Alarmist GW Claims Melt Under Scientific Scrutiny

Exactly what I've been saying all along. I'll let the link do the talking so I don't get threatened. Again...

http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/450392,CST-EDT-REF30b.article

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I thought you were saying "Alarmist 'George W.'", honestly. I'll get back to you on the link.
You know that some threats (read: questions) are because you seem to have conflicting arguments and don't explain why.

Edit: Funny how Al Gore's stance on global warming is written in a book called "The Assault On Reason". That's the best part of the book. He might advocate for increased research (at a time when such research is at a historic high) or objectivity, but he quickly reverts to incomplete studies which are sometimes biased. There are some true correlations between their findings thus far, but the variables make more than just one process responsible. Conclusions from climatologists are often calculated by recent hypotheses, where relatively few aspects of ecology are considered. This is why I can't just accept one factor as a prime concern. Yes, education and research is good, go for it Gore. Even in that study the idea of deforestation as a factor is published. But the article is right... "Many of the assertions Gore makes in his movie, ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' have been refuted by science, both before and after he made them."

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Do you have any sources that aren't from a right wing think-tank linked to an oil company? Because no sciforums member has been able to find a source for GW debunking that isn't.

James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute.

ExxonSecrets lists Heartland as having received $561,500 (unadjusted for inflation) from ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2005.
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=41


NewScientist, if you read it regularly like I do, insists that global warming is the scientific consensus.


-----------------------


www.realclimate.org is the best resource for real climate science news

1. The CO2 rise. Who dunnit?

Here at RealClimate, we have been (naively, apparently) operating under the assumption that climate change contrarians had long ago moved on from the untenable position that humans are not even responsible for the observed increase in CO2 concentrations over the past two centuries. The dubious paper by Ernst Beck we commented on the other day indicates that there is indeed still a rear guard attack being waged. As if to drive the point home further, pundit Alexander Cockburn, known generally for his progressive views, has perplexingly disputed the existence of any link between CO2 emissions and rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere in a screed he penned this week for the online journal "Counterpunch" (also printed in The Nation). It's hard to know where to start, since his piece is so over the top and gets just about everything so thoroughly wrong, it's almost comical. So we'll just hit the low points: (a) Cockburn claims that there is zero empirical evidence that anthropogenic production of CO2 is making any measurable contribution to the world's present warming trend, despite the fact that not even such strident climate change contrarians as Pat Michaels dispute that there is a measurable influence of anthropogenic greenhouse gases on global temperature. Plus there's all the empirical evidence of course (see the new IPCC report). (b) Going further, Cockburn brazenly opines that 'it is impossible to assert that the increase in atmospheric CO2 stems from human burning of fossil fuels' despite the fact that there is an isotopic smoking gun for this connection. He then (c) fails to understand that water vapor is a feedback not a forcing, and citing 'expert' Dr. Martin Hertzberg, quite remarkably states that 'It is the warming of the earth that is causing the increase of carbon dioxide and not the reverse.' Never mind that isotopic evidence proves otherwise. Upon what evidence does he base this assertion?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

This is the only really important question in the global warming debate, and I believe his assertion is correct.

Whether the recent surge in CO2 levels is from human industry is a different question, and one that is answered in the affirmative by the ice core record.

 

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm

 

I hate arguing about videos and movies, because I can never remember exactly what's in them and where, but Taylor's list of Gore's refuted points includes a few things I don't remember from the movie:

I don't recall anything specific like that about US tornadoes, a definite claim of an imminent 20 foot sea level rise from Greenland ice melt, anything specific about particular Himalayan glaciers, etc.

The whole impression is of a list of specific, apocalyptic predictions. I don't recall any such litany of specific predictions.

And Taylor's argument is suspect. Gore's thesis, that the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is very hazardous and should be curbed if possible, remains unconsidered by Taylor, who devotes his time and interest to turning the whole issue into an attack on Al Gore.

 

So you're saying that the list of right-wing thinktanks and oil company scientists include:

Researchers at the Danish Meteorological Institute; The British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Series A: Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences; The U.N. Climate Change panel, The American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate, Nature magazine, The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate, and hurricane experts Chris Landsea and William Gray ​

It's so much easier to go for the adhom than to actually address the issues.

 

That isn't the point. The point is that we are, unless we do a lot of work, taking Mr Taylor's word for the actual content of the papers and reports he cites

and we are also accepting his account of what Gore said in the movie.

I have seen the movie, and Taylor's accounts of Gore's claims don't ring any bells. Unless my memory is much worse than it's been in the past, Gore did not say those things as presented.

This leads me to wonder about the representations of the findings Taylor cites. Is he twisting them as he is Gore's movie? But checking all that would be a lot of work, and the argument Taylor is making is bogus anyway - he' s just attempting to discredit Gore's causes by discrediting Gore, which is silly,unless the real purpose is to discredit Gore and the causes are just for excuse.

So time for a nap.

 

Talk about ironic, because that's exactly what the global warming alarmists do. Indeed, thats what Spidergoat was doing and was the reason I listed all the sources mentioned in the article.

Whenever any study shows their claims to be false, they claim the scientist must have some connection, however tenuous, to big oil.

 

Those are not refutations, they are qualifiers that do not debunk the basic premise.

 

Sometimes, no doubt. But not here - the situation is not symmetrical. Taylor is not arguing about any scientific findings, he is attacking Gore. So in a realm of personal attacks, his own background and motives are legitimate subjects of the debate.

If Taylor had presented a reasonable assessment of Gore's efforts, represented the movie fairly, or argued his claims of malpractice from point by point comparison of claim and evidence, his oil company connections might not be relevant. But in a PR hatchet job, motives are front and center.

 

This article is more of an attack against Gore than it is against the science behind his claims.
Again someone posting with blinders on, without discussing the content of the link and why they posted it.
Again someone seeing the world in black and white.

And by the way, most of what Gore mentioned can be backed by more than one source/study/observation.
I don't think the same can be said of Mr. Taylor's claims.

 

the sun-times has a heavy conservative slant in fact both of chicago's major newspapers do which is rather ironic but oh well

 

The Sun Times is considered the conservative paper (I'm from the Chicago area originally). Keep in mind, it is the midwest. Nothing too liberal will sell well out here.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

your from chicago and a conservative you don't find to many people like that

 

I'm from the suburbs, the Chicago area. Although my home town was in Indiana, we got Chicago TV, newspapers, and even run on Chicago time (unlike most of the rest of the state).

 

I watched the online trailer to Al Gore’s movie at youtube and from the bit of information stated it is not worth my effort to view the entire movie. It’s quite obvious that his information is not running on all cylinders.
So if anyone wants to follow the crowd and jump off the cliff cause someone sounds like an authority, go right ahead you won’t be alone….LOL

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

oke:

 

I'm not listening to Gores authority, I'm listening to the climatologists and looking at the evidence, and saying "hhmm, looks like Gore is correct, we have a problem".

 

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Keep looking!

 

Well you saw the trailer, I guess that counts as a scientific refutation, huh?