A few comments on previous posts:
Old growth forests: A very politicized issue with lots of lies. I managed timber on a district that was very productive. We had a young biologist visit an area that we planned to log. He came back excited about how great the old growth and owl habitat there was there. Sorry, it wasn稚 old growth葉he trees were about 80 years old. I counted the rings myself. And we had photos from fire lookouts from about the 1920痴 that showed a young stand in the area. We could manage stands to produce old growth conditions in much less than the mandated 200 years, even on poorer sites. But politicians got involved and the committee that was set up to develop an owl management plan excluded those excellent scientists who advocated active management. I, for one, don稚 trust politicians from either side.
There is a group of scientists who are very influential in the climate research arena. They have invested their entire careers investigating the possibility of global warming, then when convinced, they publicized the notion that earth is warming due to man痴 influence. I suspect that given contrary data, they can稚 believe it, they deny it and work to discredit anyone who disagrees with them. After all, their life痴 work may have been wasted. Just my opinion, but it is a fact that some of the people at the heart of Climategate have worked on the question since the ?0痴. Doesn稚 mean they are right. The Brits are investigating the CRU, by the way.
There is no debate in the media because the media folks believe the alarmists. They have not read the 2558 page IPCC report critically, they haven稚 looked at the references to check for validity or whether conflicting data was considered. The reporters you hear and read are not qualified, they got their BA in journalism, so they report what they are spoon fed and write what agrees with their world and political view. This is why they have not taken the skeptics seriously, even though many skeptics have impressive credentials. For example, a recent quarter page article in the Oregonian newspaper about Climategate simply listed the charges that developed from the emails and repeated the answers from the CRU people whose email was hacked. There was no attempt to check those answers. For example, the mention of using 溺ike痴 nature trick to hide the decline was answered by the CRU folks by saying that the word �rick was a common term by scientists to mean something clever and didn稚 indicate deceit and that痴 what was printed But a search of those 1,000 or so emails never turned up the word �rick in that context. The reporter didn稚 check on the assertion, she simply repeated what the CRU said.
Then there are the lists of scientists who support and lists who question global warming. The problem with both lists is the lack of qualifications. I have BS & MS degrees in Forest Science. The criteria allow me to add my name to either listæ‚* haven稚. Those lists mean nothing; they are just attempts to sell one side or the other.
And yes, even though 877 snow depth records were set across the country last month, this means nothing in terms of the debate. Even if warming is happening, there will be year to year variations, with some unusually cold years.
Global warming is a very important issue. No one knows whether it is happening or not. The question is very complex and the models are crude with many unfounded assumptions. Before we spend $ trillions, we need to get the science right.
