I have been busy today so I have just been reading bits and pieces, but if this is true then this is huge.
Michelle Malkin has a good roundup of what’s been going on so far.
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/11/20/the-global-warming-scandal-of-the-century/
All I have claimed to be documented sufficiently to be taken as fact are two simple points.1) Global warming is occurring.2) Human activity has contributed to global warming.That's *all* I have ever claimed to be true. To the best of my understanding all AGW implies are these two points. What I call a "denier" is someone that denies either of these two premises.On the other hand, I have *repeatedly* stated (this being at least the 5th time) that the following points are perfectly legitimate concerns about which reasonable people may hold differing opinions within a wide range for legitimate argument.3) How much will global warming actually affect us? Anything from hardly at all to the direst of consequences proposed by the most extreme alarmists, with my own personal opinion lying somewhere pretty close to the middle of this range.4) How soon will global warming actually affect us?Again anything from tomorrow to the next one hundred years or possibly even longer and again, with my own personal opinion lying somewhere in the vicinity of 30 years to have the beginning of really noticeable differences (aside from a few polar bears) but this is really just a guess on my part.5) What can we do to slow, stop or mitigate global warming? Again anything from very little to a lot with again my opinion residing somewhere in the middle.So as long as you can accept my points 1 and 2 then I consider your stance “reasonable.”As far as where you stand on 3 through 5, I really don’t care. You may be on the very low end of all these things. That’s fine. I can accept that. I don’t totally buy it but I cannot say that you’d be absolutely wrong. On the other hand I figure somewhere in the middle of these ranges makes the most sense but I can’t say anyone at *either* extreme of these ranges is wrong.As to how we should base policy, I believe we should try to address these things on the basis of a “middle of the road” scenario. For one thing if the alarmists are really right then you will have at least been doing *something* if not perhaps the most optimal thing if it really is doom and gloom, and if it actually turns out that global warming is much ado about nothing then you haven’t gone nutty for no apparent reason.*This* is the *reasonable* approach for someone to take that does not consider himself to be an AGW expert and does not necessarily believe that the sky is about to fall in the next minute nor believes that we should hide our head in the sand and hope it goes away.If you don’t think this is a reasonable stance to hold then truly it is *you* that is unreasonable.I really don’t know what more I can say.
[edit] One other point I neglected to mention is "How much has man contributed to global warming?" Just like the others this is fair game anywhere from not much to a whole bunch, again with my opinion being something in the middle. As long as your answer is something above "insignificant" then we have room to argue. An answer of insignificant or negligible is in essence denying my point #2 which I would have to consider unreasonable. [/edit]
I know it's hard to believe, mumble, but it's not all about you.
Having said that, I must now be at least 'semi-reasonable' (as defined by you):
Global warming has occurred since the 'mini ice age.' Not for the past decade, but it has. So we (mostly) agree on that.
The effect of man's activities may make up a portion of the warming that has occurred. I happen to believe, as do many others, that the portion in question is trivial and hardly globe-threatening. So that's two we (mostly) agree on.
Regarding this:
I sort of agree with you here, but 'middle of the road' is a very vague target, unlikely to be palatable to the doomsday alarmist crowd (90% of reasonable people by your stated estimate). Individual environmentally sound behavior probably makes sense to most people, including me. Being forced to use (mercury-containing) CFL's does not. Being denied clean nuclear energy does not. Paying beef prices jacked up by methane taxes does not. Being taxed for my farts does not. Being told I can't eat a burger does not. Being told I've 'exhausted my personal carbon allowance' does not. You get my drift.
If we went about policy-making by meeting every potential adversity half way, regardless of any basis in reality, because 'what if it is real?' - we'd quickly exhaust the resources needed to actually do something useful.
As for the rest, Krauthammer had it pegged a year and a half ago.
JU is a self selected set of pretty extreme right wingers. When you think that aeortar is a liberal when in fact he's pretty much a moderate conservative that's pretty telling how right wing this site is. I don't think you guys really know *where* the middle is.
You think differently, that's fine. You think we should do less others think we should do more. In the end we probably will end up where I think we should be because that's just how things work.
As far as Krauthammer I'm not a big fan however I can agree with this point.
"Second, reduce our carbon footprint in the interim by doing the doable, rather than the economically ruinous and socially destructive. The most obvious step is a major move to nuclear power, which to the atmosphere is the cleanest of the clean."
I've always been a big proponent of nuclear power, abundant nuclear power coupled with a decent electric car is the end to our middle east oil dependency. However you know who's against that don't you?
Something else we agree on. Practically brothers in arms now. If nuclear energy can be scaled to power a submarine, I can't understand how the energy independence problem is not already solved (I know, I know - Exxon/Mobile, Texaco/Chevron).
And my biggest beef with AGW orthodoxy is in the point you quote from Krauthammer - the reluctance to do what's doable as opposed to what's economically ruinous & socially destructive. All the moreso absent overwhelming evidence that 1) a rapid and truly destabilizing global warming (meaning one we couldn't accomodate to gradually) is occurring, 2) anthropogenic CO2 is the proximate cause of (and not simply associated with or a follower of) that rapid warming, 3) we know what level of CO2 beyond which we can not go, 4) we know what must be done to keep CO2 levels below that threshhold number, and 5) we have the technological capability to do so. All five conditions must be met, in my opinion, to even begin to justify what is already being proposed. Not one of them has been met so far. After all that, there's the little detail of who foots the bill for 5). We should probably also know that CO2 is the only thing that matters before we get to 5).
One little leftover - what you may consider 'laziness' might just be having other infinitely more worthwhile, necessary and/or useful things to do at the time. I don't expect you to lower your snark quotient, but then you keep insisting you are *reasonable*, so who knows?.
But with that in mind what makes you think that that there is a "reluctance to do what's doable" and that whatever it is that is proposed is "economically ruinous & socially destructive"?
Earlier you mentioned taxing farts, prohibiting hamburgers and a "personal carbon allowance". Where the heck are these ideas coming from? Are you really suggesting that Cap and Trade goes to the level of legislating individuals carbon emissions as if they were some corporation? If so this is starting to sound very much like the "death panel" concerns from the healthcare debate. Please tell me this isn't just some kind of right wing fear mongering.
Earlier I took a quick look at Cap and Trade and I'm really not all *that* interested in the bill one way or the other. It did seem to me to be overly complicated and not something that I would particularly favor but it also didn't jump out at me as anything that was "economically ruinous & socially destructive."
My preference as I mentioned in passing earlier would be to simply put in per industry limits on whatever pollutants that it's desirable to limit (carbon, coal ash, CFC's, whatever), set the limits at the current levels of production and gradually lower them over time along with a tax for exceeding them. I think this is what we have been doing all along for the last 20 years or so.
My understanding of Cap and Trade is that it "seemed" to be some kind of compromise that was designed to get around the above kind of hard dictated limits and instead allow companies to form a "market" (conceptually a good thing) that would allow individual companies and/or entire industries that were able to lower their emissions through some kind of innovation to sell part of their "license to pollute" to other companies and or entire industries that for whatever reason were unable to meet their limits.
I see the idea as somewhat unwieldy but overall the specific idea of providing a cap for total overall pollutants and then allow a market to develop so that the market could determine how to apportion the limits across individual companies and entire industries seems like not that bad of an idea, at least conceptually. I realize that the devil is in the details but what is so horrific about this kind of pollution reduction mechanism?
But in that kind of case you could say something like "Interesting point but I'll have to get back to you on that" instead of some meaningless handful of words with an emoticon.
Or you could simply say nothing until you *do* have the time to respond intelligibly, which is far preferable over what appears to me to just being silly.
Or perhaps you could say something like “you know you might actually have a point there but I just don’t feel like chasing those links to determine if you’re right about it or not.”
Or perhaps on the rare occasion that you’re feeling particularly magnanimous “OK, perhaps the global cooling analogy wasn’t my best argument.” This one in particular would go a long fucking way.
I mean if you truly believe that "what is already being proposed" is overly Draconian then your tests for satisfying the criteria will be high, if you feel that "what is already being proposed" is not such a big deal and are reasonable and prudent measures then it takes far less to justify them.
Again I'm taking the position of a non AGW expert and so I really have no basis to judge whether or not the criteria you list are satisfied or not. I suspect that if I were to dig into it that the scientific community may actually in fact have a reasonable (there's that word again) handle on your points 1 through 4 or at least 1 through 3 which in my mind justifies some action.
Heck even satisfying point 1 partially as in "truly destabilizing global warming is occurring" and dropping the rapid part justifies *some* response. I mean if the result is expected to be that sea level will rise sufficiently to totally flood *every* coastal city on the planet then even if it happens slow enough that we're able to evacuate the cities gradually then that's still a pretty destabilizing event even if it takes 100 years to occur.
It all boils down to how bad "what is already being proposed" really is and like I said I really don't see what everyone seems to be so afraid of but I'm willing to listen.
Doesn't matter if it's beyond our power to stop it. Might be cheaper & less destructive to slowly evacuate than anything else.
Later.
The primary point of that paragraph was that just because something bad occurs over a longer period of time that doesn't mean that it should be *allowed* to happen. Just because it may take 100 years do you really think moving the entirety of the east, west and gulf coasts along with the entirety of Florida is the best way to go about it assuming of course that there is something that could be done to prevent or even just mitigate it?
You're probably talking about relocating 200 million people along with their homes, work, schools, everything. Essentially you'd be rebuilding at least 50% of the country 50 to 100 miles inland. That's pretty darn dramatic particularly if all we need to do to avoid it is to get back to 350ppm of CO2, or perhaps limiting ourselves to 450ppm or even 550ppm is enough. But it's this kind of range in policy decisions that I believe is prefectly fair game for discussion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_mitigation_scenarios
In any case not every person that believes in AGW also believes we have to get back to the 350ppm CO2 level for example. In particular I'm doubtful that could reasonably be achieved since we're already past that point. However if that's what the science says and the choice is that or have your grandchildren grow gills then OK but I would have to agree with you that hasn't been proven sufficiently enough to me to accept that level of pain trying to achieve it. However 450ppm seems a not so onerous limit, we still have some headroom under the cap and time to slow emission growth down by the time we get there. This is also consistent with my middle of the road scenario. Maybe this requires we give up New Orleans, South Florida and a few miles of coastline. Painful but livable.
But doing nothing is simply not acceptable to me and that's precisely what we've essentially been doing because we've been paralyzed into inaction unable to make a decision because the science isn't "settled".
Still interested in hearing what's so "economically ruinous & socially destructive" about "what is already being proposed" when you get the chance. Is it the 350ppm level that has folks so up in arms? If so then is it so bad to shoot for 450ppm?
There's a difference between being environmentally friendly, and reacting to alarmist hoaxes from the likes of Al Gore and other liberal media outlets.
Man-made Global Warming™ is a fraud.
"SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.
The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.
The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece
Too funny not to share.
Another interesting read, with 'helpful flow charts.' Takes a few minutes to follow it through, but provides a degree of clarity, salted with a bit of Scottish humor.
Nice try in moving the goal post. Your above reply has noting to do with your statement that I rebutted.
In gettng simplistic you miss the point. You are using high school level over simplification to rebut PhD level work. Were it the other way around then I would have to agree with you.
Nice, but because you are using a lower level of understanding again you miss the informaton you need. First the article talks of the four eruptions. Those were four super eruptions where ground earth was forced into the atmosphere blocking sunlight, lowering temprature. The average of 56 eruptions that happen daily don't do this. The volcano in Hawaii has been erupting for the last 20 years, I think, has never had an explosive eruption like the one Oregon.
Above is my quote. You never bothered to acknowledge it. You have read all four IPCC reports and their subliments and summeries, haven't you? That is thier conclusion on AWG that you believe in and support. If you have not read these reports then your arguments in this discussion are invalad because they are not based on the facts of the case.
I am doing that, one ignorant person at a time. as for the consensus of scientific opinion, that is being done as well by educating people they challenge the lies being told and more facts come out. This is why the 700 scientist that signed onto AGW has dwindled down to 200, while the 14 thousand scientists that oppose this view is increasing in numbers.
The release of the E-mails has caused further flap the three main people involved are being asked to step down because they fudged the records and broke the law. This is further proof that it is a hoax. In your eariler post you stated that BBC did not post the E-mails for some reason you believe is valid. For your information BBC has now admitted that they received the E-mails a month earlier from someone inside the institue. My speculation seems to be correct that someone is trying to save his reputation over there and leaked the information. When BBC did not do anything with it they put it out for everyone to see. The E-mails that you suggest were benign seem not to be the case. In one of the letters was sthe source code for thiere computer models once that was worked out it seems that the conclusion was never in doubt of AGW, The bottom line is they rigged the data to ensure we had AGW rather than gathering data and reporting the facts. You and your 90% of the world seem to have fallen for a hoax
Yes, a lot has happened in the last 50 years. We can now with some degree of accuracy predict the weather four days in advance rather than three. Watch your seven day forecast and if you watch every day you will see the predictions tighten as the day nears. If the best we can do is be close to the mark 4 days out and the other three days be in th ball park what makes you believe that these people can predict what the climate will be 100 years from now, or 10 years from now. According to the latest prediction (10 years ago) the average global temp will be up 10.2 degrees by 2010. In reality it is down 4.6 degrees meaning that we have 13 months to raise the global temperature by 14 degrees just to be accurate. I can't find a scientist anywhere that is willing to suggest this is possible at this time. If man is responsible for this global warming than we must have fixed it without doing anything. I am starting to hear rumblings that we can now expect to see this rise in global temp by 2020. they moved the goal post again.
You responded with Roy Spencer as an example of a credentialed scientist that denies AGW and has no ties to the oil/coal industry. My response to your "rebuttal" acknowledged that although it's *possible* to find such a scientist, the mere existence of a few such isolated scientists does not disprove the rule. I also graciously stipulated to your submission of Dr. Spencer both to give you the benefit of the doubt but primarily because at the time I did not want to bother having to chase him down in order to expose his oil/coal industry connections.
However since you appear to think that this single example disproves the rule, you’ve made it worth my effort to “debunk” your “rebuttal."
So first from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist). The wiki article lists his credentials and experience in the field all of which seems to directly qualify him as a legitimate expert within the field of global warming. However there are a couple of “red flags” brought out in his wiki article.
For one he’s as much known as a proponent of intelligent design as he is as an AGW denier. I suppose how you take this will depend on your views on intelligent design but in my and many others opinion this alone would be sufficient to label him as a crackpot. However I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and stipulate that this doesn’t necessarily damn his scientific opinion on global warming.
However two other points were brought out in the article; one, he’s a member of The Heartland Institute (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Institute) and secondly, that he’s a contributor to the George C. Marshall Institute (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Marshall_Institute).
The Heartland Institute connection is particularly damning. Not only has The Heartland Institute received significant funding from ExxonMobil, it’s also been significantly involved in “opposing restrictions on smoking and criticizing science which documents the harms of secondhand smoke.”
“Heartland has been criticized for employing executives from such corporations as ExxonMobil and Philip Morris on its board of directors and in its public relations department.” The wiki article also documents funding received from both ExxonMobil *and* Phillip Morris by the Heartland Institute.
In an earlier reply when I was comparing the tactics between them I had documented a couple of “conservative think tanks” that were strong supporters of both the anti-AGW crowd as well as tobacco. Here’s another one for the list.
Additional documentation of The Heartland Institute funding from Philipp Morris and ExxonMobil as well as documentation of board members with connections to both companies can be found at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute.
And if this is not enough let’s take a closer look at the George C. Marshall Institute which “has been described by the Union of Concerned Scientists as a clearinghouse for global warming contrarians, and by Newsweek as a central cog in the denial machine."
The wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Marshall_Institute) documents oil industry connections in both funding *and* in management. Also http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_C._Marshall_Institute corroborates these assertions.
Since it appears that you need additional documentation here’s another one that’s says your claim that volcanoes produce more CO2 than human activity is total bullshit. In this case this is from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory which is a U.S. Geological Survey sponsored facility that is perched on the rim of Kilauea Caldera and so should have a good scientific basis for its opinion which states the following. From http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html.
“Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually.
This seems like a huge amount of CO2, but a visit to the U.S. Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) website (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/) helps anyone armed with a handheld calculator and a high school chemistry text put the volcanic CO2 tally into perspective. Because while 200 million tonnes of CO2 is large, the global fossil fuel CO2 emissions for 2003 tipped the scales at 26.8 billion tonnes. Thus, not only does volcanic CO2 not dwarf that of human activity, it actually comprises less than 1 percent of that value.”
Yet another one of your claims thoroughly debunked.
By the way I don’t recall that *you* ever provided any documentation whatsoever as to *your* claim that volcanoes made man’s CO2 output negligible.
As I said *I* make no claim to be an AGW or GW or CC expert. It is sufficient to me that this is the “overwhelming scientific consensus.” I have no desire to read “all four” IPCC reports since I am an electrical engineer *not* a climatologist.
The arguments I present are *not* invalid because they are not *my* arguments they are the arguments of true experts in the field backed up by documented links.
Yet again where is *your* documentation of your “6 one hundredth of one degree over the next 100 years” claim. Don’t bother, because for every one link you could provide I could provide 100 counter links. While I have thoroughly debunked each of your claims at every step of the way I am not such a glutton for punishment that I will actually chase down 100 links for you.
Gee thanks for allowng me to believe that a scientist is a scientist. You also say that 90% or many others or most of the world yet only 700 scientist have signed onto this global warming thing while 14 thousand are vocally against. The head of the IPCC is not a scientist he is an economist. Of the 700 scientist that signed the report only 200 still hold that view so even a majority of scientists that signed the reports have changed their minds on the subject.
By your logic since the UN receives money from Exxon-Mobil the IPCC reports on global warming should be suspect. To further say that his scientific conclusions are suspect because of a belief in God is also silly. Of the 6 billion people on the planet over half believe in God. Meaningless as those figures are the represent the majority of opinion. There are over a million members of the flat earth society, they also believe in AGW that does not make them correct, there is a small minority of the society that disagrees with AGW, so even amoung people that are not interested in proven science there is disagreement.
What you suggest is that you have just as good an understaning of the topic at a highschool level as at a college level? You get the bare bone basics at one level and a more detailed view at the other. The devil is in the details. I used to teach grades 4, 5, and 6 to say that once the basics are learned that more information is not as important is a disservice.
As for the links you provided, they are nice and the ones I have are old and link back to your links so the information has changed in the last year to support your side of the argument. All that proves to me is the information is subjective not objective.
It might be 20 1 against one on this blog, but i can guarantee you that luckily, outside this your view is held by the great majority of people.
I usually stay away from JU specific threads simply because it's not worth the effort, but on occassion I get involved with a thread just to provide these folks a glimpse of how the other half lives. Once I do get involved my point isn't to try and convince anyone the error of their ways because as you see that's downright impossible. I respond only on the off chance that there are at least *some* reasonable people that may read the thread and for their sake I don't want to leave all the stuff they say unchallenged. I leave it up to folks like this to decide who is being reasonable and rational and who isn't.
You can't be serious. Face it. You spouted a load of bullshit which is proven to be 100% wrong.
As I've quoted numerous times already "Since 2007, no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion. A few organisations hold non-committal positions."
There is "no scientific body of national or international standing [that] has maintained a dissenting opinion." This is not a collection of individual scientists it's *every* "scientific body of national or international standing" and *none* of them deny AGW.
QED
As I stated above. When all these national or internatinal organizations get the majority of their data from a small number of organizations like those now being identified as tricking the numbers and discarding Raw data, of course they will not have dessenting opinions.
Now that their data sources have been identifed as unrelyable, I think you will find these organization's commitment to the GW theory changing. At least those operated by scientist and not politicians.
The best I could find was a list of 400 (actually 413 to be precise) put out by Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-ExxonMobil) which someone actually bothered to chase down and categorize.
Check out http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/inhofe-global-warming-deniers-47011101.
The quick summary of the article is that:
84 have either taken money from, or are connected to, fossil fuel industries, or think tanks started by those industries.
49 are retired
44 are television weathermen
20 are economists
70 have no apparent expertise in climate science
In the article you can click on each of these numbers and be taken to a list of each person that's in each particular category along with links to corroborating evidence.
Do you *ever* provide *any* source for anything you say? If so please document this 200 out of 700 claim.
Wow. This statement really stuck out to me.
In my experience, liberals think anyone who doesn't agree with them are "extreme right wingers".
Given the amount of venom that gets spewed at me on a daily basis from around the net all it requires to be an extreme right-winger is to be skeptical about human-caused global warming and being opposed to government intrusion into our lives.
The other half, mostly known as "tax payers".
While I'm sure there are those here that pay more taxes than I do, I do in fact pay my fair share of taxes being in the top 5% of all earners.
Just because I'm liberal doesn't mean I'm looking for a handout.
JU is a self selected set of pretty extreme right wingers.
You seem to get a lot of tax payers here on JU.
Most Web sites I frequent seem to be populated mostly by students. JU is the only site where I run into house wives, mothers, working dads, and people of different religions on daily basis. It's no wonder the general tone is pro tax payer and anti freeloader.
The sad thing is that this is perceived as "extreme right wing". It should be the centre.
JU, an "extreme right wing" site, shows more tolerance for dissent than most "progressive" sites and certainly attracts more people of different religions than those sites. I don't think left-wing sites advocating tolerance and peaceful co-existence often spawn discussions between Jews, Mormons and Evangelicals about religion. My impression is that "tolerant" left-wingers simply look down on other belief systems and their adherents.
If JU is the "extreme right", I think we'll have to take a better look at the normal left.
How much you want to bet that I pay more taxes than you do?
What do you do?
And do you approve of handouts given to other people?
Not every liberal is looking for a handout. But everyone who is looking for a handout is a liberal, no?
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