Global Warming:The Politics and Science of Fear

So if there is a consensus among scientists that the Earth orbits the Sun then it should be suspect because there is a consensus? A consensus doesn't necessarily mean something is true but there may be a consensus because the evidence has become too overwhelming for the somewhat dumb scientists to doubt. The extremely dumb scientists will never figure out the obvious.

This still leaves the problem of Global Dimming.

Global Dimming - BBC Horizon 2005
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2058273530743771382
Transcript
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_trans.shtml

psik
 
iceaura said:
If you look at his predictions more carefully, he wasn't all that far off The population bomb predictions included the collapse of the Soviet Union (which caught Reagan's administration almost completely by surprise), the warfare and genocide in Rwanda and Somalia and Sudan and Central Africa, and several other otherwise unpredicted features of our modern world - and of course the population is still bombing, or booming, or whatever. Ehrlich isn't "way wrong" yet, just off by forty years or so, so far.
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Please. He predicted these things in the first world. Third world countries have always endured starvation and genocide. Predicting it will continue is no great feat. And the Soviet Union collapsed for political reasons, not for lack of natural resources.

Ehrlich was so far off he's a joke.
 
madanth said:
Please. He predicted these things in the first world. Third world countries have always endured starvation and genocide. Predicting it will continue is no great feat. And the Soviet Union collapsed for political reasons, not for lack of natural resources.
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Third world countries have not "always endured" events like the Rwandan massacre, or the recent Sudan and Somalia breakdowns, or what happened in Bangladesh right on cue. Labeling the specific areas of famine, massacre, and brutal war ten or twenty years in advance is not all that easy. Ehrlich was reasonably accurate in this - if he had predicted "political consequences" instead of passive starvation, as the more sober analysts of population bomb effects did at the time, he would have looked prescient.

And of course the Soviets empire broke up over "political issues" - aside from alarmists like Ehrlich, who expects people to just sit by and watch their children starve?

The consequences of the CO2 driven climate change will show up as "political issues" as well, without a doubt. Water rights, in the American West, for example.
 
iceaura said:
And of course the Soviets empire broke up over "political issues" - aside from alarmists like Ehrlich, who expects people to just sit by and watch their children starve?
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But the starvation was wholely a result of a failed political system (communism), not due to any lack of natural resources. Even today, the former Soviet Union is rich in natural resources and could be a wealthy nation if they'd get their act together.
 
sandy said:
A June snowstorm closed a highway and dumped 8 inches of snow in Wyoming..
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Reported. You have been told to stop this trolling. Individual instances of freak weather have little to do with global warming.
 
D H said:
Reported. You have been told to stop this trolling. Individual instances of freak weather have little to do with global warming.
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....But it has a lot to do with simple minded linear thinking.
 
D H said:
Reported. You have been told to stop this trolling. Individual instances of freak weather have little to do with global warming.
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This is not trolling. I didn't say anything. I just posted a story about a snowstorm. Is global warming your new religion? Are you that convinced it's real that you won't even consider an opposing view? What I post is exactly what the non-believers are using for their arguments. I don't see other people in other threads being shut down for opposing views. You have no proof that what I'm saying is not proof of MY argument. Some of the most respected names in science do not believe in global warming. And many are using arguments just like mine to defend their positions.:(
 
well the snow storm can be considered evidence for glabal warming as it evidence of global weather patearns being thrown more and more of balance. in fact one of the more likely end results of global warming is an ice age. this happens due to try to balence things out it ends up pushing to the other extreme
 
madanthonywayne said:
Right. I'm in the pocket of big oil.

Gore's movie is full of crap. He claims sea levels will rise twenty feet in the next hundred years, when the actual maximum prediction is twenty inches! That's a pretty big fuckin' difference! That's the whole basis for his claims of cities being flooded, mass population relocation. etc.

Twenty inches in a hundred years is nothing, and that's the max predicted if we do nothing. Did you know sea levels rose two or three feet in the last hundred years? Does that fact stand as one of the worst trajedies of the twentieth century? Were you even aware of it?

I believe the earth has warmed about one degree in the past hundred years. I also know that there's not shit we can do about it.

The treatments suggested (kyoto) would do far more harm then good. The sea rise of the last hundred years was no problem, why should an equivalent rise in the next hundred be one?

If you want to talk about using compact flourecent litebulbs, increasing spending on alternative fuels, building nuclear power plants, etc; I'm with you. But forcing us to limit energy use to 1990 levels while our population is growing is not going to happen. Not without a massive cost and a decreased standard of living. All for what?

The point is, the global warming crowd seeks to stifle all debate and paint those who dare question their othodoxy as heretics. If science is really on their side, why the bully tactics? Why must we shove this crap down the throats of captive audiences (school children and college students)? Why is this movie being shown in art class?

It's propaganda pure and simple.
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I don't know about twenty feet, cause we don't use the measurement feet in our country. But I know the maximum sea and ocean level increase is 7 meters. The way I understand it there won't be a fancy New York, and to be quite honest with you we can't do anything about it cause the problem smelled dead before we understood what we were doing.
 
Smellsniffsniff said:
I don't know about twenty feet, cause we don't use the measurement feet in our country. But I know the maximum sea and ocean level increase is 7 meters. The way I understand it there won't be a fancy New York, and to be quite honest with you we can't do anything about it cause the problem smelled dead before we understood what we were doing.
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On the off chance the sea does rise a lot, we build a dike. Big deal. Building dikes would cost a small fraction of what reducing our CO2 output would
 
psikeyhackr said:
This still leaves the problem of Global Dimming.

Global Dimming - BBC Horizon 2005
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2058273530743771382
Transcript
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_trans.shtml
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I am not altogether clear why Global Dimming would have, as claimed, a cooling effect on the climate - offsetting Global Warming.

The presence of particles in the atmosphere would reduce the amount of sunlight (and heat) reaching the Earth's surface -- but in intercepting the sunlight would not the atmosphere itself be warmed? I would tend to expect that particulate matter would ADD to the greenhouse effect rather than reduce it. I am not convinced that dimming would result in more of the sun's energy being reflected back into space. Always treat the BBC with the utmost suspicion!
 
sandy said:
This is not trolling. I didn't say anything. I just posted a story about a snowstorm.
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You posted your silly story about a snowstorm in a thread on global warming. If this silly story has nothing to do with the validity of global warming, then why did you post it here? To up your post count, or to try to refute global warming? You are trolling, pure and simple.

Is global warming your new religion? Are you that convinced it's real that you won't even consider an opposing view?
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That the global mean temperature is increasing is a fact. Nobody with any credence debates this fact. This includes those who credibly doubt whether humans are the cause of global warming, those who doubt we can do anything about global warming, and those who doubt that we should do anything about it. If you want to debate global warming, do so credibly. Don't mouth the incredibly stupid arguments made by Rush and Hannity.

By way of analogy, consider gambling. Casino profits are predicated on averages. A big winner at the roulette wheel does not disprove the fact that casinos are statiscally the big winners when it comes to gambling. Similarly, a freak snowstorm does not disprove the fact of global warming.

Another false argument you have used against global warming is to recall the 1970s, where some claimed that humanity is driving the climate into an ice age. This is an ad hominen attack. I could use the same logic to argue that your beloved religion is false. Religious charlatans have made many, many false prophecies. These charlatans do not disprove Christianity any more than the statements by environmental whackos disprove global warming.

Some of the most respected names in science do not believe in global warming. And many are using arguments just like mine to defend their positions.:(
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Find one who uses freak snowstorms and statements by 1970s whackos. You recently posted a news story about Griffin's interview on NPR. Read that interview. He did not debate whether global warming is occurring. He did debate whether we should do something about it.

If you read my posts, you would see that I am not in the "we must stop global warming now" crowd. I am in the "I don't like bad science" crowd. You get my goat not because you are challenging my beliefs but because you are parrotting the incredibly stupid arguments posed by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. There are credible arguments against anthropegenic global warming. Rush's and Sean's are not among those arguments.

pjdude1219 said:
well the snow storm can be considered evidence for glabal warming as it evidence of global weather patearns being thrown more and more of balance. in fact one of the more likely end results of global warming is an ice age. this happens due to try to balence things out it ends up pushing to the other extreme
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One particular freak incident of weather does not prove global warming any more than it disproves it. This argument gets my gall, too. With this argument, any weather event proves that global warming is real. The one constant about the weather is that it is inconstant.
 
It's 22:25 here in sweden and the temperature is now 19 degrees celcius
The entire earth is very big, don't you think? So you would think that the temperature would in everage, in average over a couple of years at the same time of year, be constant.

It's 3.5 degrees hotter.
 
D H said:
You posted your silly story about a snowstorm in a thread on global warming....
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I don't even listen to Rush or Hannity. I believe global warming is a farce. So do many scientists. So do most Americans. When I post a story about freak cold/snow, it is further proof of my argument. Just because you don't agree with me doesn't mean I don't have the right to my opinion. Reporting my post was childish and immature. You're like a high school bully who won't argue/discuss/debate with a woman. You just try to get her to shut up.:(
 
sandy said:
I believe global warming is a farce. So do many scientists. So do most Americans.
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Then, it is merely something you believe in because 'many scientists' and 'most Americans' believe. You don't really understand the details, right?

When I post a story about freak cold/snow, it is further proof of my argument.
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Or, it's simply a freak cold/snow, adding nothing to your argument.
 
sandy said:
I don't even listen to Rush or Hannity. I believe global warming is a farce. So do many scientists. So do most Americans. When I post a story about freak cold/snow, it is further proof of my argument. Just because you don't agree with me doesn't mean I don't have the right to my opinion. Reporting my post was childish and immature. You're like a high school bully who won't argue/discuss/debate with a woman. You just try to get her to shut up.:(
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No, Sandy, that's not the point at all. I for one, don't care if you are man, woman, neuter or half-and-half.

What IS the point is that you don't believe in climate change and you've continually been posting about these unusual weather events BECAUSE of that.

And the problem is that you don't understand overall averages vs some anomaly. Consider this, if you will. There are calves born with two heads or five legs. It happens every once in a while. And there are human babies born with six fingers on one hand or eleven toes on their feet. And there are other oddities as well.

But that does NOT change the fact that on the average most are still born with the right number of everything. If you could just wrap your mind around that one little piece of logic you would understand why everyone is on your case about reporting these freakish bit of weather events. On the average, they are no proof of anything!
 
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