Global warming debate

Thank you for the Lisa Benson’s cartoon challenging global warming topic and the two letters begging us to believe it is not nonsense (12/26, Opinion). This provided good balance on the day after a White Christmas when we woke up to no snow left on the ground and temperatures in the 60s — a day that normal highs are supposed to be in the 30s. The letters covered lots of details — including fluctuating extremes, natural disasters, torrential rains, drought, blizzards, record snow, melting ice caps and glaciers, dying coral reefs, warm ocean water and temperature comparisons to the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by humans.

Also it was good to see “The Buzz” (12/26, A-2) report that we may have been hoaxed on the item about the EPA taxing cow flatulence and that no gas tax is foreseen. We need such good economic news.

Yes, there is the Santa Claus season, and just like him, global warming certainly is a fantasy — one we can believe in or not, just like Old Saint Nick.

Frank Grimaldi
Kansas City

Lisa Benson’s cartoon (12/26, Opinion) is a textbook example of misleading political cartooning. She would have readers believe that a warming Earth will no longer have seasons, and will no longer have wind currents that can briefly redistribute cold northern air.

Lisa, increasingly chaotic and violent weather will be one of global warming’s hallmarks. Your children will see, even if you do not.

Val H. Smith
Lawrence

Comments

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

Then there is this issue. People like Barack should do their reseacrh oin energy befor claiming a solve as with a magic wand.

http://www.skystreamenergy.com/documents/datasheets/skystrea_%203.7t_datasheet.pdf

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

Again, politcs or biased and tilted inaccurate web sources. Science is what it is. Explain why natural methane gas releases are causing 23 times the depletion of ozone than CO2? The answer is to do away with humanity, if you really want to iliminate our contribution to the cause. Al Gore may FEEL he can control mother nature, he can't. That is one thing humans (especially the whacked out hypocrite liberals) contonue to dillusion themselves with. We contribute very little to the Earth's changes. This is fact not an opinion.

[solomon]

Don't worry Engineer, we'll all be dead before its proved or disproved.

[unfettered.sucks]

Again, you try to blow smoke instead of sticking to the issues. Please cite the global warming corporate "sponsors" as DIRECTLY ready to profit from the promulgation of global warming as Exxon is from supporting organizations such as CFact. You'll forgive me if I'm hesitant to accept your unsupported assertion that everybody knows that GW (whatever that might be) is in somebody's pocket. Try thinking instead of sneering.

Posted by: Pub 17 | Jan 2, 2009 9:23:57 PM

The grant money to the scientists. The money is only open to those who want to support GW claims. Are you Henry, because you sure came out of nowhere. If you would bother yourself to read the thread and the article listed by Gary this morning, you'd realize that this originally came from ABC in Australia. Dont' like the content blame the messenger, heh? And I've read enough of these threads in the last 3 weeks to know you are the king of sneer and smear.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6

Please note the following sentence:

The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

[Engineer]

HS
"Where do the BTU's go"? The BTUs added by man's activities are minuscule when compared to the BTUs added by the sun each day. Obviously they both dissipate otherwise the earth would have never cooled down from its molten state. Also the volume of CO2 given if by man's industrial and commercial activities is only a very small fraction of the CO2 liberated naturally.

[Pub 17]

Again, you try to blow smoke instead of sticking to the issues. Please cite the global warming corporate "sponsors" as DIRECTLY ready to profit from the promulgation of global warming as Exxon is from supporting organizations such as CFact. You'll forgive me if I'm hesitant to accept your unsupported assertion that everybody knows that GW (whatever that might be) is in somebody's pocket. Try thinking instead of sneering.

[unfettered.sucks]

"You come in with sources funded by organizations with directly vested interests in the outcome, and apparently hope no one notices."

I was waiting on that one. The GW supporters don't have money to make off of GW scare? Yeah right. I'm asking for a debate not this consensus drivel that has been handed to us.

I don't care what you think because you have your mind made up. But I'll remind you that it is not based on science, it is faith alone.

You frankly have a lot to talk about when it comes to debating skills. I've seen your other posts where you are a typical pompous blowhard. You obviously don't have enough intelligence to know that web sites take articles from other sites, so please spare me about how glorious your intellect is.

[Marctnts]

"Someone proposes that dinosaurs roam New York City."

Assuming that the dinosaur is human activity, and that the droppings are the effect of that activity (warming), it should be as easy to point to the droppings as proof of their existence as to point to their absense.

That's my point, because of your preconceived notions, you assume that lack of definitive proof on your side is oaky, but lack of definitive proof on the other is a weakness in their argument. I'm sure that unfettered could present the same dinosaur analogy to you, and ask you where the droppings (definitive proof of global warming) are.

No one has the definitive answer, and the scientific evidence (either way) to date seems to be far from garnering universal support, yet each side is so completely convinced of their answer that they don't care what further investigation of the question yields.

[Henry Spencer]

Marctnts-
Not at all. Someone proposes that dinosaurs roam New York City. I ask at the very least where the droppings may be observed. Someone proposes that the burning of fossil fuels has no effect on global temperatures or CO2 levels. I ask at the very least to be shown where the heat and carbon dioxide produced is going.

unfettered sucks-
You come in with sources funded by organizations with directly vested interests in the outcome, and apparently hope no one notices. Now you wish to talk science. You accuse me, on the other hand, of being blinded by exclusive reliance on data provided by an organization whose bias I have to accept solely on your assertion.

Let me suggest that you work on your forensic skills, because right now you're coming across like a college junior in a bull session. The likelihood of your swaying my or anyone else's opinion based on bombast is low and shrinking.

[unfettered.sucks]

No Henry, your just being pompous, trying to paint those who are skeptics such as myself as "getting your "science" from right-wing websites" when the facts are that you have nothing but IPCC "doctored" reports to go on. It's clear where you are on this issue. The error you make from your question is that is assumes that the BTUs from human activity somehow has to be a negative. How do you know that? How can you be sure that this same activity doesn't stop us from going into an ice age?

http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm

Though this is not peer reviewed it is very interesting.

Conclusion:

Even if temperature had risen above natural variability, the recent solar Grand Maximum may have been chiefly responsible. Even if the sun were not chiefly to blame for the past half-century’s warming, the IPCC has not demonstrated that, since CO2 occupies only one-ten-thousandth part more of the atmosphere that it did in 1750, it has contributed more than a small fraction of the warming. Even if carbon dioxide were chiefly responsible for the warming that ceased in 1998 and may not resume until 2015, the distinctive, projected fingerprint of anthropogenic “greenhouse-gas” warming is entirely absent from the observed record. Even if the fingerprint were present, computer models are long proven to be inherently incapable of providing projections of the future state of the climate that are sound enough for policymaking. Even if per impossibilethe models could ever become reliable, the present paper demonstrates that it is not at all likely that the world will warm as much as the IPCC imagines. Even if the world were to warm that much, the overwhelming majority of the scientific, peer-reviewed literature does not predict that catastrophe would ensue. Even if catastrophe might ensue, even the most drastic proposals to mitigate future climate change by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide would make very little difference to the climate. Even if mitigation were likely to be effective, it would do more harm than good: already millions face starvation as the dash for biofuels takes agricultural land out of essential food production: a warning that taking precautions, “just in case”, can do untold harm unless there is a sound, scientific basis for them. Finally, even if mitigation might do more good than harm, adaptation as (and if) necessary would be far more cost-effective and less likely to be harmful.

In short, we must get the science right, or we shall get the policy wrong. If the concluding equation in this analysis (Eqn. 30) is correct, the IPCC’s estimates of climate sensitivity must have been very much exaggerated. There may, therefore, be a good reason why, contrary to the projections of the models on which the IPCC relies, temperatures have not risen for a decade and have been falling since the phase-transition in global temperature trends that occurred in late 2001. Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no “climate crisis” at all. At present, then, in policy terms there is no case for doing anything. The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.

[Marctnts]

"Where do the BTU's go" is a "question." That means I don't know the answer."

But yet you assume that the answer must support YOUR position.

It's really sad that each side is so fully convinced that their hypothesis is the right one that they've completely closed their mind to any evidence to the contrary.

[Henry Spencer]

There seems to be some difficulty here in your understanding of the word, "question." "Where do the BTU's go" is a "question." That means I don't know the answer. The reason it is a *legitimate* question is that your source says that human activity is irrelevant to global warming. Therefore the trillions of BTU's generated historically by human activity are going somewhere. Where, we may legitimately ask, is that?

[unfettered.sucks]

OK Henry. Since you know, exactly what is the affect of the BTUs. Please provide the link.

And your consensus. The only consensus is via the IPCC politicians and All Gore. There is no consensus between actual scientists. That should be concerning.

You have nothing but your faith. Do you support Creationism also?

Show me that actual science. You appear to be the one lacking in an understanding of science and how it works. It doesn't work when politicians say that there is consensus. That is big brother stuff. It doesn't work when a group declares a result and them makes sure that the data matches that result. It doesn't work when the same group that creates an experiment, performs the experiment and them interprets the results.

Surely with all of that grant money out there, and the consensus, you must surely know exactly what the cause for global warming is, the temperature we should expect by 2020.

You just keep listening to the alarmists. I'll be skeptical because that is what true science is.

“I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see. Rather, I see a reliance on climate models (useful but never "proof") and the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have loose similarity over time.”•John R Christy, 1 Nov 2007 “My Nobel Moment”, WSJ•Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University ofAlabama in Huntsville and a participant in the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, •http://www.atmos.uah.edu/atmos/christy.html

"I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by preconceived agendas and being scientifically unsound.”•Climate Scientist Chris Landseain his resignation from the IPCC, 17 Jan 2005•2000-2002 Chair of the American Meteorological Society's (AMS) Committee on Tropical Meteorology and Tropical Cyclones •http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/old_bio.html

“It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an illusion of rapid global warming.”•John Coleman, MeteorologistFounder of “The Weather Channel”

“The IPCC review process is fatally flawed. The behavior of Michael Mann is a disgrace to the profession…The scientific basis for the Kyoto protocol is grossly inadequate.
–Dr. HendrikTennekes, Former director of the Royal Meteorological Institute of the Netherlands

“(The findings) hit me like a bombshell, and I suspect it is having the same effect on many others. Suddenly the hockey stick, the poster-child of the global warming community, turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics.”•Physicist Richard Muller (Berkeley)•After reviewing the McKitrick& McIntyre Paper•Credentials: http://muller.lbl.gov/

[Henry Spencer]

You really need to stop getting your "science" from right-wing websites. "Double-blind mesurements" is meaningless, a combination of words you clearly don't understand. If you would like a grounding in the reasons for the consensus on global warming, you might work through the Wiki cites for a primary-colors overview of the basics, or do some actual research with a little more care than you've used to date as to the quality of your sources.

I offered no opinion in my last remark: that was a reasonable question, the answer to which should be relatively easy to point to, did it in fact exist.

[unfettered.sucks]

HS, I repeated a link given by Gary as the first post and saw that it was from a reputable source. Yes, it is an opinion piece, just as is your last comment about BTUs generated by humans.

Now please provide something that that measures and details, with appropriate scientific double blind measurements and statistics, and was reviewed by a scientific peer group (not a political one). Or provide a model that has accurately modelled the past and predicted the future.

Give me something other than faith, because currently that is all I see.

[Sammy]

HS - That's two ad hominems in a row.

Now here's one back:
The site CF linked was an opinion site (outdated at that-that's not ad hominem), who's author has a strong view on the cause of global warming.

[Henry Spencer]

Your second link goes to an opinion piece, which is clearly labeled as such. A partisan site, which you chose to give as the first link, links to an opinion piece on the Australian ABC website. Excuse me if I remain skeptical: what Dr. Evans might fruitfully address is the question of where, exactly, he proposes that the trillions of BTUs generated by human activity disappears to every year, if they have no effect on the state of the world.

[Henry Spencer]

Your second link goes to an opinion piece, which is clearly labeled as such. A partisan site, which you chose to give as the first link, links to an opinion piece on the Australian ABC website. Excuse me if I remain skeptical: what Dr. Evans might fruitfully address is the question of where, exactly, he proposes that the trillions of BTUs generated by human activity disappears to every year, if they have no effect on the state of the world.

[unfettered.sucks]

A good comparison to GW is Evolution vs Creationism. One thing I find interesting in this case is the pro warmer crowd using the same tactics as the pro creationism crowd. Lack of good scientific method. Attacks of the messenger rather than the message.

You would think that the same people who support evolution so strongly would support the use of the same scientific standard for GW. Instead, you see what has become a politically supported agenda where the supporters base their conclusions on faith (just like the Creationism crowd) instead of pure science. The anti-GW crowd has to use science only to get their message across while pro GW supporters use ad-homium attacks.

FYI, I believe in evolution and natural global warming but am skeptical of man-made global warming.

[unfettered.sucks]

When you got nuttin, attack the messenger.

Do you really think this article was written only for that web site? Again, do a little research.

Bottom link of article goes to

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2451051.htm

Any article can be picked up by other web sites. Obviously, you didn't know that. Now, tear apart the content, not the messenger.