Global Warming: a Controversial Bill, And a Game of Roulette

It's really sad that science has degenerated into name calling. I'm going resist calling these people alarmists this time. I suppose I fall into the category of "denier", but I believe skeptic is probably a better label if you're looking for one.

Rather than creating colorful pinwheels like those pictured, I'd like to call on the AGW proponents to do more than make long term predictions about something as complex as the earth's atmosphere 100 years from now. The simple fact is that the source of these dire warnings come from computer "models" written by humans with a vested interest in a warming outcome. These same "models" lack vital information about cloud formation and its associated effects on the earth's temperature. Now who's playing roulette?

Furthermore, it would be worthwhile for these researchers to note that the earth has been both considerably warmer and colder than it is presently. I do not think it is in dispute which of those extremes is a greater threat to humans, but for the uninformed, ice ages are typically detrimental to life on the planet. How about we learn to deal with potential changes in the earth's climate instead of trying to play a blame game paid for by taxpayers.

It is not a consipracy theory despite what you think. Some or the proponents of global warming might have something to gain, but many have a lot to lose by supporting that proposition. I don't think the scientists are running around saying that global warming exists so that they can benefit.

The data comes from much more than just "computer models". For one thing the climate has started warming this past century, so we have all that data to look at. The models are based on what has already happened. Here are some of the other data sources:

Satellite Data
Radiosondes
Borehole analysis
Glacial melt observations
Sea ice melt
Sea level rise
Proxy Reconstructions
Permafrost melt

And yes the earth has been both warmer and cooler in the past, but that certainly does not mean that it's fine for you and me. So as the pinwheels show, we have a choice. Move aggresively, minimize the impact, don't move and end up with a large impact.

Further rebuttal may be found at:

www.wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/25/global-warming-of-7c-could-kill-billions-this-century/#more-8018

"And yes the earth has been both warmer and cooler in the past, but that certainly does not mean that it's fine for you and me. So as the pinwheels show, we have a choice. Move aggresively, minimize the impact, don't move and end up with a large impact."

This statement is conjecture. I encourage you to read the article linked above in my previous comment. The author of the site is a meteorologist and present significant data backing his position that this "science" is shoddy at best.

The underlying premise of cap and trade--that CO2 drives global warming--is based on United Nations' climate reports that were clearly tainted by politics and an agenda -- see energyplanusa.com/ipcc_reports_dont_pass_smell_test.htm. American's need our own objective scientific assessment of global warming. I am a Democrat who for the past 20 years believed global warming was caused by CO2. Now after reading the UN reports I realize the fix was in and we've all been mislead. The UN reports are politics not science, yet our government (e.g. EPA) treats them as fact.

Kstauff, I could use your knowledge over at
keitholbermann.org/forum/

These guys are completely loopy.

@jward: You mean that satellite data that has been repeatedly revised due to faulty collection?

From the man who brought you the weather channel - http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html

PS if you live near an ocean, have you noticed a sea level change? Neither have I.

Before you read the above link take a guess as to the level of CO2 now in the atmosphere, ask other people around you too, then take a look at Wikipedia.

It is tragic that the new "dire" MIT climate model is still grossly underestimating global warming because it is not including natural methane emissions in a warming world. I have confronted climate modelers and they say because there is no reliable estimate on the amount of methane that nature will emit, they don't include it at all.

Methane is 70 times more powerful than CO2 over the first 20 years. There is more carbon in methane locked in ice than all the carbon in coal, oil, and natural gas left in the ground!

For instance, an area six times the size of Germany containing about 540 billion tons of carbon is off the coast of Siberia. That submarine permafrost is perilously close to thawing. Three to 12 kilometers from the coast the sea sediment is just below freezing. The permafrost has grown porous, there is a loss of rigor in the frozen sea floor, and the surrounding seawater is highly oversaturated with solute methane.

"...Researchers were investigating "alarming" reports in the last few days of the release of methane from long frozen Arctic waters, possibly from the warming of the sea…” --"Arctic sea ice drops to 2nd lowest level on record," AP, 27 Aug '08

“If the Siberian (submarine) permafrost-seal thaws completely and all the stored gas escapes, the methane content of the planet's atmosphere would increase twelve fold. The result would be catastrophic global warming.” --"A Storehouse of Greenhouse Gases Is Opening in Siberia," Spiegel, 17 April '08

hey Michael 42, if you didn't know, the rise isn't that big and people who don't visit the beach often will notice more... If you have a friend who is growing over one (1) year, the person who hasn't seen him/her over that year will easily notice the height change while the person who visits the person often will not see as much of a difference...

Seriously:

Thanks for the invite, but I'll pass. I don't consider Olbermann to be a serious journalist any more than Rush Limbaugh is. I will once again encourage anyone with an interest in this subject to visit www.wattsupwiththat.com. It is the most objective site I've found on this subject.

doberman:

Methane is released from non-frozen parts of the earth all the time, in quantities far larger than you're talking about. Consider that all decomposing life forms, plant and animal, will likely be processed to methane at some point during their decay. Methane has on the order of 25 times greater effect on greenhouse warming than CO2, not the 70 times you claim. Further, it breaks down into CO2 within a few years and reused by plant life. For this reason, it makes up an even smaller part of the atmosphere than CO2. This is part of the natural carbon cycle, which I presume you're familiar with.

It should be noted that the earth has been considerably warmer in the past and life has flourished. It should also be admitted that the global average temperature has been going down since 1998. The fear-mongering of AGW supporters is either ignorant or dishonest. The costs of such short-sighted actions like cap-and-trade, already failed in Europe, are far too high in a world that needs food and vaccines.

I read your article and many more like it. A meteorologist is not a scientist.

The U.S. does have it's own independent evaluation of the global warming science, it's called the American Meteorological Society and they support they theory of global warming.

Just go here:

www.ametsoc.org/policy/2007climatechange.html

Why do they naysayers all think that they are smarter than all the scientists actually conducting real research into global warming/climate change?

When you have 90+ percent of scientists that are actually global climate scientists supporting global warming, that should tell you something (per a recent survery, IPCC I think). Again, look at the scientists actually involved in the field, not a mathematician that is not involved in the research.

Don't look at the decision by the UN, look at the science underneath it all. Read the published papers, the vast majority points to global warming. Don't believe random internet sites which can say anything, look at the published papers.

Don't believe a petition web site that claims 30k scientists have signed it against global warming. Most that have signed it are not scientists, and those that have are not involved in global climate research.

So again, look at the published papers, not what other people say. Do your own research.

"I read your article and many more like it. A meteorologist is not a scientist.

The U.S. does have it's own independent evaluation of the global warming science, it's called the American Meteorological Society and they support they theory of global warming."

I stopped reading after that.

These eco-religionists from MIT are the biggest frauds in the history of science (along with Hansen, Schmidt, Schneider, Santer, Mann, et. al.). Their un-scientific models do not include solar-magnetic activity AT ALL. It is not even in their calculations, despite the well established fact that solar-magnetic activity has a .6-.8 correlation with global temperature on all time scales going back 500 million years.

In other words, solar-activity "explains" statistically about 70 percent of historic temperature change, making it the dominant driver of climate, yet it is completely omitted from the analysis of these fraudulent alarmists.

Every one of them is fully aware that solar activity bottomed out during the Little Ice Age and was at "grand maximum" levels from 1945-2000. They also know the consequences of omitting this explanatory variable from their model: that warming caused by solar-magnetic activity will be misattributed to CO2, which also reached unprecedented levels from 1945-2000. This is self-conscious fraud, committed by every stinking one of these damn eco-religionists.

These are EVIL people, intentionally misleading the public about the science in order to shut down economic activity, which they see as gobbling up the planet. They are not actually concerned about climate at all. They saw a way that they could pretend that out energy powered economy was a threat to the planet and they jumped at it, because they do believe that economic growth threatens the planet in other ways. They are wrong about that too, but even if they were right, it would not justify their perversion of science.

Their nominal excuse for leaving out solar-magnetic effects is that the theories of how this effect works are not proven yet. No, but the effect itself IS proven, and the definition of the scientific method is that data trumps theory. Omitting known solar-magnetic effects because we don’t understand the mechanism would be like a pre-Einsteinian scientist predicting that if he lets a rock go above the ground it will waft away on the breeze, because we understand the breeze pushing on the rock, but we don’t understand this “gravity” that according to observation pulls heavy things down.

In short, pure fraud. These eco-religionists see themselves as acting for the highest purpose (saving the planet from capitalism), but that does not in any way mitigate their evil, but only enables it. Most of the great evils of history were perpetrated in the name of good. The key is the dishonesty, which allows people to fool themselves and others about both fact and value.

Alec Rawls
www.errortheory.blogspot.com/2009/04/nasas-acknowledgement-of-deep-solar.html

@jward - maybe you missed the contradiction while editing?

The success of the argument lies in two things (1) an appeal to authority, and (2) an appeal to the reader's preferences.

AW's blog is very well written, and his analysis of monitoring stations has been very illuminating.

QOTD: "The Global Warming Industrial Complex"

When people on one side of a scientific debate want those who disagree fired, decertified or prosecuted I tend to disregard everything they say. This is intellectual fascism and is very common among AGW worshipers.

The fact is that there are thousands of very qualified climatologists and scientists who have serious doubts about the Algore conclusions. Many were members of the APCC and now have reversed their positions. Here's an example: http://tinyurl.com/pyg7gf

I know a climatologist at a very distinguished university observatory who fears speaking out because of fear of being fired or losing their funding. More fascism.

Name me one time that Washington has given a fair and equal hearing to scientists on both sides of the issue. It's never happened and won't. This is politics, pure and simple.

Unless we can engineer a Great Leap Backwards and soon we are all doomed.

Thanks K. I don't either, FWIW. I just troll. I know it's not right, but hey, what else is there to do?

Start encouraging people to not have children, that will have the biggest effect on global warming.

Fascinating that Richard Lindzen of MIT, the foremost Climate Scientist on Earth is not in their cute little picture. Oh that's right, he recognizes global warming for the nonsense that it is. Never mind.

hollycow:

"Start encouraging people to not have children, that will have the biggest effect on global warming."

There are some on the far extreme left, some with tenured positions in our universities, who advocate exactly that and more. In fact, they advocate the extermination of humans in large numbers. No, they're not racist or bigoted; they want all humans dead. Here's hoping your statement was only a jest and not your actual position. If it is your actual position, I ask you to honorably volunteer for such eradication as a statement of its virtue.

Realize that the point of all this global warming hoopla is simple: we should stop burning fossil fuels. Yet there's hundreds of other good reasons not to burn the stuff, ranging from mercury in our fisheries, to ground level ozone in our cities, to money going to Al Qaeda, to dead coal miners in West Virginia, to the fact that most of our fertilizers come from natural gas, and many of our lifesaving medicines and plastics come from petroleum. Yet there's only one reason to keep burning the stuff; it's cheap (for now).

The majority of Americans have had enough, and realize that putting up solar panels, insulating their homes, and purchasing energy-efficient appliances are good ideas all around, and so that's what we're going to do. Whether we're 100% sure that it will save us from rising sea levels and killer hurricanes is not really the point anymore.

Jake Revive Your Life

Great article. I wish everyone would just start working together on solutions to help out our planet. I can't wait to get off the grid and driving an electric or hydro vehicle. You can also check out my blog for some interesting earth friendly tips to help our earth out.
http:reviveyourlife.com

I look at spending money to reduce my CO2 omissions, as nothing more than making wise choices. When my Escort Wagon wore out, I replaced the Escort with a new Yaris. The Yaris gets 5 mpg better fuel economy than the Escort. I now have $291 in monthly payments, but I am no longer spending money repairing a failing vehicle. I save money at the gas pump. Plus I cut my CO2 emissions by 1 ton a year. Less spending money in exchange for a more reliable vehicle.

When I noticed that the roof on our modular home was losing pieces of stuff from the asphalt shingles, I covered over the asphalt shingles with a white steel roof. The steel roof came with 2 inches of additional hard foam insulation. The white roof is projected to save me 50% on my summer electric bill. The 2 inches of hard foam insulation is projected to save me 50% on my Winter natural gas heating bill. That cuts my CO2 emissions by 2 tons a year. The new roof is expected to pay for it's self in 7 years. The steel roof is less likely to catch on fire from flying ambers from a near by fire. Reduced risk of my home burning down. One less thing to worry about. Less money in the bank. One more thing to worry about. I can add money to savings each month to reduce that worry.

When my brother died he left the family his Ranger. There was two choices. I could drive the Ranger 1/2 of the time and add 7 tons of CO2 a year to the air. Or I could trade in the Ranger, as a down payment on a used Yaris, and reduce my CO2 production by 3.2 tons a year.

I disliked the Ranger. The Ranger is hard to park. I like my Yaris. The Yaris is easy to park. Another $190 a month auto payment. The impact upon my life style has been a a lot less spending money. But I now have two reliable, easy to drive, liftback cars.

The value of my cut of CO2 emissions is better air to breath. Better air to breath is worth the cost of cutting all forms of air pollution, including CO2 air pollution.

Ellen

This is becoming one of the serious problem that we ever had.

Thailand Global Warming Website
www.thaihotzone.com