Saturday, January 16, 2010

Global warming

I found this on Liberal Rapture:
10. Those two phrases snipped from those two decades-old emails completely negate the other 15 million pages of evidence.

9. Plants need CO2, and people need plants, so more CO2 is a good thing, right?

8. So what if a few polar bears have to drown to preserve the American Dream?

7. Al Gore says jet airplanes cause Global Warming, but Al Gore has his own jet airplane, so he's a liar.

6. So long as a single TV weatherman has doubts, there can be no scientific consensus.

5. Oil is the basis of our economy.

4. Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck can't all be wrong.

3. The Europeans are very concerned about Global Warming, and they're a bunch of pussies.

2. Nobody has the right to tell me what kind of light bulbs I should buy.

1. We had snow at Christmas.

(2) 2010 by 'tamerlane.' All rights reserved.
Deniers, don't spend a whole lot of time on your comments, because you have no guarantee of publication. There are plenty of other places for you.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

In this case perhaps it is both sides, "deniers" and "believers", who believe in a conspiracy.

And I thought you were the kind of guy who eschews conspiracy theories.

Mike Rogers

Anonymous said...

Burning strawmen contributes to global warming.

Jay said...

I don't believe in a conspiracy...I just think too many people are idiots. These deniers need to get away from the internet once in awhile and go to a library and, perhaps, read a few thousand journals of research.

Zee said...

We're going to need to switch to the term "climate change" because here's a guy who's been following the climate change scares for decades as they've flipped from global cooling to global warming:

http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm

"Here is the text of Newsweek’s 1975 story on the trend toward global cooling. It may look foolish today, but in fact world temperatures had been falling since about 1940. It was around 1979 that they reversed direction and resumed the general rise that had begun in the 1880s, bringing us today back to around 1940 levels....A fine short history of warming and cooling scares has recently been produced. It is available here." (go to the link above to get live links mentioned in the text)

Here's one of them, a real clearing house of articles and sites devoted to this topic, wow. For those who care. The author/owner of these links, by the way is a philosophy professor from New Zealand who's a frequent contributor to the New York Times. There are a whopping ton of links and resources on the below site:

http://climatedebatedaily.com/

Jay said...

Good thing there has been more research in the last forty years looking at global climate rather than local weather patterns. Also good that we started taking account measurement of the ocean temps as well as remember that there is a whole other hemisphere.

Frosty said...

Right now many a contrarian will use the late 70's ice age story as a way to make fun of global warming. personally I too prefer the term climate change (which makes it much easier to explain away both the extreme cold and extreme heat we're dealing with now), but if you ask me, my money is on George Kukla from Lamont Doherty, Gif Miller and Anne De Vernal (http://discovermagazine.com/1992/aug/coldcomfort101) these cats show that there's quite a lot of proxy data and anecdotes that show that the 'greenhouse effect' is the first stage of an Ice Age. May sound crazy, but the Eemian interglacial ended with a rise in temperatures and a rise in CO2-- before the glaciation began.

And while logic may not easily accept this (warming leads to cooling) understand this: western Greenland is supposed to be a desert-- the average snowfall there, say in the 70s or 50s was a few millimeters a year. Because the air in the north pole is just too cold to allow any moisture to get in. There's no cloudy skies when it's -30c! But since the poles heat up 5 times greater than the equator (be it AGW or NGW don't matter) what ends up happening is that it gets warm enough to snow. Much sooner than it being warm enough for the Land Ice in greenland to melt (Sea Ice is completely different). And that show just keeps on falling.. and snowfall on the north pole doesn't melt it just compacts into ice (and if you follow the GRACE satellites you will see that the ice on Greenland's western side has been growing by a few million tons a year now). Basically we're building a mountain of Ice on the north pole. So whatever happens to the old sea ice, or a melting glacier in the Himalayas might not matter as much as a new glacier building up at the pole, on our axis. This isn't my science, but Miller, De Vernal, Kukla... but if you were to ask me, I'd go with the glacial expert, paleoclimatologist, and geochronologist over the General-Circulation Model makers...

b said...

The concept of 'denier' here is pure propaganda. It works by assimilating:

1) opposition to the rulers' solution, and
2) the claim that the climate isn't changing.

So since I go for 1, I must be a 'denier'.

Meanwhile on 2, what a very simple fact gets omitted. This is that the climate has always changed. A couple of centuries ago, there were Ice Fairs on the River Thames. A couple of millennia ago, the Scottish islands were lush and warm.

The 'movement to stop climate change' is about mobilising everyone to lower living standards. It's about belt-tightening, geddit? Don't tell me it isn't. In Britain, rubbish in many areas is collected half as often as it used to be, and rats infest places where previously they were almost never seen. Meanwhile supermarkets refuse to give you plastic bags unless you pay for them. Curiously they still print their corporate images on them though.

Here lies doublethink. 'Stopping climate change' would involve a total human control over 'nature' that would dwarf what they're supposedly griping about. As well as making Hitler look laissez-faire, this is also impossible.

But not as a mobilising myth it isn't.

If people don't recognise this as propaganda, there's something fucking wrong with them. Practically every government and corporation wanting people to do what it says has the words 'climate change' on its lips.

And if part of the climate change is caused by Mother Nature's reaction to unnatural capitalist horrors (because sadly the proletariat isn't, at the moment, up to the job), then so be it. Nice one, Mother Nature!

Science follows the Bernays model like everything else. Screw the 15 million pages of 'evidence'. People just feel safer repeating what they're told without having the intelligence to think about where it comes from and why. Scientific opinion and research is extremely centralised.

The big guy spearheading the 'climate change' propaganda offensive is called Nicholas Stern, a Brit who used to work for the World Bank.

In some countries, 'climate change protests' are organised, and probably already even climate change parties. Hopefully some people will remember the 'colour revolutions' which seem to be CIA flavour of the decade.

The climate message includes the idea that industry should be cut back. Curiously they don't say the same about the financial sector.

TALK ABOUT MISDIRECTION!!!

Anonymous said...

Jay - is your opinion based on reading a few thousand research journals then?

Have you reflected on the degree to which scientific research is centralised? In most scientific fields, there is one leading journal. Most of the leading journals are owned by one company - it's called Elsevier. And decisions as to what areas will be designated as strategic research areas are also taken in a very centralised way. Then researchers apply for research grants within the overall environment that has been created, i.e. within areas where the money is. Of course there are a few exceptions, but that's all they are.

I just wondered whether you were aware of the above?

Because a lot of people just spout what they hear from 'authority figures' and call people who challenge it, or disbelieve it, 'idiots'. I'm not saying this applies to you, but surely you recognise that it applies to a lot of people and, at the end of the day, to most voter-type 'normal' people in the West? It also applies to most 'scientists'. Rock the boat too much, and you're out - same old story. So it ain't the boat-rockers who get promoted.

Thanks Zee - nice post.

I've long been interested in how 'creative' some people can be when opposing some idea that they feel threatened by in some way. Many people can 'creatively' defend whatever crap they've heard on the TV, even if obviously the real reason they believe it isn't anything to do with having cogitated about it.

The hell with any argument based on believing 'experts'. 'Experts' are whores! They internalise and rationalise the crap that gets handed down to them, and which they need to regurgitate for money - just like many who aren't scientists. People talk about these guys as though they are priests - which in a way, they are.

Jay said...

Anonymous, yep. That's why those who accumulate their "expertise" and research through internet sites do not impress me. You look at the journals with papers by real scientists, as opposed to radio personalities and anonymous blog comments, you'll start to get a pretty good idea what doing science is all about. A phenomenon is observed, a hypothesis is developed, experimentation is designed to gather more information of the phenomenon, a theory is formulated and put forth, other scientists devise ways to disprove the theory and explain the phenomenon in another manner.

The simple fact is that global climate is changing and this change will effect our viability as a species. Is this caused by the actions of over six billion humans or is it a natural cycle that the planet has gone through many times over millions of years? There is no definitive answer (there never is in science) but the evidence appears to support that our industrial age is having a direct impact and that the longer we continue ignoring this, the harder it will be to repair some of the damage.

Anonymous said...

Fox News is responsible for much of the disinformation on climate change. We need to understand why...

Here is a hint. Sarah Palin will fit right at Fox in with her tight relationship to the oil industry. As Sarah starts collecting paychecks from Fox, it's time to look behind the curtain and see who is calling the shots.

I am surprised that media observers have not been writing about Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia who is clearly using his board position and growing ownership stake in News Corp. to get Fox News to aggressively oppose efforts in Congress to create a new, clean energy future that is not dependent upon (his) Saudi oil.

Al-Walid bin Talal has been quietly increasing his share and influence in News Corp. He now he serves on the board where he gives critical support to media mogul Rupert Murdoch. (Murdock would lose control of News Corp without bin Talal's voting shares.)

In December, while they were recruiting Sarah Palin as a new face at Fox, Murdock and bin Talal quietly expanded their strategic partnership when they acquired a stake in the Saudi royal's Rotana media conglomerate. bin Talal pushed News Corp to buy a 10 percent stake in Arab media company Rotana with an option to acquire another 10 percent. As Fox News craws deeper in bed with dangerous Arab oil interests, Glenn Beck presents Fox News Channel as a hyper-American news organization when in truth it is controlled by a native Australian and a Saudi (oil) Prince. Sarah Palin will only add her voice to keep the illusion going.

We know the Saudi prince claimed in 2005 that he persuaded Murdoch to immediately stop identifying Muslim unrest in France as "Muslim riots." They did...

With his growing control, there should be little wonder why Fox News is creating a backlash to climate/energy legislation pending in the U.S. Senate. If this energy bill passed, the U.S. would begin to wean it's dependence on Saudi oil by creating domestic clean energy needed end this dangerous addiction.

What Fox News paints as socialism is actually a way to rebuild our economy, create mmillions of jobs and end our addiction to dangerous oil and keep over $1 billion dollars a day at home.

When will America wake up and look behind the curtain at Foxx News to see who is calling the shots at all of the News Corporation's holdings?

Don't be mislead by All-American Sarah. She's gone rogue with the Saudi rogue of media...

Frosty said...

B go back to the tin foil section. I think you mean to comment there.

No one omits the Younger Dryas, or as DENIERS like to call it; "the little ice age." No one omit it. Nor do people who really know about the issue (not just the talking point) pretend that the climate never changed until now. No one. But if you are such an expert on these issues, then explain what ended the Eemian (as I already asked)? come one, if you know so much about the climate talk about that....

"Don't tell you it isn't about belt tightening"? IT INSN'T. Unless you think that the clean tech industry is really a bunch of luddites-- same with the Tesla electric (for rich folk) or the Nissan Leaf (for the po folks) that is about buying new cars.... Fuck your belt.

And fuck your paranoia. I am so sick of hearing people say that the CDM (which they usually don't even know has a name) is a cash grab (usually saying it's all Gore's cash). What maroons.

B i talked about the GRACE satellite, can you imagine for a minute that the satellite does not have a political agenda?

And your garbage bags. wow. that's about cliamte change (how exactly is it about Climate)?? you sure it's not about saving money? or efficincy? (or for that matter the fact that we're finally getting our head out of our ass about plastic, after we found it's not just the pacific gyre but gyres in every ocean) Here in Canada we have refuse picked up once every two weeks now, but we have recycling picked up every other week, and we have compostables picked up every damn week (and they not only save the tonnage fees by not sending it to landfill but they also use the gas from the composting to run the trucks on-site) efficiency should not be seen as a threat!

But DENIERS do, just like the cretins at the AEI (who get paid nicely by Exxon, Koch et al)

...and DENIERS always seem to have a hard on for Hitler. Why exactly? Because that sonovabitch Lord Monkton likes the term? Ooooh people who care about CO2 are Fascists! Because that word has a sting, obviously, but not as a corporatist movement, right? Didn't you justr say that the green devils want to get rid of your belt and destroy industry? What a load of crap.

And B-- if you actually checked out the progenitors of your Hitlerian geoengineering (that would make hitler proud"??? are you on drugs??) Edwin Teller is hardly someone you would call an environmentalist. Shit. You don't even know what side you believe in, and a cheap mimesis of the Tory rags is not going to push any discourse forward.

Zig Heil

tamerlane said...

Over 100 nations send representatives to Copenhagen, not to debate whether GW was real or manmade, but what to do to stop it.

Only in America is GW politicized -- the conservatives, President Zarkosy of France, and Chancellor Merkel of Germany, both expressed deep regret that more was not achieved at Copenhagen.

Of the well-educated countries in the world, only the US harbors a significant number of GW doubters. While most Americans consider GW a serious danger, the number of doubters has increased in recent years -- but primarily among conservatives. Democrats and other liberals overwhelmingly accept the unpleasant reality of AGW.

It is no coincidence that the anti-science Bush administration opposed stem cell research, promoted ID, and tried to muzzle the EPA's findings on GW. It's no coincidence that every legitimate scientific agency and organization in the US and the world is convinced that AGW is a real and dire threat. Nor is it coincidence that the only "evidence" (sic) disputing GW is limited to sniping and outright falsehoods, and comes directly and solely from sham "institutes" set up and bankrolled by oil and coal companies.

My satirical Top Ten list was intended to expose how illogical and deceptive the GW denier arguments really are. It elicited numerous complains from readers who felt their intelligence had been defamed because they had doubts about GW. My response is that the facts are readily available and irrefutable, but one must not be so lazy as to rely on Fox News or the MSM for a fair treatment of such a vital issue.

Nevertheless, the advocates of the fight against GW need to do a better job at PR and educating the public. The truth is on their side, but that is not enough, because ExxonMobil and the political right are cleaning their clock right now.