Global Warming

[dmccarty]

It is interesting that the biggest loud mouth political backers of "Global Warming Doom" are Al Gore, John Kerry, and John Edwards......

My ex Senator Edwards has the largest/expensive private house in Orange County NC. Which is saying alot since there is quite a bit of money in that area. There was an article on his house addition a short time ago. He has a house, 10,000+ square feet, a "barn" of 15,000+ sf, that is connected to the main house by what looks like a long "hallway" of 2200 sf. The total is 28,000+ square feet.

I saw a quote over the last couple days where his house is "energy efficient" and he was hemm'n and a haw'n over how much it cost to run the house energy wise. He said a $200-300 for the last POWER bill he saw. I would like to see the gas bill for January and the power bill in August.

My house is energy effiecient and its 2400 sf. My last power bill was $100. His house is 10 times the size of my house. I would like to see the Duke or Progress power bill and see if it was $200-300. I'm thinking his power bill was a wee bit higher or his family was not living in the house for the billing period.

But to he is buying carbon credits so its ok...

Let them eat cake.....

Later,
Dan

 

[N80]

So Polar bears are in the increas? Why then, are they being considered for 'endangered species list'?

So what? Lots of animals are on the endangered and 'nearly' endangered species list. More often than not it has nothing to do with climate. And in more cases than one, positions on such lists have been dictated more by politics than by science. Decreasing polar bears and global warming might be the best example of the old dictum "true, true and unrelated."

Killer whales in there normal areas? How come the Eskimoes up in Canada are reporting them where they never saw them before?

Again, where is the correlation. I'm not even debating that the globe might be warming and that killer whales are appearing in strange places but if we're going to get all technical and demanding citations, then where is the proof that the two phenomenon have anything to do with one another?

Birds 'go where they want'? Odd that they 'go where they can survive' instead. There was a report in the paper just last week (mayibe the Sunday edition) of lots of birds way out of their range and this is breeding season.

Once again, this is one of those things where one theory is as good as another. Who know's why birds go where they do. We assign reasons based on observations but those are often more ingenious than true. There are bird migration patterns that make virtually no survival sense at all. So when they change it is hardly reasonable to suggest that they have had to do it in order to survive. Complicated subject, still poorly understood.

If the deniers would just get off the 'man is causing it' and realize that there is a natural cycle (noone denies that) but man is making a contribution they would have a much better chance of making their point.

A drop of water contributes to the volume of the ocean. Just not much. And the reason that we "deniers" often won't even concede that the drop contributes is because environmental activists will view and use such an admission in a totally unscientific and purely propaganda based way. The cute little polar bears and the Free Willy killer whales are just another example of that sort of propaganda. It sells with the uninformed general public who can't even understand the concept that though we, as a species, might contribute to climate change, our impact is closer to that of the drop in the bucket.

The deniers seem to rely solely on making assertions but never giving a cite and where they do cite something it is usually from a dubious source or one that is 'tweaking and cherry picking' the data.

And the environmentalists are never guilty of that.

Are you? Where are your citations? Newspaper articles? Please, give me a break. And that's the real irony; when doubters like me want to see the real hard science, we're told that we're being too cynical or too political. Doesn't seem fair.

 

[turnkey4099]

Knowing that the antis would chime in asking for cites (but not giving any themselves):

I did a quick google to see if there was anything to your Polar Bear assertion. There are many, many hits and when you discard any that have a ARA association there are still many, many.

Poster child of climate change: Polar bear
Just one cite about Polar bears, etc. A few excerpts follow.
----------------------------------------------------------------

After being sued by three environmental groups, the Interior Department announced in February that it will study whether to list the bears as "threatened" or "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act.
---------------------------------------
The polar bear depends on sea ice for sustenance and survival. It would become the first creature officially listed as in danger of extinction because of global warming.
Kazlowski has ranged between Alaska's Point Hope and Herschel Island at the edge of Canada's MacKenzie Delta, photographing bears as they swim between ice floes, hunt for ringed seals on the ice and teach cubs how to spread out their weight while walking on ice.
"They depend on ice being close to the land," he said, "but what's happening is ice is moving off the continental shelf. The ice is literally moving offshore."

------------------------------------------
Divoky has spent summers researching the bird life of Cooper Island, north of Barrow, Alaska. He has specialized in study of black guillemots.
He found himself, accidentally, at an ideal spot to record the effect of climate change.
The guillemots have advanced their breeding season by two weeks. A freakish storm, coming from the east, pushed water over much of the island in October. "I used to keep my dairy products next to the permafrost," Divoky said, "but now there is no more permafrost."

-----------------------------------------------------

The Arctic is home to 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears. The bears eat little during the summer, and do much of their hunting in the fall. They den during the winter, both on ice floes and along the coastline in such places as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
A more southerly polar bear population along the west shore of Canada's Hudson Bay is already affected: Climate change has added three weeks to the bears' summer-early fall fast. The population has declined by an estimated 15 percent.
--------------------------------------------------------------

I only scanned a few articles from the long list. The one above is the 1st or second in the list so, no, I didn't have to go looking for one that backs up my stance - most of them on the list appear to.

As for hunting: If you check the 2nd or 3rd on the list you will see that there are efforts to ban hunting them (except for subsistance) in Canada due to the threat to their survival. It is already banned in U.S. territory.

Now off to see if I can find anything about 'Amount of ice increasing'.

Harry K

 

[turnkey4099]

So what? Lots of animals are on the endangered and 'nearly' endangered species list. More often than not it has nothing to do with climate. And in more cases than one, positions on such lists have been dictated more by politics than by science. Decreasing polar bears and global warming might be the best example of the old dictum "true, true and unrelated."



Again, where is the correlation. I'm not even debating that the globe might be warming and that killer whales are appearing in strange places but if we're going to get all technical and demanding citations, then where is the proof that the two phenomenon have anything to do with one another?



Once again, this is one of those things where one theory is as good as another. Who know's why birds go where they do. We assign reasons based on observations but those are often more ingenious than true. There are bird migration patterns that make virtually no survival sense at all. So when they change it is hardly reasonable to suggest that they have had to do it in order to survive. Complicated subject, still poorly understood.



A drop of water contributes to the volume of the ocean. Just not much. And the reason that we "deniers" often won't even concede that the drop contributes is because environmental activists will view and use such an admission in a totally unscientific and purely propaganda based way. The cute little polar bears and the Free Willy killer whales are just another example of that sort of propaganda. It sells with the uninformed general public who can't even understand the concept that though we, as a species, might contribute to climate change, our impact is closer to that of the drop in the bucket.



And the environmentalists are never guilty of that.

Are you? Where are your citations? Newspaper articles? Please, give me a break. And that's the real irony; when doubters like me want to see the real hard science, we're told that we're being too cynical or too political. Doesn't seem fair.

I see. So any phenomena that shows the climate is warming up (ice disappearing, etc) is "not related". Good rebuttal NOT!

Harry K

 

[mjarrels]

Read a story today where Al Gore wants pension funds to begin investing in global warming as a long term approach.

mark

 

[turnkey4099]

Yep, found one: Number 1 of over a million.
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050516/full/050516-10.html

A few excerpts follow.

-------------------------------------------------------
Increased snowfall over a large area of Antarctica is thickening the ice sheet and slowing the rise in sea level caused by melting ice.

A satellite survey shows that between 1992 and 2003, the East Antarctic ice sheet gained about 45 billion tonnes of ice - enough to reduce the oceans' rise by 0.12 millimetres per year.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

East Antarctica thickened at an average rate of about 1.8 centimetres per year over the time period studied, the researchers discovered. The region comprises about 75% of Antarctica's total land area - but as its ice is thicker, it carries about 85% of the total ice volume.

"It is the only large terrestrial ice body that is gaining mass rather than losing it," says Davis. (my emphasis)

-------------------------------------------------------
So the claim of the earth 'gaining ice' is wrong. People claiming it are again cherry picking data. Even that article clearly states that the gain is being offset by losses.

Harry K

 

[hockeypuck]

Watch "The Great Swindle" by the BBC, then post.

 

[EddieWalker]

Eddie, making things up does not help your side.

So Polar bears are in the increas? Why then, are they being considered for 'endangered species list'?

Ice increasing - just one cite would be nice. I have seen that put forth before, usually in the form of "some glaciers are advancing". Strange that when asked for a cite there is never an answer.

Killer whales in there normal areas? How come the Eskimoes up in Canada are reporting them where they never saw them before?

Birds 'go where they want'? Odd that they 'go where they can survive' instead. There was a report in the paper just last week (mayibe the Sunday edition) of lots of birds way out of their range and this is breeding season.

CO2 levels are _not_ going down. There are CO2 records extending around 100,000 years into the past.

If the deniers would just get off the 'man is causing it' and realize that there is a natural cycle (noone denies that) but man is making a contribution they would have a much better chance of making their point.

I wish I had kept clippings from the newpapers over the past year. Every point I listed above appeared in the national newpapers in that period. Lastest one was the report of 40sq miles of sea ice that departed from Ellesmere Island about a month ago.

Oh. I almost forgot. I have not seen that movie nor read any of Gore's writings. I am going only by what I see in the papers plus discusstions like this on the internet.

The deniers seem to rely solely on making assertions but never giving a cite and where they do cite something it is usually from a dubious source or one that is 'tweaking and cherry picking' the data.


Harry K

Hi Harry,

Sorry to hear that you think I'm making things up. I'm sure we're allot alike in our reading and information gathering, and I also freely admit to being wrong when somebody is kind enough to point it out to me. I try very hard not to resort to name calling or make blind accusations, but prefer to make my points, hear your points and decide for myself on there value.

It is true that we all have sides, but you might be suprised that I was a registered Democrat until the mid 90's. I was also a strong union member and thought they were the best thing for the country. I was very disapointed in the first President Bush and had very high hopes for President Clinton.

I'm not above changing sides, or my views when there is solid evidence that Im wrong, or those I support are wrong. I've done it before and have no problem doing it again.

About ten years ago Polar Bears were delisted and allowed to be brougt into the United States when legally hunted. Currently the State of Alaska is trying to open the season on Polar Bears. Currently you can only hunt black, Grizzly and Brown bears there. Lots of animals are always up for consideration for being listed as endagered. Look how long it took the Bald Eagle to get delisted. The envirnomental and anti hunting groups like to get animals listed as a means to stop hunting and people from using the outdoors. Getting black bears listed has also been tried a bunch of times to stop hunting them. California listed Mt. Lions as endangered and taxpayers spend $30 million a year to protect an animal that has overpopulated it's range. Now they hire trackers and dog runners to kill more lions a year there then were ever killed when there was a hunting season. California also has the second largest population of Mt Lions in the lower 48.

Here's a few links on ice increases.
Top Story - SATELLITES SHOW OVERALL INCREASES IN ANTARCTIC SEA ICE COVER - August 22, 2002
World Climate Report » Antarctic Ice: A Global Warming Snow Job?
EO Newsroom: New Images - Increasing Sea Ice around Antarctica

There is all sorts of evidence that some glaciers are getting smaller, but for some reason they fail to mention the ones that are getting bigger. I saw a show on National Geographic Television that had a PHD from Boulder CO explaining how this glacier in Greenland was melting. He had all sorts of evidence and reasons for it too. Then they focussed on rising sea levels and how the world will undergo these terrible, horrific changes and how bad it will all get. It was very scary and quite understandable how people could become worried about the future of the planet from this "evidence."

What they ignored is that Greenland used to be green. It wasn't covered in glaciers two thousand years ago. They failed to mention that the Greenland was much warmer back then when there were no glaciers and people lived and farmed there. And of course, they failed to mention that when the glaciers didn't exist on Greenland, that the world was a very nice place. People colonized all sorts of areas that are now under ice. It sure does make me wonder what made the planet warmer back then?

Of course, they never, ever mention that glaciers and ice mass are growing anywhere, do they? By omission, they are intentionally misleading you. It's up to you to find out that you have been mislead and lied to. If you do a little research, you will find out that those who are claiming the oceans are rising and the world is gonna end have a habbit of only looking at extreme, worse case scenerios, and nothing else.

Eskimos don't have very good records, or knowledge of killer whales. hahaha I really wouldn't rely on them to figure out where the killer whales are and what is normal for them. Maybe a biologist would be a better source on this?

OK, birds go where they "survive" is a better way to put it. They have changed there nesting areas plenty of times. When talking about eons, these things happen on a regular basis. Migration patterns change, nesting sites change and they'll change again. This isn't new or even uncommon.

I might not have been clear on the CO2 comment. I wasn't refering to present day levels. I think the charts out there go back 400,000 years. In that time they show the CO2 levels rising and lowering. It's a natual event that has happend over and over again. Just like ice levels increasing and decreasing. The big question is are the increasing or decreasing right now? Global temps are said to be up .6 degrees celcious from 1850. In the last 18 years the tempature hasn't risen. In the last 7 years it's actualy lowered an insignificant amount. Worse case scenerios say it could rise another 2 to 3 degrees. I gotta wonder just how bad things will get when that happens?

I agree with you that there blame man for the rise in tempatures is hurting there cause. They said that Al Gore changed more peoples mind against global warming after he testified. He's so over the top that he's lost credibility. I think the focus should be on something tangible and real. Polution should be at the top of the list. And if we're serious about it, then every country in the world needs to take part in it. Not just the USA and a few European countries. How hypocritical is it to let China and India do anything they want? If anybody truly believed that Global Warming was a world wide threat, then they should be going after every country who's contributing, not just the rich ones. What's the point of building half a dam? It's the same thing, if man is causing this, then why stop half of us from killing the planet? It's just silly.

There is a really good link in this thread if you want to do some research on your own. I hate to list links unless asked for because most people assume they are misleading.

Eddie

 

[Tig]

For those who have seen the swindle you may want to consider this.
Globalisation and the Environment: Debunking "The Great Global Warming Swindle"

 

[Raddad]

Maybe the information you're baseing your opinions on isn't accurate.

The Bush administration was yesterday accused of systemic tampering with the work of government climate scientists to eliminate politically inconvenient material about global warming.

At a hearing of Congress, scientists and advocacy groups described a campaign by the White House to remove references to global warming from scientific reports and limit public mention of the topic to avoid pressure on an administration opposed to mandatory controls on greenhouse gas emissions.

Such pressure extended even to the use of the words "global warming" or "climate change", said a report released yesterday by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Government Accountability Project. The report said nearly half of climate scientists at government agencies had been advised against using those terms.

Yesterday's hearings, overseen by the new Democratic chair of the House committee on oversight and government reform, Congressman Henry Waxman, follow years of complaints by scientists that the Bush administration was seeking to put its own spin on scientific research at government agencies. They also complain of a reduction in funding for climate research since the 1990s.

The committee was warned that the campaign by the Bush administration discouraged free academic inquiry. "If you know what you are writing has to go through a White House clearance before it is to be published, people start writing for the class," said Rick Piltz, a former senior associate at the US Climate Change Science Programme. "An anticipatory kind of self-censorship sets in."

The balance appears to have shifted somewhat since the Democrats took control of Congress this month. At least five bills proposing mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions - an idea that is anathema to the White House - have been introduced in the House and Senate.

However, Mr Piltz told Congress even he was taken aback by the extent of the political interference, in technical reports, public meetings as well as exchanges with the media, in which scientists were assigned minders from the administration.

In the survey of 1,600 government scientists by the Union of Concerned Scientists, 46% had been warned against using terms like global warming in speech or in their reports. The scientists interviewed were working at seven government agencies, from Nasa to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Forty-three percent of respondents said their published work had been revised in ways that altered the meaning of scientific findings. Some 38% said they had direct knowledge of cases where scientific information on climate was stripped from websites and printed reports.

"There were a very large number of edits that came at the 12th hour after all the earlier science people had signed off," said Mr Piltz, who eventually resigned from his job because of such pressure. In one such case, a White House appointee, Phil Cooney, demanded 400 last-minute changes which significantly changed the meaning and tone of the report.

No detail was beyond the scrutiny of administration officials, it seemed. Drew Shindell, a scientist at Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, described how officials repeatedly objected to the title of a report which measured rapid warming in Antarctica before dictating their own choice. "Word came back from above that it should be: 'Scientists study Antarctic Climate Change'," Dr Shindell said. "I thought it was so watered down it would be of little interest to anybody."

Much of the testimony yesterday centred on the influence exerted by Mr Cooney, a former lobbyist for the petroleum industry who was put in charge of the Council on Environmental Quality. Mr Cooney now works for Exxon Mobil, the committee was told. In one instance, Mr Cooney personally edited out a key section of an Environmental Protection Agency report to Congress on the dangers of climate change. "He called it speculative musing," Mr Piltz said.

Mr Waxman said he knew of further evidence of such tampering but had been stonewalled by a White House which had repeatedly resisted requests for documents about Mr Cooney's involvement in controlling information.

I wonder how quickley membership in the flat earth society declined as enlightenment and legitimate science crept in.

 

[LMTC]

<-----DENIER

I believe my comment above contains as much rational evidence and honest invitation to discuss and debate as any post made by those who have been assigning sarcastic labels (name-calling) to those who disagree with them. And it saves me time. Thanks to all who have given me a moniker to hang my hat on.

 

[N80]

I see. So any phenomena that shows the climate is warming up (ice disappearing, etc) is "not related".

You missed my point, how I don't know, but you did. The old addage of "true, true and unrelated" does not suggest that no two observed phenomenon are unrelated, OBVIOUSLY. It relates to people observing two phenomenon and assuming they are related without proof. Like: 97% of the people who were diagnosed with cancer last year had eaten carrots within 3 months of their diagnosis. What does that mean to you? You have two phenomenon 1) people getting cancer and 2) those same people eating carrots. How are they related? (Come on, its not that hard). They are not related, of course. Same as your polar bears.

Good rebuttal NOT!

Believe me, I was not expecting you to appreciate it.

 

[N80]

Harry, that stuff is regional observational data applied to a global (essentially planetary) phenomenon. Citing bad science is no worse than citing nothing. Don't think you get a free pass on "show me the evidence" by doing a Google search.

 

[N80]

Oh PALEEZE, you are going to cite Democratic House Committee hearings to suggest that Bush is a bad guy. OMG that may be the most nearsighted thing I've ever seen!

For what its worth I've seen equally polarized and possibly equally as meanigless stories that scientists who disagree with global warming theories are being harrassed and ostracized by certain scientific communities and liberal governments in Europe.

Tit. Tat. Got us nowhere.

 

[N80]

Read a story today where Al Gore wants pension funds to begin investing in global warming as a long term approach.

That is all that anyone needs to know about global warming. Redistribution of wealth. And if it seems unfair that good science has been contaminated by such political motives, well, that's just too doggone bad and is hardly the fault of the skeptical. You need to choose your friends as carefully as your enemies. Regardless, in the last thread regarding this we covered much more solid data and research than this one is unearthing and to date, I haven't seen anything I'd call good science to support the global warming cause anyway.

It is the new religion. It is Al Gore's last sad attempt to have the world take him seriously. It is the propaganda cash cow for environmental activists. It is the new global threat, rather poorly filling the void left by Reagan's distruction of the threat of mutually assured destruction (a philosphy, I might add, born of liberal democrats like Kennedy and Macnamara). It is a cultural phenomenon not a scientific one.

I've said it before, there is almost no possibility that this planet could undergo gradual climate change and not benefit someone or something somewhere. And remember, the UN report that made such a big splash said this would be a process that took centuries as in plural. Al Gore's visions of tsunamis in Brooklyn next month are Hollywood hysteria. But until I hear some scientist who buys into manmade global warming give a rational and realistic assessment of who will benefit from these changes, then I will not even be willing to listen to them for that alone exposes the unscientific basis and idealogy tainted nature of their work. The whole notion that global warming is 'bad' exposes an almost intolerable irony and hypocrisy as it comes from people who have no moral compass and defend the fact that in a world of science and reason there can be no moral compass! They are their own compass. The people they don't like are doing something they don't like, therefore it must be 'bad and bad has no meaning in their world without values.

So let's get on board with this global warming thing. Al Gore is right, it is getting hotter by the minute and it is our fault. But let's make this a happy faith, an optimistic religion! Its getting hot, we're doing it and we like it that way! We will be dedicated to exploiting every global benefit a warmer world can afford!

 

[tallyho8]

On March 3 we had 3 threads on this topic closed. I am surprised that another thread on this topic has lasted this long. However, it is very entertaining and educational and this thread has a good bit of merit as long as we can all behave like gentlemen and not resort to name calling and derogatory remarks about our fellow TBNers.

 

[turnkey4099]

You missed my point, how I don't know, but you did. The old addage of "true, true and unrelated" does not suggest that no two observed phenomenon are unrelated, OBVIOUSLY. It relates to people observing two phenomenon and assuming they are related without proof. Like: 97% of the people who were diagnosed with cancer last year had eaten carrots within 3 months of their diagnosis. What does that mean to you? You have two phenomenon 1) people getting cancer and 2) those same people eating carrots. How are they related? (Come on, its not that hard). They are not related, of course. Same as your polar bears.



Believe me, I was not expecting you to appreciate it.

Now there's a brilliant post. So an animal that depends on ice for it's survival is in decline while the ice is also in decline is not related...uhuh.

When you have two points of data that are _clearly_ related and you try to deny that it says a world about you.

Harry K

 

[turnkey4099]

N80: (quote)I've said it before, there is almost no possibility that this planet could undergo gradual climate change and not benefit someone or something somewhere. And remember, the UN report that made such a big splash said this would be a process that took centuries as in plural. Al Gore's visions of tsunamis in Brooklyn next month are Hollywood hysteria. But until I hear some scientist who buys into manmade global warming give a rational and realistic assessment of who will benefit from these changes, then I will not even be willing to listen to them for that alone exposes the unscientific basis and idealogy tainted nature of their work. The whole notion that global warming is 'bad' exposes an almost intolerable irony and hypocrisy as it comes from people who have no moral compass and defend the fact that in a world of science and reason there can be no moral compass! They are their own compass. The people they don't like are doing something they don't like, therefore (end quote)

While I don't agree with everything in that, most is right down my line of thinking.

Evidence of a Warming Earth - The Woods Hole Research Center
-------------------------------------------
(lead in paragraph)
Through the study of ancient ice cores from Antarctica it is possible to compare atmospheric concentrations of the dominant greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere with temperature variations over the past 400 thousand years of the earth's history (Fig 1). A visual comparison of the two trends indicates a very tight connection between their performance, with fluctuations in one plot almost exactly mirrored in the other for more than 400 thousand years. But suddenly in the 1800s, as the Industrial Revolution takes off, atmospheric CO2 concentrations begin an unprecedented upward climb, rising rapidly from 280 ppmv (parts per million by volume) in the early 1800s to a current level of 376 ppmv, 77 ppmv above the highest concentrations previously attained in the course of the preceding 400 thousand years.
(followed by a chart that shows temp/co2 mirroring each other. Due to the compressed time scale it is hard to tell which is leading).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thus the argument that CO2 does not cause warming is specious as you can check either one and know what the other is doing, i.e., if you have a high co2 reading you know the temp will also be up and vice versa.

Trying to argue there is no correlation is straining at a gnat.

Claiming that man has not affected the CO2 level is clearly erronious per the above paragraph.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The CO2-temperature correlation | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist

A very good article on the specific point of CO2 following Temp
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Collapse of giant Arctic ice shelf 'incredible'

1 of many articles on the 40 sq mile (66 km) ice shelf that departed Ellesmere Isle.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
delawareonline ¦ The News Journal ¦ Bird count may point to global warming

The article on birds extending range north. After reading it I find that my recollection was off. The data is still tentative and is loaded with "may" and 'could be", etc.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

OKay, there is a bunch of cites to back up almost every thing I said in my reply to Eddie. If I missed something anyone wants a cite for just ask.

Still waiting for the antis to give any cites.

Someone up thread said something about poor science. Almost every cite above is from very reputable sources or from reputable papers. That data doesn't agree with you is not the fault of the data.

I must say that I am learning some things through this search. Thus far I have found nothing that contradicts my stance that:
1. GW is happening and is a natural cycle.
2. Man is augmenting it beyond anything in the past.

Harry K

 

[MikePA]

On March 3 we had 3 threads on this topic closed.

Four threads is more than enough for now. Perhaps this can be continued on a Global Warming discussion web site. How about a nice tractor related thread?