NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834

Earlier this year, predictions were rife that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008. Instead, the Arctic ice saw a substantial recovery. Bill Chapman, a researcher with the UIUC's Arctic Center, tells DailyTech this was due in part to colder temperatures in the region. Chapman says wind patterns have also been weaker this year. Strong winds can slow ice formation as well as forcing ice into warmer waters where it will melt.

Why were predictions so wrong? Researchers had expected the newer sea ice, which is thinner, to be less resilient and melt easier. Instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Apparently, climate researchers don't know very much. How many predicted that the ice would rebound, and how many predicted that the ice would vanish? And how many hedged their bets and said, "well, some more melting"?

have you seen what the 70's where like? this is not good news

also if I had a nickel for every time science was wrong in the face of magic I'd be a very rich man

have you seen what the 70's where like? this is not good news

Obviously, we'll need to go back to platform shoes, and down vests.

I'm not sure -- was it you, Kimchi, who got his ass handed to him for cherrypicking bad data on this very topic not a whole week ago?

I'm not sure -- was it you, Kimchi, who got his ass handed to him for cherrypicking bad data on this very topic not a whole week ago?

Nope. I'm merely pointing out that climatologists don't seem to know very much.

This story smells fishy, seeing as everyhting else points towards the reverse:

Shrinking sea ice makes polar bears go hungry (http://www.newkerala.com/topstory-fullnews-67936.html)

projections show polarice shrinking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Polar_Bear_Habitat.png)

arctic temperatures rising almost everywhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arctic_Temperature_Trend_1987-2007.jpg)

reports of sea ice shrinking dramatically voer the years (http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/20090102/NEWS01/901020305/1002/rss)

arctic ice melting earlier everywhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Date_of_first_melt_of_Arctic_Sea_ice.png)

Do you need me to link to more proof?

Apparently, climate researchers don't know very much. How many predicted that the ice would rebound, and how many predicted that the ice would vanish? And how many hedged their bets and said, "well, some more melting"?

So it vanished, and then rebounded. Looks like everyone's a winner.

Nope. I'm merely pointing out that climatologists don't seem to know very much.
No, I think it was you. So...going for wrong on the same topic twice in the sam week, huh? Will that be an NSG record?

This story smells fishy, seeing as everyhting else points towards the reverse:

Shrinking sea ice makes polar bears go hungry (http://www.newkerala.com/topstory-fullnews-67936.html)

projections show polarice shrinking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Polar_Bear_Habitat.png)

arctic temperatures rising almost everywhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arctic_Temperature_Trend_1987-2007.jpg)

reports of sea ice shrinking dramatically voer the years (http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/20090102/NEWS01/901020305/1002/rss)

arctic ice melting earlier everywhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Date_of_first_melt_of_Arctic_Sea_ice.png)

Do you need me to link to more proof?

Apparently, this is government data, and the ice has come back. You're pointing out where the ice went away.

It's back now, and the temperatures are back down to 1979 levels.

The current data says you're wrong.

No, I think it was you. So...going for wrong on the same topic twice in the sam week, huh? Will that be an NSG record?

Nope, wasn't me.

Are you saying that the ice is still melted? That the climatologists accurately predicted this? Despite their admission that they missed it entirely?

This story smells fishy, seeing as everyhting else points towards the reverse:

Shrinking sea ice makes polar bears go hungry (http://www.newkerala.com/topstory-fullnews-67936.html)

projections show polarice shrinking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Polar_Bear_Habitat.png)

arctic temperatures rising almost everywhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arctic_Temperature_Trend_1987-2007.jpg)

reports of sea ice shrinking dramatically voer the years (http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/20090102/NEWS01/901020305/1002/rss)

arctic ice melting earlier everywhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Date_of_first_melt_of_Arctic_Sea_ice.png)

Do you need me to link to more proof?

Won't someone PLEASE think of the polar bears???


Anyone else see the WWF commercial with the momma bear and the cub?

Aww... it makes me want to give them my credit card numbers!

/sarcasm

Won't someone PLEASE think of the polar bears???

Bah. If they wanted ice to stand on so badly, then they shouldn't have had themselves classified as aquatic mammals. When the water dries up, they'll be deserving of sympathy.

Nope, wasn't me.

Are you saying that the ice is still melted? That the climatologists accurately predicted this? Despite their admission that they missed it entirely?
It was someone else's thread, but you were in it, and you were wrong.

And you're wrong now, too.

Or rather, you would be, if you were actually making a point. You are attempting in an indirect way, to attack the concept of global climate change by cherrypicking narrow pieces of data and stretching them out to cover broad trends. You just "innocently" point to one thing and think that will make the argument for you, and if it doesn't you can claim you never meant to make the larger argument anyway. But that tactic failed in that other thread, and it fails here, too. All you're really doing is saying, "Ooh, look! Ice cubes!", as if that means anything. Only it doesn't.

Obviously, we'll need to go back to platform shoes, and down vests.

I hear they are making a "star wars" film I mean what a total flop that will be nobody wants to see explosions in space these days >.>

the ice has come back.

this is wrong the thin ice is more resilient to temperature shifts and such is what I got (well that and some crazy talk about wind)

Nope, wasn't me.

Are you saying that the ice is still melted? That the climatologists accurately predicted this? Despite their admission that they missed it entirely?
Here you go: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=577798&highlight=global+warming

It was New Mitanni's thread. It contains all the detailed arguments as to why the effect you claim exists doesn't really and doesn't matter anyway. I hope this will help your thread avoid being completely redundant.

http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834

Apparently, climate researchers don't know very much. How many predicted that the ice would rebound, and how many predicted that the ice would vanish? And how many hedged their bets and said, "well, some more melting"?

Ah, but haven't you heard? It's not global warming, it's global climate change. So, if the climate gets colder, then it changes, and they predicted it!

That, or they're just flat-out wrong and their Chicken Little act is really grounded in a politically-motivated agenda.

That, or they're just flat-out wrong and their Chicken Little act is really grounded in a politically-motivated agenda.
Which is...?

Seeing as those calling for measures preventing environmental disaster range from eco-anarchists such as myself, via centrist politicians such as Obama, to right-wing politicians such as David Cameron, what "politically-motivated agenda" do we all share?

http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834



Apparently, climate researchers don't know very much. How many predicted that the ice would rebound, and how many predicted that the ice would vanish? And how many hedged their bets and said, "well, some more melting"?

Let's assume for a moment that this is 100% fact, and the ice has rebounded; what then is your point? Would you like for us to quit the move towards a greener lifestyle? Certainly you don't think that just because ice might be back that it is alright to keep dumping hundreds of millions of tons of pollutants into the atmosphere, correct? Even if ice has some how rebounded, and I will be skeptical until I see more research backing it up, we still have the responsibility of being better stewards of this planet. It will only help the world if we move towards more green standards.

I really fail to see what your point would be then, unless you are using this as a gloat, which would be against forum rules. :)

some charts of arctic sea ice extent anomalies, comparing data from the same months.

arctic sea ice maximum is usually in march-ish, minimum in september. november included because that's what the article intended to talk about.

you can go play with the data yourself!
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/bist/seaice.pl?filename=/projects/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Sep/N_09_plot.png&hemis=N&mo=09&img=plot&mon_abbrev=September&year=2009&scale=100&legend=1&annot=1

http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/bist/seaice.pl?filename=/projects/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Nov/N_11_plot.png&hemis=N&mo=11&img=plot&mon_abbrev=November&year=2009&scale=100&legend=1&annot=1

http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/bist/seaice.pl?filename=/projects/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Mar/N_03_plot.png&hemis=N&mo=03&img=plot&mon_abbrev=March&year=2009&scale=100&legend=1&annot=1

Apparently, this is government data, and the ice has come back. You're pointing out where the ice went away.

It's back now, and the temperatures are back down to 1979 levels.

The current data says you're wrong.

This is like the guy who claimed that the ice wasn't retreating by showing data for ice rebounding -- IN WINTER.

Please don't tell me you're going to say that ice will increase in winter. Please don't. I can't stand to laugh that hard again.

This is like the guy who claimed that the ice wasn't retreating by showing data for ice rebounding -- IN WINTER.

Please don't tell me you're going to say that ice will increase in winter. Please don't. I can't stand to laugh that hard again.

Please, note that the scientists were saying the ice would be gone. See the article before you step off...

Please, note that the scientists were saying the ice would be gone. See the article before you step off...

no they weren't. still batting a thousand in wrongness, eh?

Please, note that the scientists were saying the ice would be gone. See the article before you step off...

Yes.

IN SUMMER.

*facepalm*

It's like you're not even trying.

"if global warming is so real, why is there still winter? ha, got you there!"

Nope. I'm merely pointing out that climatologists don't seem to know very much.

I think you'll find that one has to know quite a bit to actually get to be a climatologist. It's a by-product of not handing out a science degree to every Tom, Dick and Harry who walks into a university, and not giving a job in climatology to every swinging dick with a science degree.

Maybe some of them missed something in this instance. Fine, they're only human. To go from that to insults directed at the whole field is quite the fallacy.

Nope. I'm merely pointing out that climatologists don't seem to know very much.

Generally climatologists/meteorologists don't solve for x and figure it'll rain on Thursday. Meteorology and and climatology are not exact sciences and prediction are allowed to be wrong. That's why it is a prediction and not something definitive. On top of that, in the northern hemisphere here, it is winter and a cold one at that so no shit water freezes.

Wow, I think we'll need a good century of data confirming a cooling trend before we can discredit the human causes of global climate change. Now, even if sunspots or whatever non-anthropogenic causes are reversing or halting the effects of global warming, that's hardly cause to celebrate...I think that the entirety of human history shows that relaxing your guard against an almost certain threat results in disaster every single time.

People also seem to forget that those changes also reverse, so if the planet's CO2 levels have increased further during that cooling period imagine what will happen when those non-anthropogenic factors return to their previous level or even worse increase to a maximum. The Earth is shaped by powerful forces beyond the scope of our civilization's entire effects on the climate, but it is the small changes we are producing that can cause it to destabilize and cause any number of unpleasant effects as it adjusts to a new equilibrium.

I think you'll find that one has to know quite a bit to actually get to be a climatologist. It's a by-product of not handing out a science degree to every Tom, Dick and Harry who walks into a university, and not giving a job in climatology to every swinging dick with a science degree.

Maybe some of them missed something in this instance. Fine, they're only human. To go from that to insults directed at the whole field is quite the fallacy.

DK? Generalizing like that? Heavens, now I've seen everything! :eek2:

That article reads like clever satire. I wish it was.

Others have torn this shit apart already so I'll just address some idiocies in the article itself:

Sea ice is floating and, unlike the massive ice sheets anchored to bedrock in Greenland and Antarctica, doesn't affect ocean levels. However, due to its transient nature, sea ice responds much faster to changes in temperature or precipitation and is therefore a useful barometer of changing conditions.

Sure, if by "conditions" we mean "weather conditions." Weather is by definition more short-term than climate. Note however the subtle implication that sea ice is now a good "barometer" of "changing climate" - which is nonsense, but when you're grasping at straws you can't be choosy.

In May, concerns over disappearing sea ice led the U.S. to officially list the polar bear a threatened species, over objections from experts who claimed the animal's numbers were increasing

What "objections" and which "experts?" I can see why people like Hotwife and New Mitanni lap this kind of shit up, with such vague, ambiguous wording that appeals to the desperate, last gasps of Luddites and their "skeptic" attitudes.

How about this: the World Conservation Union *did* upgrade polar bears to a vulnerable species, and yes indeed because of global climate change. Specifically because they "suspected population reduction of >30% within three generations (45 years)."

Which is why it's so adorable that the Luddite crowd is cawing after a whole two years that climate change is all a liberal myth. No doubt, when polar bears are not forced into extinction (thanks to the World Conservation Union and what they did, actually) they'll go "lol the polar bears didn't go extinct, lol science iz rong."

But it's bloody annoying how people continually assume that climate and weather are the same damn thing, and then use this stupid assumption to make stupid conclusions which - golly gee - support their pre-existing political bias on the subject completely.

No, Hotwife. Climate is not weather. Weather is not climate. And you must surely be trolling since you say "climatologists don't seem to know very much," since you rely on some of those climatologists when arguing your own special position on the subject! So perhaps you meant to say you are "pointing out that climatologists don't seem to know very much, unless they are well-paid by oil interests and sign a petition declaring the IPCC to be Great Satan and agree with my views that climate change is a bunch of liberal malarky designed to raise taxes."

Well, either way.

Which is...?

Seeing as those calling for measures preventing environmental disaster range from eco-anarchists such as myself, via centrist politicians such as Obama, to right-wing politicians such as David Cameron, what "politically-motivated agenda" do we all share?
You all hate freedom!
DK? Generalizing like that? Heavens, now I've seen everything! :eek2:

No you haven't. You haven't seen the ice caps melt. :tongue:

Well, some of the river here has thinly frozen over because of the 5 recent days of below zero temperatures we have had here all winter. So HA! No global warming in Finland.

Want further evidence? The puddles are frozen solid! I just checked.

Well, some of the river here has thinly frozen over because of the 5 recent days of below zero temperatures we have had here all winter. So HA! No global warming in Finland.

Want further evidence? The puddles are frozen solid! I just checked.

I have further proof. I had to wear a coat the other day. Clearly, Global Warming is a liberal ploy to destroy industry or something.

I have further proof. I had to wear a coat the other day. Clearly, Global Warming is a liberal ploy to destroy industry or something.
I'll call your coat and bet long underoos, I had to put those on today. Well, semi-long, but nevertheless.

Ah, but haven't you heard? It's not global warming, it's global climate change. So, if the climate gets colder, then it changes, and they predicted it!

That, or they're just flat-out wrong and their Chicken Little act is really grounded in a politically-motivated agenda.

You see! You see! Scientists changed their stance based on new evidence! That makes them wrong! *dances with glee*

Gosh, I guess every pseudo-scientific jargon that gets recorded has the possible honor of being used as evidence in the future.

I'm not shocked at all. More proof about "manmade global warming" and the money-making-only eneavor it truly is.

This story smells fishy, seeing as everyhting else points towards the reverse:

Shrinking sea ice makes polar bears go hungry (http://www.newkerala.com/topstory-fullnews-67936.html)

projections show polarice shrinking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Polar_Bear_Habitat.png)

arctic temperatures rising almost everywhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arctic_Temperature_Trend_1987-2007.jpg)

reports of sea ice shrinking dramatically voer the years (http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/20090102/NEWS01/901020305/1002/rss)

arctic ice melting earlier everywhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Date_of_first_melt_of_Arctic_Sea_ice.png)

Do you need me to link to more proof?

I also have my doubts.
1. Michael Ascher did not cite his sources (thats not very academic of him!)
2. If you actually look at the data which he is deriving his conclusions from available at the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center it seems to tell a different story...

While certainly those who said that there would be no sea ice left by summer 2008 are clearly wrong Ascher is misrepresenting the data by saying that sea ice is back to 1979 levels. What has in fact happened is that the 2009 sea ice mean maxima has converged with the 1979 sea ice minima. This is still good news because 2007 was a very bad year showing a minima of -3 million km sq mean loss but the minima for 2008 was -2 million km sq.

Comparing maxima to minima is not good science. The fact is we're still missing an average of 0.5 million sq km of sea ice ... why didn't Ascher mention that?

Take a look at the data yourselves.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.jpg
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

and here is the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center site
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/

I'm not shocked at all. More proof about "manmade global warming" and the money-making-only eneavor it truly is.

Really? Then why isn't my Eco-friendly clean coal a success?

I'm not shocked at all. More proof about "manmade global warming" and the money-making-only eneavor it truly is.

What proof? Why don't you describe the so-called proof in your own words.

I'm not shocked at all. More proof about "manmade global warming" and the money-making-only eneavor it truly is.

Also to be more cynical...

Welcome to Capitalism. Everything will have associated money making endeavours.

Also to be more cynical...

Welcome to Capitalism. Everything will have associated money making endeavours.

What makes more money - the oil industry, or, uh, the Global Climate Change Industry?

Also to be more cynical...

Welcome to Capitalism. Everything will have associated money making endeavours.

The problem with that is - a lot of people working in sciences tend to look at the data, and come out in support of the conclusion that there is an anthropogenic effect. And it looks like, the closer you are in field, the more pronounced the consensus.

Why is that a problem? Someone like me who works in an environmental science field... doesn't get any kind of kickback from the idea of man-made climate change. There's no profit in it for me.

What makes more money - the oil industry, or, uh, the Global Climate Change Industry?


Today's petroleum companies care about the environment In the sense that our shareholders meetings are a kind of environment. That's why we direct funding to some of the greatest minds in the world to help solve global environmental issues. And once we're done selling all the oil, we'll start selling their findings. You see, here at Shell, we don't think of ourselves as just an oil company. We think of ourselves as the people who own the shit you fuckers need.

Shell. Because We Live Here, Too.

Now quit your bitching, go buy a Hummer, and drive it by yourself.

I'd really like to know what conservatives think the 'liberals' are trying to do politically with global climate change.

I'd really like to know what conservatives think the 'liberals' are trying to do politically with global climate change.

Liberals hate business. They want to shut down all the oil companies, logging companies, hairspray companies, and pesticide companies, because then the people will rise as one and deliver the mighty wang of class justice to the money people.

Mighty Wang!

I'd really like to know what conservatives think the 'liberals' are trying to do politically with global climate change.

Destroy freedom!

I'd really like to know what conservatives think the 'liberals' are trying to do politically with global climate change.

It's apparently a money-making endeavor but no one will elaborate. Which is a shame since I could use money and want to get in on it.

It's apparently a money-making endeavor but no one will elaborate. Which is a shame since I could use money and want to get in on it.

Its not a money making endeavor, Liberals hate money, and all industry. They want us all to live on avacado collectives and wear hemp thongs.

That's why they're lying about global warming, because if it were true, we could destroy all capitalists instead of spurring adaptive industry.

And Jews. Jews are doing something related to it, I forget exactly what.

and just like that, Hotwife is gone. Left the thread. How often does that happen? He posts, gets his ass handed to him then disappears.
No doubt in a week or two, he'll make yet another thread with the same argument.

and just like that, Hotwife is gone. Left the thread. How often does that happen? He posts, gets his ass handed to him then disappears.
No doubt in a week or two, he'll make yet another thread with the same argument.

To be fair, he might have other stuff to do. I'm not saying he wasn't shredded like iceberg lettuce by several people, but that isn't necessarily why he left.

To be fair, he might have other stuff to do. I'm not saying he wasn't shredded like iceberg lettuce by several people, but that isn't necessarily why he left.

quite possibly true. However I do find it very odd how he always finds the time to start these threads but as soon as other posters start shredding his arguments he always suddenly finds he needs to go off-line and escape back into reality. always.

quite possibly true. However I do find it very odd how he always finds the time to start these threads but as soon as other posters start shredding his arguments he always suddenly finds he needs to go off-line and escape back into reality. always.

He's more comfortable doing his Ace Ventura impressions on certain subjects, namely Mozlems R Ebil, Gun Control, and Democrats R Ebil.

Hey it's a good thing he posts... that way we can tear apart this bullshit science can call it what it is. Ascher's article is transparently baised, no clear citations and his own 'souces' conflict with his grandiose claims that things are just like in 1979. Just take a look at the data - its all there and we're still missing 0.5 million km of ice. I don't know about you but I think thats significant.

University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center site
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/

I agree with him that the jury is still out on climate change but sadly it's no liberal conspiracy... and it takes no genius to figure out that controlling CO2 emissions is simply a good idea climate change or no.

I'd really like to know what conservatives think the 'liberals' are trying to do politically with global climate change.

I wouldn't attribute it to the liberals, but some of the proposed global steps to curbing carbon emissions clearly favor less industrialized countries.

I understand some of the reasons for this, but I am amazed that proponents of "lead by example" are later shocked that the multi-national corporations shift their operational focus to where there is less regulation, the cost of doing business is cheaper, and with a little bribery, subsequent environmental disasters are easily overlooked. The end result is simply a shift in where the money is made (and taxed) with little real impact on global environmental improvement.

None of that is relevant to the question of whether or not climate change is happening or not. Perhaps it is happening - and perhaps there is not a damn thing anyone can do about it. An awful lot of CO2 has already been pumped into the atmosphere by industry and cars. We don't really know if Co2 is causing it it could also be the sun. And if it is Co2, no one really knows how much is too much... Thats what we need good science for to answer these questions.

Its not a money making endeavor, Liberals hate money, and all industry. They want us all to live on avacado collectives and wear hemp thongs.

I want a hemp thong...

I want a hemp thong...

That would be smoking crack...and smoking crack is wrong (Genesis 1:29-31).

What makes more money - the oil industry, or, uh, the Global Climate Change Industry?

The oil industry makes no money at all for they are doing the work of Jesus. All proceeds are given to the poor. Specifically, the poor people who are not lazy. You can scientifically tell whether or not a poor person is lazy by looking at them. The non-lazy ones are pale. From all that work they're doing.

The Global Climate Change Industry makes trillions of dollars a day by robbing pregnant women at knife-point and aborting their babies. This is totally related to global warming and totally a way to make money because dead babies are worth thousands on the black market. The Black market, nudge nudge wink wink. Also they're all secret Jews it's true I read it on the Internet.

None of that is relevant to the question of whether or not climate change is happening or not. Perhaps it is happening - and perhaps there is not a damn thing anyone can do about it. An awful lot of CO2 has already been pumped into the atmosphere by industry and cars. We don't really know if Co2 is causing it it could also be the sun. And if it is Co2, no one really knows how much is too much... Thats what we need good science for to answer these questions.

Just because you don't understand thermodynamics doesn't mean no one does.

The oil industry makes no money at all for they are doing the work of Jesus. All proceeds are given to the poor. Specifically, the poor people who are not lazy. You can scientifically tell whether or not a poor person is lazy by looking at them. The non-lazy ones are pale. From all that work they're doing.

The Global Climate Change Industry makes trillions of dollars a day by robbing pregnant women at knife-point and aborting their babies. This is totally related to global warming and totally a way to make money because dead babies are worth thousands on the black market. The Black market, nudge nudge wink wink. Also they're all secret Jews it's true I read it on the Internet.

He's right, its true. I read it in a Chick pamphlet.

Just because you don't understand thermodynamics doesn't mean no one does.

Your comment only displays your own ignorance of the issue.

Your comment only displays your own ignorance of the issue.

We've known about the green house effect since 1824, it's not new science, it's really pretty basic tbh.

as an isolated factoid, the title of this thread could very well be accounted for in numerous ways that in no way detract from the reality and consequences of global climate change and the contribution of the use of combustion for generating electricity and propelling transportation in combination with an environmentally excessive human population to the objectively observable and observed occurrence of it.

This article in no way challenges warming, if anything it supports it. The only actual learning is:

...instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected,

So when ice has melted drastically thin, it grows back faster than expected when it's unexpectedly cold.

The ice was drastically thin, it had no insulation from snow, this was a new thing...

It may be that since ridiculous amounts of ice melted this Summer, the extra cool water in the system may even have caused the unexpectedly cold weather, conjecture on my part here.

None of this means that we're not seeing great ice meltage, more than usual but, as someone else pointed out, in the Summer.

There is a problem that some people are so vested in defending climate change that even when evidence supports, when perceived wrongly they rush to discredit the evidence, this helps those who look to call it a conspiracy.

This article in no way challenges warming, if anything it supports it. The only actual learning is:



So when ice has melted drastically thin, it grows back faster than expected when it's unexpectedly cold.

The ice was drastically thin, it had no insulation from snow, this was a new thing...

It may be that since ridiculous amounts of ice melted this Summer, the extra cool water in the system may even have caused the unexpectedly cold weather, conjecture on my part here.

None of this means that we're not seeing great ice meltage, more than usual but, as someone else pointed out, in the Summer.

There is a problem that some people are so vested in defending climate change that even when evidence supports, when perceived wrongly they rush to discredit the evidence, this helps those who look to call it a conspiracy.

all of which, quite possibly, even probably true, begs none the less the question of the motivation for the reference having been cited HERE. the purpose and intent of the starting of THIS thread.

Today's petroleum companies care about the environment In the sense that our shareholders meetings are a kind of environment. That's why we direct funding to some of the greatest minds in the world to help solve global environmental issues. And once we're done selling all the oil, we'll start selling their findings. You see, here at Shell, we don't think of ourselves as just an oil company. We think of ourselves as the people who own the shit you fuckers need.

Shell. Because We Live Here, Too.

Now quit your bitching, go buy a Hummer, and drive it by yourself.

This might just be the best post of the year, and we've still got 359 days to go!

As for climate change deniers, I have only one question: Do you think it is wise to burn a resource for energy purposes that is so clearly necessary for other purposes?

all of which, quite possibly, even probably true, begs none the less the question of the motivation for the reference having been cited HERE. the purpose and intent of the starting of THIS thread.

The fact that I've probably read it wrong shows that people who know bugger all about the subject aren't really ones to 'prove' anything.

Most of the issues are muddied by people like me, the great unwashed.

I suspect the motivation is simply that it's one of those subjects where you can actually cherrypick evidence and no one can prove anything, as long as there's some doubt, no action is taken. Hotwife has taken one stance and enjoys proving himself right, others have taken another and enjoy proving themselves right as well.

On this particular subject, climate scientists are mostly in agreement aside from a few renegades, so I'll take their side despite admitting I don't know too much about the mechanics.

Who's supplying the 'evidence', that's the best question, who would you rather trust?

As for climate change deniers, I have only one question: Do you think it is wise to burn a resource for energy purposes that is so clearly necessary for other purposes?

Climate change is a NATURAL cycle. This stable climate we have had to the last 100,000 years IS NOT NORMAL. And for energy, I am an advocate for Nuclear power, more specifically Nuclear Fusion, but I stand by our Fission powerplants as they are the cleanest source of energy we have.

The oil industry makes no money at all for they are doing the work of Jesus. All proceeds are given to the poor. Specifically, the poor people who are not lazy. You can scientifically tell whether or not a poor person is lazy by looking at them. The non-lazy ones are pale. From all that work they're doing.

The Global Climate Change Industry makes trillions of dollars a day by robbing pregnant women at knife-point and aborting their babies. This is totally related to global warming and totally a way to make money because dead babies are worth thousands on the black market. The Black market, nudge nudge wink wink. Also they're all secret Jews it's true I read it on the Internet.

And the best post of 2009 award has already been decided.

Climate change is a NATURAL cycle. This stable climate we have had to the last 100,000 years IS NOT NORMAL. And for energy, I am an advocate for Nuclear power, more specifically Nuclear Fusion, but I stand by our Fission powerplants as they are the cleanest source of energy we have.

The stable climate we've had for the last 100,000 years, you say?

Since you opened with such a strong gambit, I'm going to be listening very carefully to your wise words on this topic. Please, tell me more.

The stable climate we've had for the last 100,000 years, you say?

Since you opened with such a strong gambit, I'm going to be listening very carefully to your wise words on this topic. Please, tell me more.

Climate isn't stable...hell, Geology isn't stable (Tectonic activity, earthquakes, volcanism and Yellowstone anyone?). around CE 1000 or so, Greenland was wheat country, and those "French" wine grapes? were growing wild in Scotland (where it's STILL too cold to grow 'em).

We had a "Little Ice-age" during the Reformation (including a year without a summer at all). What we have NOT had, is an accurate means to measure global temperatures all-at-once until around fifty years ago with the invention of the weather sattelite.

Earth's had ice-ages and warming periods all through its history, and our entire civilization (going back six thousand years if you stick to what's been continuously recorded) is barely a blip...yet some how, some way, a few guys always come up and say "I know you're doin' wrong, so I'm a-gonna make ya change your ways because what yer doin' is a SIN that'll destroy the Wurrrld."

and declaring something a sin that will destroy the world is a great way-has always been a great way, to pry the money out of the hands of those whose primary goal in life has been to increase their power. In the western world, most academic scientists rely on something called "Grants"-this allows them to be academic scientists, and to eat regularly when their grand unified theories don't pan out into something that people are willing to buy.

It's easy to sell apocalypse to human beings. Whether it's a fraudulent "Date for the end of the world" based on the book of Revelations, or a somewhat supported hypothesis that burning fuel is going to cause the ice caps to melt, turn Kansas into a desert, and broil New York. Same game, different players-the fact that all the "peer Review" is being done by guys selling the same snake-oil to the same customers helps a LOT-it lends credibility, and since those same salesmen also sit on the boards that decide who gets a grant, it's an echo-chamber game.

Mind you also, that "Eco Friendliness" has been big business since the sixties, when you include the non-scientists like Lawyers, politicians, and Marketing people, and that the "Modern world is a Sin" vibe has been going on in "academic" circles longer than the idea of women's suffrage.

Global Warming is mostly a Luddite cult, the technologies it embraces are embraced more for their ability to absorb vast efforts without returning a viable product, than their efficacy at subduing pollution. The Kyoto accords and carbon-trading schemes are well designed to widen the rich/poor gulf in the West, while enriching the oligarchial and corrupt rulers of the Third World.

Like most hypocritical religious movements, the biggest shills for it, are the worst individual offenders. Al gore's house uses as much energy as most small towns, the man jets about on an aircraft that eats as much fuel in one sitting as most people use in a month-most of it being sent out the tailpipe as carbon emissions and unburned fuel (this is the curse of the Turbine, you know...gobbles fuel at amazing rates), he's not the only one.


If you seriously believe in the threat of Global Climate Change, you don't need to drive a car. You probably shouldn't be using a computer, either-the processes to make your processors are pretty serious offenders themselves, and we won't get into what's likely generating your electricity. Dump the central heating (electrics require powerplants, and the majority of those are coal or oil fired, or Hydro, which sinks heat and releases it back into the atmosphere), don't eat anything grown on a farm that uses machinery, don't eat beef, don't use paper (paper processing generates greenhouse gasses and reduces tree volume as well as adding volatile chemicals to the water supply), don't use petroleum-based inks, and don't eat fish that was caught by a non-sail-dependent boat.

and it's still going to happen anyway. The climate is NOT a steady-state structure. The earth wobbles in its orbit, the orbit itself changes (unbalanced ellipse), the sun varies in output (G2 VARIABLE star...) the influence of the moon affects tides, currents, and not just with water-it also exerts a (minute) gravitational pull on the magma below the crust, possibly influencing frequency of volcanism and the output of greenhouse gasses and other pollutants into the atmosphere from right under your feet.

It's very comforting, in its way, to think that human beings, even LOTS of human beings, can influence the earth's condition that strongly-it hearkens back to the idea that there's a god who actually cares what you do and think and say, who will move mountains for your faith.

Fact is, the claim that human beings are that important is roughly as arrogant when you're trying to use science, as it is when you're trying to use Theology. It's a stroke to one's arrogance and self-importance, but that's really all it is.

...

Sudova vs. Scientific Consensus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change)

It was someone else's thread, but you were in it, and you were wrong.

And you're wrong now, too.

Or rather, you would be, if you were actually making a point. You are attempting in an indirect way, to attack the concept of global climate change by cherrypicking narrow pieces of data and stretching them out to cover broad trends. You just "innocently" point to one thing and think that will make the argument for you, and if it doesn't you can claim you never meant to make the larger argument anyway. But that tactic failed in that other thread, and it fails here, too. All you're really doing is saying, "Ooh, look! Ice cubes!", as if that means anything. Only it doesn't.

I'm a bit confused. Why the fuck wasn't this post=

/thread.

?!

Sudova vs. Scientific Consensus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change)

I've REad the IPCC report-not just the cover-letter. Have YOU? Seriously, read it, and then look over this discussion, and tell me again how it's different from arguing theology with fans of Jimmy Swaggart.

Climate change is a NATURAL cycle. This stable climate we have had to the last 100,000 years IS NOT NORMAL

So, exacerbating the dramatic changes found in nature though man-made means is wise because...?

And for energy, I am an advocate for Nuclear power, more specifically Nuclear Fusion, but I stand by our Fission powerplants as they are the cleanest source of energy we have.

Fair enough...but it in no way answers my question.

Climate isn't stable...hell, Geology isn't stable (Tectonic activity, earthquakes, volcanism and Yellowstone anyone?). around CE 1000 or so, Greenland was wheat country, and those "French" wine grapes? were growing wild in Scotland (where it's STILL too cold to grow 'em).

We had a "Little Ice-age" during the Reformation (including a year without a summer at all). What we have NOT had, is an accurate means to measure global temperatures all-at-once until around fifty years ago with the invention of the weather sattelite.

Earth's had ice-ages and warming periods all through its history, and our entire civilization (going back six thousand years if you stick to what's been continuously recorded) is barely a blip...yet some how, some way, a few guys always come up and say "I know you're doin' wrong, so I'm a-gonna make ya change your ways because what yer doin' is a SIN that'll destroy the Wurrrld."

and declaring something a sin that will destroy the world is a great way-has always been a great way, to pry the money out of the hands of those whose primary goal in life has been to increase their power. In the western world, most academic scientists rely on something called "Grants"-this allows them to be academic scientists, and to eat regularly when their grand unified theories don't pan out into something that people are willing to buy.

It's easy to sell apocalypse to human beings. Whether it's a fraudulent "Date for the end of the world" based on the book of Revelations, or a somewhat supported hypothesis that burning fuel is going to cause the ice caps to melt, turn Kansas into a desert, and broil New York. Same game, different players-the fact that all the "peer Review" is being done by guys selling the same snake-oil to the same customers helps a LOT-it lends credibility, and since those same salesmen also sit on the boards that decide who gets a grant, it's an echo-chamber game.

Mind you also, that "Eco Friendliness" has been big business since the sixties, when you include the non-scientists like Lawyers, politicians, and Marketing people, and that the "Modern world is a Sin" vibe has been going on in "academic" circles longer than the idea of women's suffrage.

Global Warming is mostly a Luddite cult, the technologies it embraces are embraced more for their ability to absorb vast efforts without returning a viable product, than their efficacy at subduing pollution. The Kyoto accords and carbon-trading schemes are well designed to widen the rich/poor gulf in the West, while enriching the oligarchial and corrupt rulers of the Third World.

Like most hypocritical religious movements, the biggest shills for it, are the worst individual offenders. Al gore's house uses as much energy as most small towns, the man jets about on an aircraft that eats as much fuel in one sitting as most people use in a month-most of it being sent out the tailpipe as carbon emissions and unburned fuel (this is the curse of the Turbine, you know...gobbles fuel at amazing rates), he's not the only one.


If you seriously believe in the threat of Global Climate Change, you don't need to drive a car. You probably shouldn't be using a computer, either-the processes to make your processors are pretty serious offenders themselves, and we won't get into what's likely generating your electricity. Dump the central heating (electrics require powerplants, and the majority of those are coal or oil fired, or Hydro, which sinks heat and releases it back into the atmosphere), don't eat anything grown on a farm that uses machinery, don't eat beef, don't use paper (paper processing generates greenhouse gasses and reduces tree volume as well as adding volatile chemicals to the water supply), don't use petroleum-based inks, and don't eat fish that was caught by a non-sail-dependent boat.

and it's still going to happen anyway. The climate is NOT a steady-state structure. The earth wobbles in its orbit, the orbit itself changes (unbalanced ellipse), the sun varies in output (G2 VARIABLE star...) the influence of the moon affects tides, currents, and not just with water-it also exerts a (minute) gravitational pull on the magma below the crust, possibly influencing frequency of volcanism and the output of greenhouse gasses and other pollutants into the atmosphere from right under your feet.

It's very comforting, in its way, to think that human beings, even LOTS of human beings, can influence the earth's condition that strongly-it hearkens back to the idea that there's a god who actually cares what you do and think and say, who will move mountains for your faith.

Fact is, the claim that human beings are that important is roughly as arrogant when you're trying to use science, as it is when you're trying to use Theology. It's a stroke to one's arrogance and self-importance, but that's really all it is.

That's a nice rant...really. I enjoyed it.

I'll ask you the same question I asked before...

Do you think it is wise to burn a resource for energy purposes that is so clearly necessary for other purposes?

Keep in mind that I don't give a shit about climate change, and then answer the question.

and just like that, Hotwife is gone. Left the thread. How often does that happen? He posts, gets his ass handed to him then disappears.
No doubt in a week or two, he'll make yet another thread with the same argument.

His boat sank after hitting some of this non-existant ice we were talking about.

So, exacerbating the dramatic changes found in nature though man-made means is wise because...?



Fair enough...but it in no way answers my question.



That's a nice rant...really. I enjoyed it.

I'll ask you the same question I asked before...

Do you think it is wise to burn a resource for energy purposes that is so clearly necessary for other purposes?

Keep in mind that I don't give a shit about climate change, and then answer the question.

I would rather not. Honestly, I'd rather shift off of oil-burning onto some other method (and I don't mean coal). I'd also rather do it honestly, rather than doing it out of fear that some nameless god or "Force of History" told my leaders to do it through some high-priesthood that's dumped the fundamental value of skepticism out in an effort to make a 'better world whether you like it or not' or "Making the western world more morally Clean" as they happen to define it for themselves.

I would rather see generation IV nuclear, serious progress on Fusion research, realistic proposals for Solar in places that can actually support it, efficient wind-farms instead of the joke we've got currently, more hydroelectric, serious work on renewable compact energy sources (that's battery technology), serious work in producing and distributing biofuels that don't consume food-crops, and serious work on the various flavours of CN gas technology (Compressed Natural gas-almost as good as petroleum, but hella cleaner, ask anyone who works around propane forklifts...)

I would rather see serious work on Geothermal, while we're at it, and Tidal sources, than continue burning fossil fuels for stationary generation.

What I don't want, is for that work to be funded solely based on a supposition that's got shoddy work for support, but has the appeal of being a nice, apocalyptic scenario to scare the masses into compliance while acting as a back-door to imposing things utterly unrelated to the threat being advertised.


Bad science which is furthering good intentions is still bad science, bad science that has positive social impacts is still bad science. Bad science that can be used to impose idealistic economic systems that have failed every time they've been tried? is still bad science.

Anthropogenic Global Warming is bad science. Argument from Authority doesn't make it good science. The Models still don't accurately predict what they've been sold as accurately predicting, they're designed, like most bad science (like, say, Tobacco-Company science, or Creationism/Intelligent Design science), to produce the predicted outcome, rather than examining the data to predict the actual outcome.

Whatever positive outcomes are generated, are tainted by the fact that they were assisted by what amounts to a sale on snake-oil.

I'm rearranging your post somewhat, but it's to emphasize a point I wish to make, not to intentionally misrepresent your argument.

I would rather not. Honestly, I'd rather shift off of oil-burning onto some other method (and I don't mean coal).

Glad we see eye-to-eye on that one.

I would rather see generation IV nuclear, serious progress on Fusion research, realistic proposals for Solar in places that can actually support it, efficient wind-farms instead of the joke we've got currently, more hydroelectric, serious work on renewable compact energy sources (that's battery technology), serious work in producing and distributing biofuels that don't consume food-crops, and serious work on the various flavours of CN gas technology (Compressed Natural gas-almost as good as petroleum, but hella cleaner, ask anyone who works around propane forklifts...)

I would rather see serious work on Geothermal, while we're at it, and Tidal sources, than continue burning fossil fuels for stationary generation.

Again, we're in agreement...though your definition of "serious work" could use some clarification.


I'd also rather do it honestly, rather than doing it out of fear that some nameless god or "Force of History" told my leaders to do it through some high-priesthood that's dumped the fundamental value of skepticism out in an effort to make a 'better world whether you like it or not' or "Making the western world more morally Clean" as they happen to define it for themselves.

Well, "they" seem to define it as a world that provides the standard of living we currently enjoy while preserving that standard of living for future generations.

But what do "they" know?

What I don't want, is for that work to be funded solely based on a supposition that's got shoddy work for support, but has the appeal of being a nice, apocalyptic scenario to scare the masses into compliance while acting as a back-door to imposing things utterly unrelated to the threat being advertised.

Such as?

Bad science which is furthering good intentions is still bad science, bad science that has positive social impacts is still bad science. Bad science that can be used to impose idealistic economic systems that have failed every time they've been tried? is still bad science.

Perhaps...but you're forming your argument around the very thing you argued against, namely, morphing "science" into a sort of belief structure by labeling it "bad" (or "good").

Anthropogenic Global Warming is bad science. Argument from Authority doesn't make it good science. The Models still don't accurately predict what they've been sold as accurately predicting, they're designed, like most bad science (like, say, Tobacco-Company science, or Creationism/Intelligent Design science), to produce the predicted outcome, rather than examining the data to predict the actual outcome.

No argument from me that many scientists work towards their own desired ends, but that's hardly a new phenomenon...and it's not like the petroleum industry (the most profitable in the world) doesn't have it's own engineers and scientists doing the exact same thing, but in the opposite direction.

Whatever positive outcomes are generated, are tainted by the fact that they were assisted by what amounts to a sale on snake-oil.

Well, the positive outcome I desire is the continuation of things you so eloquently described (cars, computers, heating, paper, food, etc).

Therfore, I am afraid that this is where I must disagree...to use a metaphor, you can complain all you like about the fact that I used a tire-iron to hammer a nail into a board...the job still got done.

Unless you can find a way to get people to stop working against their own interests?

You'd be the first.

.and it's not like the petroleum industry (the most profitable in the world)

No it isn't.

No it isn't.

Most profitable "legitimate" industry?

Meh...I had a point in there regardless. Big Oil does have it's own scientists hard at work on a getting a specific answer.

Though I iz curious...I'll guess it's casinos. :tongue:

Apparently, climate researchers don't know very much.

The arctic ice cap is EXTENDED as much as it was in 1979. How much the ice cap is THICK is another thing, old chap. And since volume is area x thickness...

The fact that I've probably read it wrong shows that people who know bugger all about the subject aren't really ones to 'prove' anything.

Most of the issues are muddied by people like me, the great unwashed.

I suspect the motivation is simply that it's one of those subjects where you can actually cherrypick evidence and no one can prove anything, as long as there's some doubt, no action is taken. Hotwife has taken one stance and enjoys proving himself right, others have taken another and enjoy proving themselves right as well.

On this particular subject, climate scientists are mostly in agreement aside from a few renegades, so I'll take their side despite admitting I don't know too much about the mechanics.

Who's supplying the 'evidence', that's the best question, who would you rather trust?
Except, of course, for the fact that Hotwife has not proven himself right. He hasn't proven anything at all. Cherrypicking is disappointing that way.

The arctic ice cap is EXTENDED as much as it was in 1979. ...

Actually not even that is true. The minima for 1979 converged with the maxima for 2008 - the 2008 mean is still 0.5 million km sq. short of the 1979 mean.

Actually not even that is true. The minima for 1979 converged with the maxima for 2008 - the 2008 mean is still 0.5 million km sq. short of the 1979 mean.

Aha. I missed that, thanks.

Sudova's long rant/argument is a good example of the kind of opposition to the global climate change position that tends to piss me off. Here's why:

It is, in a way, a kind of ad hominem attack, seeking to discredit the proposition because of who posits it, rather than on its own merits. And the criticisms of those people are themselves bullshit, rather than real issues.

The position exemplified here by Sudova does not deny that climate change may be occurring.

Nor does it deny that pollution is bad for us today and is likely to be bad for us in future.

Nor does it deny that burning massive amounts of fossil fuels is a primary cause of said pollution.

Nor does it deny that the current state of fossil fuel consumption is unsustainable for the long run.

Nor does it deny that changing fuels and/or consumption levels would be a good thing to do for a number of reasons.

Nope, it allows all those points, but still attacks and denounces the global climate change argument on the grounds that its proponents are driven by some undefined socio-political agenda and/or profit motive, for which the critics have no supporting evidence to show what it is or that it exists at all.

And here's the best part: They use this fantasy of a secret agenda as the reason to declare that GCC proponents are pushing unsupported belief as if it were fact. Am the only one who sees the irony there?

By the way, they also ignore history to claim categorically that human-sourced pollution is not the cause of climate change, despite a wealth of historical data that shows without question that human ecological impact has had and does have a direct impact on short term weather patterns and longer term climate trends. I refer readers to the growth of the Sahara desert over centuries of human over-farming, the climatical effects of centuries of European deforestation, the shorter term patterns of the American dust bowl for an example of the interaction of new human activity with normal climate activity, and the somewhat dramatic effects seen in the 1970s of how quickly environmental systems detoxify and restore balanced function when we stop polluting them.

And what pisses me off about THAT is that they don't ignore all that history in order to deny the fact of pollution v. environment. They do it only as part of their attacks against GCC proponents and this mystery agenda they're supposed to be promoting.

EDIT: If, as Sudova and others claim, they really were interested only in good science, they would acknowledge that, although we cannot know for certain that changing our behavior now WILL definitely cause the climate to stop warming, it MIGHT do so, because we DO know for a fact that human activity directly effects weather and environment in ways that have both immediate and long term effects. Rather than criticize the GCC proponents for spreading "bad science" and then spreading bad science of their own by claiming that something is NOT true, when they cannot possibly know that, they would be focussing their attention on what IS true. And if they did that, then by their own arguments, they would still be supporting the actions called for by environmentalists, even if they supported them for different reasons.

Instead, they prefer to ignore history and claim that GCC proponents have absolutely no basis for their assertions (those assertions might be incorrect, but they are not unfounded) and are only pushing them in order to attack and undermine something -- industry, western nations' hegemony, truth-justice-American way, the given critic's preferred personal lifestyle, or other things along those lines.

I have no idea why scientists and world leaders are so keen of late to claim global warming is occurring and that it should be stopped. Surely, given that they're a bunch of lizardmen, they'd like the warm.

I have no idea why scientists and world leaders are so keen of late to claim global warming is occurring and that it should be stopped. Surely, given that they're a bunch of lizardmen, they'd like the warm.

Waterworld. They hated it as a movie, they sure as hell don't want it as reality.

I've REad the IPCC report-not just the cover-letter. Have YOU? Seriously, read it, and then look over this discussion, and tell me again how it's different from arguing theology with fans of Jimmy Swaggart.

I have. It's different.

What we have NOT had, is an accurate means to measure global temperatures all-at-once until around fifty years ago with the invention of the weather sattelite.


There are, of course, other ways to measure temperature... even temperatures that existed thousands of years ago. I referred (in the other thread on a similar topic a week or so ago) to Siberian temperature records, which are a pretty good example.


Earth's had ice-ages and warming periods all through its history, and our entire civilization (going back six thousand years if you stick to what's been continuously recorded) is barely a blip...yet some how, some way, a few guys always come up and say "I know you're doin' wrong, so I'm a-gonna make ya change your ways because what yer doin' is a SIN that'll destroy the Wurrrld."


An interesting attempt to discredit the science by comparison to 'olde time religion', but it's bad logic. Even if (you think) it sounds like religious apocolypse talk... that doesn't mean it can't be true.


In the western world, most academic scientists rely on something called "Grants"


Which is interesting, but irrelevent... since a lot of people working in this field AREN'T 'academic scientists'.


Same game, different players-the fact that all the "peer Review" is being done by guys selling the same snake-oil to the same customers helps a LOT-it lends credibility, and since those same salesmen also sit on the boards that decide who gets a grant, it's an echo-chamber game.


Which, I'm afraid, is crap. If there were ONLY 'academic scientists' and their 'academic scientist buddies' handing out grants, you might have room for argument - but that's not even close to a realistic vision of the scientific environment.


Global Warming is mostly a Luddite cult,


Not even vaguely. Speaking as an environmental scientist, and something of a Luddite.


...the technologies it embraces are embraced more for their ability to absorb vast efforts without returning a viable product,


Actually, the simple increase in efficiency is viable. Add to that the reduction in pollutants, and the return is rather profitable.

...you don't need to drive a car. You probably shouldn't be using a computer, either-the processes to make your processors are pretty serious offenders themselves, and we won't get into what's likely generating your electricity.
Dump the central heating (electrics require powerplants, and the majority of those are coal or oil fired, or Hydro, which sinks heat and releases it back into the atmosphere), don't eat anything grown on a farm that uses machinery, don't eat beef, don't use paper (paper processing generates greenhouse gasses and reduces tree volume as well as adding volatile chemicals to the water supply), don't use petroleum-based inks, and don't eat fish that was caught by a non-sail-dependent boat.


About half those things I already don't do, or have historically made a habit of not doing. Among those other things that remain, most of them are done (by me) in relation to work.

But what's the point of your little aside supposed to be? That no one can make a realistic point in the discussion about climate change... unless they live in a sack and eat rocks?


Fact is, the claim that human beings are that important is roughly as arrogant when you're trying to use science, as it is when you're trying to use Theology. It's a stroke to one's arrogance and self-importance, but that's really all it is.

No, it isn't. Climate change is not the only way we have of fucking shit up real bad, and we've got something of a history for it. Understanding that - if you put ENOUGH of us together, and we act in destructive enough a fashion... we could do some real harm... isn't hubris, it's realism.

I'd also rather do it honestly, rather than doing it out of fear that some nameless god or "Force of History" told my leaders to do it...


Even if you were right about the dishonesty.... I'll take the end over the means, thanks - especially since protecting the environment comes pretty far down the list for most politicians who DON'T have some kind of organised pressure for it.


Anthropogenic Global Warming is bad science. Argument from Authority doesn't make it good science.

Argument from authority isn't the argument.

Where is the 'bad science'?

Fact is, the claim that human beings are that important is roughly as arrogant when you're trying to use science, as it is when you're trying to use Theology. It's a stroke to one's arrogance and self-importance, but that's really all it is.

Oddly enough, I find more hubris in the notion that we can do whatever we want on whatever scale and it won't have any effect.

Oddly enough, I find more hubris in the notion that we can do whatever we want on whatever scale and it won't have any effect.

This ^^

Earth's had ice-ages and warming periods all through its history, and our entire civilization (going back six thousand years if you stick to what's been continuously recorded) is barely a blip...yet some how, some way, a few guys always come up and say "I know you're doin' wrong, so I'm a-gonna make ya change your ways because what yer doin' is a SIN that'll destroy the Wurrrld."


What a very amusing straw-man you've just set up and burnt.

and declaring something a sin

...and again

that will destroy the world

...and again

is a great way-has always been a great way, to pry the money out of the hands of those whose primary goal in life has been to increase their power.

Ah, back to the money-making conspiracy theory. According to two of you ranting anti-science folks, climatology is the most profitable industry in the world.

In the western world, most academic scientists rely on something called "Grants"-this allows them to be academic scientists, and to eat regularly when their grand unified theories don't pan out into something that people are willing to buy.

Oh, so you're saying that climatologists receive grants that make them biased? Unlike, say, the fees journalists like in the OP receive for their "Global Warming is a Myth LoL" articles, which don't make them biased.

Interesting but ultimately a conspiracy theory.

It's easy to sell apocalypse to human beings. Whether it's a fraudulent "Date for the end of the world" based on the book of Revelations, or a somewhat supported hypothesis that burning fuel is going to cause the ice caps to melt, turn Kansas into a desert, and broil New York.

Sheer sophistry. You really want climatologists to be "priests" and climate change to be "apocalypse" - but no matter how much you may wish in your little heart for this to be true, it isn't.

Same game, different players-the fact that all the "peer Review" is being done by guys selling the same snake-oil to the same customers

FYI, these people are what are known as "scientists" and what you call snake-oil is actually "science."

Your increasingly melodramatic terminology just weakens your credibility, and the fact that you try to turn peer review into some sort of condemnation of the validity of science just demonstrates a level of ignorance which, I suppose, you are required to have in order to argue as you are.

Mind you also, that "Eco Friendliness" has been big business since the sixties, when you include the non-scientists like Lawyers, politicians, and Marketing people, and that the "Modern world is a Sin" vibe has been going on in "academic" circles longer than the idea of women's suffrage.

What are you on about? Suddenly, academic circles are religious and ultra-conservative?

Puh-lease.

Why don't you show some actual numbers. Prove to me that "eco friendliness" is "big business." Show me the fees and wages that support your statements. Get a real argument... if that is, you're even going to post.

Global Warming is mostly a Luddite cult

...says the guy who believes science is "snake-oil."

, the technologies it embraces are embraced more for their ability to absorb vast efforts without returning a viable product

Give me 10 examples.

The Kyoto accords and carbon-trading schemes are well designed to widen the rich/poor gulf in the West, while enriching the oligarchial and corrupt rulers of the Third World.

In what way?

Like most hypocritical religious movements

Global climate change is by definition not a religious movement. I thought you were just being melodramatic and using an idiotic analogy before - but you *actually* think it's "religious?"

Do I have to hit you on the head with a dictionary?

, the biggest shills for it, are the worst individual offenders. Al gore's house uses as much energy as most small towns, the man jets about on an aircraft that eats as much fuel in one sitting as most people use in a month-most of it being sent out the tailpipe as carbon emissions and unburned fuel (this is the curse of the Turbine, you know...gobbles fuel at amazing rates), he's not the only one.

I don't care if Al Gore is a hypocrite. Hypocrisy doesn't invalidate an argument... and I'm not Al Gore. Nice mini-rant though, I guess it wouldn't be a typical anti-science rant if it didn't include Al Gore.

If you seriously believe in the threat of Global Climate Change, you don't need to drive a car. You probably shouldn't be using a computer, either-the processes to make your processors are pretty serious offenders themselves, and we won't get into what's likely generating your electricity. Dump the central heating (electrics require powerplants, and the majority of those are coal or oil fired, or Hydro, which sinks heat and releases it back into the atmosphere), don't eat anything grown on a farm that uses machinery, don't eat beef, don't use paper (paper processing generates greenhouse gasses and reduces tree volume as well as adding volatile chemicals to the water supply), don't use petroleum-based inks, and don't eat fish that was caught by a non-sail-dependent boat.

Thanks for the recommendations. I guess your argument is over? I was hoping for some actual reasoning.

and it's still going to happen anyway.

Oh look at you, preaching apocalyptic doom, "OH LOL U HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE CLIMATE CHANGE IS INEVITABLE NOTHING CAN BE DONE." Look at you selling your own "snake-oil."

Funny how what's bad for the goose is good for the gander eh?

You must be one of those billionnaire climatologists.

The climate is NOT a steady-state structure. The earth wobbles in its orbit, the orbit itself changes (unbalanced ellipse), the sun varies in output (G2 VARIABLE star...) the influence of the moon affects tides, currents, and not just with water-it also exerts a (minute) gravitational pull on the magma below the crust, possibly influencing frequency of volcanism and the output of greenhouse gasses and other pollutants into the atmosphere from right under your feet.


Quit with that "science" talk, its liberal snake-oil!


It's very comforting, in its way, to think that human beings, even LOTS of human beings, can influence the earth's condition that strongly-it hearkens back to the idea that there's a god who actually cares what you do and think and say, who will move mountains for your faith.

Yes I for one am extremely comforted about the idea of anthropogenic climate change.

Desertification, for example, just warms my heart. And the Middle East thanks to thousands of years of agricultural exploitation and mis-management. But that's just crazy religious snake-oil speaking.

Fact is, the claim that human beings are that important is roughly as arrogant when you're trying to use science, as it is when you're trying to use Theology.

Yes, how egotistical. It's like saying that humans have caused the extinctions of many other species (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_extinctions). Nonsense. Those species are just faking extinction in order to extract money from us.

Or that humans have caused deforestation. And we all know that forests have no impact on the climate. To say otherwise would be hubris on the part of those trees! Trees are not that important either!

I suspect it's just a single data point in a larger set of data.

What a very amusing straw-man you've just set up and burnt.



...and again



...and again



Ah, back to the money-making conspiracy theory. According to two of you ranting anti-science folks, climatology is the most profitable industry in the world.



Oh, so you're saying that climatologists receive grants that make them biased? Unlike, say, the fees journalists like in the OP receive for their "Global Warming is a Myth LoL" articles, which don't make them biased.

Interesting but ultimately a conspiracy theory.



Sheer sophistry. You really want climatologists to be "priests" and climate change to be "apocalypse" - but no matter how much you may wish in your little heart for this to be true, it isn't.



FYI, these people are what are known as "scientists" and what you call snake-oil is actually "science."

Your increasingly melodramatic terminology just weakens your credibility, and the fact that you try to turn peer review into some sort of condemnation of the validity of science just demonstrates a level of ignorance which, I suppose, you are required to have in order to argue as you are.



What are you on about? Suddenly, academic circles are religious and ultra-conservative?

Puh-lease.

Why don't you show some actual numbers. Prove to me that "eco friendliness" is "big business." Show me the fees and wages that support your statements. Get a real argument... if that is, you're even going to post.



...says the guy who believes science is "snake-oil."



Give me 10 examples.



In what way?



Global climate change is by definition not a religious movement. I thought you were just being melodramatic and using an idiotic analogy before - but you *actually* think it's "religious?"

Do I have to hit you on the head with a dictionary?



I don't care if Al Gore is a hypocrite. Hypocrisy doesn't invalidate an argument... and I'm not Al Gore. Nice mini-rant though, I guess it wouldn't be a typical anti-science rant if it didn't include Al Gore.



Thanks for the recommendations. I guess your argument is over? I was hoping for some actual reasoning.



Oh look at you, preaching apocalyptic doom, "OH LOL U HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE CLIMATE CHANGE IS INEVITABLE NOTHING CAN BE DONE." Look at you selling your own "snake-oil."

Funny how what's bad for the goose is good for the gander eh?

You must be one of those billionnaire climatologists.



Quit with that "science" talk, its liberal snake-oil!



Yes I for one am extremely comforted about the idea of anthropogenic climate change.

Desertification, for example, just warms my heart. And the Middle East thanks to thousands of years of agricultural exploitation and mis-management. But that's just crazy religious snake-oil speaking.



Yes, how egotistical. It's like saying that humans have caused the extinctions of many other species (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_extinctions). Nonsense. Those species are just faking extinction in order to extract money from us.

Or that humans have caused deforestation. And we all know that forests have no impact on the climate. To say otherwise would be hubris on the part of those trees! Trees are not that important either!



This post rules.

I'd love to see a recording of the GCC Deniers go up to the Tuvaluans and tell them that their island is sinking like Atlantis because God Hates Them rather than Global Climate Change, which of course does not exist.

I suspect it's just a single data point in a larger set of data.

Stop it, you're not helping.

Whenever there is an argument with a climate change denier, I can't fail to see the argument like this:

Climate change denier: These scientists are stupid.

Climate change supporter: Here are the facts. Here are the data. Here is everything in a simple to understand language.

Climate change denier: Well, we need more scientists to look that over. AND NOT STUPID SCIENTISTS.

Climate change supporter: ????

The political motivations for or against climate change have no bearing on whether or not it is actually happening. Here's a question for all those who think this is all some big conspiracy to sell more sun tan cream - why is it that we are *missing* an average of 0.5 million km of sea ice - is that a part of the conspiracy?. Thats a fact taken from the only source mentioned in Aschers terribly biased article - the one that started this thread and claims that sea ice is back to 1979 levels. Does anyone of you dare defend Aschers claim - no. Why... it's indefensible, he misrepresented his own source - which he neglected to cite - he compared 1979 sea ice minima to 2008 sea ice maxima! He forgot to mention the little fact that an average of 0.5 million km of sea ice is still missing, since thats about 12% of the recorded variance I think thats a significant oversight. So again I ask if it is all a big conspiracy who's doing the conspiring - the arctic research center at the university of Illinois or those who misrepresent their findings?

I'd love to see a recording of the GCC Deniers go up to the Tuvaluans and tell them that their island is sinking like Atlantis because God Hates Them rather than Global Climate Change, which of course does not exist.

Its just funny that conservatives find a big magical sky faerie with super powers easier to believe in than the notion that putting harmful gases into the air hurts the environment.

Wow! All these walls of text have caused my brain to implode! AND I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A BRAIN!

Its just funny that conservatives find a big magical sky faerie with super powers easier to believe in than the notion that putting harmful gases into the air hurts the environment.

Your just as bad as the GCC deniers - dividing this issue along political lines... I don't see how believing in a magical sky faerie with super powers or believing your new magical black president has super powers is all that different. It's supposed to be a scientific question not an issue of partisan politics.

Your just as bad as the GCC deniers - dividing this issue along political lines... I don't see how believing in a magical sky faerie with super powers or beleiveing your new magical balck president has super powers is all that different. It's supposed to be a scientific question not an issue of partisan politics.

Like it or not, the GCC deniers do very much fall along political lines.

I don't see how believing in a magical sky faerie with super powers or believing your new magical black president has super powers is all that different.
One belief exists and the other you pulled out of your ass?

which one?

Like it or not, the GCC deniers do very much fall along political lines.
Aye, but be careful; denial of climate change isn't the 'party line' of conservatism.

Global climate change is by definition not a religious movement. I thought you were just being melodramatic and using an idiotic analogy before - but you *actually* think it's "religious?"

Do I have to hit you on the head with a dictionary

I don't care if Al Gore is a hypocrite. Hypocrisy doesn't invalidate an argument... and I'm not Al Gore. Nice mini-rant though, I guess it wouldn't be a typical anti-science rant if it didn't include Al Gore.


Or that humans have caused deforestation. And we all know that forests have no impact on the climate. To say otherwise would be hubris on the part of those trees! Trees are not that important either!

Global climate change is a religion to some according to the dictionary.
---• a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance
Apparently you need to be hit in the head with a dictionary.

Al Gore is a hypocrite, but you are right he that does not invalidate is argument. The points in his argument do though. He cherry picked information for his movie and book.
Read this article. One scientist mentions a little about wether or not you can speak out while being funded.

---WASHINGTON - A United Nations climate change conference in Poland is about to get a surprise from 650 leading scientists who scoff at doomsday reports of man-made global warming - labeling them variously a lie, a hoax and part of a new religion.

Later today, their voices will be heard in a U.S. Senate minority report quoting the scientists, many of whom are current and former members of the U.N.'s own Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

About 250 of the scientists quoted in the report have joined the dissenting scientists in the last year alone.

In fact, the total number of scientists represented in the report is 12 times the number of U.N. scientists who authored the official IPCC 2007 report.

Here are some choice excerpts from the report:
* "I am a skeptic ... . Global warming has become a new religion." -- Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

* "Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly ... . As a scientist I remain skeptical." -- Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called "among the most pre-eminent scientists of the last 100 years."

* Warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history ... . When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists." -- U.N. IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning Ph.D. environmental physical chemist.

* "The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn't listen to others. It doesn't have open minds ... . I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists." -- Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the U.N.-supported International Year of the Planet.

* "The models and forecasts of the U.N. IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity." -- Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

* "It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming." -- U.S. Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

* "Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapor and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will." -- Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

* "After reading [U.N. IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet." -- Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an associate editor of Monthly Weather Review.

* "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" -- Geologist Dr. David Gee, the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer-reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

* "Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp ... . Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact." -- Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch U.N. IPCC committee.

* "Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined." -- Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh, Pa.

* "Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense ... . The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning." -- Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.

* "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another ... . Every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so ... . Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver's seat and developing nations walking barefoot." -- Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.

* "The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds." -- Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.

The report also includes new peer-reviewed scientific studies and analyses refuting man-made warming fears and a climate developments that contradict the theory.

It is 4 degrees Celsius (39 Fahrenheit

I have at various times both defended and opposed global warming theory. I don't think it's implausible at all that we are losing ice etc. However, I also don't find it implausible that the scientists (on both sides) could be pursuing convenient data to support their claim.

Is there anyone who can objectively study the trend of shrinking ice caps without pursuing a predetermined conclusion? There is inherent bias in the pursuit, otherwise they would not be motivated to pursue it. And the same is true for scientists who exclusively study data that favors the argument against global warming.

There is still room for further study.

...

Interesting, here's a link,

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/607

* Warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history ... . When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists." -- U.N. IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning Ph.D. environmental physical chemist

If true, that would be right Dr. Itoh.

Global climate change is a religion to some according to the dictionary.
---• a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance
Apparently you need to be hit in the head with a dictionary.

No, I do not. I know full well that when people like you describe it as a "religion," you are not saying "golly, you people attribute supreme importance to your pursuit." You are saying "Shit, you people are fanatical zealots blind to reason and pursuing your God Al Gore and persecuting me for my skepticism!"

There's this little thing called "context" which I know full well and you are now pretending not to, apparently just to be cheeky.

Here's the context of the dictionary by the way. Note where your usage is:

a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.
4. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.
5. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.
6. something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice.

Note how it's not the first or second or third or fourth or fifth definitions? Because it's not the one people use most often? Including in this context? Sigh.

Al Gore is a hypocrite, but you are right he that does not invalidate is argument. The points in his argument

That's nice. No one here is making Al Gore's Argument, nor is anyone here Al Gore. Harping on about Al Gore being a wrong, arrogant, hypocritical, fat politician who rapes children before drinking their blood -is irrelevant- to this discussion. No matter how you may wish it was.


Here are some choice excerpts from the report:
* "I am a skeptic ... . Global warming has become a new religion." -- Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

Apparently he needs to be hit on the head with a dictionary too. But hey, he won a prize in Physics so that makes him a climatologist AND a religious philosopher now!

* "The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds." -- Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.

Maybe he can dig up some numbers on how much funds are being generated and how everyone is becoming rich. Richer than the oil companies who are trying to silence the whole issue.

Because I'm pretty sure if I asked you you'd just go on about how Al Gore looks ugly or whatever.

I have at various times both defended and opposed global warming theory. I don't think it's implausible at all that we are losing ice etc. However, I also don't find it implausible that the scientists (on both sides) could be pursuing convenient data to support their claim.

Is there anyone who can objectively study the trend of shrinking ice caps without pursuing a predetermined conclusion? There is inherent bias in the pursuit, otherwise they would not be motivated to pursue it. And the same is true for scientists who exclusively study data that favors the argument against global warming.

There is still room for further study.

Shortly before I started at university (so, VERY early 90's) to study Chemistry, I was reading everything I could get my hands on related to science. Among the wealth of scientific material I was reading (a divergent collection ranging from quarks, to virtual reality, to quasars), I encountered global warming/climate change material.

At that point (I was not yet working in an environmental science field) I started to research it with increasing depth - and I think the evidence is pretty conclusive that there is climate change (which seems obvious, now) and that it has an anthropogenic component.

So - coming at it from an objective viewpoint, with no preconceived notions when I started, and with a science background sufficient to be able to understand the data I was looking at - I have come to pretty much agree with the view of the consensus, but without starting from a predetermined conclusion.

yay, inhofe's intellectually dishonest and counting impaired list! it really says something when you can put together a list that is even more pathetic than those from the creationists.

I can see with my own eyes the devastation caused on the ground by chemicals, pollution and more pumped into the air, water and ground. There's no denying it, from soil erosion to rivers devoid of life to simple polluted air.

We are certainly damaging the environment in horrendous ways, that should be enough for us to stop or at least alter some of the worst aspects of industrial production.

It may be that the debate is focused wrongly though, by focusing on one area that may be up for debate, people cause inaction across the spectrum and that remains foolhardy.

Oddly enough, I find more hubris in the notion that we can do whatever we want on whatever scale and it won't have any effect.

I agree.

I'm far too lazy (And arrogant) to read through all eight pages here, but, just on the remote chance that it hasn't been covered yet...Earlier this year, predictions were rife that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008. Instead, the Arctic ice saw a substantial recovery. Bill Chapman, a researcher with the UIUC's Arctic Center, tells DailyTech this was due in part to colder temperatures in the region. Chapman says wind patterns have also been weaker this year. Strong winds can slow ice formation as well as forcing ice into warmer waters where it will melt.

Why were predictions so wrong? Researchers had expected the newer sea ice, which is thinner, to be less resilient and melt easier. Instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.Just saying... Volume != Area. Yes, as a matter of fact, in terms of area, the arctic ice sheet has grown this winter; it hasn't recovered the area lost in the year before, but still.

However, in total volume (And thus mass), the ice sheet is still shrinking.

Look, this global warming thing isn't a new concept to humans. Humans are constantly wondering when the cataclysmic end of it all will come. I remember being in school in the 1960s and 70s and the daily scare put into the populace about the world COOLING and how we could avoid it.

Truth is, the world heats and cools on its own, always has, always will......long before people were part of the equation.

The reality behind the global-warming effort is that it is an effort at obtaining a redistribution of wealth by trying to tax those who present a higher "carbon footprint". Don't be suckered into the belief of this ridiculous travesty, you may be the one who gets your pocket picked.

I remember being in school in the 1960s and 70s and the daily scare put into the populace about the world COOLING and how we could avoid it.
no you don't

Look, this global warming thing isn't a new concept to humans. Humans are constantly wondering when the cataclysmic end of it all will come. I remember being in school in the 1960s and 70s and the daily scare put into the populace about the world COOLING and how we could avoid it.
.

The daily scare in that time period was the that Russians were going to attack. The Ice Age bit was just a sidebar.

The reality behind the global-warming effort is that it is an effort at obtaining a redistribution of wealth by trying to tax those who present a higher "carbon footprint".
By whom?

Plenty of folks have made this vague claim, but no-one's explained to me the conspirators in this dastardly deed, or why many people oppossed to redistribution of wealth are supportive of anti-CC measures.

Will you enlighten me?

By whom?

Plenty of folks have made this vague claim, but no-one's explained to me the conspirators in this dastardly deed, or why many people oppossed to redistribution of wealth are supportive of anti-CC measures.

Will you enlighten me?


C'mon now the leader is Al Gore! You know the whole Communist movement just transfered to the Enviromental movement. See the connection?


In all serious though the Carbon Credit bit is a big scam. There is no way to really monitor it correctly at this point.

In all serious though the Carbon Credit bit is a big scam. There is no way to really monitor it correctly at this point.
I fully agree; it's a free-market solution to a problem which has as one of its root causes the free market.

Along with being completely unmaneagable, etc.

The daily scare in that time period was the that Russians were going to attack. The Ice Age bit was just a sidebar.

in case of ice age, duck and cover!

By whom?

Plenty of folks have made this vague claim, but no-one's explained to me the conspirators in this dastardly deed, or why many people oppossed to redistribution of wealth are supportive of anti-CC measures.

Will you enlighten me?

Certainly. Do some exhaustive research. You can start as far back as the Kyoto Protocol.

Certainly. Do some exhaustive research. You can start as far back as the Kyoto Protocol.

Yeah! Just look it up yourselves! It exists, I know, I've seen it (but conveniently can't show you where)!

The truth is out there, sheeple! You know...um...somewhere.

The daily scare in that time period was the that Russians were going to attack. The Ice Age bit was just a sidebar.

Wasn't any ice-age bit. It was called global cooling, and in Geography class it was discussed ad-nauseum. It was made much more realistic by those who wanted to force-feed it to us. We knew the Russians weren't stupid enough to start a war that would present their own demise.

Certainly. Do some exhaustive research. You can start as far back as the Kyoto Protocol.
I don't think you understand my query.

Who, specifically, is making a (covert) effort to redistribute the world's wealth? Which parties, which institutions, which persons?

Presumeably you yourself has made this 'exhaustive research' you wish me to undertake?

Yeah! Just look it up yourselves! It exists, I know, I've seen it (but conveniently can't show you where)!

The truth is out there, sheeple! You know...um...somewhere.

You mean to tell me that educating yourself, that is, finding the truth about this issue, frightens you? Why should it? Why does someone, such as I, need to do it?

Why does someone, such as I, need to do it?

because you are the one making the claim. You want to make an argument? Back it the fuck up. Down palm off your job on me.

Back it the fuck up, or get the fuck out.

Presumeably you yourself has made this 'exhaustive research' you wish me to undertake?

methinks you presume too much.

I don't think you understand my query.

Who, specifically, is making a (covert) effort to redistribute the world's wealth? Which parties, which institutions, which persons?

Presumeably you yourself has made this 'exhaustive research' you wish me to undertake?


No doubt, you believe this man-made global warming crap. Let me ask you something. Enlighten me, if you will. What specifically are you going to do to cool down our planet? Then all we have to do is shout your solution from the mountaintops for all to hear and everyone will be safe again, right?
Are you really afraid for the safety of the planet? What did they do before there were people to blame for all of it?

because you are the one making the claim. You want to make an argument? Back it the fuck up. Down palm off your job on me.

Back it the fuck up, or get the fuck out.

Nice language, babe. Intelectual. One must generally travel to an all-night tavern to hear the likes of those kinds of words.

You stand congratulated and commended!

<snip>
That's not how debate works, sonny.

You've made a claim. Back it up or retract it.

Nice language, babe. Intelectual.

Intellectual*.

No doubt, you believe this man-made global warming crap. Let me ask you something. Enlighten me, if you will. What specifically are you going to do to cool down our planet? Then all we have to do is shout your solution from the mountaintops for all to hear and everyone will be safe again, right?

are you so new to this debate that you haven't heard the huge range of proposals aimed at creating carbon neutral and carbon negative replacements for current activities? really?

What did they do before there were people to blame for all of it?

underwent mass extinction events for which no moral agent was responsible

That's not how debate works, sonny.

You've made a claim. Back it up or retract it.

Truth requires neither retraction or back up. Especially not on a heavily biased forum such as this one.

That's not how debate works, sonny.

You've made a claim. Back it up or retract it.

PS - namecalling now? Lame, at best.

...

troll harder

Truth requires neither retraction or back up.
Kinda does.

You're either a very uncommitted troll or a rather ignorant person, so commiserations.

Disagreement is trolling? Give me a break!

Disagreement is trolling? Give me a break!

Trying to pass off your opinions as arguments with appropriate backing research is trolling.

Trying to pass off your opinions as arguments with appropriate backing research is trolling.

Not really, but it does make for an extremely poor aguement.

Disagreement is trolling? Give me a break!
Disagreement without evidence, assertion without fact, and refusal to engage in meaningful discussion, if a constant habit, can be considered trolling.

If you're not a troll, you coul post why you disagree, or why you believe there to be a conspiracy to redistribute wealth.

The free market is a conspiracy to redistribute wealth to the successful elite. It must be stopped. Wealth redistribution is bad.

Truth requires neither retraction or back up. Especially not on a heavily biased forum such as this one.

Thats brilliant. 'Its true, so it doesn't need evidence'.

*applauds*

Wait. You ARE kidding, right?

Truth requires neither retraction or back up. Especially not on a heavily biased forum such as this one.
That's not truth you're talking about.

Disagreement is trolling? Give me a break!
Trolling = posting obvious propaganda and claiming it to be a fact documented in a specific set of papers; contorting like a Mongolian acrobat to avoid actually having to quote those papers when challenged; attempting to fob both responsibility and blame for your own argument onto those who call you out on it; and finally ending with posting nothing but personal sniping and nascent flame accusations against your opponents without any further reference to the issue under discussion -- i.e. making the argument be all about you, since you have nothing to say about the topic. And doing all of that in two pages worth of posts.

You didn't even make enough of an effort to cherrypick quotes like the other failed GCC deniers have. Gods, what a pathetic performance by comparison.

I don't think you understand my query.

Who, specifically, is making a (covert) effort to redistribute the world's wealth? Which parties, which institutions, which persons?

Presumeably you yourself has made this 'exhaustive research' you wish me to undertake?

because you are the one making the claim. You want to make an argument? Back it the fuck up. Down palm off your job on me.

Back it the fuck up, or get the fuck out.

Hey now guys. He knows what hes talking about. He's a Professor of Political Science (who apperantly cant spell "intellectual") with the PhD and all. He told me so once.

Oh, he's offline. I am surprised.

Trolls have no sticking-power these days...

Hey now guys. He knows what hes talking about. He's a Professor of Political Science (who apperantly cant spell "intellectual") with the PhD and all. He told me so once.

wait, seriously?

wait, seriously?

Serious as a heart attack. Thats why youll notice me refering to him as professor now and again.

So, apperantly on NSG, lawyers arent the only thing the ignorant pretend to be.

Serious as a heart attack. Thats why youll notice me refering to him as professor.

So, apperantly on NSG, lawyers arent the only thing the ignorant pretend to be.

I know we had a doctor wannabe here once. Turns out he was like 12. The first give away was when he claimed to have a "phd in medicine"

The first give away was when he claimed to have a "phd in medicine"

Thats win.

hey, this is a rather hard place to fake expertise compared to much of the rest of the internets. if we'd only hold them to the standards they are used to, everyone would be happy.

I know we had a doctor wannabe here once. Turns out he was like 12. The first give away was when he claimed to have a "phd in medicine"

I wonder if there's a situation in which that statement could actually be true. Maybe some sort of chemistry thing?

hey, this is a rather hard place to fake expertise compared to much of the rest of the internets. if we'd only hold them to the standards they are used to, everyone would be happy.
It's cos we're biased.

It's cos we're biased.

That, and the super powers us liberals get from eating all those babies.

Very entertaining:D

So Hotwife are you just going to ignore this thread from now on and pretend your arguments didn't get the verbal ass-raping they so richly deserved, or what?

Very entertaining:D
Indeed.

The offer (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14373480&postcount=142) still stands, incidentaly.

Indeed.

The offer (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14373480&postcount=142) still stands, incidentaly.

*incidentally

*incidentally

Thanks professor. Now, how about that research?

Have you done it students?

*incidentally
Well, we can safely mark you as 'Troll' then.

Look, this global warming thing isn't a new concept to humans. Humans are constantly wondering when the cataclysmic end of it all will come. I remember being in school in the 1960s and 70s and the daily scare put into the populace about the world COOLING and how we could avoid it.

Truth is, the world heats and cools on its own, always has, always will......long before people were part of the equation.

The reality behind the global-warming effort is that it is an effort at obtaining a redistribution of wealth by trying to tax those who present a higher "carbon footprint". Don't be suckered into the belief of this ridiculous travesty, you may be the one who gets your pocket picked.

Seen this claim before. It is - obviously - bullshit, because the people that impose taxes aren't the people that are analysing the data and talking about effects like global climate change.

If they were, there'd be some possibility of a motive, which still wouldn't mean there was a global conspiracy... as it is, when the people doing the science and the people collecting the taxes are often running head-to-head over this issue... you just come out looking like a conspiracy theorist talking about how the government is reading your mind with magic beams.

Seen this claim before. It is - obviously - bullshit, because the people that impose taxes aren't the people that are analysing the data and talking about effects like global climate change.
And, moreover, there's many a fan of the free market who argues for measures against climate change, and free market measures at that.

Indeed, any significant proposal of enviromental policy coming from a government has been a free market one; carbon trading, and all that bollocks.

Truth requires neither retraction or back up. Especially not on a heavily biased forum such as this one.

If you make the claims, expect to be asked for evidence.

If you can't provide evidence, you've got nothing.

If you choose to present arguments you KNOW you can't provide evidence for, prepare to be considered a poor participant. At best.

Have you done it students?

You've made the claims. When asked for evidence, you've dodged, and posted this kind of little taunt.

It's probably not a really big deal, but it probably would be construed as trolling.

If you have anything other than trolling to offer, I'd like to see it.


Here's the thing - every time someone claims they have some data that opposes global climate change... or that shows how it is all some hoax for the money... I pay quite close attention. I'm fully prepared for data to arrive that shows the current theories wrong.

Can you honestly say the same, for your platform?

have you seen what the 70's where like? this is not good news

also if I had a nickel for every time science was wrong in the face of magic I'd be a very rich man
Science ITSELF isn't wrong, seeing as how it refers to the method for gaining information; it's SCIENTISTS that turn out to be wrong.

http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834



Apparently, climate researchers don't know very much. How many predicted that the ice would rebound, and how many predicted that the ice would vanish? And how many hedged their bets and said, "well, some more melting"?

Two things.

One, saying that we've got a lot of ice at the North Pole in January is not particularly reassuring. Climate change is supposed to be measured over years, not months.

Two, nothing in the article suggested that the ice reformed simply because the planet was colder. They just said that it got blown away slower than usual.

Chapman says wind patterns have also been weaker this year. Strong winds can slow ice formation as well as forcing ice into warmer waters where it will melt.

If you remember, part of the problem with global warming is that cold water from the Arctic is supposed to cool water further south (or warm water from the tropics is supposed to warm the Arctic). This helps even temperatures out all over the world. Climatologists predict a reduced heat exchange, and that's exactly what this article is describing. Cold stayed up in the arctic instead of coming south for the Winter. Yes, good for the polar bears, but potentially bad for everyone else.

Well, with the global economy tanking, maybe we won't need to regulate emissions. Only thing is now it will be even harder to get people to use efficient forms of energy.

Carbon credits and all that jazz are only going to hurt the poor and middle class more. "The rich" will be comprised of the people imposing the tax and the ones who couldn't give a damn because they have enough money to buy alternative fuel sources. That's why some people consider it like a religion and consider the people who support it most rabidly to be like priests.

Well, with the global economy tanking, maybe we won't need to regulate emissions. Only thing is now it will be even harder to get people to use efficient forms of energy.

Carbon credits and all that jazz are only going to hurt the poor and middle class more. "The rich" will be comprised of the people imposing the tax and the ones who couldn't give a damn because they have enough money to buy alternative fuel sources. That's why some people consider it like a religion and consider the people who support it most rabidly to be like priests.
It's bad that the rich can still get away with polluting under such policies, but in our society they have all kinds of advantages over poor people, this is just another one of them. What alternative would you suggest? After all, it's not like middle class people don't pollute. (Cars anyone?)

It's bad that the rich can still get away with polluting under such policies, but in our society they have all kinds of advantages over poor people, this is just another one of them. What alternative would you suggest? After all, it's not like middle class people don't pollute. (Cars anyone?)

Well, actually that's a really good point - the people who we consider wealthy aren't really the worst "carbon tax" offenders because they've already invested in carbon friendly alternatives (wind, solar, electric, hybrids).

So either the middle class and the poor who are driving around inefficient cars will get a beat down from the economic affects of a tax, or possibly directly taxed via a fuel tax, or the carbon tax is levied on the wealthy who aren't contributing to the pollution which is inherently unfair it seems.

Please don't construe any of my statements as class warfare. I should have qualified that before. I'd like to think at this point I'm just stating a collection of observable facts.

Look, this global warming thing isn't a new concept to humans. Humans are constantly wondering when the cataclysmic end of it all will come. I remember being in school in the 1960s and 70s and the daily scare put into the populace about the world COOLING and how we could avoid it.

ah yes...that old chestnut about how 'back in my day, we had global cooling!'
Amazing how many people claim to remember this, and claim that they were constantly barraged by it when they were young nippers.

Guess what? It never happened. No-one said anything about Global Cooling. No-one, expect Newsweek in one article which they've since retracted and apologised about. All the other stuff was taken totally out of context. Even back then, the growing consensus was that the Earth was warming.

yet it's still dragged up as a reason not to believe today's science, and always - always - preceeded with the 'factual' statement, " I remember being in school in the 1960s and 70s..."

So Hotwife are you just going to ignore this thread from now on and pretend your arguments didn't get the verbal ass-raping they so richly deserved, or what?
you say that like you're surprised.
When has he ever hung around long enough to defend any of his silly claims?
I think he delibrately goes off-line as a way of preserving his status quo. That way at least he can still pretend his claims aren't spurious and that we all believe him. This explains why he always comes back after a few days and posts the exact same claims, albeit with a different article.

Meh...who cares? Gas is $1.59...>.>

Greenland was Green when the Vikings went to it in the Medieval Warm Period...When we've hit that point, talk to me, lol...

http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834



Apparently, climate researchers don't know very much. How many predicted that the ice would rebound, and how many predicted that the ice would vanish? And how many hedged their bets and said, "well, some more melting"?
Heh. Wondered what happened to that twisted spirit of yours, Whispering Legs. I'll go see what Desperate Measures and Straughn are up to, maybe?

What's up the tubes today?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKTRE5060FU20090107
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKTRE5062SQ20090107
http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN=30252

Truth requires neither retraction or back up. Especially not on a heavily biased forum such as this one.

You are a fucking idiot.

have you seen what the 70's where like? this is not good news

also if I had a nickel for every time science was wrong in the face of magic I'd be a very rich man

lol. read environmental articles from the 1970's.
they were talking about global cooling and record sea ice.

lol. read environmental articles from the 1970's.
they were talking about global cooling and record sea ice.

Can you link me to some?

Carbon credits and all that jazz are only going to hurt the poor and middle class more. "The rich" will be comprised of the people imposing the tax and the ones who couldn't give a damn because they have enough money to buy alternative fuel sources. That's why some people consider it like a religion and consider the people who support it most rabidly to be like priests.

This is why at the same time you give out grants to poor and middle class people to make changing to higher efficiency stuff affordable, possibly using the carbon credit money. You could even do it beforehand. Worked great on its own when energy prices were high.

Can you link me to some?

here ya go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

oh, wait a minute.

Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere along with a posited commencement of glaciation. This hypothesis never had significant scientific support, but gained temporary popular attention due to a combination of press reports that did not accurately reflect the scientific understanding of ice age cycles, and a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s.


In the 1970s there was increasing awareness that estimates of global temperatures showed cooling since 1945. Of those scientific papers considering climate trends over the 21st century, only 10% inclined towards future cooling, while most papers predicted future warming.[2] The general public had little awareness of carbon dioxide's effects on climate, although Paul R. Ehrlich mentioned climate change from greenhouse gases in 1968.[3] By the time the idea of global cooling reached the public press in the mid-1970s temperatures had stopped falling, and there was concern in the climatological community about carbon dioxide's warming effects.[4] In response to such reports, the World Meteorological Organization issued a warning in June 1976 that a very significant warming of global climate was probable.[5]

my my. How about that. There was NO Global Cooling theory in the 1970s (let alone the 1960s like someone else on this thread has tried to claim). Yet there's so many Global Warming deniers out there who will swear on a tonne of bibles that they were taught this as scientific truth.
How about that indeed.

here ya go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

oh, wait a minute.



my my. How about that. There was NO Global Cooling theory in the 1970s (let alone the 1960s like someone else on this thread has tried to claim). Yet there's so many Global Warming deniers out there who will swear on a tonne of bibles that they were taught this as scientific truth.
How about that indeed.

That's what I get for never bothering to research this "70s global cooling" stuff. I just dismissed them by pointing out that just because scientists in the 70s said X and were wrong doesn't meant that scientists who say Y now are wrong.

That's what I get for never bothering to research this "70s global cooling" stuff. I just dismissed them by pointing out that just because scientists in the 70s said X and were wrong doesn't meant that scientists who say Y now are wrong.
Now you can point out that scientists in the 70s were saying no such thing and they're just talking out of a hole in their butts.

You are a fucking idiot.

I was booted out of here for saying the same thing.

I was booted out of here for saying the same thing.

Difference is that you were probably wrong.

Well here is DK's concession speech. He didn't post it here out of shame, but I will re-post it here since it's relevant to why he stopped responding.

I left because it's obvious you didn't read the article and its reference to ice levels returning to 1979 levels. You felt compelled to stick your head in the sand, so it's pointless to argue with you.

Well here is DK's concession speech. He didn't post it here out of shame, but I will re-post it here since it's relevant to why he stopped responding.

Ah. The old "If the evidence doesn't support me... it must be YOUR fault for not listening right" motif. I can't really blame DK, it's a trick that's basically gone unchallenged for twenty centuries.

Ah. The old "If the evidence doesn't support me... it must be YOUR fault for not listening right" motif. I can't really blame DK, it's a trick that's basically gone unchallenged for twenty centuries.
He's not doing any better in the thread he abandoned this one for, but he is putting up more posts. I feel bad for this thread, given such short shrift by its own creator.

This is why at the same time you give out grants to poor and middle class people to make changing to higher efficiency stuff affordable, possibly using the carbon credit money. You could even do it beforehand. Worked great on its own when energy prices were high.

Taxing the poor and middle class just to hand it back to them in a different form? Taxing the rich who may or may not already be "carbon neutral"? Both of those concepts seem a bit uncomfortable to me.

Since the government seems dead set on supporting our auto industry, I think they should proceed like this and kill two birds with one stone:

Fire all the union workers and rehire them as non-union employees. Fire all the management and rehire the good ones. Halve the hourly rate for the vast majority of workers. Institute a new, more reasonable benefits plan, but still one that rivals those offered by traditional companies. Churn out hundreds of thousands of small, lightweight hybrids which get upwards of 60mpg (or electric vehicles) in such volumes that they cost less than $15,000. And people will buy them. I would, but I already took out a loan on a gas-friendly vehicle.

We could probably survive a gas tax hike, depending on if the proceeds were spent to fund projects like the above. If those revenues are paid into an international do-nothing environmental fund, forget it - wasted money.