Gore's Message To Climate Change Skeptics

[Empty Hands]

This Margaret Sanger?

Wow, I've never seen someone so spectacularly confirm the point that they are supposedly arguing against without meaning to.

Read tellner's sentences that you are responding to, again, very s-l-o-w-l-y, and then read your response. Try to see what I am talking about. You have, in fact, proved his point for him.

 

[Big Don]

Wow, I've never seen someone so spectacularly confirm the point that they are supposedly arguing against without meaning to.

Read tellner's sentences that you are responding to, again, very s-l-o-w-l-y, and then read your response. Try to see what I am talking about. You have, in fact, proved his point for him.

Try to comprehend the context, what he said, in essence, was, none of the three people were as bad as they were made out to be, and identifying their miss deeds is unfair. He was on the verge of telling us that Robert Byrd's KKK membership was but a small part of his life.

 

[Twin Fist]

Tellner,
PROVE it is man made global warming and not a part of a large naturally occuring cyle.

go ahead, I'll wait























still waiting

And BTW, This:
"It's not about the Scary Negroes"

was a pretty crappy thing to say

 

[Big Don]

Tellner,
PROVE it is man made global warming and not a part of a large naturally occuring cyle.

go ahead, I'll wait























still waiting

Don't hold your breath.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Tellner,
PROVE it is man made global warming and not a part of a large naturally occuring cyle.

go ahead, I'll wait

still waiting

Twin Fist, this is not just directed at you it is to all those trying to say it is or is not the fault of the human race.

I've said it before I will say it again

What difference does it make whose fault it is?

Is it getting warmer?

Is ice melting?

Is this a good thing? No

Maybe we can't stop it.... maybe we can... but it sure would be nice to find out if we can or not and if we can we better start doing something soon. If we can't.... well hope that it does not cause a rapid cooling in the process... think Younger Dryas.

And if it is not our fault, although I suspect to at least some extent we have contributed to it, we would be better figuring out what we need to do to survive as a species instead of arguing about whose fault it is.

There has been some discussion that the planet is self correcting... good for the planet... not necessarily good for all the inhabitants of it

 

[Empty Hands]

Try to comprehend the context, what he said, in essence, was, none of the three people were as bad as they were made out to be, and identifying their miss deeds is unfair.

No, that's not what he said at all. What he said was that associating individuals with a movement or concept and then attacking those individuals is a distraction and an attempt to dodge the main issue. I'm not surprised that you don't understand this, since attacking Al Gore is your main method of attacking global warming.

What you never seem to understand no matter how many times it is pointed out is that Al Gore is entirely irrelevant to whether or not global warming exists. The two are not existentially related. Attacking Al Gore is a dodge and a means of avoiding the main issue, which is that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the existence of global warming.

Tellner was pointing out that similar methods were used in the past to attack birth control by attacking Sanger, crime and democrats by attacking Horton, etc. He said absolutely nothing about those people themselves.

 

[Sukerkin]

Chaps, try and have this conversation without sniping at each other, eh?

I'm getting a bit tired of logging in, seeing a thread that might prove interesting and then seeing it dissolve into playground bickering.

If you can't carry a reasoned argument in a bucket, then don't try and make up for it by biting each others ankles.

 

[MBuzzy]

Tellner,
PROVE it is man made global warming and not a part of a large naturally occuring cyle.

go ahead, I'll wait

As Xue said, who cares whose fault it is. It is happening, like it or not. Whether it is natural or man made, of the same magnitude or more than the past occurances is of no consequence. It is impossible to argue that we have absolutely no effect.....and if you can prove that burning fossil fuels doesn't deplete resources and pollute or that ODCs don't hurt the Earth's UV protection or that at least some of our processes affect the overall climate change, I'm sure that there are millions of scientists who would be interested to hear.

So again, the point is....what does it hurt to be aware? And what and who does it help to so adamantly argue AGAINST man made environmental effects??? If we can help, why not?

 

[Twin Fist]

it DOES matter whose fault it is. Here is why:

If this is caused by us, we might be able to correct it.

If this is a natural change, we WONT be able to stop it. In fact we probably shouldnt even TRY

when man tries to interfere in natural processses, it usually ends badly

 

[Ray]

I would tend to think that there are far more thinking people than there have ever been - which means that there may not be as many people who agree with the majority or those who have differing opinions. In my experience, I find that the people who say that everyone else is an idiot (myself included) are generally talking about those who don't agree with them.

I didn't say everyone is an idiot. Also, there may be a greater number of thinking people than there has ever been because the population is larger than ever --- but the percentage of thinking people is smaller.

I only refer to the comments made by Gore. He preaches and plays politics...gobal warming isn't about science and fact, it's his religion. When in the presidential debates he refused to follow the rules and said "this is to important" to be bound by rules, it made me realize that he's a prime candidate for dictator.

Global warming may be a real problem. Mankind might be able to slow or stop the process, but Gore is a festering problem that will rear its ugly head to the misery of us all.

 

[tellner]

Twin Fist, if you understood anything about science and how it's done you wouldn't say stuff like that.

First, nothing is ever proven in science. Never. Not a bit. No way. Things are disproven all the time. That's most of what you end up doing. You can gather evidence. Eventually if you have enough and it's good enough you can say "Unless something really strange comes along and upsets the apple cart we'll go with this hypothesis."

Second, you have some very odd ideas about what can and can't be done based on "natural" and "unnatural". Smallpox is 100% natural. We have undone it. We have "done something" about more species of plants and animals than anything since the great Pleistocene Die Off. We have "done something" about the great forests of the world, the former fish stocks in the oceans and the Colorado River which no longer reaches the ocean. We are currently "doing something" about the pH of the oceans which is leading to the decline of the remaining fish and the rise of squid and jellyfish. The Soviet Union "did something" about the Aral Sea. It has almost completely disappeared and will be gone from the maps in a few years. There's not a magic line on the ground with G-d on one side saying "I did this. You can't touch it."

Now that we've got that out of the way let's take a look at global warming.

There's no doubt that it's happening. It's happening in line with the more although not the most pessimistic models. And the rate is accelerating. Even the Bush Administration stopped trying to - in many cases illegally - suppress the evidence and replace truth with its self-serving lies. They just say that it would be too much of a burden to do anything about it, especially for the poor put-upon oil companies.

The Administration's cheerleaders and the oil industry have started saying "Don't worry. It will be warm. Warm is nice." These are the same people who said "The ozone hole doesn't exist." Then they said "It's natural." Then they said "We don't know why it's happening." Then they said "There's nothing we can do about it." Then they said "We couldn't possibly reduce CFCs. It would destroy the world economy." Then they said "People will just have to live with it. UV is good. People will have tans."

I remember how the Hoover Institution and the American Enterprise Institute suggested that tax incentives for sunblock and sunglasses were all we needed. How they planned to slather SPF-30 on each piece of krill in the Arctic ocean or fit Tibetan musk oxen with Raybans was an exercise left to the reader.

In fact, a somewhat younger Senator Gore was one of the first beating that drum. I think the Right never forgave him for being correct.

Well, it was happening. The evidence pointed to CFCs. Further research confirmed it. The rate was accelerating and doing so in line with both the high and low extremes of the world CFC budget.

Against the shrill squawking of Big Business global CFCs were drastically reduced. The ozone holes gradually closed although we are not back to where we were before CFCs. The world economy did not collapse. UV-related blindness in humans and birds in areas like Tierra del Fuego went back towards normal levels.

Go back a little further to acid rain.

Go back further to photochemical smog.

Go back further to the killer smogs of London.

The lies coming from those with a vested interest in the status quo area always exactly the same. And their dupes and useful idiots follow along like a pack of yammering Bassett Hounds baying on command.

Moving to the present day, the data have been being collected since the 1980s. We've gotten a lot more sophisticated. We can measure solar flux directly and indirectly. We have ice-core data going back hundreds of thousands of years. We're damned good with it. We have gas budgets for areas all over the planet. There are direct and indirect historical records that give a pretty good idea of how much wood, coal, oil and gas we've been burning and how much excess methane has gone into the atmosphere due to agriculture.

The better the data and the better the tools for analyzing them the clearer the picture.

The current warming trend has been going on since the early Industrial Revolution. It is tied very nicely and cleanly with CO2 emissions from coal and later from petroleum. The ice core data, the other estimates of industrial uses of fuels, and the temperature data all line up as cleanly as you're likely to see in such a large and complicated system.

Solar fluctuations act as a random effect around the mean rise in temperatures. In other words, no matter what Rush told the dittoheads it isn't solar energy that has started mysteriously increasing. The much trumpeted "The Earth is getting warmer, but Science Proves that it's all because of increased solar radiation," turned out to be premature. By "premature" I mean "Actually, it turned out to have been 180 degrees due Mistaken."

No other proposed mechanism has even begun to explain the available data much less make verifiable predictions. Throwing up a hundred "maybes" without testing them and without even bothering to say how they might be tested is not scientifically disproving global warming. It's a sign of the absence of science.

The hypothesis is that the world is generally getting warmer and that the rate is accelerating overall. That hypothesis is very well established. We are already seeing a dramatic demonstration of the self-reinforcing nature of the ice-albedo feedback loop.

The theory is that the majority of this warming may be attributed to human actions, particularly the burning of wood and fossil fuels, the growth in rice cultivation and cattle husbandry and more recently the unlocking of carbon reserves due to deforestation, the melting of permafrost and ocean die-offs.

The theory has been gathering momentum as we find more data which support it. The data are robust; they apply over a wide range of conditions, and data from several entirely different sources confirm one another. It does a good job of explaining the observed phenomena and most importantly of predicting future events. It does not seem to be making any egregiously incorrect predictions.

More to the point, there is no other theory out there which explains what we see much less makes predictions which are even vaguely as good as those of the anthropogenic theory of climate change.

If you want to be taken seriously as a grown up much less a scientist here is how to start:

• Learn a little about how science is done. It's a fascinating subject that captures the imagination and ennobles the spirit while strengthening the mind. You don't need an advanced degree. A few good books can get you conversant very quickly
• Learn to think quantitatively and especially to think statistically. You have no idea how rare and important that ability is. If you say "There are lies, damned lies and statistics" or "Figures don't lie, but liars figure" then go back to the beginning you have serious remedial work to do.
• Try to understand at least the broad outlines of the subject under discussion.
• Find out what the major theories are.
• Get an idea about the data that support or drive them and where those come from.

If you find the theories unsatisfying this is what you need to do:

• Find out what the theories you don't like claim
• Find out what data they are supposed to explain
• Find out what predictions they make and how well those predictions hold up
• Come up with a hypothesis that is better supported by the data than the one you are rejecting.
• Develop a theory which explains your hypothesis.
• Use it to make predictions. These predictions must do a better job of explaining the observed data than the one which you want to discredit.

If you can do all of that, then you are doing serious science. You can't cherry pick. You can't ignore what you don't like. You have to take it all in and be brave and honest enough to change your mind and abandon your pet beliefs if they don't pass that fundamental test.

As they said at the end of Bible readings in high school chapel "Here endeth the lesson."

 

[newGuy12]

We are so freaking totally screwed.

 

[tellner]

We may be. I have a growing suspicion that we've hit a point in things where we've set deep systemic changes in motion. It may be outside our capabilities to stop them. But we won't know until we own up to the problem.

Thirty years ago the Pollyannas found that attacking President Carter "solved" the problem of energy independence and "solved" the coming US peak oil event. They ripped the solar panels off the White House, stopped the improvements in rail dead in their tracks (although they took credit for what he'd done), rolled back auto efficiency standards and hid the whole thing with increased dependence on foreign oil.

It got them a lot of votes.

It also got us into the mess we are in now.

Oil production in the US peaked and has begun the predicted slow decline. Last year it peaked worldwide and looks like it will do the same thing just as world oil demand is ramping up.

Research into alternatives like OTEC, fast breeder reactors (neither the Dems nor the GOPs ever understood that one), solar, wind, geothermal and efficient vehicles stopped dead. Our dependence on foreign energy skyrocketed. Now we're in two floundering wars and have bankrupted ourselves in a failed attempt at grabbing the last big fossil fuel reserves.

We could have had thirty years of research and slow policy changes that would have made us more efficient and moved us towards a more economically sound energy budget. It would have also had some very good ecological effects. Instead we took out the credit card and spent our capital. That was directly responsible for the mess we are in now in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's why the price of meat and milk is through the roof. And it's why there was open water all the way to the North Pole and why the ice kept melting all freaking Winter.

Whatever we do now will be wrenching and traumatic. And there's a very good chance we will fail. But we have to try. And it has to be on the basis of actually solving problems. What do we know? How do we know it? What is possible? How can we achieve it?

We have to move beyond "I don't want this to be true. That guy there believes there's a problem. I don't like him. If I call him a poopy head he will go away. Then the problem never happened." It's emotionally satisfying if you have the mind of a five year old. It is a suicidal way to address life and death problems. Suing Al Gore will not change the atmospheric carbon budget.

 

[tellner]

Empty Hands has explained it nicely, Don. I'll give it one more whack.

You have a tendency to take difficult issues and identify them with a person. If you dismiss the person you have dismissed the issue. If you like the person then whatever it is is true and good.

Your friend or cousin is serving in Iraq. He's a good guy who is putting his life on the line for the war. Therefore the war is good.

Al Gore believes that global warming exists. Al Gore is the Devil (because the Party tells you he is). Therefore global warming can not exist.

This is not rational thinking. This is magical thinking. Magical thinking does not solve scientific or engineering problems.

 

[Sukerkin]

An excellent series of posts from Tellner there, covering a number of issues in an admirable mix of comprehensively and relative brevity. Post#31 in particular is the kind of thing I was referring to when I spoke of rational and reasonable argument :sensei rei:.

 

[MBuzzy]

As usualy, Tellner is right on - if I may add one more suggestion.....do a google search for Logical Fallacies. Many of the arguments that people get into are a textbook of them. In fact, if you are familiar enough with them, you need to know very little about the topic at hand. They are very enlightening as to the ways that people tend to sway arguments and illogically make conclusions.

And again I will say....we should go back to the root of why people argue so adamantly AGAINST global warming? What is the reason for this position? It is difficult to completely deny, so we're simply arguing about fault and whether we should act to reduce and conserve, are we not? In that case, why is this an argument? Where is the motivation to argue against reduction and conservation?

I challenge SOMEONE to answer those questions....

To me - unless you are a stockholder in a major oil or chemical company, or otherwise involved in an industry that stands to lose from conservation, why should we NOT do our best to reduce our impact?

This question can be ignored for as long as people wish, but eventually those who think that global warming is a myth may be forced into environment friendly actions. Environmental policy grows every day, something else that simply can't be ignored. If people don't do it themselves, the world community will force them - in my opinion.

 

[Sukerkin]

I quite agree that regardless of cause, it makes little sense not to do what we can to conserve resources and reduce energy consumption - in the end it will benefit us too, even if the motives we start with are the long-term benefit of others.

The point often raised as a counter to such 'efficiency' thnking is that there are growing 'energy hogs' elsewhere in the world who do not yet think in terms of conservation. To me that does not seem like a valid reason to be profligate ourselves - after all, these are finite resources we're talking about and preserving 'our' portion as long as possible only seems like common sense to me.

 

[jks9199]

This is how I see it...

I don't think there's any doubt at this point that some sort of climate change is occurring. And that other changes have occurred in the past. There's some room for debate over the exact nature of that change; I think simply calling it "global warming" is too simplistic.

I don't think we know the causation. It may be a natural cycle or occurrence. Actually, I'd say the odds are good there's some sort of natural cycle, since it's happened before.

I think that we, meaning mankind, have had an effect, and can influence the environment and world climate. The scope of that effect? I don't think that's clear. But there's absolutely no reason that we shouldn't try to make as positive an influence on the environment as we reasonably can. That means finding better fuel and energy options, being responsible in our energy use and in what we consume. The old camping motto of "take only memories, leave only footprints" is a good ideal goal for life in general.

But I also will state categorically that we can't place the blame solely on the USA and other First World nations. Nor can we exempt "developing nations" from helping to address ecological concerns; we share the same ecology! I can no more go on a diet, except for my left foot, than we can positively influence climate change and exempt part of the world.

(Nor am I certain that we want to stop climate change... We don't have a particularly good track record when it comes to knowing what's best for the world or any ecology, and climate change may have important positive benefits that we can't see today.)

 

[Twin Fist]

Tellner,
Wether you mean to or not, you come across as snotty, condecending, and exceedingly arrogant. Not saying you ARE those things, just that you come across that way. Telling me "if you want to be taken seriously as a grown up"....buddy, thats what us country folk call fightin words. Why do we call them that? because they are snotty, arrogant and condecending.

just Food for thought (though based on experience with other wanna-be-intellectuals, i doubt you will consider anyone's ideas if they dont match with your own).

Thats another story though.

Here is the thing.

Every other week, a new news story breaks about how this or that doom and gloom theory about global warming is found to be mostly crap science. Engineered to support a pre-determined opinion.

And no one can get around the FACT that this has happened before. Over and Over in fact. With no cars, no huge herds of cattle, no oil industry. But it still happened. None of you doom and gloomers can get around the FACT that just one, ONE volcanic eruption dumps more crap into the atmosphere than mankind EVER has.

That it is happening now is not disputed, really. (though the fact that we only have accurate records going back less than 100 years doesnt help the doom and gloom crowd's credibility.

WHY it is happening IS disputed.

And you can claim anything you want, but you cant PROVE it. And i dont care if that's "not the way science works"

You want me to believe something? PROVE it.

Mind you, I WANT to get off oil. I want to slap a Mr Fusion on top of my car so I can tell the middle east to go bugger a goat. I want nice clean oceans. Nations like Japan that STILL hunt and kill whales and dolphins chap my ***. I WANT nice clean air.

But here is the thing.

You live in the world of theory

I live in the real world. In the real world, the United States USED to have the strongest economy in the world. At the time, our economy was based on manufacture. Now, thanks in part to draconian environmental lobbies, we dont manufacture anything, and our economy is weak. That is surely good for the panet, but it is bad for us, here and now.

I dont wish to return to the days of yore, so to speak, but I do wish there was a happy medium. The Doom and Gloomers, (like yourself perhaps?), will be happy with nothing short of returning the United States to a Dark ages world where there in no industry. Yet turning a blind eye to China and India, who are the REAL criminals today when it comes to pollution.

Your milage may vary, and unlike you, I dont claim to know all the answers, but facts are facts, and the fact is no one can prove it.


Buzzy,
i dont know anyone who denies global warming is happening. So I am not sure where you are comming from. Many people dont agree that it is all man made, like the doom and gloom squad want us to think. And based on the news, that number is growing.

 

[ChadWarner]

No global warming can't be attributed to mankind yet... Figure the sun loses 5 metric tons of its mass every day. Nothing compared to the moon moving farther away from the earth in its orbit or the rotation of the earth slowing down... In galileos time the solar day was about 18 hours, today we are up to 24 hours. Then plate tectonics have to be considered. The earth will have a supercontinent again. It will be called pangea II.

Because the plates will move the land masses or continents around currents will change. When currents change ie speed up or slow down our weather is effected. If a current (say the japanese current which runs basically around the ring of fire) were to slow down we would experience global warming. The funny thing is the japanese current runs up through the arctic circle where the ice is indeed melting.

However, in the antarctic the ice is increasing. So much so that large chunks are breaking off due to the weight and sinking or floating away. So one pole is shrinking and the other is growing. The more intelligent amatuer scientist would have to begin to look towards the solar system and its changes. The days are getting longer and the moon is getting further away. The moon greatley effects tides by its gravitational pull, so much so that the moon is the primary celestial object known at this time to cause the high and low tides. All scientist agree on this so it is considered fact. So because the moons orbital elipse is moving further out the tidal highs and lows will eventually become different. Could it effect the currents thus effecting the the warming and cooling process of the earth?

The earths rotation is slowing, that too can cause a minute temperature differential.

Algore is an oppertunist pure and simple and so is rushlimbaugh. Their business is making money.

A side note: algore did not invent the internet... The military did. The U.S military.

The final say on corporate welfare... corps are supported by the us government because the pension funds of public workers invest most of their money in the stock market. Corps have to be propped up from time to time the keep the public workers pension funds solvent. Everything is comingled and it is just the way of the universe.

There are many disagreements among scientists- a lot are about public funding to keep their own projects going and to keep themselves employed.

The evidence shows many things- in fact anything you want to believe can be backed up by re- arranging "facts"