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Topic: The Cult of Global Warmingism (2 Part Post)
| Author | Message |
| Stanley_Milgram | Posted – 3/23/2007 1:08:50 PM | show profile someone should introduce guy to that lady who used to post about Wal-Mart. |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 3/23/2007 1:27:19 PM | show profile Guy's found us all out. Don't tell him about the secret handshake. |
| A~ | Posted – 3/23/2007 1:38:56 PM | show profile I will take the right-wingers more seriously when they stop citing or slamming organizations and attacking messengers and begin pulling out the empirical evidences. Right now, all this environmental backlash smells to me like more of the usual Rovian smears funded by special interest groups. And I find it disturbing that the most vocal anti-environmentalist congressional members tend to get hundreds of thousands of dollars form energy companies, transportation firms, and the lawyers that represent them. OK, Al Gor e is rich and rich people live in big houses and, yes, I think its conspicuous consumption. So what? Is there also not a conflict of interest in the other direction? When Jim Inhofe takes checks from transportation and energy companies and factory farms and then calls people that want to regulate the environmental impact of these industries "Nazis" -- you don't honestly see any conflict of interest there? (I don't believe you.) I'm happy to have a debate on human being's environmental footprint, but not with people who can't chill with the ad hominem attacks on the messengers with all their cliches about elitism. (Note to right winger: BUSH WAS A YALE LEGACY STUDENT THAT WAS BORN INTO WEALTH IN CONNECTICUT.) What smell really bad to me is that the right wingers don't seem very interested in the ideas behind the "global warming mafia" or whatever you want to call it. Polar Bears will probably go extinct in our lifetime. This doesn't really matter. It's not the issue. But did you ever stop to wonder how polar bears have been able to endure past period of global warming in natural history and don't seem to be able to adapt to this one? These are the kind of questions that transcend whether we should give a shit about polar bears or not -- the answer to that question has more implications than polar bears. You want to have a debate, try saying something without citing special interest groups or members of cults of personality and just have a discussion about empirical evidence and the moral questions behind conservatism versus conspicuous consumption. I know. It's hard for you. But you can try. |
| hank | Posted – 3/23/2007 2:34:55 PM | show profile "But did you ever stop to wonder how polar bears have been able to endure past period of global warming in natural history and don't seem to be able to adapt to this one? " Hey champ, when should have anyone have had the time to reflect on this, since that article came out on 3/21? http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/ask-the-experts/population/ This article linked above attempts to debunk the belief that polar bear populations have increased dramatically in the past 50 years. It identifies and takes aim at this quote from (gasp!) Fox News [by the way, we should have a thread discussing Fox News - I overheard someone say...they're biased!]: "In the 1950s the polar bear population up north was estimated at 5,000. Today it's 20- to 25,000, a number that has either held steady over the last 20 years or has risen slightly. In Canada, the manager of wildlife resources for the Nunavut territory of Canada has found that the population there has increased by 25 percent." So there are more fucking polar bears? "Answer from Dr. Derocher: The various presentations of biased reporting ignore, or are ignorant of, the different reasons for changes in populations. If I thought that there were more bears now than 50 years ago and a reasonable basis to assume this would not change, then no worries. This is not the case. The bottom line here is that it is an apples and oranges issue. " Oh. It's apples and oranges. Polar bear populations are up, but they're in inevitable decline. "At the end of the day, the sea ice is disappearing. Take away the habitat and the species follows shortly thereafter (or before)." So, if polar bear populations is up, they're still in danger and to be used as evidence in global warming hysteria. Bears, like liberals, eat garbage. There's plenty of garbage and plenty of bears. Oh, and plenty of global warming experts, too. For better or worse, the best way to combat the factors that Goracles attribute global warming to is to not eat meat. Al can fly his jet and race Hummmers, but if he's a steak-a-week man who likes his breakfast sausage and ham sandwiches and whatnot, he's really a hypocrite. And that guy does not strike me as particularly vegan-looking. |
| A~ | Posted – 3/23/2007 4:07:45 PM | show profile Hank makes some valid points, setting aside his typical right-wing obfuscation by associating environmentalism with a Hollywood film and Al Gore and everything that's elitist and bad about the world. Yeah, we should all cut down on meat consumption and reduce fuel consumption. I think the general consensus is indeed the encroachment of humans on natural habitats. I read your post, Hank, I find it interesting because it doesn't actually pose any defense of global warming skeptics and points out that polar bear populations are over 60% down from historic records thanks to other factors. It doesn't claim warming is man-made, either. But it does contradict a lot of the comments you hear from the special interests (Jim Inhofe, for one) and their Ann Coulter-like approach to debate. It would be nice to see a movement toward conservation of resources, period, because it's simply the right thing to do. And you're absolutely right: it requires personal lifestyle choices. So instead of obfuscating the debate by attacking people who pose these questions or arguing whether Al Gore's mansion consumes a lot of energy, maybe we should have a more relevant debate. But, still, the idea of conservation is automatically met by the Rovian response of slandering the shit out of anyone who dares question the status quo and assaulting the messengers. It's really stupid because everyone is then forced to wade through the sewage in order to get a sensible discussion based on empirical information, and, perhaps more importantly, it makes the conservatives look like they can't do anything without attacking with rhetoric. Yes, I think it's pathetic that a message has to be disseminated by Hollywood for anyone to pay attention, considering that the scientific community (which rarely has time to engage in the political propaganda struggle) has been yelling about a lot of these things for a lot longer than Al Gore's been around to be the Pariah Du Jour of the right-wing peanut gallery. |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 3/23/2007 4:37:33 PM | show profile That little polar bear cub in Berlin, Knut the cub? He's in on it. Yep, he's a stealth Global Warmist, unfairly swaying gullible people around the globe with his adorable polar bear cub ways. Probably on Al Gore's payroll. |
| hank | Posted – 3/23/2007 5:13:24 PM | show profile Bears chow garbage, not ice. The earth might be warming up. In Caesar's time, great swaths of what's now been stark desert for hundreds of years was fruit-studded plain. Berries everywhere. Van der Meer and all the Dutch masters painted Amsterdam's canals when they would regularly freeze solid in the winter time. They stopped freezing like that long before Henry Ford produced the Model-T. If the world cannot conclusively figure out how the world is warming, if the world is warming, and why the world is warming - how the hell can we know for sure what the consequences will be? Is not the alarmist rate a little freaking high? I think it is. And here's a simple fact about Gore the messenger: he cannot tell people to change their lives if he doesn't himself, no matter how spot-on his message is or isn't. |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 3/23/2007 5:34:19 PM | show profile Guy, your argument's a hypocritical joke. Everything you describe of cultism, etc can easily be ascribed to the neoclowns and religious fanatics of your GOP right wing. Global warming is real. It is happening. And yours and the right wing's industry-fueled (and financed) arguments against it are nonscience, and nonsense. |
| Stanley_Milgram | Posted – 3/23/2007 9:30:04 PM | show profile why is it that every time I try to imagine what guy looks like, I always picture him wearing a sandwich board? |
| A~ | Posted – 3/24/2007 9:07:33 AM | show profile keltoi: To be fair: the question isn't whether global warming is real, but rather whether it is caused (or exacerbated) by human activity. When you debate a right-winger, you have to go the extra mile to debate within their little world-view box. (Go forbid they have to extend the same courtesy.) Any divergence from the parameters of the debate set up and enforced (through condescending sarcasm and attacking the messengers) by the blow-hard makes you an elitist. The right wingers control the debate. That's OK. The truth sets you free, as the saying goes. But be careful for the sand traps and the obfuscations, and don't create any of your own (i.e. shifting the debate from whether global warming is happening, or whether human activity is playing a role in it). Guy: To answer your question: I've had a car for three of the past ten years. When I had a car I lived close enough to my work and social sphere to put 7,000 miles a year on the vehicle, or half the national average. I did this is a red state with a dismal pedestrian and bike infrastructure. I didn't run air conditioning in the summer. My electric bill was small. I have a garden when I can. I leave weeds and stuff for the birds. I learn their names. I treat meat like I treat sweets: eating meat about as often as I eat cake (that is: as an occasional luxury, like most Third Worlders). Now that I answered your question (which was a veiled accusation that my elitist ass is forcing others to live like I don't) you can use THAT to attack me for bragging about my lifestyle. (You can't win debating a blow-hard, because there's no "out", instead it's like walking across a human-sized glue trap. (You have seen this in action in Congress: if you didn't vote for residential authority, you hated freedom. If you voted for it, you're a flip-flopped. This shit only works with the pleebs, but there are a lot oo them in the US.) Here in lies another pratfall of debating a right-winger: If I don't answer "Guy" I'm a hypocrite and he walks away assuming that I haven't made personal choices to mitigate my carbon footprint in the world. But if I answer him about my personal choices (remember: he asked), painted as the elitist who is out of touch with the "real God fearing workin' class blue collar people". So either I'm a hypocrite or an elitist, or both no matter how I answer the question. It's like ever right winger has taken cues from the Ann Coulter School of Rhetoric. I'm doing this for shits and giggles, not because I care. |
| A~ | Posted – 3/24/2007 10:46:17 AM | show profile Great, now that you've said that I'm going to lose my "Indie Cred" with my Air America friends. You can't win for losing -- but I still vehemently oppose the status quo, and I believe the right is influenced by special interests in environmental debates. There's nothing new about this. The right is very pro-business. They will always have a personal financial interest in avoiding changes that they view as a threat to the commercial interests. That's what makes it so hard to take them seriously. And with a president deeply and personally engrained in the "carbon economy" and a Veep who is currently profiting off a company born form a "carbon economy" and a SecSt who headed Exxon -- how the hell are we supposed to think their views aren't influenced by financial interests? Let me ask you this: why don't you list some "green" conservatives that get any venue in the current conservative agenda? Are there any leaders advocating green policy in the right-wing sphere? We certainly have plenty of pro-business lefties out there. |
| mailbag | Posted – 3/24/2007 10:57:53 AM | show profile | email poster Guyarthurthomas & A- Guyarthurthomas, I too wonder what motivates Gore. What does he have to gain.... I trust no politician (just to be clear) all of them are self serving. So, I'm still trying to figure out what he is doing - meanwhile anything he says flies past me because he is only a politician and not a meteorologist. A- ... Rice was on the board of Chevron, not Exxon. She had a nice big boat named after here (for a while anyway.) I'm sure you knew that, easy mistake to make (seen one big one - seen them all.) lol. |
| A~ | Posted – 3/24/2007 1:46:03 PM | show profile OK, first of all, I'm not going to defend Al Gore's $1,200 annual electric bill. Yes, he should walk the walk. I agree with that. #1.) But I do think it's a little disingenuous to compare the conflict of interest of a Dick Cheney, who was VP of Halliburton, who currently has reaped millions in deferred stock from a company that has been the recipient of no-bid contracting in Iraq (and the deferment is supposedly some kind of "firewall" to conflict of interest that his profits will be waiting for him until after he steps down) with how Al Gore deferred some of his $1,200 electric bill allegedly to a company that in fact doesn't sell carbon offsets as has been claimed by some of the right-wing nutters. In fact, that's an extremely disingenuous comparison. (You could have done better with Hilary Clinton getting money from Citicorp for favorable legislation -- DUH!) #2.) I don't think the people banging the can loudest on this non-issue (it's a non-issue EXCEPT for the personal choice part -- I agree with that, Gore should be building a green mansion, not advocating that carbon ponzi scheme and artificial valuations) even understand what GIM is trying to do. It's essentially trying to make green development a venture that can appeal to industrialists and venture capitalists. (There's NOTHING wrong with that, unless you have a problem with capitalism.) And, again, it doesn't sell carbon offsets. It's essentially a green hedge fund. There's a lot of disinformation going around, and it's coming from the right-wing peanut gallery. Again, we're talking about a $1,200 electric bill here (when it comes to the allegation around the offset purchases). From what I've been able to glean, the company does some carbon offsetting for its 23 employees (my family's business has more workers than that). I think Gore has no defense for his personal lifestyle choices, but this is such a non-issue and, again, it's almost criminal for you to use that as a comparison to what Karl Rove's posse has been up to for the past six years. It really is a disgrace, actually. |
| hank | Posted – 3/24/2007 2:11:04 PM | show profile " but this is such a non-issue " Announcing naked hypocrisy a non-issue or holding it up for comparisons with Team Bush won't make it a non-issue. No amounts of, ahem, carbon offsets will change this. Al talks change and that half-measure will garner half-results - the same half of the country that likes him to begin with. |
| A~ | Posted – 3/24/2007 2:33:23 PM | show profile Dude, if you want to hit on hypocrisy there's plenty to go around. I mean you wanna hit the Dems on double standards, you don't need Al Gore's rinky dinky $1,200 electric bill controversy. Again, DIM is a green hedge fund, not a seller of carbon offsets. I need to say that again, because that's one of the orchestrated obfuscations of the truth from the right-wing peanut gallery. As I said before, Hank, I agree with the personal lifestyle choices issue you brought up. I don't jive with any scheme that says the richer can consume more energy by simply buying wind power for somebody else. I'm too much of a socialist to agree with allowing the elites to use their hard-earned wealth to buy privilege. I will also repeat: any right-wing nutter that says the Cheney/Halliburton thing is analogous to Al Gore's electric bill is a disgrace to this country and all it represents. There something called proportionality. Look it up. |
| A~ | Posted – 3/24/2007 2:55:19 PM | show profile Oh my gosh you guys are amazingly good at sucking people into inane debates based on false assumptions, presumable to the Wizard behind the curtain can continue with his initializations. (pI am beginning to suspect that Guy and Hank are moles from the American Enterprise Institute -- paid to type their talking points into Internet chat boards.) I've never seen Gore's movie and don't intend to (I can't stand the way he talks) and I don't think carbon offsets work, but just doing a little research and I find out that, in fact, Gore was buying his energy through a Tennessee Valley Authority program. I must correct myself: the bill is $16,000 for the year, not $1,200, like I mentioned before, which was the monthly more-or-less average, but if you subtract the $6,000 extra the Gore's paid to use alternative energy sources through the NES program (that has nothing to do with Gore's green hedge fund), and you're getting closer to an average for people who live in homes that size. (Again, I know right winger have short memories: I don't think Gore is completely walking the walk, though paying 30% more for green electricity is a step in the right direction.) Anyway, a few more points to bring up. PS - If you guys wanna be the right wingers, try thinking for yourself. You can practically Google some of the horse shit you're saying and find it on 20 right-wing blogs all pretty much saying the same things. As you know, when errors are replicated in the media, they're often coming from one source. You DO have minds of your own, don't you? |
| A~ | Posted – 3/24/2007 3:36:20 PM | show profile I know this will be harder for you to digest than bitching about Al Gore's lifestyle choices, but: NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCE: An Introduction According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Earth's surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century, with accelerated warming during the past two decades. There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities. Human activities have altered the chemical composition of the atmosphere through the buildup of greenhouse gases ? primarily carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. The heat-trapping property of these gases is undisputed although uncertainties exist about exactly how earth?s climate responds to them. Go to the Emissions section for much more on greenhouse gases. Our Changing Atmosphere . . . Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased nearly 30%, methane concentrations have more than doubled, and nitrous oxide concentrations have risen by about 15%. These increases have enhanced the heat-trapping capability of the earth?s atmosphere. Sulfate aerosols, a common air pollutant, cool the atmosphere by reflecting light back into space; however, sulfates are short-lived in the atmosphere and vary regionally. Why are greenhouse gas concentrations increasing? Scientists generally believe that the combustion of fossil fuels and other human activities are the primary reason for the increased concentration of carbon dioxide. Plant respiration and the decomposition of organic matter release more than 10 times the CO2 released by human activities; but these releases have generally been in balance during the centuries leading up to the industrial revolution with carbon dioxide absorbed by terrestrial vegetation and the oceans. What has changed in the last few hundred years is the additional release of carbon dioxide by human activities. Fossil fuels burned to run cars and trucks, heat homes and businesses, and power factories are responsible for about 98% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, 24% of methane emissions, and 18% of nitrous oxide emissions. Increased agriculture, deforestation, landfills, industrial production, and mining also contribute a significant share of emissions. In 1997, the United States emitted about one-fifth of total global greenhouse gases. . . . Global mean surface temperatures have increased 0.5-1.0°F since the late 19th century. The 20th century's 10 warmest years all occurred in the last 15 years of the century. Of these, 1998 was the warmest year on record. The snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere and floating ice in the Arctic Ocean have decreased. Globally, sea level has risen 4-8 inches over the past century. Worldwide precipitation over land has increased by about one percent. The frequency of extreme rainfall events has increased throughout much of the United States. |
| A~ | Posted – 3/24/2007 3:37:00 PM | show profile ** INTERVIEW with Ralph Cicerone on The News Hour; he is an atmospheric scientist and chancellor of the University of California at Irvine: RAY SUAREZ: Mr. Cicerone, what was the assignment that was given you by the White House? RALPH CICERONE: Well, the request went from the White House to a national research council -- and that's the Academy of Sciences in Washington four or five weeks ago -- in the form of a number of specific questions. There were about a dozen of them, so, in fact, what we tried to do was to answer the questions. . . . RAY SUAREZ: And what would you call the main conclusions? RALPH CICERONE: Well, we tried very hard to address the questions that the White House had given us, and I hope we were responsive. We added our voice to the view that the observed warming, i.e., the fact that the planet is warming up and that it has been warming up for the past few decades, but with particularly rapid warming in the last 20 years, we agreed with the previous findings that the weight of the evidence, the weight of the scientific opinion is that most of that warming of the past 20 years is caused by human activities. |
| A~ | Posted – 3/24/2007 3:37:53 PM | show profile The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change by Naomi Oreskes* Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change" (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case. The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)]. IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)]. |
| A~ | Posted – 3/24/2007 3:38:20 PM | show profile Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8). The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9). The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position. Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point. This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect. The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it. Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen. ## |
| mailbag | Posted – 3/24/2007 5:27:06 PM | show profile | email poster blame the media "'Guyarthurthomas...these same science-clowns want to announce however, that dogmatically they do KNOW it a anthropogenic." Guy - they aren't clowns as long as they have supported their research (goes both ways.) The problem is with the media - they alone are putting the information together without understanding dynamics of climate. And to add-- I'm sorry, but a "science editor" on the masthead of the NYT who has never been in the field is not a science professional. You take a veteran meteorologist from NOAA (+10yrs daily forecasting) who can write well, and put him in the newsroom -- NOW you have a science writer. Why the bloody hell doesn't the media in this country get that? You'd think these media groups would be knocking down the door to hire someone like me. (I have btw advertised these services in trade pubs too...) Not a single bite. My conclusion: The media is rich with folks pushing an agenda and full of editors who do not want to print the truth. Do NOT blame scientists! |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 3/24/2007 5:46:13 PM | show profile We are just so past this kind of discussion. The only thing to seriously think about now is to how to go about reducing carbon emissions, and it's going to have to have to be legislated and taxed. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 3/24/2007 10:51:37 PM | show profile Oh yeah, guy, you got me. That's me, no education, no means of supporting myself, and few prospects of such. So why not tax everyone to death. Ha ha ha ha ha!!! |
| keltoi | Posted – 3/24/2007 10:59:41 PM | show profile Guy, it's not liberal elitism to not take your claims seriously; it's just common sense. On the "World Breaks Temp Record" post, NorthernBlue made claims about global warming I disagreed with, and I spelled out why. We had a fairly reasoned debate. You've made it clear from your initial post that that isn't possible with you. So I won't waste my time. |
| hank | Posted – 3/25/2007 9:29:29 AM | show profile "(pI am beginning to suspect that Guy and Hank are moles from the American Enterprise Institute " If that were the case I'd be posting as frequently as you. My point is simple: Al Gore, regardless of the relevency or merits of his message, is compromised by some inconvenient hypocrisy. I don't really mind. I know that he's using his clout to raise awareness of issues that should be addressed. But I don't go so far as to think that his mansions and personal jet use, trappings of the super wealthy that fly in the face of personal ecological responsibility, will be warmly received by those he is asking to make lifestyle changes. I find it a good laugh, actually. Particularly when someone like you, A~, gets defensive about it. |
