The Climate Change Climate Change (NOT A TYPO)

[Big Don]

The Climate Change Climate Change

The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.

• By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

The Wall Street Journal Excerpt:



Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.
If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.
In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
END EXCERPT

 

[JDenver]

1. That 650 scientists is from a largely debunked list of about 413 folks from a few years ago. They included TV weathermen, scientists funded by oil companies, non scientists and people who didn't even know that they were on the list.

2. Inhofe is part of a larger global warming skeptic group which continues to cite ridiculous, totally untrue accounts for global warming. Included in them is solar activity as the main cause, a notion disputed by dozens of findings and reports from all over the globe. They also claim that sea levels aren't rising, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Some months they claim that there is no global warming, other times that there is but that it isn't man made.

3. Even allowing for Will Happer, by any count that leaves 1 legitimate scientist who disputes global warming and about 5,000 who do not. You'd find an easier time with the ratio of scientists for and against evolution.

4. From 1996-2004, there were over 900 peer reviewed and approved scientific reports on the reality of global warming. In that period there were 0 peer adjudicated, reasonable, scientific reports disputing global warming. The 'debate' is purely manufactured.

 

[Andrew Green]

The 'debate' is purely manufactured.

Worse then that. It is taking one issue that has many factors and is the easiest to throw doubt into and making it the only issue.

Climate change is only one problem pollution is contributing too. Water supplies, breathing air, ozone layer, etc.

It is like the creationism arguments, make it all about one thing (evolution) and get the debate centered on just that, ignoring the fact that pretty much everything in the natural science contradicts creationism.

 

[Big Don]

.

2. Inhofe is part of a larger global warming skeptic group which continues to cite ridiculous, totally untrue accounts for global warming.

Like claiming Polar Bears are drowning? That kind of ridiculous, totally untrue account?

Included in them is solar activity as the main cause, a notion disputed by dozens of findings and reports from all over the globe. They also claim that sea levels aren't rising, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Some months they claim that there is no global warming, other times that there is but that it isn't man made.

3. Even allowing for Will Happer, by any count that leaves 1 legitimate scientist who disputes global warming and about 5,000 who do not. You'd find an easier time with the ratio of scientists for and against evolution.

4. From 1996-2004, there were over 900 peer reviewed and approved scientific reports on the reality of global warming. In that period there were 0 peer adjudicated, reasonable, scientific reports disputing global warming. The 'debate' is purely manufactured.

Gee, the amount of money that stands to be made in selling carbon credits and other assorted global warming curatives (snake oil) couldn't have anything to do with that, could it?

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I continue to believe what I believed from the beginning of this nonsense:

• Global warming is real
• It is a continuing process
• It is mostly part of a natural cycle
• Man may have influenced it to some degree
• The degree to which man has influenced global warming is unknown
• The degree to which man can alter the process of global warming is unknown
• Spending monstrous amounts of money to attempt to do what may well be an unstoppable natural process does not make sense

 

[JDenver]

Gee, the amount of money that stands to be made in selling carbon credits and other assorted global warming curatives (snake oil) couldn't have anything to do with that, could it?

Are you saying that global warming is a global socialist conspiracy? That would put you with interesting company.

 

[JDenver]

I continue to believe what I believed from the beginning of this nonsense:

• Global warming is real
• It is a continuing process
• It is mostly part of a natural cycle
• Man may have influenced it to some degree
• The degree to which man has influenced global warming is unknown
• The degree to which man can alter the process of global warming is unknown
• Spending monstrous amounts of money to attempt to do what may well be an unstoppable natural process does not make sense

I like your list, but have only 1 question.

If, in all of geological record keeping of the world's temperature fluctuations over the past several hundred thousand years, we were now seeing the most obvious, dramatic, and even explosive climb of temperatures, such that thousand year rises of .5 degrees looked embarrassingly small compared to 1-2 degree rises over a few short decades, wouldn't one have to say that this is NOT a natural process?

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I like your list, but have only 1 question.

If, in all of geological record keeping of the world's temperature fluctuations over the past several hundred thousand years, we were now seeing the most obvious, dramatic, and even explosive climb of temperatures, such that thousand year rises of .5 degrees looked embarrassingly small compared to 1-2 degree rises over a few short decades, wouldn't one have to say that this is NOT a natural process?

Yes, if that were true. But it's not.

What we *do* know as relatively established fact is that temperatures have risen less than one degree C since 1885, and we believe that temperatures were globally less warm in the 1,000 to 2,000 years previous. I can accept that man had a hand in that.

What we do *not* know is how that compares to trends over a longer period of time, such as the "past hundred thousand years" you speak of.

The basic problems with such comparisons are easy to understand. First, the earth seldom goes through a 100,000 year period without a major climatic event such as monstrous volcanoes or strikes by foreign objects into the planet, which skew averages and destroy 'natural' trends. Second, man hasn't been around all that long, comparatively speaking, and thirdly, man hasn't been keeping records of global temperatures accurately until about the dawn of the industrial revolution.

I firmly believe that the planet's climate moves in cycles that are far larger from peak to trough than man has even existed as a species. I also believe that there are micro-cycles which move in intervals of thousands of years. And I am willing to believe that man's activities have had an impact on earth's climate - but I do not know how much, nor do I believe anyone else really does, either.

I have read the lengthy report on climate change - very carefully, and from cover to cover with all appendices included. I noted a number of things that they don't talk about on TV when they discuss climate change.

One of the first things that jumped out at me was the timeframe for global warming that scientists are talking about. By making massive and expensive changes NOW, they hope to influence the temperature down by about one degree - IN A THOUSAND YEARS! That is, temperatures won't come down - based on their own projections - for at least 1,000 years.

Another thing that jumped out at me was the actual projections for global warming versus the reported projections. Al Gore talks about ocean level rises of 4 meters or more. The report says that it is more likely to be about a 7.5 inches in the next 100 years. Al Gore says we're all gonna die, the report says we've got some problems ahead. I have a problem with Al Gore's hysteria-based model. He appears to take the most pessimistic predictions and run with them as if they were the mainstream opinion.

I also note that so-called Man Made Global Warming is now a hot-button political (and nearly a religious) issue. It was with sadness that I noted that the chief meteorologist for The Weather Channel called at a global conference for any meteorologist who denied that Global Warming was man-made should be fired and stripped of all credentials. Purges? Hello? This bother anyone else?

People who do not believe that humans caused global warming are now called 'deniers' as if they were the same as those who don't believe man landed on the moon, or that the Holocaust existed. In other words, nutters, and dangerous nutters at that.

I predict that there will be some attempt made in the next couple of years to make it illegal to publicly state that global warming is not man-made.

 

[Big Don]

Are you saying that global warming is a global socialist conspiracy? That would put you with interesting company.

Pointing out that one of the leading proponents of global warming hysteria founded a company

A Diverse Advisory Board Our Advisory Board, convened by our Chairman Al Gore, helps set our long term thematic research agenda into global sustainability issues. The Advisory Board is a diverse set of global thinkers who help us anticipate the changing context for business.

that sells carbon credits, and therefore has a vested interest in governmental policies that promote his cause, isn't kooky the way you're trying to paint it to be.

 

[Andrew Green]

Al Gore speaks for himself, he is not a scientist and as far as I know doesn't represent any part of the scientific community. He is a activist / lobbyist. There are also all sorts of people that have a vested interest in keeping fuel usage high, they are also rather biased on the matter.

Why most every discussion on climate change turn into a character attack on Al Gore? No one here has referenced his materials, no one has used him as a authority to support their ideas.

This is like the environmental version of Godwins law... The longer a conversation goes the more likely it is someone will attack Al Gore's credibility, even if no one is using any information he's been pushing.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Al Gore speaks for himself, he is not a scientist and as far as I know doesn't represent any part of the scientific community. He is a activist / lobbyist. There are also all sorts of people that have a vested interest in keeping fuel usage high, they are also rather biased on the matter.

Like it or not, when Al Gore blathers, he gets the bully pulpit. Before Obama, he was worshiped like a God.

Why most every discussion on climate change turn into a character attack on Al Gore? No one here has referenced his materials, no one has used him as a authority to support their ideas.

Because the environmentalist community, particularly the global-warming-is-real portion of it, tied their wagon to his star to get attention, traction, and credibility. They cannot complain now that he makes them look like liars.

This is like the environmental version of Godwins law... The longer a conversation goes the more likely it is someone will attack Al Gore's credibility, even if no one is using any information he's been pushing.

And complaining about people taking Al Gore's name in vain is the equivalent of 'winning' a card game by tipping over the table and stomping off.

Besides, if we simply take the most recent unified report on global climate change as our model, instead of Al Gore's inflated and exaggerated figures, then it makes very little sense for us to spend billions and trillions of taxpayer dollars to 'fix' something that a) the report says may not be fixable and b) even if it is, it will take a thousand years to get even a one degree decrease in global average temperature. If the exaggerated statements don't rate a massive response, the 'real' statements surely do not.

In other words, we're pissing away money for nothing.

 

[Live True]

In other words, we're pissing away money for nothing.

It won't be the first or last time our politicians on both sides did that, now would it?

That said, I don't agree with all the "solutions" on the table either, but I do like the idea of a greener economy and less oil dependence (especially if it doesn't tie to increasing nuclear waste, etc.). While there are some technological issues (batteries, storage, transportation), I think that wind, solar, and geothermal energy sources have much in thier favour that is outside of the whole climate change arguement. I'm still not sure about fusion, hydrogen cells, etc....as there is a huge tech issue there.

But, according to the GAO, Here, most sources do estimate oil production will likely peak around (give or take a decade) 2040. As noted in this report and elsewhere, there are several industries that depend on crude oil for usage in thier products as well as transport, etc.

So, while I believe climate change is real, and I believe man has had an impact upon it. Arguing over timing, etc. is a sidestep of the underlying issues. Climate change is only a symptom of the real issue which is high consumption and utilization of a dwindling resource.

So we need to support our science and technologies to develop better solutions. Personally, I would prefer a switch to healthier resources that we believe are relatively inexhaustible (solar, etc.), but I would go with ways to better utilize our current resources (alternative biofuel sources that help local communities like algae and switchgrass are possibilties, oil shale removal that was cost worthy and not more harmful than beneficial, local utilization of wind and tidal forces in areas that are practical).

Let's stop finding things to argue over. Whether global warming is real or not, oil prices are rising due to political issues as well as supply-demand. Put all this discussion toward solutions instead of just nay-saying.