Global Warming: The Debate Rages On!
By Steve Foley Posted in Archived — Comments (48) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Promoted from the Diaries ...
- Martin A. Knight
A week ago I penned a piece at The Minority Report called More censorship from the left. This time its global warming! In which I take issue with people saying the GW debate is over and asked this question:
There Is No 'Consensus' On Global Warming, there can’t be, science either IS or IS’T, Period!
In which part of the scientific method does it say “get a consensus of other researchers to agree with you then present said information as fact”?
What is the “scientific method”? The scientific method is the best way yet discovered for winnowing the truth from lies and delusion. The simple version looks something like this:
1. Observe some aspect of the universe.
2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.
3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.
4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.
When consistency is obtained the hypothesis becomes a theory and provides a coherent set of propositions which explain a class of phenomena. A theory is then a framework within which observations are explained and predictions are made.
Today I wanted to update the piece with some new data I’ve collected to backup my claim!
According to NREP The National Registry of Environmental Professionals Global climate change survey, a substantial number of environmental scientists disagree with the assertion that human activity is either overwhelmingly causing or imminently causing substantial global warming.
The survey taken by The National Registry of Environmental Professionals who purports to be nonpartisan, asked 793 environmental scientists and environmental practitioners about human effects on climate change.
The results like my, uncredentialed common sense conclusions, contradict the new mantra taken up by the alarmist groups - "the debate is over" and that a consensus of scientists agree humans are causing a dramatic and harmful change in the Earth's climate.
The survey asked a variety of questions that can be viewed in its entirety here. the conclusions I’m most concerned with are as follows:
• 34 percent of environmental scientists and practitioners disagree that global warming is a serious problem facing the planet.
• 41 percent disagree that the planet's recent warmth "can be, in large part, attributed to human activity."
• 71 percent disagree that recent hurricane activity is significantly attributable to human activity.
• 33 percent disagree that the U.S. government is not doing enough to address global warming.
• 47 percent disagree that international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol provide a solid framework for combating global climate change.
Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute has said:
“These results are absolutely amazing! It just shows you how phony the alleged scientific consensus is that we hear so much about.”
And
"The asserted consensus that global warming is a planetary emergency and that all right-thinking people believe we need to limit our energy use has been exposed, once again, as unsubstantiated myth,"
this bring me to a news story I picked up the other day on CNSNews.com called 'Scientist' Group's Funding Comes with Liberal 'Strings Attached' which criticizes the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), who describes itself as an "alliance" of over 200,000 citizens and scientists, of being a political group and of participating in the same tactics of accepting donations from special interest groups they have been accusing others of doing.
According to James Dellinger, executive director of Greenwatch - a project of the Capital Research Center - the UCS has a long financial association with elements that have a "partisan view of science."
David Martosko, executive director of ActivistCash.com - a division of the Center for Consumer Freedom - agrees. He told Cybercast News Service the UCS would be "more aptly named the Union of Pro-Regulation, Anti-Business Scientists."
University of Virginia environmental scientist Fred Singer, labeled a "climate contrarian" by the UCS, told Cybercast News Service that the union had "zero credibility as a scientific organization" and was more akin to "pressure groups like Greenpeace."
The UCS receives substantial donations from liberal-leaning foundations, and a number of the donations are earmarked for specific studies, used to promote positions on issues including the environment, disarmament and criticism of missile defense initiatives.
Some of the donations the UCS has received are:
• 2000 - a $25,000 Carnegie Corporation of New York grant for "dissemination of a report on National Missile Defense."
• 2002 - a $1 million Pew Memorial Trust
grant "to support efforts to increase the nation's commitment to energy efficiency and renewable energy as a cornerstone of a balanced and environmentally sound energy policy."• 2003 - a $500,000 Energy Foundation grant over two years "to continue to support a national renewable portfolio standard education and outreach effort."
• 2004 - a $50,000 Energy foundation grant "to design and implement the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon market in the Northeast."
• 2004 - a $100,000 Energy foundation grant "to study the impacts of climate change on California using the latest climate modeling."
• 2004 - a $600,000 Energy foundation grant over two years "to promote renewable energy policy at the federal and state levels, with a focus on the Midwest, the Northeast, and California."
In a study published in 2005, the George C. Marshall Institute(GMI) explored funding for global warming studies and reported that the UCS was among the top five recipients of grants dispersed for climate studies.
The debate rages on at least for people who prefer to take a more reasoned and levelheaded approach. I am willing to concede the earth has warmed 1 degree over the past 100 years… I’m also willing to concede there is pollution in the air that we as a forward thinking responsible society should keep to minimum… But taking an alarmist standpoint like so many of these fanatic doom-pushers that treat climate change like some crazy fanatical religion, is not the way to get the job done!
I wonder what the people of Anchorage Alaska, today are saying to these alarmist views?
Anchorage has been hit with more than 74 inches of snow this season, and according to the city, it's reaching a crisis level, with snow removal on the streets becoming a big problem.
The roads are looking smaller these days around town, as two-lane roads are quickly becoming one. The city can plow the roads, but where it can remove the snow to another location is a problem.
It is a long, tiring day for Joyce Elliston.
"I've lived in Alaska since 1967 and I don't remember ever having this much snow before," Elliston said.
It's everywhere, covering her cars and her house. Digging out from 74 inches of snow is slow going for everyone.
"It's just a small street and with the added snow, I don't know where we're going to put it all," said Elliston.
So I’ll leave you with another question:
The Kyoto proponents say the expected 1- to 2-degree rise in temperature by 2100 would be cut by just 0.04 degrees. Major polluters such as China, India and Russia remain exempt. So I’m not even sure that 0.04 is accurate??? But giving them the benefit of the doubt - Is 0.04 degrees, costing trillions of dollars, really worth it? I don't think so!!!
Recently global warming has been determined to be happening on Mars, Triton and now Pluto. I wonder what might explain the fact that these other planets are warming at a rapid rate? Surely we can get a consensus and figure that out.
Something for the wild-eyed alGore worshiping alarmists to consider -- correlation does not equal causation.
The fact that warming is now believed to be occurring on Mars, Triton and Pluto can be directly attributed to human activities, viz. planetary observations.
... been pumping out into the cosmos in the form of television radio waves spewing such trash as:
My Mother The Car
The Brady Bunch hour
Celebrity Boxing
Cop Rock
You're in the Picture
And
Hee Haw Honeys!
that an observer, by the very act of observation, influences the outcome. We need to eliminate all telescopes, especially the new long range type telescopes that can see off into the cosmos. We could be causing irreparable Cosmic Warming!
In the case of Mars, it's all those probes we've sent up there. By sending probes to Mars we have increased the overall mass of Mars and so the gravitational attraction between Mars and the sun has increased causing the orbit of Mars to come closer to the sun. And the result is Mars is warmer.
So you see the heating on Mars is really all your fault!
:)
It's real simple: Using even the most extreme numbers, man only contributes about 5-6% of all greenhouse gases ( http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html )
Notwithstanding the fact that natural sources of CO2 greatly outweigh human sources, CO2 is not even the most prevalent greenhouse gas.
If you ignore the other factors (solar intensity [increasing of late { http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3869753.stm }] and the natural cyclical climate change [psst, this kind of thing has happened before...long before any cars were on the planet]) and attribute ALL of the increase in global temperature to greehouse emissions, here's what you have:
Imagine there's a school bus at the bottom of a mountain stuck on some railroad tracks. Now, let's imagine a diesel locomotive is coming down the tracks towards the bus at full throttle. Now, imagine that YOU are at the back of the locomotive pushing as hard as you can. With all of these factors, the speed of the locomotive is 100 MPH.
If your contribution to the overall speed of the locomotive was the same as the contribution of man to greenhouse gases (5-6%), that would mean that if you were removed from the equation (i.e., were no longer pushing on the locomotive), instead of hitting the bus at 100 MPH, it would hit the bus at 94-95 MPH. What does that mean? NOT A ****** THING...the bus will still be destroyed and any occupants will still be killed.
Does this mean we should not be responsible stewards of the Earth? NO. But it also means that we should not blindly adopt policies that would cripple the world economy, resulting in a global decline in everyone's quality of life, health, etc. when in the grand scheme of things, it does not make any real difference and will not stop what will happen regardless.
They global warming hysteria is built on the illogical view that somehow, despite reams of incontrovertable paleoclimatological evidence to the contrary, all of a sudden, the Earth's climate (specifically, average global temperature) is supposed to be "static". It has not been, nor will it ever be, "static". There were vineyards in Great Britain in the Middle Ages (along with agricultural settlements in Iceland and Greenland by the Vikings). That is not the case now. Why? Because the climate is not static.
Getting back to solar activity...Don't you think that giant fusion reactor in the center of the solar system MIGHT have something to do with global temperatures? So if it is getting hotter, would that not automatically mean that the orbital bodies it heats might also get hotter? Proof of that can be found in the fact that the ice caps on Mars are shrinking also ( http://www.climateark.org/articles/2001/4th/stsumars.htm )...does this mean that Viking and Pathfinder are putting out CO2 sufficient to cause the greehouse effect there?
They can call me a "denier" all they want, the fact is that this is far from settled.
"Everybody needs money! That's why they call it money!"
You commit the same mistake many skeptics make when discussing GW: By sarcastically asking the question ".Don't you think that giant fusion reactor in the center of the solar system MIGHT have something to do with global temperatures?", you suggest that scientists attribute zero influence to the Sun when int comes to global warming.
But numerous peer-reviewed studies, even those that discovered that the Sun has been at one of its hottest points in many centuries, assign a number to this solar forcing, and it ranges between 4 and 30%. The rest they attributed to Greenhouse Gases.
In other words, they do believe the Sun has "something to do", to use your own words, with global warming. But that something is not as big as Greenhouse gases.
But before we start lets clarify.
AGW = Anthropic Global Warming = global warming caused by man.
Now lets destroy that false dichotomy you have implicitly created. There is more to the thermal balance of the earth than just the sun and the composition of the atmosphere. If you ignore the oceans (the largest reservoir of working fluid) you wont get very far and if you ignore the reflectivity of the land you also won't get a proper result. Funny how atmospheric scientists tend to focus on the atmosphere.
Having said that here we go with a peer reviewed paper placing the suns contribution at 45-50%
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006.../2005GL025539.shtml
Which is funny, because if you calculate what the expected raise in the temperature of the earth from the increase in solar radiation it comes out a little over 50%.
But that brings us back to the actual amounts of global warming. We are talking about between .6 and 1.2 degrees over the course of a century. (actually 120 years)
So If you assume the worst of humanity we are responsible for .6 degrees warming over 120 years. Now seeing as CO2 is not the most potent or powerful of the greenhouse gases our contribution would be what ??
Normally I would go through my usual list of problems with AGW.
The Fact that the earth was warmer during the Holocene optimum the warm period 2000 years ago and the medieval warm period, which to my knowledge did not have the benefit of industrialization. Or I would point that other portions of the solar system are enjoying warming. I guess those rovers on mars are really doing alot of exploring.
After the usual points about global the failure to actually lay global warming at mans doorstep, I could point out that its probably not a bad thing. Seeing as the little ice age nearly decimated civilization, rendered harbors unusable during winters, caused famines and other problems you might think that global warming was not such a bad thing.
Somehow I think that would bounce off you and already had.
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
It is interesting that you use the study cited by the BBC as a source, but the same article states that
Over the past 20 years, however, the number of sunspots has remained roughly constant, yet the average temperature of the Earth has continued to increase.
And Solanki admits that since the 70's solar output increase and climate do not correlate.
In the same study you cite, he concluded about the last 25 years that "Analysis excludes last 25 years, when Sun did not behave like climate "
Warming on other planets
apparently we are doing damage to other planets
pluto:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.html
Jupiter:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_jr.html
mars:
http://www.mos.org/cst-archive/article/80/9.html
Saturn:
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061109-022035-4126r
p,s. The rings need to be designated a national park
triton:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980526052143data_trunc_sys.shtml
apparently we are causing warming everywhere. Or maybe the sun is getting hotter
Wouldnt want to forget the volcanoes
Here is a study from nasa on the solar output
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html
Oh here is the correlation you were denying
From Nasa over the particular time period you are referencing
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
You cited the study cited by the BBC, which I assume you regard valid, since you encouraged us to read it. Then now all of a sudden you give us the Baliunas/Soon graph, which totally contradicts the findings of Solanki (the author of the study you first linked to), who said that in the past 25 years solar output and warming had not been correlated.
Who should I believe? Do you agree with Solanki's findings, yes or no? Or you conveniently agree only with his finding that the sun presents unusually high activity, while disagreeing at the same time with his conclusion about the past 25 years?
Explain please. then i will go into detail as to how discredited Baliunas and Soon are in the scientific world.
See above for the abstract shell out 9 bucks if you're not a member for the whole thing
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
I don't understand if you are trying to imply that Scafetta and West are discredited, or if you simply are being sarcastic and are trying to say that Scafetta and West somehow think global warming is mainly caused by the sun.
The facts are that
1-)They are not discredited, and
2-)They believe in the theory that assigns more weight to anthropogenic causes than to natural ones.
S&W use a purely statistical model (no physics) who's conclusions have high variably depending on what data is used - so for example they attribute solar forcing to warming since 1980, but according to your TSI plot above their is no trend. Also, the actual global mean temperature peaked in 1945, while the estimated solar temperature of S&W signal peaks in 1960. Hence, the decrease in global temperature from 1945 - 1960 is not correlated with the continued rise in the calculated solar temperature signal. The way that this was plotted in the paper was not obvious.
Finally, S&W use a linear forcing model with a crude estimate of the equilibrium sensitivity constant (Eq. 4), and then claim that highly non-linear feedbacks are accounted for in the model. Clearly that cannot be true. Also using a more realistic sensitivity coefficient in their model will lead to solar influence between 1950-2000 of only about 10% of the temperature increase.
For a nonlinear chaotic system that is at best only partially understood ?
You did say you were in fluid dynamics ??
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
I don't think that a purely statistical model is at all a good thing. That's one of the major problems with the S&W study. Why have you referenced it?
you want to use incomplete physics to model a system that is in principle impossible to model in detail even with a complete knowledge of the physical processes occurring. There is no complete knowledge of the physical system and by the very nature even small vanishingly small errors in the knowledge about the state and ongoing processes can cause huge variation in result.
Further you have just claimed that a statistical study on such a system is invalid while studies that are fundamentally in error and in principle will be until such time that we have achieved further advancement in mathematics are more valid.
Then you want this inherently flawed set of models used to dictate public policy.
And somehow all along the way you are convinced that those saying maybe not are just plain wrong.
I would once again ask you to think for yourself instead of letting others do it for you and maybe look into the historical precedent of policy failures resulting from flawed scientific theory being implemented as national policy.
P.S. If you are acquainted with the history of science there are surprising successes coming out of completely wrong scientific theories implemented as policy as well. Its just not the way to bet.
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
are the models? Are they really inherently flawed? Prove it. If you can account for all the major processes that is surely better than no physical model at all. At least in my field, how about yours?
You don't have to "complete" knowledge of a physical system to model it - you just have to model enough of it. Do you think airplane manufacturers have a complete understanding of fluid mechanical processes around their products? Not quite. It's a matter of degree.
Try this as a test - take the temps from December and January and predict the temp in July using a statistical model. Now add a physical model of the Earth's tilt. Which is more accurate - one with the physical model or purely statistical?
This why S&W prediction method is so off between 1945-1960, because the physics of the dominant processes changed from the data they used to formulate the constant in Equation 4 (you have read the paper now haven't you?). That's not true of the more physical climate models.
And how about the historical precedent of successful scientific results driving policy? Are you suggesting we throw out scientific proposals backed by the vast majority of scientists, just because a couple of scientists disagree? Where shall we start: HIV, evolution, 9/11, the Federal Reserve? That's sounds like a pretty dangerous precedent.
temperature to within a reasonable bound I would say thats a problem. However the modeling for the laminar and non newtonian flows around an aircraft are quite good these days and yield accurate predictions. Of course outside the body of an aircraft there is only one physical process occurring fluid flow and whats more the process is restricted and controlled to yield desirable outcomes.
This would be as opposed to the climate where there are thousands of processes occurring.
As opposed to your test go to Arizona pick a spot measure the temperature daily for a year, use it to predict the next years temperature. Then try it with a model of convection and the earths tilt. Or you could go to Florida and record wheather or not it rains on a given day for several years and then compare that to the meteorological predictions.
As to your argument about the physics changing between 1945 and 1960 that would be a period of global cooling ? And why did that happen again ? And just why would that be relevant to increases in the solar constant ? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm can't see a hole in your position there.
And that would be scientific theories with a history of results as opposed to the unproven ones you are pushing. Of course HIV is of course one where a liberal political agenda distorted the scientific consensus to produce disastrous results. Witness our death rate vs Japan.
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
Seeing as there isnt a model that predicts temperature to within a reasonable bound I would say thats a problem
Guess theseguys just got lucky? Again, wait for a week, I think you'll be even more impressed. If I had accuracy like this for some of my calculations, I'd be happy.
As opposed to your test go to Arizona pick a spot measure the temperature daily for a year.
Exactly, it's all about the data - if the physics change and you don't model it, you're screwed.
As to your argument about the physics changing between 1945 and 1960 that would be a period of global cooling ? And why did that happen again ? And just why would that be relevant to increases in the solar constant ? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm can't see a hole in your position there.
Not going there - it doesn't matter what cause the physics to change, just that S&W purely statistical model failed to predict it.
No idea what your talking about on the HIV thing. What exactly are your standards for "unproven" - is relativity unproven?
To model your fluid flow you may be benefiting from my postgrad work.
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
ask Solanki, the scientist who you linked to. Remember that BBC link you gave us?
Solanki concluded that in the past 25 years sun activity is not keeping pace with the sharp increase in temperature in the same range.
You just don't want to go back to the bbc link/Solanki study, do you?
Who while attempting to prove global warming, linked to Solanki's study.
I would still like to hear your opinion about Solanki. I spoke about him, Scafetta and Baliunas.
Joli - I can't believe that you're spewing the same old stuff that was debunked during our last discussion. But, I guess we must repeat them for those who missed it.
Warming on Jupiter, Mars and Saturn - your links don't prove this - prove it!
Warming on Triton - change in albedo (as your links says)
Warming on Pluto - it's just past perihelion, you'd expect this.
First plot - of course volcanoes affect climate, but only for a coupe years - are you suggesting that climatologists are neglecting this. More importantly, why are temps in stratosphere decreasing? If the sun was the cause of GW, they would increase wouldn't they?
2nd plot - the correlation breaks down after 1960, which is also shown when you overlay temp on your 3rd plot.
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/04/21_jupiter.shtml
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_ice-age_031208.html
And as for Pluto I would expect to warm as it approached perihelion and cool as it approached aphelion. I would especially expect this as the closet approach to the sun was in 1989. So an interesting use of the phrase just past.
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
OK so on Jupiter, the temp will increase once large vortices are disappear because of turbulence, how is that related to the sun's output?
Mars - the melting ice cap has only been observed in the southern hemisphere which is dominated by regional (not global) dynamics.
Pluto - when is the warmest time of day on Earth, before or after noon, when the surface receives the greatest amount of insolation?
You have claimed your field is fluid dynamics but somehow this grants you insight into the fields of climatology, mathematics, data analysis, planetary atmospheres, solar physics, geophysics, transport mechanics, chaotic dynamics, climate history and a few others that I have missed greater than actual practitioners in the fields. Quite the Renaissance man you must be.
The funny thing is even you don't argue the fact that the sun has gotten warmer. If you do the calculation for the expected warming for a black body in the vicinity of earths orbit you get approximately .6 degree K warming based on just the suns increase. Oddly enough 5 other heavenly bodies are enjoying similar warming. Instead you insist that Pluto's equivalent of air banding is taking 20 years, that the ending of an ice age on Mars that has been observed since Percival Lowell is due to it just being summer. And last but not least that the vortices on Jupiter which are driven by temperature differentials between the core and the surface as well as Coriolis forces would not be damped by increased warming of the surface reducing the differential.
All through this you assert with the conviction of one of the Elect that Man is making the earth hotter and that curbing our use of fossil fuels will not only prevent this but not be economically disadvantageous. Yet you have not presented models that accurately predict anything least of all actual temperatures, let alone cooling effects from decreased uses of fossil fuels and absolutely nothing justifying the economic impact vs the expected benefit.
As I said earlier your viewpoint is the physically impossible immovable object.
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
I know everything, and am humble to boot. You're not going to start calling me stupid again, are you?
I can read scientific papers - wow, impressive - you too could have some insight, if you actually read them. I'm not convinced that you actually have. But, you can prove it to me. What is the first word on page 4 of Scafetta and West, 2006?
If you do the calculation for the expected warming for a black body in the vicinity of earths orbit you get approximately .6 degree K warming based on just the suns increase.
We disproved this last time - show me again.
The funny thing is even you don't argue the fact that the sun has gotten warmer.
Yes, but not enough to be the dominant cause of the current warming and nothing you have shown proves otherwise.
Oddly enough 5 other heavenly bodies are enjoying similar warming.
Not really, and why aren't Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Uranus warming? If some planets are warming at the same rate as Earth (they aren't)and it's driven by the sun, shouldn't they all?
the ending of an ice age on Mars that has been observed since Percival Lowel
Prove it.
increased warming of the surface reducing the differential.
And you know the surface is warming because? Vortices also breakdown (as your link suggests) because of cyclical changes in turbulence.
Yet you have not presented models that accurately predict anything
Knock yourself out...
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg2/index.htm
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg3/index.htm
Look for updates starting next week!
We disproved this last time - show me again.
First we did no such thing, if anything you made my point for me. Let me ask though,when you repeat calculations do you expect different results ?
Not really, and why aren't Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Uranus warming? If some planets are warming at the same rate as Earth (they aren't)and it's driven by the sun, shouldn't they all?
Short memory ? The absence of data does not prove your point it merely excludes them from the argument. Why don't you try and dredge up some data that shows they aren't ? Ahh last time you couldn't especially for your friend Mercury.
the ending of an ice age on Mars that has been observed since Percival Lowell
Prove it.
What, you want me prove that Lowell observed icecaps on mars ? Has our education system become so bereft that this isn't common knowledge to you ?
And oh Joy four predictions that have already had to be revised to lower the maximum contribution mankind to GW by 25%
Or did you forget this fun discussion.
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
Notwithstanding the fact that natural sources of CO2 greatly outweigh human sources, CO2 is not even the most prevalent greenhouse gas.
What natural source has led to a CO2 concentration rise over the last 100 years leading to a level 30% greater than observed over the last 450,000 years? Such a large release would be easily observable, wouldn't it?
Climate has changed in the past naturally. Yes, and atmospheric radiation levels varied naturally before 1945 - what's the point?
How do you know that tackling global warming will cripple the economy? The same alarmist view was held about the Clean Air Act.
From the study in your link, only the South pole of Mars is melting and over an observed time of 2 years - on Earth we call it summer.
And end of an ice age is a little more than the equivalent of summer. Perhaps its not the sun and just Martians in their tripod suvs with heat ray option.
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
one gush of water does not a waterfall make - are you sure that's related to GW? How? How do scientists know it's the end of an ice age, where's the data?
Its just the Martian Army Corps of Engineers indulging in pork spending. Some things are constant throughout the universe.
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
Soon enough the climate nazis will be discredited by the plain truth....that most of the temperature rise we have seen in the last century or so has been solar induced...not anthropogenic.....then anAL GOREtentive will go on to well deserved obscurity
and then give a period of twenty five years?
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
This is nothing new to most of the intellegent inhabitants of this country. It has been an ongoing mantra from the left, but not for the health of the atmosphere but a tatical attack on the conservative party when it is occassionally lucky enough to have some power. Most recently, after the last 40 years.
One particular episode of this attack against Conservatism and big business was the eventual demise of production of chloroflourocarbons(refrigerants and other diviations). They were blamed for causing the hole in the ozone layer.
CFC's are 2 1/2 times heavier than air and can not in anyway rise to the height of the ozone layer. If they were transported there, they would still fall back to the earth. They would have to be relaeased in a zero gravity situation not to came back to earth, and at that level of height would do no damage at all.
When CFC's are relaesed in our atmosphere they fall to the ground where a natural enzyme totally digests them leaving no evidence of their presence whatsoever within 24 hours
But still the left was able to get them banned with scare tactics! This is only one finite example of the misinformation coming from the left on a daily basis. The squeeky wheel always gets the oil, and in this case false respect.
These sniper tactics of the left will continue to slow our country and it's economy for years to come, because the polititions are afraid of igniting disfavor with the voters.
Let me start by saying that I agree with you -- treating this topic like some crazy religion is counterproductive. There is indeed a great deal we don't yet know about how our specific climate will react in the next few decades. Given the complexity of the earth's climate systems, we may never be able to calculate for every possible variable.
I tend to view today's climate discussion through the lens of the past. Global temperatures over the last few millions of years show much variability. Lurching from (to us) icy conditions to tropical conditions is normal for our planet. Just looking at the end of the Paleolithic and the beginning of the Mesolithic can demonstrate that rapid change in coastlines is possible. Doggerland may have flooded within the span of a human lifetime, or faster. The North American ice sheet showed much forward and backward motion, growing and shrinking as its local climate changed. There are many other examples from history.
We need to get our thoughts past a couple of things, IMHO. (1) Quit thinking we can predict exactly what will happen and when. The system is too complex and our knowledge imperfect. (2) Quit thinking that our climate will not change significantly. Because it has in the past and it will again. Maybe within our lifetimes. Maybe not.
Where does this leave things like Kyoto and carbon caps and greenhouse emission standards? Well, I take a prudent stance. I personally would not sink much money into any low-lying coastal real estate. And since it seems that CO2 is historically a factor in temperature swings, it make sense to encourage businesses to limit their emissions. But believing that such emissions cuts will for sure stop whatever the planet's climate system already has in store for us is a bit too rose-color-glasses to me. We could follow every part of Kyoto (or any subsequent idea) and the planet could belch gases from the sea floor hydrates or a series of volcanoes and cancel out every emission we cut. Or we may discover that we had "too much CO2" in the atmosphere a decade ago and that we cannot stop the system from seeking its new equilibrium. Extreme examples, but they illustrate that there are some things that are beyond our total control.