Council Member
Posts: 1,808 
August 6th, 2007, 07:01 AM
Abnormally Cold Temperatures in Texas Threaten Cotton Crop
By Noel Sheppard | August 4, 2007 - 11:59 ET
If summer heat and drought were jeopardizing crops in the Midwest, would a climate change obsessed media be having a field day (pun intended) reporting the news whilst connecting it to manmade global warming?
24 hours a day, seven days a week, right? CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC would likely have correspondents in the cornfields giving daily updates about the gravity of the situation.
Yet, further south in Texas, there's a crop very important to Americans in tremendous danger that has gotten almost no attention.
Why? Because abnormally cold summer temperatures are threatening it, and that just doesn't fit the current media agenda. As reported by the Associated Press Friday (h/t NB reader Phillip A. Smith):
As for television news outlets, I can find no mention of this matter whatsoever.
It appears the potential for weather related crop damage is only newsworthy in America if it can be reported as evidence of anthropogenic global warming.
What a disgrace.
—Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and a contributing editor to NewsBusters
Abnormally Cold Temperatures in Texas Threaten Cotton Crop
By Noel Sheppard | August 4, 2007 - 11:59 ET
If summer heat and drought were jeopardizing crops in the Midwest, would a climate change obsessed media be having a field day (pun intended) reporting the news whilst connecting it to manmade global warming?
24 hours a day, seven days a week, right? CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC would likely have correspondents in the cornfields giving daily updates about the gravity of the situation.
Yet, further south in Texas, there's a crop very important to Americans in tremendous danger that has gotten almost no attention.
Why? Because abnormally cold summer temperatures are threatening it, and that just doesn't fit the current media agenda. As reported by the Associated Press Friday (h/t NB reader Phillip A. Smith):
Brad Heffington has farmed cotton in West Texas for nearly two decades but he and other producers in the world's largest growing patch say this year has been odd.The AP issued its first version of this article around 5AM EST Thursday. Yet, Google News and LexisNexis searches identified almost no print coverage.
The weather has been cooler than Heffington can remember in his 19 years of growing the fluffy fiber, with temperatures so far failing to warm enough to optimally encourage cotton's fruit _ its bolls _ toward maturity.
"This is really an odd year," Heffington said. The cooler temperatures are "not exactly ideal for cotton. It's not a major concern right now but it could have real serious implications down the road."
The result could be reduced yields at harvest, which begins, at the earliest, at the end of September. "It could stand to be sunnier and warmer," Plains Cotton Growers spokesman Shawn Wade said.
Heat units, the measure of accumulated warmth on cotton plants throughout the growing season, are down 16 percent from normal for the three-month period that ended Tuesday, Randy Bowman, a cotton agronomist with the Texas Cooperative Extension, said.
[...]
The National Weather Service in Lubbock recorded below normal average temperatures for all but three days in July.
As for television news outlets, I can find no mention of this matter whatsoever.
It appears the potential for weather related crop damage is only newsworthy in America if it can be reported as evidence of anthropogenic global warming.
What a disgrace.
—Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and a contributing editor to NewsBusters
Executive Member
Posts: 9,534
August 6th, 2007, 07:25 AM
New global warming evidence presented
Scientists say their observations prove industry is to blame
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
sfgate_get_fprefs(); Washington -- Scientists reported Friday they have detected the clearest evidence yet that global warming is real -- and that human industrial activity is largely responsible for it.
Researchers at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science cited a range of evidence that the Earth's temperatures are rising:
-- The Arctic regions are losing ice cover.
-- The populations of whales and walrus that Alaskan Eskimo communities depend on for food are crashing.
-- Fresh water draining from ice and snow on land is decreasing the salinity of far northern oceans.
-- Many species of plankton -- the microscopic plants that form the crucial base of the entire marine food web -- are moving north to escape the warming water on the ocean surface off Greenland and Alaska.
Ice ages come and go over millennia, and for the past 8,000 years, the gradual end of the last ice age has seen a natural increase in worldwide temperatures, all scientists agree. Skeptics have expressed doubt that industrial activity is to blame for world's rapidly rising temperatures.
But records show that for the past 50 years or so, the warming trend has sped up -- due, researchers said, to the atmospheric burden of greenhouse gases produced by everything industrial, from power plants burning fossil fuels to gas-guzzling cars -- and the effects are clear.
"We were stunned by the similarities between the observations that have been recorded at sea worldwide and the models that climatologists made," said Tim Barnett of the University of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "The debate is over, at least for rational people. And for those who insist that the uncertainties remain too great, their argument is no longer tenable. We've nailed it."
Barnett and other experts marshaled their evidence and presented it to their colleagues for the first time at a symposium here.
For the past 40 years, Barnett said, observations by seaborne instruments have shown that the increased warming has penetrated the oceans of the world - - observations, he said, that have proved identical to computer predictions whose accuracy has been challenged by global-warming skeptics.
The most recent temperature observations, he said, fit those models with extraordinary accuracy.
But a spokesman for the Bush administration -- which has been criticized for not taking global warming seriously -- was unfazed by the latest news.
"Our position has been the same for a long time," said Bill Holbrook, spokesman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "The science of global climate change is uncertain."
"Ice is in decline everywhere on the planet, and especially in the Arctic, " said Ruth Curry, a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, "and there is large-scale drying throughout the Northern Hemisphere."
Ice cores drilled deep into the Greenland ice cap show that salinity of the ice at the upper layers of the cores has decreased sharply due to the incursion of fresh water draining from melting snows on the surface, she reported, and land ice and permafrost are in decline all around the Arctic. In the meantime, she said, measurements show that salinity of the ocean waters nearer the equator has increased as the rate of evaporation of warmer tropical and subtropical oceans quickens.
It may take several centuries for all the ice that covers Greenland to melt, Curry said, "but its release of fresh water will make sea-level rise a very significant issue in this century." In fact, she said, changes in the freshwater balance of the oceans has already caused severe drought conditions in America's Western states and many parts of China and other Asian countries.
Already, the physics of increased warming and the changes in ocean circulation that result are strongly affecting the entire ecology of the Arctic regions, according to Sharon L. Smith, an oceanographer and marine biologist at the University of Miami.
Last summer, on an expedition ranging from Alaska's Aleutian islands to the Arctic Ocean above the state's oil-rich North Slope, Smith said she encountered the leading elder of an Eskimo community on Little Diomede island who told her that ice conditions offshore were changing rapidly year by year; that the ice was breaking up and retreating earlier and earlier; and that in the previous year the men of his community were able to kill only 10 walrus for their crucial food supplies, compared to past harvests of 200 or more.
Populations of bowhead whales, which the Eskimo people of Barrow on the North Slope are permitted to hunt, are declining too, Smith said. The organisms essential to the diet of Eider ducks living on St. Lawrence Island have been in rapid decline, while both the plants and ducks have moved 100 miles north to colder climates -- a migration, she said, that obviously was induced by the warming of the waters off the island.
Another piece of evidence Smith cited for the ecological impact of warming in the Arctic emerged in the Bering Sea, where there was a huge die- off in 1997 of a single species of seabirds called short-tailed shearwaters.
Hundreds of thousands of birds died, she said, and the common plankton plants on which they depend totally for food was replaced by inedible plants covered with calcite mineral plates. Those plants thrive in warmer waters and require higher-than-normal levels of carbon dioxide -- the major greenhouse gas -- to reproduce, Smith said.
"What more convincing evidence do we need that warming is real?" Smith asked.
Chronicle news services contributed to this report.E-mail David Perlman at dperlman@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
New global warming evidence presented
Scientists say their observations prove industry is to blame
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
sfgate_get_fprefs(); Washington -- Scientists reported Friday they have detected the clearest evidence yet that global warming is real -- and that human industrial activity is largely responsible for it.
Researchers at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science cited a range of evidence that the Earth's temperatures are rising:
-- The Arctic regions are losing ice cover.
-- The populations of whales and walrus that Alaskan Eskimo communities depend on for food are crashing.
-- Fresh water draining from ice and snow on land is decreasing the salinity of far northern oceans.
-- Many species of plankton -- the microscopic plants that form the crucial base of the entire marine food web -- are moving north to escape the warming water on the ocean surface off Greenland and Alaska.
Ice ages come and go over millennia, and for the past 8,000 years, the gradual end of the last ice age has seen a natural increase in worldwide temperatures, all scientists agree. Skeptics have expressed doubt that industrial activity is to blame for world's rapidly rising temperatures.
But records show that for the past 50 years or so, the warming trend has sped up -- due, researchers said, to the atmospheric burden of greenhouse gases produced by everything industrial, from power plants burning fossil fuels to gas-guzzling cars -- and the effects are clear.
"We were stunned by the similarities between the observations that have been recorded at sea worldwide and the models that climatologists made," said Tim Barnett of the University of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "The debate is over, at least for rational people. And for those who insist that the uncertainties remain too great, their argument is no longer tenable. We've nailed it."
Barnett and other experts marshaled their evidence and presented it to their colleagues for the first time at a symposium here.
For the past 40 years, Barnett said, observations by seaborne instruments have shown that the increased warming has penetrated the oceans of the world - - observations, he said, that have proved identical to computer predictions whose accuracy has been challenged by global-warming skeptics.
The most recent temperature observations, he said, fit those models with extraordinary accuracy.
But a spokesman for the Bush administration -- which has been criticized for not taking global warming seriously -- was unfazed by the latest news.
"Our position has been the same for a long time," said Bill Holbrook, spokesman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "The science of global climate change is uncertain."
"Ice is in decline everywhere on the planet, and especially in the Arctic, " said Ruth Curry, a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, "and there is large-scale drying throughout the Northern Hemisphere."
Ice cores drilled deep into the Greenland ice cap show that salinity of the ice at the upper layers of the cores has decreased sharply due to the incursion of fresh water draining from melting snows on the surface, she reported, and land ice and permafrost are in decline all around the Arctic. In the meantime, she said, measurements show that salinity of the ocean waters nearer the equator has increased as the rate of evaporation of warmer tropical and subtropical oceans quickens.
It may take several centuries for all the ice that covers Greenland to melt, Curry said, "but its release of fresh water will make sea-level rise a very significant issue in this century." In fact, she said, changes in the freshwater balance of the oceans has already caused severe drought conditions in America's Western states and many parts of China and other Asian countries.
Already, the physics of increased warming and the changes in ocean circulation that result are strongly affecting the entire ecology of the Arctic regions, according to Sharon L. Smith, an oceanographer and marine biologist at the University of Miami.
Last summer, on an expedition ranging from Alaska's Aleutian islands to the Arctic Ocean above the state's oil-rich North Slope, Smith said she encountered the leading elder of an Eskimo community on Little Diomede island who told her that ice conditions offshore were changing rapidly year by year; that the ice was breaking up and retreating earlier and earlier; and that in the previous year the men of his community were able to kill only 10 walrus for their crucial food supplies, compared to past harvests of 200 or more.
Populations of bowhead whales, which the Eskimo people of Barrow on the North Slope are permitted to hunt, are declining too, Smith said. The organisms essential to the diet of Eider ducks living on St. Lawrence Island have been in rapid decline, while both the plants and ducks have moved 100 miles north to colder climates -- a migration, she said, that obviously was induced by the warming of the waters off the island.
Another piece of evidence Smith cited for the ecological impact of warming in the Arctic emerged in the Bering Sea, where there was a huge die- off in 1997 of a single species of seabirds called short-tailed shearwaters.
Hundreds of thousands of birds died, she said, and the common plankton plants on which they depend totally for food was replaced by inedible plants covered with calcite mineral plates. Those plants thrive in warmer waters and require higher-than-normal levels of carbon dioxide -- the major greenhouse gas -- to reproduce, Smith said.
"What more convincing evidence do we need that warming is real?" Smith asked.
Chronicle news services contributed to this report.E-mail David Perlman at dperlman@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Council Member
Posts: 1,808
August 6th, 2007, 12:21 PM
New View of Global Warming: Hoax or Herding?
7/27/2007 11:57:02 AM
Bob Prechter discussed how social herding seems to be leading to social hysteria over global warming in his June Elliott Wave Theorist. That article brought cries of outrage from some readers. As he puts it in his July Theorist: "Because my interest lay in the herding phenomenon, I gave short shrift to the scientific case for man-made global warming...." Bob goes on to revisit his discussion to clear up any misconceptions. If you care about global warming – one way or the other – you will be interested to read his explanation of why mass fears often prove to be unfounded.
Excerpted from the July 2007 issue of The Elliott Wave Theorist
The Herding Aspect of Global Warming
Now back to my main point: The fact remains that there is powerful evidence of herding at the social level on the global warming issue. Commentary on the subject is even selling theater tickets. And like all past social trends that were ending, there is a rush to extrapolate. The temperature data from which modelers at NASA derive their extrapolation are scant, the projection is extreme and their tone is strident. When any writers, including scientists, extrapolate 29 years’ worth of temperature data to predict an imminent apocalypse of Biblical proportions in an environment of waxing social focus, rising panic and calls for government obstruction, one must acknowledge the likelihood of social-psychological forces behind such a report and investigate whether the data support the prediction.
It’s fine to describe chemistry. It’s fine to offer a theory of atmospheric and temperature change. But there seems to be a degree of statistical selectivity behind this specific prediction from NASA.
Global warming advocates told me that doubting man-made global warming was akin to denying evolution, but the global warming movement has not a little taste of old-time religion in its accompanying admonition of humanity: Man is evil; he is destroying the earth; he is “fouling his own nest,” as one scientist on the web says. Scientists are usually good at their fields but not necessarily at recognizing their own political, moral and economic biases.
As I said, “My primary intent is to take a look at the question from the point of view of a social psychologist to decide whether it appears to be the result of hysteria.” One thoughtful scientist took issue with the term, “hysteria.” But the term applies here to social activity, not the overt behavior of any particular individual.
In 2005, when I was speaking about real estate hysteria and warning people against investing in property, people sporting a rather bemused expression would coolly respond, as if instructing an alien who lacked understanding of the way things worked on Earth, “They are not making any more land” and “it’s all about location.” They would say this with utmost calm. They had thought about it and sifted through the evidence. They were not hysterical but rational and thoughtful. At least, this was the appearance of behavior at the individual level. At the collective level, something else was going on. The number of people participating in the real estate market was unprecedented, and their borrowing, building and bidding activities, collectively, were extreme. Advocates of man-made global warming may appear sober as judges individually, but they are participating in a mass movement, complete with press releases, student rallies, pop concerts, movie documentaries and an underlying tone of moral crusade.
As one advocate for global warming admitted, the issue does become problematic when politics enters the picture. This is an understatement. Collective fears come and go, but public policy in response to them usually causes real horrors. Millions of people in the world are infected with malaria thanks to the DDT ban. The US starves for oil and emits more greenhouse gasses thanks to the ban on building nuclear plants, which could have powered a clean rail system.
Perhaps global warming is an exception to the overwhelming tendency of mass fears to prove unfounded. Perhaps NASA’s spectacular extrapolation of more than a 10 percent rise in temperature in the span of a single lifetime is accurate. But the advocates of government restrictions on productive activity had better be right, or they will once again have to answer for the “collateral damage” they will do with their proposals.
So, would I call man-made global warming a hoax, as a recent television program did? Definitely not; it has a strong scientific basis. Is the social environment with respect to the issue one of mass herding in an emotional state? It most definitely is. Should you believe predictions that climate change will usher in mass doom in coming decades? I don’t. I think the current frenzy over the subject is probably a symptom of peaking cycles in both climatic temperature and social psychology. But unfortunately 70 years from now most of us won’t be around to know the answer.
What I expect, based upon observing mass movements, is that this fear, too, will go away. Like the sweeping prison-yard spotlight that catches glimpses of external causes for stock-market behavior and then passes over them after a few years, crescendos of commentary on various foci of social fear almost always go away. Before my lifetime ends, global warming will probably fade as a focus of concern, and some new mass fear will be on the front page of USA Today. Nevertheless, I caution that only my views on the social aspects of the matter—not the meteorological aspects—are adequately informed.
New View of Global Warming: Hoax or Herding?
7/27/2007 11:57:02 AM
Bob Prechter discussed how social herding seems to be leading to social hysteria over global warming in his June Elliott Wave Theorist. That article brought cries of outrage from some readers. As he puts it in his July Theorist: "Because my interest lay in the herding phenomenon, I gave short shrift to the scientific case for man-made global warming...." Bob goes on to revisit his discussion to clear up any misconceptions. If you care about global warming – one way or the other – you will be interested to read his explanation of why mass fears often prove to be unfounded.
* * * * *
Excerpted from the July 2007 issue of The Elliott Wave Theorist
The Herding Aspect of Global Warming
Now back to my main point: The fact remains that there is powerful evidence of herding at the social level on the global warming issue. Commentary on the subject is even selling theater tickets. And like all past social trends that were ending, there is a rush to extrapolate. The temperature data from which modelers at NASA derive their extrapolation are scant, the projection is extreme and their tone is strident. When any writers, including scientists, extrapolate 29 years’ worth of temperature data to predict an imminent apocalypse of Biblical proportions in an environment of waxing social focus, rising panic and calls for government obstruction, one must acknowledge the likelihood of social-psychological forces behind such a report and investigate whether the data support the prediction.
It’s fine to describe chemistry. It’s fine to offer a theory of atmospheric and temperature change. But there seems to be a degree of statistical selectivity behind this specific prediction from NASA.
Global warming advocates told me that doubting man-made global warming was akin to denying evolution, but the global warming movement has not a little taste of old-time religion in its accompanying admonition of humanity: Man is evil; he is destroying the earth; he is “fouling his own nest,” as one scientist on the web says. Scientists are usually good at their fields but not necessarily at recognizing their own political, moral and economic biases.
As I said, “My primary intent is to take a look at the question from the point of view of a social psychologist to decide whether it appears to be the result of hysteria.” One thoughtful scientist took issue with the term, “hysteria.” But the term applies here to social activity, not the overt behavior of any particular individual.
In 2005, when I was speaking about real estate hysteria and warning people against investing in property, people sporting a rather bemused expression would coolly respond, as if instructing an alien who lacked understanding of the way things worked on Earth, “They are not making any more land” and “it’s all about location.” They would say this with utmost calm. They had thought about it and sifted through the evidence. They were not hysterical but rational and thoughtful. At least, this was the appearance of behavior at the individual level. At the collective level, something else was going on. The number of people participating in the real estate market was unprecedented, and their borrowing, building and bidding activities, collectively, were extreme. Advocates of man-made global warming may appear sober as judges individually, but they are participating in a mass movement, complete with press releases, student rallies, pop concerts, movie documentaries and an underlying tone of moral crusade.
As one advocate for global warming admitted, the issue does become problematic when politics enters the picture. This is an understatement. Collective fears come and go, but public policy in response to them usually causes real horrors. Millions of people in the world are infected with malaria thanks to the DDT ban. The US starves for oil and emits more greenhouse gasses thanks to the ban on building nuclear plants, which could have powered a clean rail system.
Perhaps global warming is an exception to the overwhelming tendency of mass fears to prove unfounded. Perhaps NASA’s spectacular extrapolation of more than a 10 percent rise in temperature in the span of a single lifetime is accurate. But the advocates of government restrictions on productive activity had better be right, or they will once again have to answer for the “collateral damage” they will do with their proposals.
So, would I call man-made global warming a hoax, as a recent television program did? Definitely not; it has a strong scientific basis. Is the social environment with respect to the issue one of mass herding in an emotional state? It most definitely is. Should you believe predictions that climate change will usher in mass doom in coming decades? I don’t. I think the current frenzy over the subject is probably a symptom of peaking cycles in both climatic temperature and social psychology. But unfortunately 70 years from now most of us won’t be around to know the answer.
What I expect, based upon observing mass movements, is that this fear, too, will go away. Like the sweeping prison-yard spotlight that catches glimpses of external causes for stock-market behavior and then passes over them after a few years, crescendos of commentary on various foci of social fear almost always go away. Before my lifetime ends, global warming will probably fade as a focus of concern, and some new mass fear will be on the front page of USA Today. Nevertheless, I caution that only my views on the social aspects of the matter—not the meteorological aspects—are adequately informed.
Executive Member
Posts: 9,534
August 6th, 2007, 04:16 PM
No, even that wouldn't do it. We could lose both poles and have ocean front property in Edmonton and they would blame it on politics or something. I've flown over the north pole a fair amount in the last twenty years and the changes are dramatic. We just have to tell ourselves that it is all a myth and that water rising above our knees is only temporary....
No, even that wouldn't do it. We could lose both poles and have ocean front property in Edmonton and they would blame it on politics or something. I've flown over the north pole a fair amount in the last twenty years and the changes are dramatic. We just have to tell ourselves that it is all a myth and that water rising above our knees is only temporary....
August 6th, 2007, 08:19 PM
Simple science here, greenhouse gases increase temperature. Venus is twice as far from the sun than is Mercury, with an average temperature of 461 Celsius for Venus and 179 for Mercury.
We've increased the CO2 in our atmosphere by 30%, and doubled the methane which is a more potent greenhouse gas. Not only that, there are positive feedbacks present in Earth's climate which are increasing the net amount of greenhouse gases we're adding to the atmosphere, ie. natural sinks can't absorb all the extra gases we're adding.
But why let any hard facts at all get in the way....
Simple science here, greenhouse gases increase temperature. Venus is twice as far from the sun than is Mercury, with an average temperature of 461 Celsius for Venus and 179 for Mercury.
We've increased the CO2 in our atmosphere by 30%, and doubled the methane which is a more potent greenhouse gas. Not only that, there are positive feedbacks present in Earth's climate which are increasing the net amount of greenhouse gases we're adding to the atmosphere, ie. natural sinks can't absorb all the extra gases we're adding.
But why let any hard facts at all get in the way....
War Minister
Posts: 3,061
Videos: 4
Location: The Moonsine Cafe
Videos: 4
Location: The Moonsine Cafe
August 6th, 2007, 09:24 PM
Is it too early to point out the difference between argument and just being contrary?
Is it too early to point out the difference between argument and just being contrary?
Executive Member
Posts: 9,534
August 6th, 2007, 09:34 PM
Quoting Unforgiven
You could be right unforgiven. There is no room anymore for reasonable argument.
Is it too early to point out the difference between argument and just being contrary?
Council Member
Posts: 1,808
August 8th, 2007, 07:25 AM
Challenging the Cult of Environmental Disaster
function createQString(s) { return escape(s);}var Heading = "Challenging%20the%20Cult%20of%20Environmental%20D isaster";var tempTitle = createQString(Heading);var Title = "&t="+tempTitle;
August 8, 2007
By Ed Iverson
The Cult of Environmental Disaster did not arrive with the showing of "An Inconvenient Truth." In 1798, Thomas Malthus asserted that while resources grow linearly, human population grows exponentially, according to Wikipedia. This led him to predict widespread starvation within half a century. His prophecies came to nothing, but he is still revered by many because of his demand that we radically limit human population.
Fast forward to the decade of anxiety. In 1963, Rachel Carson worried that DDT was killing all the birds. Her book, "Silent Spring," was merely a run-up to "The Population Bomb," published in 1968 by the King of Angst, Paul Erlich. While virtually none of Erlich's pessimistic prophecies came true, he is still widely quoted by the Cult of Environmental Disaster.
"The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."
That was Erlich in 1968. He is also famously quoted as forecasting, "In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish." In 1969 he proposed a wager: "I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." He might have won that bet, but not because he was right about environmental disaster. Rather, the thing that is making the existence of England increasingly suspect is what Melanie Phillips identifies as "Londonistan."
Proclamations by scientists made a mere 30 years ago make for interesting reading. In a 1971 book, "Global Ecology," Reid Bryson warned, "The continued rapid cooling of the Earth since World War II is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population." Bryson was the first director of the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin. His work is grist for many future columns since at age 86; he has now become one of the foremost climatologists debunking the belief in man-caused global warming.
In 1976, Newsweek's Peter Gwynne reflected the environmental hysteria of the day when he said, "This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century." The drumbeat of the mid-'70s was relentless. Lowell Ponte warned, "This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war before the year 2000." And Kenneth E.F. Watt cautioned "If present trends continue, the world will be about 4 degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but 11 degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age."
Clearly, scientific exactness is not the objective of the high priests of the Cult of Environmental Disaster. Many devotees of the cult are sincerely concerned about what the future holds. They assist the cult by filling the role of what Lenin called "useful idiots." Against this, many of my fellow "climate change deniers" point out that these bogus alarms represent a danger to human liberty. Environmental hysteria, they warn, is a great breeding ground for increased government regulations and more onerous taxation. That is true enough.
It must also be said that the soil from which the environmental disaster movement derives its real nourishment is religious. Stewart Brand longs for "a disaster to bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion - guilt-free at last!" Here is revealed the real objective of the high priests of the Cult of Environmental Disaster.
Dave Foreman, an early advocate of eco-terrorism, said it best: "We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity's sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight. Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental."
Now here it the truth: These guys are searching for a religious answer, not a scientific one.
Challenging the Cult of Environmental Disaster
function createQString(s) { return escape(s);}var Heading = "Challenging%20the%20Cult%20of%20Environmental%20D isaster";var tempTitle = createQString(Heading);var Title = "&t="+tempTitle;
August 8, 2007
By Ed Iverson
The Cult of Environmental Disaster did not arrive with the showing of "An Inconvenient Truth." In 1798, Thomas Malthus asserted that while resources grow linearly, human population grows exponentially, according to Wikipedia. This led him to predict widespread starvation within half a century. His prophecies came to nothing, but he is still revered by many because of his demand that we radically limit human population.
Fast forward to the decade of anxiety. In 1963, Rachel Carson worried that DDT was killing all the birds. Her book, "Silent Spring," was merely a run-up to "The Population Bomb," published in 1968 by the King of Angst, Paul Erlich. While virtually none of Erlich's pessimistic prophecies came true, he is still widely quoted by the Cult of Environmental Disaster.
"The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."
That was Erlich in 1968. He is also famously quoted as forecasting, "In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish." In 1969 he proposed a wager: "I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." He might have won that bet, but not because he was right about environmental disaster. Rather, the thing that is making the existence of England increasingly suspect is what Melanie Phillips identifies as "Londonistan."
Proclamations by scientists made a mere 30 years ago make for interesting reading. In a 1971 book, "Global Ecology," Reid Bryson warned, "The continued rapid cooling of the Earth since World War II is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population." Bryson was the first director of the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin. His work is grist for many future columns since at age 86; he has now become one of the foremost climatologists debunking the belief in man-caused global warming.
In 1976, Newsweek's Peter Gwynne reflected the environmental hysteria of the day when he said, "This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century." The drumbeat of the mid-'70s was relentless. Lowell Ponte warned, "This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war before the year 2000." And Kenneth E.F. Watt cautioned "If present trends continue, the world will be about 4 degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but 11 degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age."
Clearly, scientific exactness is not the objective of the high priests of the Cult of Environmental Disaster. Many devotees of the cult are sincerely concerned about what the future holds. They assist the cult by filling the role of what Lenin called "useful idiots." Against this, many of my fellow "climate change deniers" point out that these bogus alarms represent a danger to human liberty. Environmental hysteria, they warn, is a great breeding ground for increased government regulations and more onerous taxation. That is true enough.
It must also be said that the soil from which the environmental disaster movement derives its real nourishment is religious. Stewart Brand longs for "a disaster to bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion - guilt-free at last!" Here is revealed the real objective of the high priests of the Cult of Environmental Disaster.
Dave Foreman, an early advocate of eco-terrorism, said it best: "We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity's sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight. Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental."
Now here it the truth: These guys are searching for a religious answer, not a scientific one.
No party affiliation
Posts: 2,003
Location: Oshawa
Location: Oshawa
August 8th, 2007, 07:49 AM
The Truth About Denial
By Sharon Begley
Newsweek
Aug. 13, 2007 issue - Sen. Barbara Boxer had been chair of the Senate's Environment Committee for less than a month when the verdict landed last February. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," concluded a report by 600 scientists from governments, academia, green groups and businesses in 40 countries. Worse, there was now at least a 90 percent likelihood that the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels is causing longer droughts, more flood-causing downpours and worse heat waves, way up from earlier studies. Those who doubt the reality of human-caused climate change have spent decades disputing that. But Boxer figured that with "the overwhelming science out there, the deniers' days were numbered." As she left a meeting with the head of the international climate panel, however, a staffer had some news for her. A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, she told Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new report and the computer-based climate models it is based on. "I realized," says Boxer, "there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up."
If you think those who have long challenged the mainstream scientific findings about global warming recognize that the game is over, think again. Yes, 19 million people watched the "Live Earth" concerts last month, titans of corporate America are calling for laws mandating greenhouse cuts, "green" magazines fill newsstands, and the film based on Al Gore's best-selling book, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Oscar. But outside Hollywood, Manhattan and other habitats of the chattering classes, the denial machine is running at full throttle—and continuing to shape both government policy and public opinion.
Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. "They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry," says former senator Tim Wirth, who spearheaded environmental issues as an under secretary of State in the Clinton administration. "Both figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That's had a huge impact on both the public and Congress."
Just last year, polls found that 64 percent of Americans thought there was "a lot" of scientific disagreement on climate change; only one third thought planetary warming was "mainly caused by things people do." In contrast, majorities in Europe and Japan recognize a broad consensus among climate experts that greenhouse gases—mostly from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas to power the world's economies—are altering climate. A new NEWSWEEK Poll finds that the influence of the denial machine remains strong. Although the figure is less than in earlier polls, 39 percent of those asked say there is "a lot of disagreement among climate scientists" on the basic question of whether the planet is warming; 42 percent say there is a lot of disagreement that human activities are a major cause of global warming. Only 46 percent say the greenhouse effect is being felt today.
As a result of the undermining of the science, all the recent talk about addressing climate change has produced little in the way of actual action. Yes, last September Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a landmark law committing California to reduce statewide emissions of carbon dioxide to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent more by 2050. And this year both Minnesota and New Jersey passed laws requiring their states to reduce greenhouse emissions 80 percent below recent levels by 2050. In January, nine leading corporations—including Alcoa, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, Du Pont and General Electric—called on Congress to "enact strong national legislation" to reduce greenhouse gases. But although at least eight bills to require reductions in greenhouse gases have been introduced in Congress, their fate is decidedly murky. The Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives decided last week not even to bring to a vote a requirement that automakers improve vehicle mileage, an obvious step toward reducing greenhouse emissions. Nor has there been much public pressure to do so. Instead, every time the scientific case got stronger, "the American public yawned and bought bigger cars," Rep. Rush Holt, a New Jersey congressman and physicist, recently wrote in the journal Science; politicians "shrugged, said there is too much doubt among scientists, and did nothing."
It was 98 degrees in Washington on Thursday, June 23, 1988, and climate change was bursting into public consciousness. The Amazon was burning, wildfires raged in the United States, crops in the Midwest were scorched and it was shaping up to be the hottest year on record worldwide. A Senate committee, including Gore, had invited NASA climatologist James Hansen to testify about the greenhouse effect, and the members were not above a little stagecraft. The night before, staffers had opened windows in the hearing room. When Hansen began his testimony, the air conditioning was struggling, and sweat dotted his brow. It was the perfect image for the revelation to come. He was 99 percent sure, Hansen told the panel, that "the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/site/newsweek/
The Truth About Denial
By Sharon Begley
Newsweek
Aug. 13, 2007 issue - Sen. Barbara Boxer had been chair of the Senate's Environment Committee for less than a month when the verdict landed last February. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," concluded a report by 600 scientists from governments, academia, green groups and businesses in 40 countries. Worse, there was now at least a 90 percent likelihood that the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels is causing longer droughts, more flood-causing downpours and worse heat waves, way up from earlier studies. Those who doubt the reality of human-caused climate change have spent decades disputing that. But Boxer figured that with "the overwhelming science out there, the deniers' days were numbered." As she left a meeting with the head of the international climate panel, however, a staffer had some news for her. A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, she told Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new report and the computer-based climate models it is based on. "I realized," says Boxer, "there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up."
If you think those who have long challenged the mainstream scientific findings about global warming recognize that the game is over, think again. Yes, 19 million people watched the "Live Earth" concerts last month, titans of corporate America are calling for laws mandating greenhouse cuts, "green" magazines fill newsstands, and the film based on Al Gore's best-selling book, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Oscar. But outside Hollywood, Manhattan and other habitats of the chattering classes, the denial machine is running at full throttle—and continuing to shape both government policy and public opinion.
Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. "They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry," says former senator Tim Wirth, who spearheaded environmental issues as an under secretary of State in the Clinton administration. "Both figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That's had a huge impact on both the public and Congress."
Just last year, polls found that 64 percent of Americans thought there was "a lot" of scientific disagreement on climate change; only one third thought planetary warming was "mainly caused by things people do." In contrast, majorities in Europe and Japan recognize a broad consensus among climate experts that greenhouse gases—mostly from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas to power the world's economies—are altering climate. A new NEWSWEEK Poll finds that the influence of the denial machine remains strong. Although the figure is less than in earlier polls, 39 percent of those asked say there is "a lot of disagreement among climate scientists" on the basic question of whether the planet is warming; 42 percent say there is a lot of disagreement that human activities are a major cause of global warming. Only 46 percent say the greenhouse effect is being felt today.
As a result of the undermining of the science, all the recent talk about addressing climate change has produced little in the way of actual action. Yes, last September Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a landmark law committing California to reduce statewide emissions of carbon dioxide to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent more by 2050. And this year both Minnesota and New Jersey passed laws requiring their states to reduce greenhouse emissions 80 percent below recent levels by 2050. In January, nine leading corporations—including Alcoa, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, Du Pont and General Electric—called on Congress to "enact strong national legislation" to reduce greenhouse gases. But although at least eight bills to require reductions in greenhouse gases have been introduced in Congress, their fate is decidedly murky. The Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives decided last week not even to bring to a vote a requirement that automakers improve vehicle mileage, an obvious step toward reducing greenhouse emissions. Nor has there been much public pressure to do so. Instead, every time the scientific case got stronger, "the American public yawned and bought bigger cars," Rep. Rush Holt, a New Jersey congressman and physicist, recently wrote in the journal Science; politicians "shrugged, said there is too much doubt among scientists, and did nothing."
It was 98 degrees in Washington on Thursday, June 23, 1988, and climate change was bursting into public consciousness. The Amazon was burning, wildfires raged in the United States, crops in the Midwest were scorched and it was shaping up to be the hottest year on record worldwide. A Senate committee, including Gore, had invited NASA climatologist James Hansen to testify about the greenhouse effect, and the members were not above a little stagecraft. The night before, staffers had opened windows in the hearing room. When Hansen began his testimony, the air conditioning was struggling, and sweat dotted his brow. It was the perfect image for the revelation to come. He was 99 percent sure, Hansen told the panel, that "the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/site/newsweek/
No party affiliation
Posts: 2,003
Location: Oshawa
Location: Oshawa
August 8th, 2007, 07:59 AM
Quoting Walter
The chaotic nature of weather means that no conclusion about climate can ever be drawn from a single data point, hot or cold. The temperature of one place at one time is just weather, and says nothing about climate, much less climate change, much less global climate change.
Abnormally Cold Temperatures in Texas Threaten Cotton Crop
By Noel Sheppard | August 4, 2007 - 11:59 ET
If summer heat and drought were jeopardizing crops in the Midwest, would a climate change obsessed media be having a field day (pun intended) reporting the news whilst connecting it to manmade global warming?
24 hours a day, seven days a week, right? CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC would likely have correspondents in the cornfields giving daily updates about the gravity of the situation.
Yet, further south in Texas, there's a crop very important to Americans in tremendous danger that has gotten almost no attention.
Why? Because abnormally cold summer temperatures are threatening it, and that just doesn't fit the current media agenda. As reported by the Associated Press Friday (h/t NB reader Phillip A. Smith):
As for television news outlets, I can find no mention of this matter whatsoever.
It appears the potential for weather related crop damage is only newsworthy in America if it can be reported as evidence of anthropogenic global warming.
What a disgrace.
—Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and a contributing editor to NewsBusters
By Noel Sheppard | August 4, 2007 - 11:59 ET
If summer heat and drought were jeopardizing crops in the Midwest, would a climate change obsessed media be having a field day (pun intended) reporting the news whilst connecting it to manmade global warming?
24 hours a day, seven days a week, right? CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC would likely have correspondents in the cornfields giving daily updates about the gravity of the situation.
Yet, further south in Texas, there's a crop very important to Americans in tremendous danger that has gotten almost no attention.
Why? Because abnormally cold summer temperatures are threatening it, and that just doesn't fit the current media agenda. As reported by the Associated Press Friday (h/t NB reader Phillip A. Smith):
Brad Heffington has farmed cotton in West Texas for nearly two decades but he and other producers in the world's largest growing patch say this year has been odd.
The weather has been cooler than Heffington can remember in his 19 years of growing the fluffy fiber, with temperatures so far failing to warm enough to optimally encourage cotton's fruit _ its bolls _ toward maturity.
"This is really an odd year," Heffington said. The cooler temperatures are "not exactly ideal for cotton. It's not a major concern right now but it could have real serious implications down the road."
The result could be reduced yields at harvest, which begins, at the earliest, at the end of September. "It could stand to be sunnier and warmer," Plains Cotton Growers spokesman Shawn Wade said.
Heat units, the measure of accumulated warmth on cotton plants throughout the growing season, are down 16 percent from normal for the three-month period that ended Tuesday, Randy Bowman, a cotton agronomist with the Texas Cooperative Extension, said.
[...]
The National Weather Service in Lubbock recorded below normal average temperatures for all but three days in July.The AP issued its first version of this article around 5AM EST Thursday. Yet, Google News and LexisNexis searches identified almost no print coverage.
As for television news outlets, I can find no mention of this matter whatsoever.
It appears the potential for weather related crop damage is only newsworthy in America if it can be reported as evidence of anthropogenic global warming.
What a disgrace.
—Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and a contributing editor to NewsBusters
Senate Member
Posts: 6,500
August 8th, 2007, 08:03 AM
I have no real knowledge about this discussion, nor do I have any interest because I am a selfish person and doubt this predicted cataclysmic event is going to affect me - ergo I just can't generate enough devotion to its cause. On a more truthful note, I dislike some of the cultish figures who have taken up the cause - especially turning weather paths into political ploy. To me that is crying fire yet again... to stir the people into a cultural/political/economic movement of fear.... Somehow I just can't get whipped up into eons of change in the earth being caused by a current president of the U.S. or some dimwit running a corporation who is more concerned with the cut of his suit and the age of his current wife.
Could anyone consider the fact that science and environmental concern and measurement and recording data are vastly more sophisticated in our times and therefore allows us to monitor fluctuations and change and the fact it has always been thus. The earth has been doing its dance without our assistance for as long as it has been a living entity.
Surely nobody believes the earth is as it once was - since the birth of mankind, explorers who wandered away from their origins were created, there were those who found new lands (trace DNA in some of the migrant people living in far flung nations).... I believe it has been agreed upon the lands were more closely joined throughout the area of the Pacific Ocean suitable for exploration which offered new living space for the early migrations. The earth is a living, moving, creation...and of course it is going to change and yes even wear out.
I don't mind enllightening discussion and offerings, but I detest that it has become a political battering ram which is a terrible failing of mankind.... making a rational concern into a divided war of 'who is right' instead of a collective intellectual discussion of what is real and what is hysteria.
I also award the newsmakers of our nations their share of turning this into a frightening event.... yet another example of a house is just a house until it catches fire...then it becomes a news story with all the rhetorical splendor for days of use.... ending with fire prevention and finger pointing.....
As this topic always becomes... after years of reading the same old stuff.... I have seen nothing positive come out of it, but rather witnessed deep division and blame laying....which has nothing to do with temperature increase other than within the hot heads who seek to make it a political issue.
I have no real knowledge about this discussion, nor do I have any interest because I am a selfish person and doubt this predicted cataclysmic event is going to affect me - ergo I just can't generate enough devotion to its cause. On a more truthful note, I dislike some of the cultish figures who have taken up the cause - especially turning weather paths into political ploy. To me that is crying fire yet again... to stir the people into a cultural/political/economic movement of fear.... Somehow I just can't get whipped up into eons of change in the earth being caused by a current president of the U.S. or some dimwit running a corporation who is more concerned with the cut of his suit and the age of his current wife.
Could anyone consider the fact that science and environmental concern and measurement and recording data are vastly more sophisticated in our times and therefore allows us to monitor fluctuations and change and the fact it has always been thus. The earth has been doing its dance without our assistance for as long as it has been a living entity.
Surely nobody believes the earth is as it once was - since the birth of mankind, explorers who wandered away from their origins were created, there were those who found new lands (trace DNA in some of the migrant people living in far flung nations).... I believe it has been agreed upon the lands were more closely joined throughout the area of the Pacific Ocean suitable for exploration which offered new living space for the early migrations. The earth is a living, moving, creation...and of course it is going to change and yes even wear out.
I don't mind enllightening discussion and offerings, but I detest that it has become a political battering ram which is a terrible failing of mankind.... making a rational concern into a divided war of 'who is right' instead of a collective intellectual discussion of what is real and what is hysteria.
I also award the newsmakers of our nations their share of turning this into a frightening event.... yet another example of a house is just a house until it catches fire...then it becomes a news story with all the rhetorical splendor for days of use.... ending with fire prevention and finger pointing.....
As this topic always becomes... after years of reading the same old stuff.... I have seen nothing positive come out of it, but rather witnessed deep division and blame laying....which has nothing to do with temperature increase other than within the hot heads who seek to make it a political issue.
Council Member
Posts: 1,202
Location: Montreal
Location: Montreal
August 8th, 2007, 10:29 AM
Quoting Walter
That's a totally ignorant understanding of what the consquences of global warming would be. Global warming means the GLOBAL temperature is warming up. It says nothing about local weather patterns. Texas cooling down is absolutely not in contradiction with the idea the the GLOBAL temperature is rising.
Abnormally Cold Temperatures in Texas Threaten Cotton Crop
By Noel Sheppard | August 4, 2007 - 11:59 ET
If summer heat and drought were jeopardizing crops in the Midwest, would a climate change obsessed media be having a field day (pun intended) reporting the news whilst connecting it to manmade global warming?
24 hours a day, seven days a week, right? CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC would likely have correspondents in the cornfields giving daily updates about the gravity of the situation.
Yet, further south in Texas, there's a crop very important to Americans in tremendous danger that has gotten almost no attention.
Why? Because abnormally cold summer temperatures are threatening it, and that just doesn't fit the current media agenda. As reported by the Associated Press Friday (h/t NB reader Phillip A. Smith):
As for television news outlets, I can find no mention of this matter whatsoever.
It appears the potential for weather related crop damage is only newsworthy in America if it can be reported as evidence of anthropogenic global warming.
What a disgrace.
—Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and a contributing editor to NewsBusters
By Noel Sheppard | August 4, 2007 - 11:59 ET
If summer heat and drought were jeopardizing crops in the Midwest, would a climate change obsessed media be having a field day (pun intended) reporting the news whilst connecting it to manmade global warming?
24 hours a day, seven days a week, right? CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC would likely have correspondents in the cornfields giving daily updates about the gravity of the situation.
Yet, further south in Texas, there's a crop very important to Americans in tremendous danger that has gotten almost no attention.
Why? Because abnormally cold summer temperatures are threatening it, and that just doesn't fit the current media agenda. As reported by the Associated Press Friday (h/t NB reader Phillip A. Smith):
Brad Heffington has farmed cotton in West Texas for nearly two decades but he and other producers in the world's largest growing patch say this year has been odd.The AP issued its first version of this article around 5AM EST Thursday. Yet, Google News and LexisNexis searches identified almost no print coverage.
The weather has been cooler than Heffington can remember in his 19 years of growing the fluffy fiber, with temperatures so far failing to warm enough to optimally encourage cotton's fruit _ its bolls _ toward maturity.
"This is really an odd year," Heffington said. The cooler temperatures are "not exactly ideal for cotton. It's not a major concern right now but it could have real serious implications down the road."
The result could be reduced yields at harvest, which begins, at the earliest, at the end of September. "It could stand to be sunnier and warmer," Plains Cotton Growers spokesman Shawn Wade said.
Heat units, the measure of accumulated warmth on cotton plants throughout the growing season, are down 16 percent from normal for the three-month period that ended Tuesday, Randy Bowman, a cotton agronomist with the Texas Cooperative Extension, said.
[...]
The National Weather Service in Lubbock recorded below normal average temperatures for all but three days in July.
As for television news outlets, I can find no mention of this matter whatsoever.
It appears the potential for weather related crop damage is only newsworthy in America if it can be reported as evidence of anthropogenic global warming.
What a disgrace.
—Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and a contributing editor to NewsBusters
Executive Member
Posts: 9,534
August 8th, 2007, 01:56 PM
Quoting s_lone
You are right s_lone. Global warming is measured from thousands of weather stations around the world. Some might be reading a higher local temperature and some a lower temperature but what matters is that the average global temperature has been climbing steadily for several hundred years, and rising dramatically over the last fifty years.
That's a totally ignorant understanding of what the consquences of global warming would be. Global warming means the GLOBAL temperature is warming up. It says nothing about local weather patterns. Texas cooling down is absolutely not in contradiction with the idea the the GLOBAL temperature is rising.
August 8th, 2007, 09:14 PM
Curio,
The entire debate has been politicized since the term was first thought up. The fact that the sides are so entrenched today is a direct result of the players in this dance whipping up friendly media outlets with their respective sides of the story. It will continue for some time I'm sure, I just don't know how it can ever stop. There's not a doubt in my mind that we've been pushing the envelope here, I mean why should the climate be any different than the other complex systems we've interfered with.
No one argues now that we didn't create the ozone hole, with some man made chemicals that numbered on the order of parts per trillion, not like the greenhouse gases we've added which is on the line of parts per million.
Curio,
The entire debate has been politicized since the term was first thought up. The fact that the sides are so entrenched today is a direct result of the players in this dance whipping up friendly media outlets with their respective sides of the story. It will continue for some time I'm sure, I just don't know how it can ever stop. There's not a doubt in my mind that we've been pushing the envelope here, I mean why should the climate be any different than the other complex systems we've interfered with.
No one argues now that we didn't create the ozone hole, with some man made chemicals that numbered on the order of parts per trillion, not like the greenhouse gases we've added which is on the line of parts per million.
Hall of Fame Member
Posts: 10,505
Location: The Evil Empire
Location: The Evil Empire
August 8th, 2007, 10:11 PM
Any marches? Nope.
Any condemnations from the leftist tree huggers? Nope. Not a whining peep.
Any official UN declarations towards those countries? Nope.
Some of you ask if GW is political, of course it's political, it's the political left playing their usual game of point the finger to the "Evil West" and it's capitalist ways while allowing the poor developing countries pollute to their hearts content. When the tree huggers start treating everybody the same, then I'll listen. In the meantime I don't believe a word they say, whether it's about GW or the coming Ice Age (Think 70's).
Here's a link; http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/en...fc-consumption
Quoting Tonington
I'm so very glad you brought this up, you are right, nobody ever argues we didn't create the ozone hole. On the other hand no foundation, institution or tree hugger is pouring into the streets demanding the consumption of CFC's stop. Why? Because those who are doing the consuming aren't in the West. All countries in the West have banned the usage of CFC's (except under certain circumstances by government authorities). But the countries in the third world, like China, South Korea, Venezuela and Russia and pouring CFC's into the atmosphere like it's going out of style. No one argues now that we didn't create the ozone hole, with some man made chemicals that numbered on the order of parts per trillion, not like the greenhouse gases we've added which is on the line of parts per million.
Any marches? Nope.
Any condemnations from the leftist tree huggers? Nope. Not a whining peep.
Any official UN declarations towards those countries? Nope.
Some of you ask if GW is political, of course it's political, it's the political left playing their usual game of point the finger to the "Evil West" and it's capitalist ways while allowing the poor developing countries pollute to their hearts content. When the tree huggers start treating everybody the same, then I'll listen. In the meantime I don't believe a word they say, whether it's about GW or the coming Ice Age (Think 70's).
Here's a link; http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/en...fc-consumption
August 8th, 2007, 11:08 PM
Interestingly enough, the CFC problem was solved by a cousin of the Kyoto protocol, the Montreal protocol. Much like the Kyoto protocol, countries like China and India were left out, but I believe they are phasing out the use of CFC's to date, which explains how the long lived chemicals have largely stopped growing in atmospheric concentration and some compounds I believe are on the downward trend.
Also much like the Kyoto protocol, it's been called a toothless lion, for there are no mechanisms for dealing with treaty violation. Where it's not like the Kyoto protocol? The Montreal protocol was a success, the Montreal protocol actually had to wait for science to catch up and it was public outcry that sparked the shift.
Interestingly enough, the CFC problem was solved by a cousin of the Kyoto protocol, the Montreal protocol. Much like the Kyoto protocol, countries like China and India were left out, but I believe they are phasing out the use of CFC's to date, which explains how the long lived chemicals have largely stopped growing in atmospheric concentration and some compounds I believe are on the downward trend.
Also much like the Kyoto protocol, it's been called a toothless lion, for there are no mechanisms for dealing with treaty violation. Where it's not like the Kyoto protocol? The Montreal protocol was a success, the Montreal protocol actually had to wait for science to catch up and it was public outcry that sparked the shift.
