Citing primarily from here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,334682,00.html

Yes, this is a Fox News Opinion piece, but this guy has done his research. I urge you all to read the links in his article.

To summarize:
1.) Climate change from 1998 to 2008 has largely eliminated the 1 degree C warming that occurred from 1898 to 1998 and more than countered the warming from 1988 to 1998. We now seem to be in a global cooling, or at least a plateau, phase.

2.)A conference in New York on Monday and Tuesday this week brought 100 scientists together to discuss "significant new peer reviewed research" that has cast even more doubt on "dangerous human-caused global warming". Though this was written before that and I don't have any quotes from it.

3.)In December, a letter was written to the UN signed by another 400 scientists that question manmade global warming. A link is provided to it.

4.)The recent observations of things like glacial retreats, sea-level rise, migration of temperature-sensative species, and the 0.1 to 0.2 degree Celsius per decade temperature changes are all well within established norms for the past 10,000 years.

The breakdown of the arguement works like this:

1.)Global temperatures don't seem to be rising anymore, but rather falling.

2.)Even if they were rising, only about .3% of the Greenhouse Effect is caused by human contributions, and only about .11% of that is from the much demonized man-made CO2 contributions.

3.)Even if we were causing it, it looks like its more good than bad. Both higher temperatures and higher concentrations of CO2 would produce greater amounts of habitable and farmable land, significantly greater. And how many people would actually die from a 7-inch to 2-foot sea level rise over 100 years? I'm sure the European dikes could be raised that much and more in that time.

For those of you that don't want to hunt for the link to the letter to the UN, here it is:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report

Please note that several of the signators were on the UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers, which only had 52 and apparenly "more closely resembling a political party’s convention platform battle, not a scientific process".

Sorry, Drew, but that much-vaunted "X years without a single peer-reviewed paper disagreeing with man-made global warming" is going to have to go.

I've been enjoying John Coleman's comments as well.

Sorry, Drew, but that much-vaunted "X years without a single peer-reviewed paper disagreeing with man-made global warming" is going to have to go.

Yes, they found a guy from FOX to disagree with most eveyone!

New mileage per gallon regulations were signed into law last year that will mandate cars get 35 MPG. The rules will make us poorer, forcing people to buy products that aren’t otherwise the best suited for them. More people will die because lighter cars are less safe, but we are told this is all worth it largely because of global warming.


Isn't that just a brilliant statement? People can't buy more fuel-efficient, less polluting, more affordable cars, because they are "Unsafe At Any Speed." That statement stands on the merits of its own stupidity. Wow, thanks for bring AM talk radio to SP, NOG. :rolleyes:

Hey, everyone is allowed their heroic last stand. I bet even The Committee for the Flat World had a heroic last stand before they disbanned ;)

Here's a link to John Coleman's Article.

John Coleman's Comments About Global Warming (http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/comments_about_global_warming/)

John Coleman was the founder and owner of The Weather Channel.

Hey, everyone is allowed their heroic last stand. I bet even The Committee for the Flat World had a heroic last stand before they disbanned ;)

Oh, I'm sure that they're still around, just in a diminished capacity. True stupidity never dies, it just sheds the unbelievers until only the worthy few remain. You'll find people who believe in just about anything if you look hard enough.

But hey, let's wait until the polar caps melt completely. Pre-emptively not striking FTW!

Here's a link to John Coleman's Article.

John Coleman's Comments About Global Warming (http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/comments_about_global_warming/)

John Coleman was the founder and owner of The Weather Channel.

"Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an illusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus. --John Coleman"

Is this guy trying to sound like a joke, or is it just his meds or something he's smoking? Last I checked, no one in their right mind took anyone spouting global conspiracy theories seriously...

But then again, the emphasis is on in their right mind...

Not that it's not obvious from a mile away who's paying icecap.us's staff, but just for the sake of sharing what a little bit of digging reveals...

First a bit about ICECAP (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ICECAP) (see link for more): "The Web site domain name for ICECAP was registered on October 20, 2006 by Joseph D'Aleo, who is listed among the personnel of the Science and Public Policy Institute, another organization that promotes the views of global warming skeptics that is backed by the Frontiers of Freedom."

And a bit about Frontiers of Freedom (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Frontiers_of_Freedom): "Frontiers of Freedom receives money of tobacco and oil companies, including Philip Morris Cos, ExxonMobil and RJ Reynolds Tobacco. According to the New York Times: "Frontiers of Freedom, which has about a $700,000 annual budget, received $230,000 from Exxon in 2002, up from $40,000 in 2001, according to Exxon documents”."

It'd be interesting to find an anti-global warming site with no connections to the oil companies for once, wouldn't it?

Cooling as a result of warming isn't exactly a surprise. That's been predicted. For a while.

Hence 'climate change', not 'global warming'.

Tal, SourceWatch specifically states the Science and Public Policy Institute is funded by Frontiers of Freedom, not ICECAP. You're being a bit misleading.

John Coleman's articles are found on the KUSI site (TV station in San Diego).

Coleman's Corner (http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/13681217.html)

They are an interesting read -- especially given his background.

T2Bruno, "The Web site domain name for ICECAP was registered on October 20, 2006 by Joseph D'Aleo, who is listed among the personnel of the Science and Public Policy Institute."

I think you can connect the dots.

By the way, some recent information (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/13/tech/main3613698.shtml?source=mostpop_story) on the subject:

(CBS/AP) An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One speculates that summer sea ice might be gone in just five years.

Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press.

"The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.

Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.

This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."

So scientists in recent days have been asking themselves these questions: Was the record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007 a blip amid relentless and steady warming? Or has everything sped up to a new climate cycle that goes beyond the worst case scenarios presented by computer models?

"The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming," said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. "Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines."

I suggest reading the rest of the article too.

Cooling as a result of warming isn't exactly a surprise. That's been predicted. For a while...Eh? The only thing like that I recall is if enough cold freshwater from melting ice enters the oceans and shuts down the gulf stream it could cause a global cooling. Nothing like that has happened.

On the other hand, one year of cooling and increasing ice caps does not a trend make... we will have to see what the future brings. It is noteworthy that solar activity has been down and we now have this cooling over the past year. As I've mentioned before, this is sure getting interesting.

Read the links. There's a lot more than one year of it here. One of them has a whole chart of the global temperature ups and downs for the past few decades, and while a warming trend can be noticed from 1988 to 1998, it pretty much caps there. After that, it seems to kind of plateau, going up and down roughly evenly.

If the Arctic loosing ice is evidence of global warming, what is the Antarctic gaining ice evidence of?

By the way, I've heard a lot of bashing of Coleman, but I haven't heard anything talking about the science he discussed. Now I generally don't like opinion pieces any more than the rest of you, but, as Drew said in another thread, the truth is the truth, regardless of who's spouting it.

Does anyone want to comment on the statement that man-made global warming currently amounts to about .3% of the Greenhouse Effect? How about the fact that CO2 is the least effective greenhouse gas? How about the actual effects of global warming?

Quote:
Sorry, Drew, but that much-vaunted "X years without a single peer-reviewed paper disagreeing with man-made global warming" is going to have to go.

Yes, they found a guy from FOX to disagree with most eveyone!
Sorry, Chandos, but I was actually talking about the hundreds of scientists, not a single Fox News reporter.

Wait... ICECAP also has four FOX meterologists as members. There is clearly a conspiracy here. I think Tal may be on to something. :rolleyes:

Actually, anthropogenic global warming is not as much a consensus as the politicians would like you to believe.

Have a look at these:

http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wron g/article10973.htm

http://www.dailytech.com/Solar+Activity+Diminishes+Researchers+Predict+Anot her+Ice+Age/article10630.htm

http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Widescale+Global+Cooli ng/article10866.htm

Has any other major news source commented on this yet or is it strictly being blogged about and on Fox?

Eh? The only thing like that I recall is if enough cold freshwater from melting ice enters the oceans and shuts down the gulf stream it could cause a global cooling. Nothing like that has happened.


Oops, you're right. I was thinking of local (or regional, or whatever) temperature decreases occurring at the same time as a global warming trend.

I saw an opinion piece on CNN about it, but it boiled down to "I don't like these guys and they must be idiots to doubt global warming,regardless of their credentials." The article on Fox also links to one on Newsweek (I think), but that looked like another opinion piece. Face it, global warming critics don't get news time, regardless of their their credentials, training, news, etc.

Now, I would really like to see this topic discuss the issues here:

1.) Is there a geologically significant global warming trend?

2.) If so, how much does human activity contribute to it?

3.) How dangerous is global warming?

For my part, I see it as thus:

1.) Yes, there is a geologically significant global warming trend. It has been going on since roughtly 1400, the bottom of the Little Ice Age. Before the mid 1300's, the average planetary temperature (or at least, across Europe, Asia, and Africa) were higher than they are today. Ever since the bottom of teh Little Ice Age, the planet has been 'recovering'.

2.) Not very much. As previously stated, 95% of the greenhouse effect comes from water vapour, to which mankind makes no significant contribution. Of the various other gasses, it looks like mankind contributes only about .3%, which alots us a whopping .18 degrees F of the 60 degrees F that the greenhouse effect produces. Of that, our CO2 contributions produce about .066 degrees F (.11%). Considering the predictions the climatoligists are constantly producing of 1-2 degrees C, I really don't think we're at risk of producing that kind of an effect.

3.) Even if we presume we are producing a noticable impact, of all the 'dire consequences', the worst I've heard that's even halfway reasonable (i.e. not a 400 ft sea level rise) is a 1 foot increase in sea level. Together with that, however, is a massive increase in habbitable and farmable land, an increase in plant size due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, and faster and more growth due to increased nitrates (the limiting factor in the ecosystem today).

Now don't worry, I'm not encouraging a complete deregulation of all pollution-causing activities. I don't like toxic waste being dumped into the rivers any more than the rest of you. I don't even like coal or oil power plants (they have a nasty tendency to release things like sulfer dioxide, lead, mercury, and arsenic). But I would really like to see an end to the rediculous retoric about the world having a 'fever' and 'dying' and such. The lack of an ice shelf in Greenland is not indicative of a 'sick planet', but rather of one that is recovering to pre-Little-Ice-Age temperatures.

Read the links. There's a lot more than one year of it here. One of them has a whole chart of the global temperature ups and downs for the past few decades, and while a warming trend can be noticed from 1988 to 1998, it pretty much caps there. After that, it seems to kind of plateau, going up and down roughly evenly.1998 was the highest peak at ~.75C above the baseline. Last year was another peak at ~.6C above the baseline. If you look at the anomaly data between 1998 and 2008, you see very few months below the baseline temperature. If you want to call that a cooling trend since 1998, fine, but I'd call it a warming trend vs. the baseline.

Well, considering that:
1.) the base line seems to have been chosen rather arbitrarily, I don't think the individual numbers above the baseline are the important part, plus
2.) the important part is actually the relationship between the various numbers (i.e. do we see an increase or a decrease), which leads us to
3.) a plateau, as predicted in models from the early '90s and as opposed to the latest models, not an overall cooling trend.

I've stayed out so far, and will continue to stay out after commenting here. There is still a consensus within the global climatological community. Sure, some people disagree with parts of it, but that is for the climatological community to work out amongst themselves. Global warming is not and should not be a political issue. The only question politicians should be asking is "where does the burden of proof lie?" Does it lie with the vast majority warning dire consequences for inaction or does it lie with the small minority arguing that nothing needs to be done? It comes down to a simple risk/reward scenario.

If we listen to the majority and they are right, we may well avoid (or at least stave off) a catastrophe. If we listen to the majority and they are wrong, we have lower pollution and cleaner air. We lose little to nothing. If we listen to the minority and they are right, we also lose nothing, but if they are wrong and we do nothing, the consequences will be dire.

It is reckless, arrogant, and downright stupid to politicize this issue. Let the climatological community work it out and, when the consensus recommendation changes, our governments should change accordingly. Until then, the governments of the world should shut up, stop bickering, and act in line with the climatological community's recommendations.

the important part is actually the relationship between the various numbers (i.e. do we see an increase or a decrease)...It's rather amusing that you make such an assertion, because that is the point of choosing a baseline period.

the base line seems to have been chosen rather arbitrarily, I don't think the individual numbers above the baseline are the important part...If you look at the GISS data, the baseline period was chosen at 1951 which appears to me (looking at the data over the range from 1880 to the present) to be the midpoint of an increasing temperature trend; i.e. temperatures prior to 1951 are generally cooler while temperatures after 1951 are generally warmer while the coldest and warmest points seem to be about the same distance from the base. Doesn't seem all that arbitrary to me.

Finally, a decade is not a very long period to look at when it comes to climate.

Now, I'm still skeptical when it comes to the accuracy of the long-term temperature data, but that doesn't mean I can ignore it.

Cooling as a result of warming isn't exactly a surprise. That's been predicted. For a while.

Hence 'climate change', not 'global warming'.

Especially since enough warming might weaken the Gulfstream, leading to a localized cooling - i.e. in most of Europe. Anyway, I loved the way "Senate Report Debunks "Consensus"" was on its own separate line. Almost as if the Senate, by its august wisdom, decided scientists are not worth their attention. Yeah, I know the overall title reads differently, but still I found it hilarious.

@NOG, regarding your comment "Together with that, however, is a massive increase in habbitable and farmable land, an increase in plant size due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, and faster and more growth due to increased nitrates (the limiting factor in the ecosystem today)."

Where did you get that information from? I've seen a few sources that say global warming, per se, will likely lead to desertification. In fact, there was quite a few written about the possible change in the arable land condition in Mediterranean countries like Greece (which doesn't have that much prime-quality land to begin with).

Of course, there is the matter of when the next Ice Age may hit, and that some factors are beyond our control, but I find the "No worries, everything's fine" argument a little lacking, at times.

Drew, where is this massive consensus you're talking about? I've provided proof of at least 500 scientists disagreeing. The only formal listing of scientists that I know of agreeing with man-made global warming is the IPCC report, which had a disturbingly small number of scientists on it, several of whom are actually in the former list of dissenters. Now I'm sure there are more advocates than just the IPCC report, but how many is more? 25? 250? 2500? My point here is to claim that the consensus has changed, or at least, has ceased to be a consensus. If we took a poll of the climatological community and weighed it against the accuracy of their predictions, how many would actually be on each side? I'll agree that the issue needs to become completely de-politicised, but you have to admit that both sides suffer from this, not just one or the other.

Blackthorne, the point of choosing a baseline is almost always convenience, not to display relative difference. The difference between 15 and 10 is the same as between 10 and 5 or 3 and -2. Unless there is a specific natural baseline (sea level, absolute zero, etc.) there is no reason to pick one baseline over others than to keep your numbers small.

Finally, a decade is not a very long period to look at when it comes to climate.
Thank you!!! I've been saying this for years, but everyone keeps pointing to the same decade or two of warming and having a hissy fit!

Shaman, I was actually referring to the UN analysis of it. Remember, Siberia would become farmable, as would Greenland, and Alaska. These three areas by themselves are a massive increase.

NOG: I'm not playing any more. The IPCC has over 2000 members. In 2007, the national science academies of the G8+5 nations issued this statement.
It is unequivocal that the climate is changing, and it is very likely that this is predominantly caused by the increasing human interference with the atmosphere. These changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken. So...yeah, more than just the IPCC supports the consensus position. If you want to go and argue that we shouldn't impose limits on our greenhouse gas emissions despite their warnings, knock yourself out. I, however, am done wasting my time on this bull****.

Drew, you're still playing games. How many of them were actual climatologists. The IPCC was mostly political, with a relatively small number of actual scientists and, as we see in the links I've provided, not even all of them agreed with the statements issued by the IPCC.

You're standing example of a scientific consensus isn't even a scientific consensus.

Additionally, a thought recently occured to me, and I decided to pursue it. Drew, you've said that the consequences of us obeying the global warming alarmists, even if they're wrong, amount to nothing more than less air pollution. I would like to sit down and really analyze this.

On the local scale, and assuming that ethanol becomes the new fuel standard, the vast majority of the oil and gas tankers driving down the highway would be replaced with ethanol tankers. The rest would slowly disappear. Now, that means that the vast majority of oil spills on the highway would be replaced with ethanol spills. An ethanol spill is much worse than an oil or gas spill. An ethanol spill makes an oil or gas spill look like a walk in the park on a sunny day.

On the larger scale, assuming you all live in nations with a noticable food surplus, that food surplus would be converted into ethanol to either make or suppliment the ethanol traded internationally. This means that world food supplies would dwindle, leaving the many nations that rely on food handouts (and maybe even some that can currently buy food) on their own, starving. This would be a number of nations in Africa and I believe several in Asia. Further more, the lack of reliance on oil would rather quickly collapse OPEC (no tears shed there) and probably collapse the economies of several of its member nations (ok, tears shed) making them perfect breeding grounds for more terrorists. Imagine a repeat of Afganistan crossed with Iraq played out in Iran, Kuwait, or the UAE. That's not all though. You see, while the US, EU, Japan, and probably most if not all of South America would comply, I seriously doubt China and India would, and Russia may well not. Assuming that global warming alarmism continues, this would leave 'us' relying on 'safe' but expensive energy sources like ethanol, biodiesel, wind, solar, etc. while 'they' get to rely on the cheap, 'globally dangerous' fuels we all use today. Needless to say, international relations would be strained.

I'm sorry to say this, Drew, but your rosy global-warming-free future doesn't look so rosy to me. Now I'll be the first to admit that the above is far from a guaranteed consequence, and it isn't even close to the best reasonable outcome, but it is also far from the worst reasonable outcome and well within the real of possibility.

Blackthorne, the point of choosing a baseline is almost always convenience, not to display relative difference.Eh? Convenience of what if not comparison? There is no point to choosing a baseline unless you want to compare against it. You might as well look at the absolute temperatures if you don't care about comparing to a baseline.

The difference between 15 and 10 is the same as between 10 and 5 or 3 and -2. Unless there is a specific natural baseline (sea level, absolute zero, etc.) there is no reason to pick one baseline over others than to keep your numbers small.Not true. The numerical difference may be the same, but what that difference means depends on what you are measuring and why. A baseline is chosen as a basis for comparison. What is interesting about temperature data in this context is not the absolute temperature, but rather how temperature has been changing over time and how it compares with the past. You can argue that the 1951 baseline is not a good one to choose for whatever reason, but I think you will have a difficult time justifying that. As I mentioned above it does not seem arbitrarily chosen, and anomaly data with that baseline show that temperatures were generally colder prior to 1951 (back to 1880 at least in the GISS anomaly plots I've seen) and generally warmer after 1951.

What that means (i.e. what is causing this warming trend since 1880) is another matter.

Ok, so why 1951? Why not 1967? The best baseline for comparison of global temperatures would be 'ideal conditions'. Would 1951 count as 'ideal climate conditions'? Was the average global temperature in 1951 'idea'? The reason I say convenience is because it is more convenient to write ".2 degrees C" than "342.9 K".

And my point on this whole issue was that a current global temperature above that baseline does not discount global cooling, or a plateau effect, it just means that, relative to the baseline we are still at a higher value. If this high value was lower than the one before it, and that one was lower than the one before it, and that one was lower than the one before it, then that amounts to global cooling. If this high value is the same as the one before it, and that one was the same as the one before it, and that one was the same as the one before it, then that amounts to a global temperature plateau.

Not true. The numerical difference may be the same, but what that difference means depends on what you are measuring and why. This is only true if you take it out of context. Yes, a current global temperature average of -.6 is different from one of +.2, but the -.6 relative to yesterday's temperature may not be different from the +.2 relative to 1951 at all.

Drew, if there is concensus among the 2,500 hundred scientists at IPCC, why are some of those also members of ICEPAC?

Ok, so why 1951? Why not 1967?Since I didn't choose it, I can't say for sure, but looking at the anomaly data (as I mentioned above) 1951 appears to be a midpoint of the range from 1880 to the present, with a minimum point and a maximum point about the same distance from that base. I think it would be hard to argue that the midpoint of a range is a poor choice for a baseline.

The reason I say convenience is because it is more convenient to write ".2 degrees C" than "342.9 K"I don't see how that is more convenient. In fact, you typed more characters for the anomaly than you did for the absolute. Again, plotting anomaly data is not for convenience of entering data, it is for convenience of comparison.

And my point on this whole issue was that a current global temperature above that baseline does not discount global cooling, or a plateau effect, it just means that, relative to the baseline we are still at a higher value.That's true, and that's all I've said. However, if you want to look at trends (i.e. are we cooling, warming or unchanging) then the baseline period doesn't matter. What matters is the computed trend line, the interval over which the line was computed, and the uncertainty of the computed slope.

Yes, a current global temperature average of -.6 is different from one of +.2, but the -.6 relative to yesterday's temperature may not be different from the +.2 relative to 1951 at all.Of course it's different, and trivially so: It says you are now colder than yesterday and warmer than 1951. But maybe that's not what you are interested in; maybe you are interested in long-term trends. In that case, then yes, anomaly data alone wouldn't interest you.

When I said I was done, I meant it, folks.
Global warming denial. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_denial)
list of scientists opposing the consensus view. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scienti fic_assessment_of_global_warming)

I'm not wasting my time on this.

@ Drew,

I hate to drag you back in, but....

I don't understand your posting. By posting a list of scientists who do not agree with the consensus view, does that mean you are accepting that there isn't a consensus? Or was there something significant about that list that I'm just not understanding.

Nah. I'm inviting people to research who exactly is against the consensus, what parts of the consensus they disagree with, and where they get their funding. While hardly authoritative, wikipedia tends to be a good place to start because of the exhaustive list of sources for which they tend to provide links at the bottom of their articles. I trust anyone who doesn't already believe a priori one way or the other regarding climate change to objectively come to their own conclusions.

I've seen lots of talk about the letter sent to the UN, but what I haven't seen people asking a few important questions. The letter references a few (unspecified) studies which are critical of existing models. Which studies? What does the rest of the community feel about those studies? How many were there? Have they been replicated? How many times? Has the community posted any rebuttals or criticisms of them? How many? What does the rest of the community feel about the letter written to the UN? Have they responded to it? Do they plan to? Until we've started to answer these questions, this just isn't news.

Well, if you start talking about biofuels, I guess I gots ta' throw in my 2 cents as well.
On the local scale, and assuming that ethanol becomes the new fuel standard, the vast majority of the oil and gas tankers driving down the highway would be replaced with ethanol tankers.
As it stands today, biofuels will never be able to replace the fossil fuels. Even if you were to use all arable land for biofuel production, you'd still not be able to produce enough to replace fossil fuels. It's a product you blend into the fossil fuels, no more.

You see, while the US, EU, Japan, and probably most if not all of South America would comply, I seriously doubt China and India would, and Russia may well not.
Both India and China are undertaking projects to start up biofuel production, actually. What you seem to forget is that the production of biofuels means that an extra market is opening up for farmers to grow crops for. This can be a major boost to farmers, especially with subsidies in place and increasing market prices. This is actually one of the reasons why Germany started to push for biodiesel production in their country.

Now, don't get my wrong, I'm not a big fan of biofuels. I just felt I needed to point out some of the fallacies in the idea you were going to go with.

To react to the actual topic, I'm not entirely certain how much of the global warming trend is caused by humans, nor am I convinced that this is a bad thing. Bigger temperature changes have happened in the past, and most people seem to forget that the climate isn't a steady state thing.

That being said, I agree with Drew that reducing noxious emissions is never a bad thing. And reducing CO2 is a good way to use what's left of the fossil fuel supply more efficiently, making it last longer.

/edit
And how many people would actually die from a 7-inch to 2-foot sea level rise over 100 years? I'm sure the European dikes could be raised that much and more in that time.
I'm sure the people in New Orleans could keep their dikes at the current level and start learning to breath water. While I know that my country is famous for its dikes, it's not like we're the only ones currently living partially below sea level. And dikes aren't used everywhere. In fact, while we have the option to raise our dikes, many others don't and would simply have to live with surrendering their land to the sea.

Perhaps I'm a fool, but there's been doomsayers for thousands of years warning us all that the sky is falling. Maybe this time they are right. But I doubt it. There will always be changes, and I'm all for making reasonable changes in my behaviour to moderate the effects of other changes, but I cannot take a lot of the proposed alterations to my lifestyle (the ones put forth by the radical greens) seriously.

At the same time, I wish that governments would step in a bit and curtail some of the industrial practices that are truly heinous. I believe it could be done in such a way as to not throw thousands / millions out of work. Nothing will make the radical greens happy except for all of us reverting to the Stone Age, but something could be done.

As for the sea level argument, I think even a small increase in sea level would spell disaster for the people in Southeast Asia -- they don't have dikes and even without global warming they suffer when even the most miniscule changes occur. Most of the people who live by the coasts are poor and would likely have few recourses should the water levels change much at all. Correct me if I'm wrong.

As it stands today, biofuels will never be able to replace the fossil fuels. Even if you were to use all arable land for biofuel production, you'd still not be able to produce enough to replace fossil fuels. It's a product you blend into the fossil fuels, no more.


So what happens in about 100 years time when all the fossil fuels have run out? Do you want to move to the unconventional oil sources such as Tar Sands or Kerogen Shales - creating hugh quantities of CO2 during the processing, polluting vast quantities of water, and destroying 1000's of acres of prisitine wilderness? Or should we actually be finding alternatives to fossil fuels?

Drew:
How about, insead of asking questions that imply there are problems without actually saying anything, you answer them instead.

Henkie:
Yes, I did know that about biofuels, but they seemed a less disasterous solution to me than the alternatives. At least with them, there's no one to replace the UAE in fuel power.

Carcaroth:
The most reasonable alternative as I see it is to turn to hydrogen fuel cells. The two problems there are where to get the electricity and where to get the water, as both are quickly turning into resources that cannt meet demand today.

So what happens in about 100 years time when all the fossil fuels have run out? Do you want to move to the unconventional oil sources such as Tar Sands or Kerogen Shales - creating hugh quantities of CO2 during the processing, polluting vast quantities of water, and destroying 1000's of acres of prisitine wilderness? Or should we actually be finding alternatives to fossil fuels?
I'm not suggesting any such thing. I'm just pointing out that at this point in time, biofuels are not producable in such quantities as to be able to replace fossil fuel. Maybe this will be the case in the future, for instance if they manage to use algae to produce biodiesel, which can supposedly give huge yields per acre.

This is not reality yet, and won't be for the next 10 years or so, and even after that time it'll most likely need subsidies to be competitive with fossil fuel. Or the government simply makes it mandatory to blend in certain amounts of the stuff. As oil prices continue to rise, it'll become increasingly attractive to switch to this kind of fuel, especially since the diesel that is refined from the oil the algae produce is essentially synthetic diesel, which is ideal diesel, basically.

As for tar sands and shales, the key word here is energy neutrality. At the moment, the amount of energy it costs to produce oil from these sources is almost as much as you can get out of it in the end. I'm just making up the numbers here, but this means that if you manage to produce 100 barrels of oil from tar sands, you would need maybe 90 of those barrels to power the machinery which produces the oil. Not overly efficient, and therefore not very economical.

And, at least in Europe, substantial effort is made by the governments (the EU) to set up rules to make sure that biofuels are won in a sustainable manner. I'm sure it won't be too much of a problem to ensure that other sources for fuels are won in a sustainable manner as well.

How about, insead of asking questions that imply there are problems without actually saying anything, you answer them instead.My questions are not being made to imply that there are problems without saying anything. They were posed to reveal that, right now, we don't have enough information. I found no response to the letter from the scientific community, which doesn't mean that there hasn't been one or that one is not forthcoming, but have no way of answering why one way or the other. I don't know which studies were referred to in the letter and, therefore, have no way to determine what the response (if any) of the community has been to the studies, I don't have the time (or the access) to review every study published in peer reviewed literature since 2005 to find them, and I certainly can't explain why or why not the community responded or hasn't responded the way they did (or did not).

Sure, I could spend a week calling think tanks and pulling research together, but I do have a full time job.

Ah. That explains things much better. From your previous statements on this topic, I was afraid you felt these were valid reasons to disregard everything I had presented in this topic. I am glad this is not the case. I, too, have limited time due to job and school, however I will try to find something.

My questions are not being made to imply that there are problems without saying anything. They were posed to reveal that, right now, we don't have enough information. I found no response to the letter from the scientific community, which doesn't mean that there hasn't been one or that one is not forthcoming, but have no way of answering why one way or the other. I don't know which studies were referred to in the letter and, therefore, have no way to determine what the response (if any) of the community has been to the studies, I don't have the time (or the access) to review every study published in peer reviewed literature since 2005 to find them, and I certainly can't explain why or why not the community responded or hasn't responded the way they did (or did not).

Sure, I could spend a week calling think tanks and pulling research together, but I do have a full time job.

I should copy and paste this for every argument with Drew....

T2: You should no by now that, in the absence of sufficient information, I always prefer to err on the side of caution. Where you and I differ is not on how we see information, but where we place the burden of proof. You appear (at least to me) to think it's more important to prove absolutely and completely the reality of man-made climate change than it is to dis-prove it when it comes to deciding how government will act. You appear to believe that it is more important to prove that capital punishment absolutely and completely does not deter more crime than life in prison before choosing to discard it.

I believe that the burden lies with dis-proving our widely held notions about climate change and that it is more important to prove absolutely that the benefit to society from capital punishment (if there is any benefit at all) outweighs the cost of the innocents that will occasionally be executed. It's a difference of world view. That said, you can keep your snark to yourself. :)

I, too, have limited time due to job and school, however I will try to find something.I wouldn't bother, NOG. I checked around for about 2 hours and couldn't find anything. It's likely that the scientific community at large simply hasn't responded to the letter and that the studies referred to didn't really cause a wave. The question is why. Sooner or later, a reputable scientific journalist who, you know, actually gets paid for this sort of thing will do the research or the greater community will formulate a response. Sadly, given the increasingly shallow nature of our media (it's a hell of a lot easier to just report on what somebody said than it is to gather all the facts and, I think we can all agree that the real bias of our media is laziness), my mad money is on the latter. After all, drafting a response that a 1000+ scientists would be willing to sign would require quite a bit of back and forth. These things take time.

Actually, Drew, I found some stuff, in much less time than that, too. There has, as of yet, been no response from the IPCC. As to the studies mentioned, I found one talked about here:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316566,00.html

That's just one of a slew of studies released in the past few months that have shown that the math, assumptions, and predictions made by the major climate models used during the past decade have been incomplete, inaccurate, and wrong, respectively. Most interesting to note, however, is that apparently none of these climate models were validated by comparison to actual records. In other words, they were never grounded in the observable verification that science has used as often as possible since the dis-proof of spontaneous generation. More significanlty than that, however, one of them showed that one of the linchpins of the global warming theory, the theory of "CO2 forcing" is entirely unrealistic. It is this mechanic that drives current climate models to massive temperatures.

And as to basic assumptions and burdens of proof, I prefer to assume that both sides have an equal burden of proof and believe whichever one provides the best credible proof the best. The global warming proponents' frequent alarmist claims of radical evidence (i.e. polar ice caps melting in the summer of all things), with equally freqent disproofs by their detractors has really tainted my view of anything they present. On the 'burden of proof' scale, they're in the negative.

You're over-stating things. The Fox news headline was Study: Part of Global-Warming Model May Be Wrong. (emphasis mine...and, yes, I read the whole article) Not even Fox was irresponsible enough to refer to it as absolute fact. The article itself has not touched on what the reaction of the global community has been to their study (which is actually the important part). I'll wait until NPR or the BBC covers the whole story before I make a decision about the matter.

My point was that this is only one of a slew of them. Yes, they have all discussed only pieces of various things, and yes, there has yet to be a respose to them. The most damning of them, however, is one that compares global temperature averages, fossil fuel consumption, and solar activity for the past 150(?) years. The conclusion? During the thirties, when fossil fuel consumption world wide was fairly constant, the planet's temperature averages spiked for over a decade. This is the period that currently holds the record high for hottest year on record. During the subsequent 40 year period where fossil fuel consumption world wide more than tripled, the planet actually cooled significantly.

By far the most damning fact that I have seen as a whole is that the climate models used today, when used to model known periods (like the past decade) do not match known historical data. In any field of science, a model that does not match known conditions is tossed out, or at least sent back to the drawing board.

And as to basic assumptions and burdens of proof, I prefer to assume that both sides have an equal burden of proof and believe whichever one provides the best credible proof the best. The global warming proponents' frequent alarmist claims of radical evidence (i.e. polar ice caps melting in the summer of all things), with equally freqent disproofs by their detractors has really tainted my view of anything they present. On the 'burden of proof' scale, they're in the negative.

Sorry, that's just a load. The issue no longer has anything to do with "science," but with partisan politics. You have all these conservatives, who spend half their free time, running around trying to disprove something that "real scientists" are still in the middle of researching and trying to make sense out of. I'm sorry, but much like the conservative agenda of the FOX Coporation, I have no faith, nor any regard for all these conservative politicos, or for any of their "evidence" in trying to disprove anything, whether it's:

1. Global Warming
2. Why people are gay
3. Special Creation vs. Evolution
4. Stem Cell Research
5. When Life is concieved
Or mostly:

6. How the Clintons created all the world's problems.

6. How the Clintons created all the world's problems.

How did you know what my thesis was on? :D

Looking out my window in Chicago it is SNOWING! Where is global warming when you need it? I think it's just a myth like the unbiased media, gay being a choice, religion (in general), and the Clinton's being the world's saviors.

Chandos, first off, the vast majority of people criticizing global warming are not criticizing the legitimate research that makes the news, but rather pointing out other legitimate research that doesn't (because it contradicts global warming), blowing the whistle on all the BS 'studies' out there that do, and trying to keep politicians and nut jobs from making huge mistakes because of it.

I have no problem with genuine, non-biased scientists studying climate change. I have no problem with them publishing their results. I have problems when 'scientists' make bogus claims about the 'evidence of global warming' which any undergrad in meteorology, history, or math can pick apart. I have a problem when such people take advantage of the less intelligent among us to make sure their views become policy.

And in case you all think I'm just being paranoid, it's starting again. The news media is getting all up in arms again because the Arctic ice is melting. Guess what, it does that every year and in the winter it reforms.

Chandos, first off, the vast majority of people criticizing global warming are not criticizing the legitimate research that makes the news, but rather pointing out other legitimate research that doesn't (because it contradicts global warming), blowing the whistle on all the BS 'studies' out there that do, and trying to keep politicians and nut jobs from making huge mistakes because of it.


Not really. The vast majority of those ""whistle blowers" are political hacks who are only interested in "blowing the whistle" on those whom they suspect may have a very different politcal aganda than they do. They are the ones with the "BS" studies who, in desperate attempts to discredit real scientists, are the ones who usually make the idiotic politcal mistakes.

Give it up NOG. Getting Chandos to admit that some "right-wing" scientists actually have science in mind when questioning global warming is equivalent to getting him to admit Gore is wrong. Not going to happen. (Edit: I'm not trying to put a dig in on Chandos here -- just making general statement about his convictions on this subject. Such staunch conviction is not a bad thing at all and is actually commendable.).

Chandos: You are implying that the only "real scientists" are scientists that agree with your personal views -- an implication which is untrue.

Chandos, I've pointed out enough holes in global warming myself to sink the Bismark, and haven't heard any of them answered. The 'BS studies' to which I refer are those not in any way based on real science. Real science being defined as the pursuit of knowledge based on testing and correcting theories using real-world data as much as possible. As I have said before, climate models which don't agree with historically known periods need to be ditched, yet they seem to be the backbone of the global warming movement today. The studies which correlate global temperature change to solar activity are not bogus, they are based on real data. The studies that show periods in recent history when the planet has been warmer than it is today are not bogus, they are based on real data. The studies that show we are no longer in a period of global warming (however temporary that may be) are not bogus, they are based on real data.

Which 'BS studies' are you refering to?

While "global warming" may or may not be scientifically backed and accepted, I think there's one piece of common sense that does come out of this debate: It's always best to minimize the pollution footprint left by any human activity.

People are wasting so much time arguing about the impacts that there's no energy left to look at the actual problem!

You know Rally, God has given man dominion over earth, and without global warming as a palpable excuse (that is so because the 'theory' has enough holes to sink the Bismarck) to change anything about our footprint we can continue exercise our god-given right and to do as we please and sensibly invest those billions in revenues instead of on modernisations or, horrors, sulphur filters, emission reductions or some other treehugger's folly ... lalalalala.

That said, of course you hit the nail on the head, and that is why I find the "oh, but global warming has so many holes as to sink the Bismarck" point of view always a little bit silly (no offence), and suspiciously self serving when funded by the American Petroleum Institute or AEI or some outfit like that. They employ professional climate change sceptics and pay them exclusively for holding such views and to provide a steady supply of on-call scepticism, ready to be fed to lawmakers who might otherwise get the silly idea of implementing regulation that forces companies to divert precious revenues for investments into emission reduction.

Yeah. Agreement must be reached on the nature of the problem prior to attempts to resolve it, as the nature and severity of the problem dictate the form and force of the response.

Indeed! And full and unanimous agreement before any measures are taken! Only in consensus there is salvation!

Of course, this so-called 'scientific consensus' is a hoax. It is self-interested group think, if not a conspiracy or self-delusion, not to mention that it is full of holes so large that they would sink the Bismarck.

Disagreement, on the other hand, if only voiced vehemently and persistently enough, suggests by its very existence, even without argument, proof that the other point of view - this 'science', with all those holes in it large enough to sink the Bismarck - is questionable enough to invoke such vehemence and persistence - lest the disagreement would not make sense, even be cynical and frivolous - after all fairness dictates to assume that all participants in the public debate are honest and serious people interested in nothing else but the issue at hand. So if the climate change sceptics stay sceptic, then the science behind global warming must be faulty.

Anyone interested in learning just why point 1 in NOG's original post is wholly incorrect would do well to start here (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/01/uncertainty-noise-and-the-art-of-model-data-comparison/).

In short, if you use a statistical outlier as your reference point, you can prove anything.

While "global warming" may or may not be scientifically backed and accepted, I think there's one piece of common sense that does come out of this debate: It's always best to minimize the pollution footprint left by any human activity.

People are wasting so much time arguing about the impacts that there's no energy left to look at the actual problem!

I read this in Time magazine. (http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1720049_1720050_1721653,00.html)

I'm going to tell you something I probably shouldn't: we may not be able to stop global warming. The Arctic Ocean, which experienced record melting last year, could be ice-free in the summer as soon as 2013, decades ahead of what the earlier models told us. We need to begin curbing global greenhouse emissions right now, but more than a decade after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, the world has utterly failed to do so.

For most environmentalists, the answer to that depressing litany is to keep pushing the same message harder: cut carbon and cut it now. But a few scientists are beginning to quietly raise the possibility of cooling the planet's fever directly through geoengineering. The principle behind it is straightforward — compensate for an intensified greenhouse effect by reducing the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth — but the techniques seem like pure science fiction. Just a few: using orbital mirrors to bounce sunlight back into space, fertilizing the oceans with iron to amplify their ability to absorb carbon and even painting roofs white to increase solar reflection.

Geoengineering has long been the province of kooks, but as the difficulty of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions has become harder to ignore, it is slowly emerging as an option of last resort. The tipping point came in 2006, when the Nobel Prize—winning atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen published an editorial examining the possibility of releasing vast amounts of sulfurous debris into the atmosphere to create a haze that would keep the planet cool. "Over the past couple of years, it's gone from an outsider thing to something that is increasingly discussed," says Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University.

Caldeira modeled the effects on climate that Crutzen's notion of spreading sulfur particles into the air would have and found that geoengineering might be able to compensate for a doubling of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Even more impressive was the price tag: somewhere between a few hundred million dollars and a couple of billion dollars a year, compared with the unknowable cost of decarbonizing the entire world. But the drawbacks are serious. Worsening air pollution is a risk. We'd have to keep geoengineering indefinitely to balance out continued greenhouse-gas emissions, and the motivation to decarbonize might disappear if we believed we had an insurance policy. And those are just the consequences we know about. But the truth is, we're already performing an unauthorized experiment on our climate by adding billions of tons of man-made carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Unless the geopolitics of global warming change soon, the Hail Mary pass of geoengineering might become our best shot.


I think I would rather continue to argue then do some of the things they are thinking about.

For clarification purposes- this article came from Time magazine and not Fox or some other right wing mouthpiece. In other words it is safe to read as it must be true. :D

Rally, I fully agree with you, but this must be done in a responsable manner. Establishing a $0.50/gallon of gas tax in the US (proposed by a Senator from Minnesota?) is not responsable.

Ragusa, I have no problem with regulating things we understand and know to be toxic, or even dangerous in large amounts. SO2 filters are fine, lead and mercury confinement are great, and using fly ash as landfill should be flatly prohibited. The problem is, there is no such understanding for CO2, and that is the issue here.

AMaster, that was an interesting article, but the end point of it seemed to be two things:
1.) there is so much uncertainty that we can't even accurately tell what the current state is, much less how accurate our models are therefore
2.) by running a whole lot of models and comparing them, we can filter out an accurate average trend.

The problem with this is that it assumes the models are reliable to begin with. In order fo the models to be reliable, there are certain criteria that must be fulfilled:
1.) the theories on which they are based must be accurate
2.) the assumptions which they utilize (and they do) must be accurate
3.) the approximations and simplifications they utilize (and they do) must have minor impact
4.) the program must be properly implemented
5.) the initial and boundary conditions must be accurate
Since many of these are impossible to directly verify, the only reliable mechanism to use is real-world data. However, there are some problems with these models even without real-world data:
1.) Theory: CO2 forcing, the backbone of the runaway global warming process, has never been supported by experimentation and recent studies have cast great doubt on its reliability.
2.) Approximations: The simplification of the base equations eliminated the negative feedback process which we now know prevents runaway global warming.
3.) Approximations: The models used today do not account for solar activity or cloud formation of any kind. These are known to be significant (though hard to predict) factors in our environment.
Now I'm pretty sure their programs are properly implemented, and I'll guess their initial conditions are ok, though boundary conditions are iffy. I'm also not too familiar with all the assumptions they make, so I won't speculate about them.

Just the above problems, however, would have these models laughed out of any aerospace conference in the world (if they were aerodynamics models and not climate models). Actually, the lack of validation alone would do that. Seriously, validation is that big of an issue. Without validation, you're just playing computer games that have no connection to the real world.

No offence taken by your comments, T2. I have nothing but respect for you and your comments on these boards. I've always gotten along pretty well with most conservatives on this board. And I don't even have any real problem with real conservatism, although my point of view is very different as a prgressive liberal from that of real conservatives who are rationalists (that would be largely Libertarians) .

Chandos: You are implying that the only "real scientists" are scientists that agree with your personal views -- an implication which is untrue.

I don't hold any personal views regarding science, or global warming. And I tend to agree with Rally on the points she made above. That said, I have great admiration and respect for Al Gore. But I understand that he "could be wrong" regarding the specifics of global warming. Mr. Gore has had a very well known past history regarding the human care (or lack of) for our planet. It is not surprising that he would take the extreme track that he has regarding the issue of human waste and pollution adversely affecting the planet. And he sees that there may be larger consequences for the planet and its climate in the long run if we are not careful in how we regulate our own wastes.

I think Mr. Gore is an advocate for our environment and that he may very well be right on some of the broader aspects of how we approach our stewardship of this planet. Still, I find it odd that all these FOX loving Bush supporters, who clamor like "Chicken Littles" over the phony "War on Terror" and Islamophobia, are complaining like hens over the "alarmist" nature of the advocates for global warming and its effects. They are nothing more than partisan hacks and all the posturing in the world will not convince me that they are "real scientists."

NOG - I'm glad for you that you believe that you have found so many "holes" in the science of global warming. Perhaps you have enough holes to fill the Albert Hall.

AMaster, that was an interesting article, but the end point of it seemed to be two things:
1.) there is so much uncertainty that we can't even accurately tell what the current state is, much less how accurate our models are therefore
2.) by running a whole lot of models and comparing them, we can filter out an accurate average trend.

I don't think that's an accurate summary of the article. Even if it is, however, it doesn't change the reality that the 'since 1998 stuff has plateaued' argument is almost certainly deliberately deceptive.

Also, with regards to point 3 from the OP: the idea that greater temperatures and CO2 concentrations would be beneficial is odd. Greater CO2 concentrations would, among other things, increase the acidity of the oceans, decreasing the amount of life in the oceans, crashing fisheries and so on. How many people would actually die from the sea level rising? Dunno. However, as you can see here (http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2008/jan/flooding/index.html) or here (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003639192_cities28.html) indicate that it's not a problem to be taken lightly.

here (http://www.arborday.org/media/mapchanges.cfm) you can see changes in hardiness zones in the US over the past decade or so. When, y'know, 'temperature wasn't rising'.

Chandos:
Like you, I have no pity for those that try to sell off dangerous waste as no big issue, or try to sweep it under the rug (or rocks as the case may be), but I also have a problem with those trying to classify CO2 as a pollutant based on sketchy science and people's fears. I also have serious problems with those trying to play off people's fears as concerns Islam and Terror, though I hardly think this is limited to Fox. I think the biggest difference between us is who the 'partisan hacks claiming to be scientists' are. I see the global warming arguments and evidence as increasingly seperate from reality and increasingly playing off people's fears and ignorance, whereas the anti-global warming arguments and evidence have been consistently realistic and grounded in logic and science. Could you perhaps reference some scientific bases for global warming?

AMaster:
My analysis of the article may not have been entirely accurate, but that doesn't change the fact that signal vs noise ratios have nothing to do with the model's validation.

A signal vs noise ratio can tell you that you are actually producing rational data as opposed to your model going on the fritz (or exploding as we say). Basically, it proves that #4 on my list isn't an issue and that part of the issues of #3 and #5 are addressed (i.e. the approximations and initial and boundary conditions don't break the models).

Validation requires that you show the model actually reflects reality, not just that a collection of models or runs are internally consistent.

... it doesn't change the reality that the 'since 1998 stuff has plateaued' argument is almost certainly deliberately deceptive.
And I can (and actually do) say the same thing about much of the global warming arguement. Just saying it doesn't make it true, however. What makes you believe that the plateau arguement is deceptive?

Yeah. Agreement must be reached on the nature of the problem prior to attempts to resolve it, as the nature and severity of the problem dictate the form and force of the response.

Please tell me you forgot the "sarcasm" indicators in this post! If not, you missed my point entirely.

Rally, I (think I) got your point, I merely failed to express myself clearly. Everyone can agree that reducing pollution is good, no doubt. However, as there are wildly divergent views on the dangers posed by pollution there are similarly divergent views on what sort of resources might reasonably be allocated to reducing it.

To pick two absurd extremes, someone who thinks that pollution is merely cosmetic probably won't be in favor of reductions that have any negative impact whatsoever, while someone who thinks pollution will make the Earth explode would probably be okay with literally destroying the economy if it meant eliminating pollution.

Chandos:
AMaster:
And I can (and actually do) say the same thing about much of the global warming arguement. Just saying it doesn't make it true, however. What makes you believe that the plateau arguement is deceptive?

The fact that it uses a statistical outlier as its reference point.

And on this I was referring to 'paralysis by analysis', as successfully exercised by lobbyists who always call for the next study because this one is, you know, full of holes that would sink the Bismarck, and as such a weak basis to infringe on free enterprise. I am referring to the devils advocates paid to kill regulation - lobbyists and the pet scientists they keep to exclusively work in the field of climate scepticism.

That's my point exactly, Ragusa! Without being an environmental scientist, but having had worked in large-scale industrial facilities, I strongly believe that there are many, many changes that can be made to manufacturing processes to lessen their environmental impact without huge investments in time and money. Those are getting lost as the wheels of industry spin in the muck of their own making.

If it were only that simple Rally. Unfortunately, the prevailing attitude is to eliminate the "big ticket items" which tend to cost A LOT of money. The use of incentives and education goes a long way and is less expensive than regulation and enforcement.

I have never been against doing things to help the environment. I have problems with the alarmist attitude of the global warming zeolots who condemn those asking questions rather than answering. It's as if a new religion of Climatologism has been formed and to question the precepts of the Holy Elite means blasphamy. What a crock.

T2, I know that the truly "big ticket" items are still being debated hotly, both because of questions about the scientific validity AND because of the expense involved. What sticks in my craw is that the vast majority of debate-energy being applied to this issue is focussed on that top-down approach that has yet to be defined, while the bottom-up approach is minimally funded even though, as you say, it's been shown to work. :(

It's as if a new religion of Climatologism has been formed and to question the precepts of the Holy Elite means blasphamy. What a crock.

Amen to that. Science experts have been shovelling this stuff for years. One of the most prominent examples is David Suzuki here in Canada. He's been forecasting doom since the 1970s! While he is a skilled scientist and an excellent presenter, his prophecies in the name of science have not come to pass any more than those who believed the world would come to an end in the year 2000.

Now, I'm all for green policies that work. Polices that totally screw up the lives of thousands of people so a bunch of extremists can pat each other on the backs are what bother me. There needs to be a logical common ground that addresses the real problems without dogmatically trying to brand industries as the "witches causing all this here weather fluctuation!"

Ragusa, Rally, T2Bruno, I know exactly what you mean and I have a perfect example of exactly that going on right here in Virginia. As some of you may know and others may not, the Chesapeake bay is in terrible shape. We've been pumping so much organic waste (not exactly toxic, but you'll see) into it that it causes massive algae blooms which then die off and use up all the oxygen in the water as they decay. This is exactly the same kind of 'dead zone' that you may have heard of in the Gulf of Mexico, with the exact same cause: man-made organic waste, such as sewage, fertalizer run-off, and dozens more sources. Now, we've dealt with the big, centralized ones (sewage treatment plants) pretty well, but there are so many little ones (mainly farms) that they still cause a problem. What do the politicians do? Spend $12 million we have to address the vast majority of the farms in Virginia? No, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars beating on the treatment plants that are today causing virtually no impact whatsoever. If every treatment plant in the entire Chesapeake Bay tributary (Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and all the way up to parts of Pensylvania) shut down, it would cause almost no difference whatsoever.

Now if you want them to put a $500 filter that has to be changed every 10 years on some kind of industrial complex, or switch to a slightly more expensive production process, that's fine with me. When you try to put a $0.50 tax on every gallon of gas, I have a problem. When advocacy groups are so loud that the Supreme Court second guesses the EPA and orders them to 'assess the impact of CO2 emissions on human health and safety and begin to regulate said emissions', I have a problem.

AMaster:
Please support that claim. The last time I heard a similar claim being supported to attack a climate change graph was the so-called 'Hockey-stick' graph which, thankfully, quickly disappeared.

Also, to all, it may be interesting to look into some of the arctic and antarctic ice core studies that have been going on for the last few years. It turns out they do show a relationship between climate change and CO2 in the atmosphere, only it's the reverse of what's currently theorized. The changes in CO2 levels actually FOLLOW the climate changes by about 800 years. Any scientific criticism of this research would be interesting.

I supported the claim with the first link I posted.

As for the icecores, start here (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/). They don't show a relationship that's the reverse of what's been theorized

http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjJmZDYxZThlMzNmNzYzZmIzMGExNWY0Mzg1MGRiZTY


Thursday, March 27, 2008



Must-Read Global-Warming Book [Sterling Burnett]


About a year ago, Canadian environmentalist and journalist Lawrence Solomon began a series of articles in the National Post examining the credentials of and arguments made by scientists and economists labeled “deniers” by various environmentalists, a number of mainstream environmental reporters, and some politicians. Solomon, true to the finest tenets of his profession, sought the truth concerning whether there was in fact a consensus on the headline-grabbing issue of global warming, or whether in fact any “real” scientists actually dissented from the Al Gore/UN line that global warming is happening, is largely caused by humans, and threatens all manner of catastrophies.

As many people — policy wonks and fellow travelers — on this blog are well aware, dissenting scientists are not in fact rare: There are serious scholars whose views should, but too often do not, inform the debate. Solomon’s columns were important because they brought this message to a wider audience. As Solomon’s knowledge grew, he found that the genre limits of newspaper writing precluded an adequately in-depth exploration of these skeptical scientists’ important observations. Accordingly, selecting some of the scientists discussed in his columns, Solomon has written a book: The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud**and those who are too fearful to do so. As a jacket blurb puts it, “What he found shocked him. Solomon discovered that on every “headline” global warming issue, not only were there serious scientists who dissented, consistently the dissenters were by far the more accomplished and eminent scientists.”

This book does not attempt to settle the science, or show that humans are or are not responsible for the present warming trend, or settle what we can expect the future harms/benefits of continued warming (or cooling) might be. Rather, the genius of the book is that it shows in a manner accessible to a lay audience that uncertainties concerning each important facet of the “consensus” view on warming abound, and that the dissenting views are at least as plausible (and often more compelling) than the IPCC/Gore camps.



The Deniers, examines what should be the active debates concerning the plausibility of the argument that human CO2 emissions (or CO2 per se) is a driver for climate change, what role the sun may play in warming, what role the present warming trend (and human activities) play in hurricane and tropical/parasitic disease patterns, and the reliability of the climate models, among other issues. In addition, Solomon notes the harsh treatment that many scientists have endured simply because they followed the scientific method, the evidence from their research, and their own consciences, all of which led them to the conclusion that this or that facet of the global-warming consensus view was woefully incomplete or flat-out wrong. This treatment has had the effect intended by global warming scaremongers — to shut down promising areas of research and to silence credible critics. As I put it in an earlier column:

The term skeptic has historically been a badge of honor proudly worn by scientists as indicating their commitment to the idea that in the pursuit of truth, nothing is beyond question, every bit of knowledge is open to improvement and/or refutation as new evidence or better theories emerge. However, in the topsy-turvy field of climate science, “skeptic” is a term of opprobrium and to be labeled a skeptic is to be dismissed as a hack. Being a skeptic concerning global warming today is akin to being a heretic in the Middle Ages — you may not be literally burned at the stake, but your reputation will be put to flames.

In response, many scientists whose research calls into question one or more of the fundamental tenets of global warming orthodoxy, have learned to couch their conclusions carefully. They argue, for instance, that while their research does not match up with this or that point in global warming theory, or would seem to undermine this or that conclusion, they are not denying that humans are causing global warming and they cannot account for the discrepancy between their work and the theory’s predictions. These scientists have learned the hard lesson that when reality and the theory conflict, for professional reasons, they’d better cling to the theory: shades of Galileo recanting his theory that the earth revolves around the sun under pressure from the Inquisition.
Though there are many good books on global warming, The Deniers is among the most effective in showing how science is being fundamentally undermined in the current politicized atmosphere of climate research. In addition, like no other book or paper I know, it provides a concise but thorough overview of the myriad weaknesses of the consensus view, the quality and substance of the criticisms of that view, and the stellar qualifications of those scientists labeled derisively as “deniers.”

This book should be read by anyone who seriously wants to understand where and why substantive debate remains concerning climate change and why there is so much vitriol surrounding what until recently was a relatively quiet, unheralded, or unnoticed (except by its practitioners) field of science. If a person could read only one book this year on climate change, this is the one I’d pick.

I wish people here would do research on global warming / climate change themselves instead of doing research on the researchers. I doubt that there is even one of you who is a scientist working in this field.

Throwing links about this and that paper, this has become such a contrite argument.

I did my fair share of this kind research as well and realised that so many people have so many different opinions and are not willing to listen to what other people have to say. It indeed has almost involved into a religion.

I bet they are pretty irked at scientologists right now, because that would have been a great name!

Oh my science! Sciencedamnit!

Well, the "sceptics" seems to be a bunch of people paid and supported by our dear friends the oil industry. I dont know about you guys but they dont really strike me as very reliable when it comes to an issue about cutting down the use of their products. Sadly they have succeeded and instead of talking about what needs to be done they have managed to convince people that there is no problem and if there is one there is nothing we can do so we should just continue to do what we have always done. They have "swiftboated" the entire issue.

Well, the "sceptics" seems to be a bunch of people paid and supported by our dear friends the oil industry. I dont know about you guys but they dont really strike me as very reliable when it comes to an issue about cutting down the use of their products. Sadly they have succeeded and instead of talking about what needs to be done they have managed to convince people that there is no problem and if there is one there is nothing we can do so we should just continue to do what we have always done. They have "swiftboated" the entire issue.

Oh, you were so close to hitting the triple crown of global warming. You had "oil industry" and "swifboating", but you missed "Fox News". Better luck next time. :)

Well, the "sceptics" seems to be a bunch of people paid and supported by our dear friends the oil industry. I dont know about you guys but they dont really strike me as very reliable when it comes to an issue about cutting down the use of their products.That is such a cop-out and makes no sense as far as science is concerned. It doesn't matter where the science comes from; all that matters is whether the science is backed up with accurate facts and analysis. It's great if you can refute with a logical argument, or point out flaws in the data or analysis, but to reject it just because of who is presenting it is lame.

Anthony Watts whose blog and effort to survey the temperature stations around the country I have linked to a few time here is a skeptic that doesn't fit your mold. He is a meteorologist who admits he believed the anthropogenic global warming reports until he started looking into the science and found it lacking.

I really don't understand the resistance to refuting the science and analysis behind the anthropogenic global warming claims. It's not like there hasn't been mistakes made in the past with projected disasters; what makes this one sacrosanct? I am glad there are people questioning; let their science and analysis speak for itself and leave the BS out of it. If their science is BS, there are plenty of people to call them on it with facts rather than who's paying for it.

In an ideal world, that'd work. In the real world, once people accept one position as their own, it almost invariably becomes unchangeable. I don't think that anyone posting here who thinks that man-made global warming is a myth has changed their mind when their pet sources' claims have been refuted. They just find another link saying the same and present that one as the truth. And once that one's been shot down, another one. And again. And again. Ad infinitum.

Which proves quite succinctly that muddying the issue with any kind of hack science works perfectly as long as there's enough of it around. With this sort of dirty tactics, even the absolute truth doesn't stand a chance, because in the end it's simply made irrelevant. Everyone believes the truth that suits them.

For every hack, there's a hundred new believers made and maybe 1 person with enough knowledge to refute their claims. But by the time that they get around to refuting the hack, those 100 believers are already spreading the word further. Pure mathematics will tell you that at this point (and in the future), there will be a (slowly) rising percentage of sceptic believers no matter how wrong the hack's science is proven later.

dmc could probably tell you something about reasonable doubt at this point. The sad truth is, it doesn't really need to be reasonable. As long as you have completely unreasonable or reasonable doubt in people's minds, you've already won, and even the worst criminal will be let go. So as far as the hacks go, it doesn't make any difference whether they're proven wrong later. Their mission of instilling doubt has been accomplished anyway.

But that's just it: Decisions based on scientific data and analyses shouldn't be up to public opinion. The people knowledgeable in the domain are doing research and publishing their conclusions. Let the other knowledgeable people decide whether it's BS or not. And such things don't happen overnight; research takes time.

The funny thing is though your post is pro-AGW, the same post could be made with the con-AGW position. There are plenty of hacks on both sides, especially now that the whole thing has taken on a political dimension.

But that's just it: Decisions based on scientific data and analyses shouldn't be up to public opinion. The people knowledgeable in the domain are doing research and publishing their conclusions. Let the other knowledgeable people decide whether it's BS or not. And such things don't happen overnight; research takes time.

But unfortunately they are up to public opinion, at least in the U.S. The people get to vote for the politicians that will wind up supporting one position or another.

The funny thing is though your post is pro-AGW, the same post could be made with the con-AGW position. There are plenty of hacks on both sides, especially now that the whole thing has taken on a political dimension.

Yup, it goes both ways, sure. The only difference is that overwhelmingly across the world, this issue is treated as scientific, not political like in the U.S. And I think that it's more than fair to say that the number of reputable sceptics on this issue is minuscule compared to the non-sceptics.

Oh, you were so close to hitting the triple crown of global warming. You had "oil industry" and "swifboating", but you missed "Fox News". Better luck next time.

If the shoe fits why change it? There is a reason clichés reach their venerable state.

As Tal said, in the rest of the world this issue has been treated like a scientific one which means the scientists told the politicians that something bad was going on and we really should try and do something about it and the problem doesnt care where on the political scale you are. In the US however the scientists told the politicians the same thing, then politicians told the scientists that they were wrong and then the politicians dug up their own scientists to back up their politically motivated stance. Now the issue is political in the US and sadly they are managing to spread it to the rest of the world. Right-wing pundits here in Sweden for example have started to adapt the position of their American brethren . So yes, this issue has totally been "swiftboated".

Oh, yes, because the IPCC was so overwhelmingly scientific, and not really political at all. :bs:

Joacquin, the reason this cliche is so venerable seems to be because a lie can get across the world before the truth even gets out the door.

I think the words Pratchett used was "before the truth gets his booths on" :P

Ponder this then, what political reason would there be to claim global warming is real if it is not? Whose interest would it server? I can't come up with anyone. If you turn the issue around, is there any interest that is threathened by people doing anything about global warming? Who benefits from casting doubt on global warming and in contrast who benefits from supporting it?

I have not made any extensive research, I have seen some documentaries that was interesting, apparently one of the top anti-global warming "scientist" was also one of the top "smoking does not lead to cancer" scientists but all that is beside the point. Cue buono(sp?), who benefits? That simple question is really all I need to base my opinion. Who benefits from claiming global warming is real if it isn't? In my mind, no one. Who benefits from saying that it isnt real even if it is? Massive financial interests.

There are plenty of hacks on both sides, especially now that the whole thing has taken on a political dimension.

Yes, the debate is largely political now. Everyone of a different poltical persuasion is going to have his/her very own "must read" book or link to politically burden those others with, who hold a different point of view - The National Review will have theirs; the same goes for the New Republic. And all the hacks, political operatives and minions will continue their ranting, hoping to "muddy the waters," which is the classic approach of "Swift Boating." The "real" science and research no longer matters - only the politics.

Joacquin, your question is easy to answer: the fear mongers. Those who can convince everyone else that some horrible disaster is about to happen and only they can avert it tend to get elected, funded, etc. There are economic and political reasons for someone to support either side.

NOG, the problem in that lies in the fact that in pretty much everywhere the parties who'd benefit from such fearmongering lie in the minority and most of them in opposition. How these parties would manage to convince the established institutions, that benefit next to nothing from such an agenda and only damage themselves by opening the political market for new enviormental parties. Now the funding part I suppose could be accepted since I'm sure the funds towards global warming research have most probably increased by quite a lot, still a global conspiracy of climatologists seems somewhat unfeasable to me, I'd like to think that most scientists have more integrity than spout out outright lies in a desperate attempt to get more funds.

Personally I play with the odds on this one. The overwhelming majority of climatologists and scientists with actual competence on the area agree with global warming. I myself don't know almost anything and have more important things (from my personal perspective) to study than global warming, so I'm going to have to accept that the odds of the 90% having right is higher than the 10% having right. This thinking is further increased by the consequences of either prediction. If the global warming folks have it all wrong we only risk cutting our growth somewhat and gain some more focus on enviormental issues and probably invest more to enviormental friendly technology, if they have it right and we choose to ignore it however the costs will be quite significant and the humanitarian disaster following would quite horrible. In this light it's not a very difficult choice for me, but I'll accept that I don't know for sure if global warming is true or not since I most certainly lack the competence of observing and testing it myself.

the last 2 are the best

"In sum, a strategy must recognize what is possible. In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the prediction of a specific future climate state is not possible." -- Final chapter, Draft TAR 2000 (Third Assessment Report), IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

"Because there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward)." -- Climate Change Science - An Analysis Of Some Key Questions, p1 (Committee on the Science of Climate Change, National Research Council) ISBN 0-309-07574-2.

"The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate change." -- James Hansen, "Climate forcings in the Industrial era", PNAS, Vol. 95, Issue 22, 12753-12758, October 27, 1998.

"Reducing the wide range of uncertainty inherent in current model predictions of global climate change will require major advances in understanding and modeling of both (1) the factors that determine atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols, and (2) the so-called “feedbacks” that determine the sensitivity of the climate system to a prescribed increase in greenhouse gases." -- Climate Change Science - An Analysis Of Some Key Questions, p1 (Committee on the Science of Climate Change, National Research Council) ISBN 0-309-07574-2.

"The consensus is that major advances are needed in our modelling and interpretation of temperature profiles . . . and their analysis by the scientific community worldwide." -- David Parker, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, Berkshire.

"Because climate is uncontrollable . . . the models are the only available experimental laboratory for climate. . . . However, climate models are imperfect. Their simulation skill is limited by uncertainties in their formulation, the limited size of their calculations, and the difficulty of interpreting their answers that exhibit almost as much complexity as in nature." -- Climate Change Science - An Analysis Of Some Key Questions, p15 (Committee on the Science of Climate Change, National Research Council) ISBN 0-309-07574-2.

"For the global mean [temperature], the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 14 Celsius, i.e. 57.2 F, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58 F and regionally, let alone locally, the situation is even worse." The Elusive Absolute Surface Air Temperature (SAT) (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies)

"At this point in the debate, it is intellectually dishonest and borders on fraudulent to continue to maintain that there is any reasonable basis to fear a coming climate apocalypse. Yet the scientific establishment continues to grind out tortured "studies" to prove black is white. Those involved in this charade are doing lasting damage to science and the reputations of scientists. Hell, you are no different than the worst lawyers - you will say whatever people want you to say so long as you are paid." -- Fred Palmer, president of the Greening Earth Society.

AND THIS

This year of 2008 is starting out cold—but according to the "consensus" climate watchers it's still likely to be one of the "top 10 warmest" in the thermometer record before it's over. After all, the Greenhouse gasses continue to accumulate in the atmosphere.

But wait. Something isn't following the Greenhouse script. The oceans, which contain 80 to 90 percent of the planet's heat, have recently stopped warming!

Over the past 4-5 years, "there has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Josh Willis of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently told National Public Radio.

Nothing very significant—except the ocean warming trend has stopped?! This, in the midst of the biggest furor over global temperatures and climate overheating in human history?

Willis monitors the data from a nifty new set of Argo ocean buoys. They not only record sea surface temperatures but periodically dive 3,000 feet under water and record sub-surface temperatures as they rise back up. These wonderful new Argo floats say the oceans have been cooling slightly for the past 4-5 years, instead of accentuating a continuing global warming trend.

But how can the ocean warming stop? Greenhouse gases have continued to spew from Chinese factories. Even Europe's Kyoto-bound economies are still increasing their greenhouse emissions. There should be no relief from the planet's heating.

Except that over the last 13 months, the earth's thermometers have dropped for the first time in 30 years. Three global monitoring sites measured a decline of 0.5 to 0.7 degree C.

Now we learn that the ocean warming stopped even earlier, 4-5 years ago.

We should have been expecting this, because the sunspot index turned down nine years ago. There's a 79 percent correlation between the sunspots and the earth's sea-surface temperatures—with roughly a ten-year lag.

Is ten years the time required for the oceans to respond to changes on the sun?

There is nothing in the climate record that ties the earth's temperatures to CO2 levels. Al Gore's movie showed Antarctic ice core temperatures and CO2 moving closely together through four different Ice Ages. Gore implied that more CO2 leads to higher temperatures. But Gore reversed cause and effect. Three different Antarctic studies show the temperatures change 800-1200 years before the CO2 levels. Higher temperatures cause more CO2 in the air, not the other way around.

The big question is what warms the oceans. It it CO2 or sun? For the past nine years, CO2 has continued to rise in the atmosphere, but the earth hasn't gotten warmer. The sun is winning the debate.

NPR asked Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmosphere Research where "all the extra heat from the CO2" was going. He said it was probably going into outer space, through the "natural thermostats, including clouds," which can either trap solar heat in earth's atmosphere, or deflect it out back out into space.

Thank you, Dr. Trenberth, for finally admitting that the earth does, indeed, have natural thermostats such as clouds. And what seems to control those natural thermostats? The level of activity on the sun, through varying numbers of cosmic rays that create more or fewer of the low, wet clouds that deflect solar heat back into space.

It's unthinkable, but what if there's no "extra heat" being trapped by CO2 right now? What if CO2 levels don't matter much? What if the earth is starting to cool in response to the sun's declining level of activity? What an inconvenient truth.

Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC and is the Director for the Center for Global Food Issues. He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 2442 or email to cgfi@hughes.net.

the last 2 are the best


Yes, the part about the author being a "fellow of the Hudson Institute." The "institute" was founded by Herman Kahn, who was one of the inspirations for the movie "Dr. Stangelove." He is more widely known for having coined the term "Magadeath," from which the rock band "Megadeth" drew its name (but let's not hold that against them). Nevertheless, the Hudson Institute is somewhat interesting in that it labels itself as "futuristic" and advocates the "colonization of space." They seem to think that "space" would be a great place to expand the "free market."

But wait, they all want to leave the earth. This is from the other guy's (S. Fred Singer's) "institute," the SEPP:

Space Exploration: The U.S. space program has been a spectacular success for planetary science and astronomy. The costly manned space program, however, has few scientific achievements. The manned space station lacks a clear goal. It should be a stepping stone for manned exploration of the planet Mars and its moons. A first step might be a landing on one of the moons to establish a base and laboratory. Another undeveloped program is the protection of Earth and its inhabitants from the effects of asteroid impact--not a negligible risk. For related commentary, see Space.


Now, one of the stated goals of the SEPP is to refute the "alarmist" nature of global warming advocates. But, let's stop worrying about global warming and get ready for the next "Impact." It COULD happen anytime. It can happen...as long as Al Gore or Hillary doesn't say it can....

http://www.sepp.org/










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As misinformation goes, that op-ed is pretty blatant.

But what about the other eight quote Chandos?

You only attacked one out of nine quotes. I think they were pretty good as a package.

But what about the other eight quote Chandos?

You only attacked one out of nine quotes. I think they were pretty good as a package.

I agree. Remember, anyone who doesn't agree, must be wrong.

The following list includes more than 400 additional qualified scientists, with their home institutions, and the peer-reviewed studies they have published in professional journals, which reveal evidence of the moderate 1,500-year Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles. Together with a previous list released by Hudson on Sept. 12, 2007, this brings the total of scientific researchers who have published evidence of this natural cycle to more than 700. The lists also include dozens of authors who have published studies on the linkage of the 1,500-year cycle to variations in solar activity.

The Hudson lists include researchers from many of the world’s top scientific institutions, including the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory affiliated with Columbia University, the Scripps Oceanographic Institute, various branches of the University of California, Australia’s Macquarie University, Canada’s Simon Fraser University, the Geological Survey of Denmark, the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, among many others.

The key question, of course, is whether the earth’ recent warming has been due to humans burning fossil fuels, or to the natural, moderate 1,500-year cycle discovered in the Greenland and Antarctic ice cores in the 1980s. Willi Dansgaard of Denmark and Hans Oeschger of Switzerland discovered the climate cycle in the first long Greenland ice cores on which they reported in 1984. Claude Lorius of France led the Antarctic team which found the same cycle in the still-longer Vostok Glacier ice core in 1985. They shared the Tyler Prize—the environmental version of the Nobel—in 1996, but recently they have seldom been mentioned in the debate.

The Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle has also been found in seabed and lake sediments, ancient tree rings, boreholes, cave stalagmites, fossil pollen, historic records, ancient paintings, glacier movements and archeological artifacts all over the world. We rejoice that the existence of the cycle is now so widely supported, with additional evidence being published almost by the week.

This is not to imply that all of these authors would call themselves “skeptics” in regard to man-made global warming, and indeed there is room for both human and natural impacts in the recent climate record. However, the totality of the evidence shows that the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles have dominated the earth’s temperatures for the past 12,000 years and continue to do so today.

The evidence of these researchers, speaks for itself.

(Some of the authors in this list of studies have already been cited for other papers in Hudson’s list release September 2007. They are not included in the alphabetic listing nor are they double-counted in the author total.)

the full list
http://www.cgfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/hundreds-more-scientists-have-found-the-1500-year-climate-cycle.pdf

the list includes scientists from : usa, russia, japan, norway, denmark, germany, uk, finland, estonia, australia, ireland, south korea, italy, new zealand, switzerland, india, china . . .thats just from the first 5 pages of names, also has the names & publication dates of their studies.

i dont expect chandos or any of the other climate alarmists on the boards to give it any credit as they always stick their heads in the sands when ANYTHING disagrees with their beliefs on the subject of the climate. just do a little research and look at the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle & make up your own mind

i dont expect chandos or any of the other climate alarmists on the boards to give it any credit as they always stick their heads in the sands when ANYTHING disagrees with their beliefs on the subject of the climate.

I don't expect martaug or any of the other climate daredevils on the boards to give positions opposed to their own any credit as they always stick their heads in the sands when ANYTHING disagrees with their beliefs on the subject of the climate.

Echo, echo, echo... :rolleyes:

P.S.

Pulling unverifiable and/or ripped out of context quotes into a discussion to support your opinion is, well, lame. If your source is credible, link it. If you don't, it's more or less a given that it isn't. It'd also be nice if you would properly mark quotes as such, because the way you construct your posts one can only guess at what's yours and what isn't. Please use the QUOTE tags in the future.

from taluntain:
"I don't expect martaug or any of the other climate daredevils on the boards to give positions opposed to their own any credit as they always stick their heads in the sands when ANYTHING disagrees with their beliefs on the subject of the climate."

HMM, so the fact the middle of my post states:
"This is not to imply that all of these authors would call themselves “skeptics” in regard to man-made global warming, and indeed there is room for both human and natural impacts in the recent climate record."
means that I never post anything contrary to my own beliefs??
man, taluntain, grow up.

Martaug's post was more or less verbatim from this (http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Quotes.html) site, which is in turn run by this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Milloy) man. What neither Milloy nor Martie tell you is that The Committe on the Science of Climate Change (http://www.nap.edu/html/climatechange/summary.html) generally agrees with the assessment of human-caused climate change presented in the IPCC Working Group I (WGI) scientific report, but seeks here to articulate more clearly the level of confidence that can be ascribed to those assessments and the caveats that need to be attached to them. This articulation may be helpful to policy makers as they consider a variety of options for mitigation and/or adaptation. In the sections that follow, the committee provides brief responses to some of the key questions related to climate change science. More detailed responses to these questions are located in the main body of the text.

Context is a wonderful thing.

Tal, those quotes seemed perfectly well cited to me, they just didn't include a web address. If you're going to attack someone who's post disagrees with you, you could at least do it in an accurate manner.

from taluntain:
"I don't expect martaug or any of the other climate daredevils on the boards to give positions opposed to their own any credit as they always stick their heads in the sands when ANYTHING disagrees with their beliefs on the subject of the climate."

HMM, so the fact the middle of my post states:
"This is not to imply that all of these authors would call themselves “skeptics” in regard to man-made global warming, and indeed there is room for both human and natural impacts in the recent climate record."
means that I never post anything contrary to my own beliefs??
man, taluntain, grow up.

Actually, I meant not ignoring posts that everyone who doesn't agree with your opinion makes. The fact that you sometimes let slip in a single sentence which doesn't completely reaffirm your position doesn't really count. I also never said that you "never post anything contrary to your own beliefs". But if you want to go in that direction - you only do it when you think it serves you.

Oh, and do stop with the childish insults. It just makes your trolling that much more obvious.

And as far as quoting goes, please use the quote buttons in every post, the editor on the separate reply page or manual quote tag insertion (http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/misc.php?do=bbcode#quote). Even italics would do. I think that after 6 years of being registered here, it's time that you took a few minutes to learn how to quote properly. PM me if you need help.

Tal, those quotes seemed perfectly well cited to me, they just didn't include a web address. If you're going to attack someone who's post disagrees with you, you could at least do it in an accurate manner.

If nothing else, it's bad netiquette not to provide links to something you obviously got from an Internet source. But in this case we now know why he didn't provide links to where he got them, which means deliberate concealment. Finally, given the source that we're now familiar with, it's a given that the quotes were carefully picked (read ripped out of context) and/or mostly selected from biased sources. I also find it amusing that one side thinks that it's winning in the debate if it manages to trawl the Internet to find a few quotes that support its opinion, as if that somehow negates the mountain of material that counters it (or as if the other side couldn't throw in 50x more quotes that support its view). For every statement in the world, someone can make a counter statement. But that obviously doesn't mean that all statements are false just because someone disagrees.

As with martaug, that last sentence of yours goes both ways too.

Tal, not every quote need be linked. That's really never been a requirement in any debate I've been involved in -- sure, it's the courteous thing to do, but providing the name of the person quoted and often the source is more than adequate (after all, once the source is noted anyone can look it up). Many of the sources listed were ISBN's -- these do not often translate directly to a link (without a subscription).

I think charges of deliberate concealment are a bit harsh here. But I must say I really agree with this (edit: in the context of arguments in general on the boards):

I also find it amusing that one side thinks that it's winning in the debate if it manages to trawl the Internet to find a few quotes that support its opinion, as if that somehow negates the mountain of material that counters it (or as if the other side couldn't throw in 50x more quotes that support its view). For every statement in the world, someone can make a counter statement. But that obviously doesn't mean that all statements are false just because someone disagrees.

There are so many debates on the boards where one person believes "he with most quotes, wins." Equally amusing is the "I don't don't agree with you so prove it with vast amounts of quotes" argument.