance and the unimaginable political control over people’s lives this all implies. The mainstream media’s conspiracy of silence proves the point. Their continued cover-up is as much a part of this crime as the actual scientific fraud. ABC, CBS and NBC are simply co-conspirators exercising their 5th Amendment rights.
The only thing I disagree with is your assertion that Gore is not an evil person.
AlGore is a very evil man. He is enriching himself on the back of a pack of lies; profiting handsomely off of fearmongering. His “carbon offset” scam would get you or me thrown in jail. If AlGore and the rest of the ManMadeGlobalWarming® crowd get their way, we will be burdened with legislation that will strip us of out liberty and wreck our economy. And all the while, the cabal of corrupt politicians and “scientists” propagating the AGW lies will get richer and richer. If that isn’t evil, I don’t know what is.
Roger is too kind to Gore.
One of the more interesting things about the man’s latter career is also the most damning, as his conversion to greenism wasn’t the first attempt to find a marketable cause.
Some might remember that long, wet, awkward smack he planted on Tipper’s lips at the convention in 1980. Edgard Bergen and Charlie McCarthy would have produced a far more convincing facsimile of passion, but Gore, to his credit, actually turned the moment to his advantage. He was the candidate of love and family, the proudly unashamed advocate of mum-and-dad values! It was homey and hokey as slippers and a labrador, and for a brief spurt it bought him some ink. It is a testament to the times that this old fashioned family-values stuff played as such a novelty, but that is really another story.
Well, after the recounts and more recounts, Gore needed another gig, and “the kiss” became its inspiration. Two books followed, “Joined At The Heart” and “The Spirit of Family”, which floundered about at the bottom of Amazon’s lists.
Connubial relations having proven a barren field, Gore continued his politician’s quest for the philosopher’s stone — the one, transmutable issue with which no reasonable person, left or right, could disagree. A good root with the missus was lacking in the fierce moral urgency a later candidate would tap to greater success but less reward. Still, there were other possibilities.
Aided by science’s pliable careerists, global warming finally did the trick. We have all seen the disgraceful, wasteful debasement of objectivity that followed, and Gore’s cynicism was its catalyst and driver.
To credit Gore with mere ignorance or credulity is to drop what should be the real and far worse charge: A professional politician who stoked a dangerous hysteria in pursuit of his own selfish goals.
It almost worked, too. Recall during the Hillary-Obama catfight how there was punditry and suggestions that Gore might return, Cincinattus-style, to unite the factions and run for President, not as the candidate for Democrats, but as the voice for all mankind.
It didn’t happen, but in the meantime he trousered vast sums.
Gore is a member of the lowest-rent political species to be found — those who would profit by doing harm.
He belongs in jail.
whoops! Make that the 2000 convention. It’s late and I’m tired.