Right Wing Resistance to Global Warming Issue

[dreissig]

Why is the right so stubborn about admitting that global warming might be a problem? What do they get out of it?

A generation ago, the right's stubbornness about environmentalism didn't make any sense either. Back then, so-called conservatives defended the "right" of polluters to put toxins in the air.

In general, the right seems to solve problems by denying their existence. Fortunately, clean air laws went through over right wing objections. The same people who defended dirty air and polluted rivers are now telling us there's nothing we can do about global warming.

What are their motives here? I'm asking because I'm genuinely puzzled.

[displacedtexan]

1. The difference between weather and climate

escapes most of them completely.
The ones who understand the difference don't care: there's $ to be made, and they'll be dead before the real trouble starts.

[fishguy]

2. Industry

It is industry that promotes this message.

[Skittles]

3. it threatens their ability to f*** up the planet for corporate gain

they put corporate profits ahead of the welfare of their own children and grandchildren; it is CHILLING.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lindacooks]

7. Actually, scientists

say that global warming is an absolute fact and is happening right now.

[Frodo]

10. "Some" scientists.

Plenty disagree.

But it isn't just "is the globe warming up". Before man should act we must first know.

1) Is the globe warming up? (Assumed "yes" but we've been on both sides of this divide and will be wrong at least once)

2) Is that a bad thing? (not shown)

3) IF a bad thing was it caused by man (not even CLOSE to demonstrated)

4) If a bad thing AND caused by man is there ANYTHING we can do to change it? (not even into the valid theory stage given #3)

5) If a bad thing AND caused by man AND mitigatable(?) - How much would it cost? And is there a better use for the resources?


We went from thirty years ago proclaiming that the globe was cooling due to our behavior and we had to DO SOMETHING about it. IF we assume the "scientists" are correct THIS TIME... we have to answer "If we had listened to them thirty years ago and DONE something intentional to warm up the planet... how much worse would we be off now???"

The Earth spends MOST of her life in ice ages... we're in between them right now. Suppose the Earth is warming up entirely due to increased solar activity... AND that over the last several million years this was always a pre-cursor to a solar lull causing an ice age. How much will we regret taking actions that made it worse when we might have saved ourselves with a few decades of sunny weather in NY???


I just can't jstify spending hundreds of billions of dollars on THAT level of "science". They don't have a good enough track record.

[Memekiller]

14. Actually, there is consensus on Global Warming...

Lest there be any doubt, read Global Warming is Good For You which seeks and fails to find a scientist who'll say humans aren't warming the world at least partially due to burning fossil fuels. It also shows the tactics GW deniers use to bamboozle the public.

[Frodo]

18. Sorry. Not so. Not even close.

Any book that claims to have searched in vain for scientists who say we aren't warming the world is either lying or talking only to the scientists who contributed to the book. And yes, we're talking real climatologists... not just physics, or chemistry, or biology "scientists" who decide to sign some document. Both sides have seen enough of that.

There are plenty of climatologists who were part of the original Earth Day who stick to the global cooking theory. Over 95% of official weather stations are in urban/airport environments that impact temperature readings far more than "global warming".

It is far from a demonstrated fact that the Earth is warming long term and FAR FAR FAR from even a solid theory that the actions of man are behind it. Again... the people making these pronouncements don't have enough credibility based on their previous mistakes.

[Memekiller]

20. Read the damn article...

It's amazing how much the right wing has distorted this issue. What the story does is ask one of these Global Warming Deniers to name four scientists who claim GW is not occurring. Every single one of them either a) wasn't a climate scientist or b) said it WAS occurring.

Here's what we know:

1) Global Temperature is rising.
2) CO2 is rising, at least in part due to burning fossil fuels.
3) Part of the rise in temperature is due to that CO2.

Read the damn story, then come back to me.

[Frodo]

24. I don't give a lot of creedence to guys who say...

"Rush Limbaugh is as smart as a whip!"

At our first meeting, Westbrook pulls out a sheet of paper that lists what he says are the four false claims made by environmentalists. They state that the earth is warming; that the warming is caused by society's activities, particularly burning fossil fuels; that the warming will devastate the planet; and that society can make the needed changes to avoid a catastrophe.

"There are good arguments against each of them," Westbrook says. "These are still hypotheses."

Your "here's what we know" is NOT an accurate/adequate summation of the article.
Your three bullet points are NOT the point of the article - which is "Global warming, if present, isn't such a bad thing (read my other posts)" AND "there isn't scientific evidence that the actions of man are to blame(ibid)"

The only one we KNOW is true is #2.

[Memekiller]

26. I wrote the damn article...

The guy I'm quoting is the Global Warming denier!

[Frodo]

30. Ahhh. I understand the pique then.

I'll jot it down as trying to speed-read the point of the article and offer you an apology. Perhaps breaking it into five pages confuses the flow beyond what you had written.

I can't say I'm much convinced by you citing your own work as evidence for your arguments. It doesn't lend any weight to the discussion (are you a climatologist?). And it doesn't demostrate the self-evidence of your three bullet points.

[Memekiller]

34. I'll tell you why...

When I started writing that article, I thought the way you did. I knew these industry guys were distorting the evidence, but I knew enough from my days as an astronomy/phsyics major that CO2 was rising since the industrial revolution (it's fairly easy to chart -- look any any basic Astronomyh 101 textbook), and I knew from demonstrations that it trapped heat (You can pour CO2 into an aquarium and set a heat lamp over it, and heat will rise faster than in an aquarium with straight air). So I figured I'd find that we aren't sure if the Earth's temperature is rising or not or if the rise was attributable to burning fossil fuels, and if the two were correlated. Then when I started researching the article, it blew my mind. How could what these scientists be saying be so at odds with what we're bombarded with in the media every day? And I think of myself as a fairly scientifically literate person! Yet I was completely hoodwinked.

I though surely a guy who devotes his life to claiming that Global Warming doesn't exist could turn up ONE scientist to back up his claim. Right? After all, thousands have signed this petition! I thought I'd have to get into this long discussion about how the media distorts the issue because you can ALWAYS find a scientist somewhere to back up anything, but nope. Couldn't name one. (And he lectures on the "lack of evidence"?) Can other people? Go look. OUt of hundreds of scientists, it's always the same old crowd: Lindzen, Michaels, Soon. All the people they name are either a) not climate scientists or b) agree that human induced global warming is occurring. If you can find a published climate scientist who'll say otherwise, I'm still looking.

The reason everyone, even DU'ers, think it's not occurring is because the media never puts a climate scientist on TV to tell you what consensus is. The only people telling you what the consensus is is Drudge, Limbaugh and George F. Will. No wonder the public is so misinformed (even me!)

[Frodo]

38. Sorry. I was a physics major too.

And your "experiments" don't rise to the level of real science.

CO2 in a overturned fishtank (I did that kind of "experiment" for a 9th grade science fair for goodness sake) does not a global theory make. Was there anything in there that takes CO2 OUT of the air? In proportion to what happens globaly? What happened when you doubled the CO2? Did it get warmer? Or would those plants have just eaten twice as much and gotten healthier? You don't know because your fish tank isn't an adequate experiment.

Could you compare the rate of CO2 emission to what had come before? Say by decay of biological material prior to man showing up at all?

ALL we know is that it's warmer today than it was twenty years ago. We suspect it's warmer than 100 years ago. We DON'T know what causes it OR if we can stop it OR if we SHOULD.


If the sun is putting out 2% more radiation than it did a few hundred years ago it could account for EVERYTHING that's happening and there isn't a thing we can do about it.

People with lots of advanced degrees tend to think a lot of themselves. They thing they are a big deal. They tend to also think that mankind is a big deal by extension. That we cause everything and that we can fix everything. There was monsterous climate change (in both directions) long before we got here and there will be monsterous climate changes in both directions for millenia after we're gone. And just one split second (evolutionally speaking) after we're gone youo won't notice a bit of difference in the Earth.

We "ain't all that"

[Nevernose]

39. Sorry to jump in your argument

(and what a thoroughly entertaining little spat it is; I am absolutely enthralled)

But Frodo wrote: "Could you compare the rate of CO2 emission to what had come before? Say by decay of biological material prior to man showing up at all? ALL we know is that it's warmer today than it was twenty years ago. We suspect it's warmer than 100 years ago."

That's not entirely true. Ice corings taken from the Antarctic go back about a hundred thousand years. From these we've discovered that the rate of CO2 has been higher and lower than today, and roughly corresponds to the temperature in the atmosphere. They also show that starting about 150 years ago -- the beginnings of industrialization -- the rate of CO2 emmisions have been the equivalent of 8-10,000 years of normal, pre-industrialization, carbon dioxide emissions.

[Frodo]

41. Could you clarify/reconcile

"From these we've discovered that the rate of CO2 has been higher and lower than today"

"rate of CO2 emmisions have been the equivalent of 8-10,000 years of normal, pre-industrialization, carbon dioxide emissions"

[Nevernose]

50. I was unclear

"From these we've discovered that the rate of CO2 has been higher and lower than"

From these we've discovered that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been both higher and lower than today.

"rate of CO2 emmisions have been the equivalent of 8-10,000 years of normal, pre-industrialization, carbon dioxide emissions"

We have expelled an amount of CO2 in 150 years that, before humans began industrializing, would have taken nature 8-10,000 years to expel (or emit, or some other synonym).

The science on the Antarctic core drillings is pretty tight, and has markedly imroved in just the last couple of years; I've always found it fascinating how geolgists could tell us so much about the climate.

Based on these studies especially, there is little doubt in the "scientific community" anymore that global warming is hapening and that humans are accelerating the change.

What's the current hot topic of debate is, is what the efects of this global warming will be (I presonally subscribe to the Woods Hole theory that global an accelerated global warming will actually cause an ice age -- an abstract can be found at http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/abruptclimate_joyce_oped.html )

[Memekiller]

42. Duh...

It was an experiment us astronomy/phsyics majors performed for high school students as demonstrations. Let me take your standard freeper talking points one by one:

Plants absorbing carbon dioxide. Yes, they absord some (read the article). But they get eaten by animals, and it goes back into the air. Only a certain amount is contained. This is all part of the proposterous argument put forward by the survivalist run Oregon Instute of Medicine that puts out a manual on surviving nuclear war. But even they wouldn't dare to claim burning fossil fuels isn't causing climate change -- instead they're claiming global warming is GOOD for you (thus, the title of my article).

Do we know how CO2 has changed? Yes. Air bubbles of ancient atmosphere has been captured in rocks that are inert and would not chemically interact with the air. By sampling it, we know how atmosphere has changed over time. That's one method. Of course, we've been able to directly sample the CO2 in the atmosphere since before the Industrial revolution, and we see a sharp increase proportional to the burning of fosssil fuels.

The rise in temperature is the most solidly substantiated of all the claims. Trot out the satellites, the weather stations and all the other web site disinformation. No one quesitons that.

Your last argument is just bizaar. It seems to be a concession that scientists are saying that global warming is occurring but they "ain't all that". Okay. Conservative pundits "ain't all that" either. At least scientists have some evidence to back up their claims.

[Frodo]

46. You miss the point.

You ahve not shown and can not show that man is causing it OR can stop it. How did we "cause" previous ice ages and warmings before we even got here? WHY do you insist it isn't the cause of something completely natural?

Mother Earth is FAR more powerfull than we are and does this sort of thing all the time WITHOUT our help.

[Memekiller]

47. Why? Because climate scientists say so.

[ma4t]

62. another question

I've read several reports that say that the intensity of the earth's magnetic field has dropped quite a bit over the past several decades.

We know that the polarity of the magnetic field has "swapped" several times over the life of the planet. It is assumed that such a swap is preceded by a lessening of the field.

Has anyone done any research as to how the strength of the magnetic field and the global climate interact? Since the field is what helps shield us from much of the solar wind (highly energetic particles), I would assume that there is a non-trivial connection. Enough to account for a slight rise in the mean global temperature? I don't know; but I'm surprised to see that no one else seems to be wondering.

[Frodo]

66. Actually... THAT IS something that has had me worried.

I worry less about whether I will have to go to the beach on the outer banks of NC instead of Florida in fifty years than I worry about these types of things.

A magnetic pole swap could be devestating (completely apart from temperatures - the magnetic field protects us from definitely lethal doses of radiation)

So could an erruption of the super volcano under the US (long overdue in popping again).

So could any number of "out-of-our-control" events.

Lose sleep over what you will wear to work tomorrow, or IF you will work tomorrow in a "jobless recovery". Let whatever higher power you believe in deal with the eternal pictures.


People see "an asteroid could hit Earth any time in the next 50,000 years - killing everyone on the planet" and people immediately want to do something about it. We HAVE to do something about it. It's in our nature. Even if there isn't anything we CAN do.

Lots of snow or lots of sunshine this year (or this decade). We panic that something MUST be wrong and we HAVE to do something. Even if we don't REALLY understand what is happening. The global system is still far bigger than we an grasp. It's possible that "that's jsut the way it is".

[Memekiller]

23. And another thing...

Your argument about weather stations was raised a decade ago, and readings have long since taken that into account. Next you'll probably pull out the BS from one of these sites about "satellite data" -- also, thoroughly debunked. Then, for a scientist, you'll probably pull out Patrick J. Michaels, the only climate scientists industry has been about to trot out to push these claims, and the most skeptical climate scientist out there. What does he say in this article? Humans are warming the Earth.

Before you resort to the Oregon Petition, let me save you the time:

Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine

Background

None needed.

Statement/Action

"This is the website that completely knocks the wind out of the enviro's sails. See over 17,000 scientists declare that global warming is a lie with no scientific basis whatsoever."

Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine

Reasonable Inference

Seventeen thousand scientists signed the petition.

Contradictory Statement/Action

"Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition—one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers--a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community."

"Skepticism about Skeptics", Scientific American, Oct. 2001

Comments

This petition is also the main evidence give by the National Center for Public Policy Research against a consensus on Global Warming.

[Frodo]

25. I'm aware of the petition.

I'm also aware of similar game-playing on the other side. Newspaper advertisements on global warming signed by hundreds of "scientists" like MDs, chemists, biologists.

My previous posts hinted I don't put much weight in either side of a political argument when science is involved.

I would be very interested in the "thourough debunking" of the satelite data. All I've seen is mathematical "corrections" to raw data that boil down to "these numbers are wrong based on what we know about the globe warming, so we need to adjust them upward... oh look! Now the satelites support our thesis".

[Memekiller]

29. All the scientists...

...quoted in that article told me the satellite readings and temp stations people trot out are old, and have long since been dealt with. And if you'll read it, you'll see none of them can think of anybody who would claim the Earth isn't warming. That we know. Glaciers are receding, carabou are migrating farth north, the permafrost in Alaska is thawing, the ocean waters are rising -- we know all this. The Cato Institute scholar Patrick Michaels admits this, too. He just doesn't think it's so bad. But the VAST majority of scientists do. Look at the IPCC and National Academy of Scientists -- they say so. A majority of climate scientists who were polled by Gallup back in 1992 -- when these issues deniers have raised, similar to yours, were still serious unanswered questions -- believed it was occurring and something to worry about. But the data we've gathered in the past ten years has only solidified that, and now it's nearly unanimous.

[Frodo]

32. Really? So they didn't accept the "evidence" of those who disagree with

their own theory? How shocking!

Would it surprise you to learn the other side doesn't think much of opposing data either? No?

All of the evidence you cite is, again , nothing more than souped-up "gee it's warm today". Weather is not clilmate, and climate change is not "global climate trend" If ti was really warm 100 years ago then cold for 50 years then warming up again you might see the results you cite... but it wouldn't be global warming.

It's also a million miles from saying we can/should/must do something about it.

[Memekiller]

35. Climate scientist doesn't mean "Global Warming"

A climate scientist studies climate. They produce studies. Those studies either support or errode confidence in a theory like global warming. A decade ago, climate scientists were on both sides of this issue, but as study after study has shown temperature increasing, CO2 rising, and a connection to human activity, the number of climate scientists believing in the existence of human induced climate change increased.

And again: what scientists disagree with them?

[booley]

68. well, oen thing you have wrong..

"Over 95% of official weather stations are in urban/airport environments that impact temperature readings far more than "global warming"."

Try 27% are in urban areas. And after looking at the differences, and adjusting it by comparing the readings to rural stations, the difference was only .05 degress.

http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/temperature.htm#urbanheatislands

I would also love ot hear where they are finding that the sun has increased in tempurature in the last decade. Not saying it's not happening but haven't heard that. and niether has NASA (who measures such things) last i checked.

http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/causes.htm#solarcause

However, there is evidenced that sunspot activity has increased but as the scientists who studied that will tell you themselves, the effect of increased magnetic activity on the sun and global warming remain very much UNCLEAR.
Not exactly an open and shut case.

meanwhile, evidence that global warming is at least partially caused by humans isn't exactly as lacking as you claim...

http://www.wmo.ch/web/Press/Press657.html
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
http://www.ic.ac.uk/templates/text_3.asp?P=2641
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1225064.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/international/europe/17CLIM.html?ex=1074315600&en=7006615e33bfa39f&ei=5070
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/12/12/2003079269


So who are these scientists who were part fo the orginal earth day (and how do you mean. apart of? what did they do?) and why have they changed thier minds?

[Frodo]

72. One quick link I found. I'd have NOT researched the source.

"Is Global Warming Cyclical and Natural"

A technical paper that appeared recently in GSA Today, a journal of the Geological Society of America, shows evidence that the periodic cooling and warming of the planet over the past 500 million years is cyclical and is caused by a complex interplay between solar activity and cosmic rays. CO2 emissions are not a main of climate change.

[TreasonousBastard]

51. Interesting article.

I've been bothered about the pseudoscience arguments for years, and did a fair amount of digging a couple of years ago for an article of my own (that I never finished).

Working from memory-- I found an article in Science where NASA actually measured an ocean rise of a quarter inch or so. Another one mentioned deep sea temperatures had a small rise. Sea rise comes from melting land ice and thermal expansion when the temperature rises.

It was only a few years ago that atmospheric temperature readings were coordinated worldwide, and the network got working. Since that time, atmospheric temperatures have showed a downward trend.

There was another interesting study where someone went over ships' logs for the past couple of hundred years. Ocean temperature is extremely important as it affects the buoyancy of the vessel, and the measurements over the years are remarkably accurate when taken as a whole. The study showed a definite rise in sea temperature over the time studied.

Glaciers were not fully studied at the time, with only about 10% of them being properly measured, but the consensus was that they are rapidly melting. Anecdotally, it is noticed that Alpine, Himalayan, Alaskan, and South American glaciers are melting and receding. This has caused the appearance of precolumbian structures in South America, the appearance of the 3000 year old corpse in the Alps, and major flooding in China as the glacial dams burst.

Then, there are reports of melting permafrost around the world.

Warming undoubtedly exists and the only questions remaining are why and what can we do about it.

Science is always imperfect, and every discovery leads only to more questions, but at some point there is a consensus and general agreement on the observations and the mechanisms behind them.

But, there will never be any end to cranks who insist on denying the obvious. They are correct that even our most solid theories are ready to be overturned with new discoveries, but the cranks never have a better idea and simply pick at the tiny tears in our present knowledge.

[pippin]

13. you don't need scientists to tell you

anyone who was in Europe last summer, particularly France, where temperatures were in th triple digits and where make shift tent morgues had to be set up, would have known a drastic climate chnage had occurred.

[Frodo]

15. Big difference between weather patterns and global climate change

And a HUGE difference between global climate change and "we caused this, it's a bad thing, and we need to bankrupt ourselves fixing it".

Talking about one summer (or ten) in europe is only slightly more scientific than giving Gore a hard time for talking about global warming in NY on the COLDEST day in decades. "Anyone who was in DC this week... wouldn have known that a drastic climate change had occurred". But they would be wrong.

Best to stick to simpler things Mr Took. The weighty things of the world are best left to those who can deal with them. :-)

[Bandit]

17. And you can provide a link to this so-called evidence that the sun

is hot.

[HawkerHurricane]

4. It's all about money.

And the deep held belief that, if it makes money (for them) it can't possibly be bad...
Whether it be global warming, or more local pollution, or anything...
"I made money off this, it can't possibly lead to anything evil..."

[HereSince1628]

5. Its part of the RW's solution to peak oil

Raising global temperature will ultimately lead to less demand

Just like people who starve to death lower the demand for aid.

No problem the invisible hand of macroeconomics will fix all things,
except for taxes. There we gotta cut, cut, cut.

[Frodo]

8. I'll take the other side of that one.

Why is the right Frodo so stubborn about admitting that global warming might be a problem?

Why is it so hard for some to see that "might" might not be convincing enough to spend hundred of billions of dollars that could be better spent on the poor, homeless, hungry, uninsured, etc. etc. etc. ?

A generation ago, the right's stubbornness about environmentalism didn't make any sense either.

At least they're consistent in their greed. "A generation ago" environmentalists were warning about the threat of global cooling and how we were re-entering an ice age and it was all man's fault because of his pollution.

Now they've changed their minds, swung the other way, and never blushed at how wrong they were... but we're all supposed to swing public policy by what they are saying now?

[Cannikin]

9. Anyone remember when science was for the benefit of learning...

and not a means to a political end?

[yagotme]

12. Yes, Frodo,

I remember the days of "the coming of another ice age" while growing up. Everyone was worried about how far the glaciers would come down. To spend millions/billions of dollars on what could very well be just a thesis would be a great error. My vote is still out on this, until I see conclusive proof. After all, how is it possible to accurately measure global temperatures thousands of years ago. After all, here in IL, we have tons of coal and oil reserves, which are to have come from a rain-forest type environment. We also have deposits of sea sediment. We also have glacier moraines(sp?). How often does it freeze in a rain forest? Could the earth and sun be going through natural cycles, something no amount of money could prevent? After all, no industrialist or politician was alive during these times, so who is to blame?

[Bandit]

19. Have you heard of "Perma-Frost" that the Alaska Pipeline is built

upon. Well it ain't so "perma" any longer. The Perma-Frost is melting and the pipeline is starting to wobble and the struts holding it are starting to sag. One thing we do know beyond doubt is that the northern part of the world is warming rapidly. The Artic Ice mass is more than thirty miles from land now and that has never happened in man's memory. The aleuts can not get their walrus any longer because they are to far from land. There is a major problem happening in the Artic and that is un-deniable. What the cause is has yet to be determined but some of the best minds on earth are working on it.

[Frodo]

22. A good post.

But some of those "best minds" have to go a LONG way before they can justify taking multi-hundred-Billion-dollar action. "What the cause is" HAS to be determined, THEN "how do we fix it" (IF it isn't a GOOD thing - food production is still climbing in a starving world) and "at what cost".

"Perma-Frost under the pipeline is melting" is only slightly more scientific than "gee, is it a little cold today?" Twenty year, fifty year, two hundred year cycles/fluctuations are NOT the same thing as massive global climate change.

[Bandit]

28. Perma-Frost under the pipeline is melting" is only slightly more scientific

Believe it or not but every single action is scientific. There is a bit more than two hundred years history here to deal with and just because you don't see anything to concern you better minds differ. There is a consensus world wide within the scientific community that warming is fact. There is pretty valid evidence that it can be reversed with man following different patterns. There are many scenarios that show it definitely is not a good thing and in fact will be devastating for life on earth. There are no known scenarios that show it is a good thing.

[Frodo]

33. And all of that sounds just like what we heard 30-35 years ago...

From the same level "scientists".

And they were 100% WRONG (assuming that you are now right).

They have no credibility.

"If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. … This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age."

"In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish."

"The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population"

"There are ominous signs that the earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production—with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop in food production could begin quite soon… The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologist are hard-pressed to keep up with it."

[Bandit]

36. They have no credibility.

The same scientific minds that put man on the moon and provided the internet for you to criticize them with and created electricity and the wheel and yet they have no credibility. :shrug: whatever ~ if the earth was only created six thousand years ago then I guess we should all expect many more changes in short order and it is all preordained anyway and so what, because the rapture is almost upon us. :crazy: Let's just drill for more oil and see if we can create even more pollution than anyone ever thought possible. Maybe Cheney can get a little richer.

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

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[Bandit]

43. So I guess we should never ever listen to the scientific community

because they were wrong one time. :shrug: whatever ~ and I am biased. I do believe in them. I know no one is infallible but for the most part they have been right spot on. If I find one post you made in which you were proved wrong does that make every single post after that also wrong? There are just too damn many brilliant minds that agree on this to so casually disregard it.

[Name removed]

37. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

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[Memekiller]

45. Ever heard of George F. Will?

He's the guy who forwarded this stuff.

[Frodo]

48. ??? Forwarded this stuff???

Did he make it up? Did evironmentalists actually not say any of these things in the 60's & 70's? Did I not study it in school?

The fact that a right-wing idealogue throws past mistakes in your face does NOT mean they weren't mistakes. If Rush Limbaugh yells that "the sky is blue" it is not evidence for you to conclude that the sky is, in fact, red. (though it might cause me to doubt :-) ).

There is no doubt that the environmental movement in the US is calling for the same actions (reduced pollution, population control, etc) that it called for in the 60's. While they are correct in THOSE goals. The fact that they haven't missed a beat converting from "to stop global cooling" to "to stop global warming" SHOULD be an embarrasment to their cause far beyond whether George Will ever found the same quotes I "googled" .

[Memekiller]

53. I'm not listening to envirnomentalists...

All I care about is what scientific consensus is because, however imperfect, it's the closest we will ever be to knowing. The main proponent of the cooling theory is George F. Will who used a Newsweek article as his main evidence. Despite misrepresenting the article (see following post), it made a great sound bite, and thus has spread.

By the way, just got this e-mail:

"I'm not sure who you think you are but you're a fucking liberal idiot (pardon the redundancy). This Frodo guy is raking your sorry ass over the coals you goddamn freak.

"Please do the world a favor and die."

So you've got one fan!

[Frodo]

54. An apology before more get deleted.

I've never had a post deleted before and I'm honestly not sure what I said.

I'm sorry if this seemed to get hotter than I intended. You certainly have a right to your own opinion.

I also apologize for the e-mail you received. If my words are being taken by the other side as amunition then I'm not serving my purpose here.

I'll just leave it at "agree to disagree agreeably" OK?


On edit - BTW - If you know what I said that was out of line (I really do take this stuff seriously - appropriate behavior, not global warming/cooling arguments) please mail me.

[Memekiller]

55. I'm sure it was mine that was deleted...

...and I stepped out of line. I didn't see anything wrong with yours.

Actually, I'm enjoying it, and I got a chuckle out of the e-mail. Don't worry about it. Nice spar, dude!!! I should get back to work.

[Bandit]

56. Ahhh the love from the other side is soooo evident

Liberal idiot no less. How come I don't rate an e-mail with such class? Must be hitting a sore spot with them. When they can't refute facts they resort to name-calling. Typical right-wing blather. Not Frodo but the freeper who sent the e-mail. Frodo is a thought provoking DUer who has many different views on most subjects but certainly not a freeper. I like most of his posts although I disagree with him often.

[Frodo]

57. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

:grouphug:

Now I must run back to freeperville and tell them that I have finally been accepted into the "liberal idiot" club. :-)

Thanks for your kind words.

Just for the record. I don't have "many different views" on most subjects. I try to limit my views to two or three per topic.

But I suspect you meant we often disagree. Be well.

[Bandit]

58. My bad

I should have said many different views period. I'm sure you knew what I meant though. One thing I have noticed about your posts is they are intelligent and thought provoking. Be well back :thumbsup: and have one on me :beer:

[Memekiller]

49. Here's the refute to the "global cooling" bit...

This whole thing can basically be traced back to a Newsweek article from 1975.

First, it is interesting to note just what the article said and what it didn't say. Newsweek reported (accurately) that climatologists detected a drop of 0.5 degrees in the global climate during the middle of the 20th century, but they didn't have any idea what was responsible for the drop. Nevertheless, they were concerned that if the trend continued, there would be serious consequences. Since they didn't know what was causing the drop in temperature, the policy recommendations consisted primarily of taking steps to prepare for future disruptions of food supplies by stockpiling adequate reserves.

If you read this carefully, it doesn't support the claims of today's global warming skeptics, who argue that the warnings about global cooling in the 1970s reflect an ongoing pattern of environmentalist fearmongering based on inadequate scientific evidence. The Newsweek article doesn't even suggest that human tampering might be responsible for the change in global tempreatures, and it doesn't quote or otherwise refer to the opinions of any environmentalists. The concerns expressed in that article came from scientists, not from environmentalists.

It's true that scientists in the 1970s detected a pattern of global cooling and that they were concerned about it. Their concerns have shifted as their data and scientific methods have improved, but they really weren't wrong back in the 1970s. The global climate did cool during that period. The prevailing thinking today in the scientific community is that cooling was caused by particulate emissions, which tended temporarily to mask the longer-term (and more important) impact of greenhouse gases. Particulate emissions have a cooling effect on the climate because they tend to block sunlight, but greenhouse gases have a longer-term impact, because particulate emissions eventually settle back to earth. Over time, this means that the cooling effect of particulate emissions has been overtaken by the warming effect of greenhouse gases, hence the trends that we are seeing today.

Stephen Schneider was one of the scientists who expressed concerns about possible global cooling as early as 1971. Schneider is a careful, world-class atmospheric scientist. In 1971, however, the contribution of greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide, such as methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons, had not yet been recognized by climatologists. As a result, the climatological community was more concerned about possible cooling of the planet by the particulate pollution humanity was injecting into the atmosphere than about greenhouse gas-induced warming. It was appropriate, therefore, for Schneider in 1971 to express concerns based on the best scientific evidence available at that time. By the mid-1970s, however, scientists became aware of the role of other greenhouse gases, and their concerns began to shift toward warming, where they are focused today.

That's the way science (as opposed to ideology) ought to work. Schneider did exactly what good scientists should do. He changed his views as new data were gathered to test hypotheses. Today, with the benefit of 30 years worth of additional data and analysis, Schneider and the overwhelming majority of the world's climate researchers believe that global warming is a serious concern. Moreover, they have identified industrial greenhouse gas emissions as a likely major contributor to the problem. This change in thinking only looks strange or inappropriate if you are looking for "message points" with which to rationalize continuing to ignore the warnings of the world's leading climate researchers -- which, of course, is precisely what the fossil fuel and auto industries have been doing.

[Mr.Green93]

60. "scientists".

I wonder if Aztec "scientists". had similar discussions and decided cutting the beating heart out of a virgin would solve their problem.

[Frodo]

61. I have to play nice.

But I feel compelled to answer.

Perhaps you are somewhat young and have a different view of anything believed in a year starting with "19". But the 1960's-70's were not really as backwards as the Aztecs.

Any time we "discover" something it shows us that what we firmly believed before was actually wrong (I'm still a BIG TIME doubter of the whole "dark matter" theory - but who knows?).

I just don't go making drastic societal changes based on the latest science before it matures - especially when it's the SAME drastic societal changes that were called for by the people who went on about the now-debunked theory. I suspect their methodology is backwards.

[Mr.Green93]

63. I'm on your side

[Frodo]

64. Hmmm. I am again suspicious.

You didn't send an e-mail to memekiller "supporting" me did you?

[Mr.Green93]

65. no I did not

sorry for the distraction

[Frodo]

67. Sorry. "No harm no foul"

I've just gotten sensitive on this thread.

[Mr.Green93]

69. Good debate

It was an intersting exchange. I think you won.

[militarymanusaf]

11. The sheeple out there

think that global warming is "a hoax". That's exactly what Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma said. :crazy:

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

16. conservatives have been suckered by the polluter corporations

Your average conservative is just brainwashed on environmental issues - they've been getting a steady diet of con propaganda for years by astro-turf "property rights" groups, i.e., fronts for polluters.

[YNGW]

21. Global Warming

I agree with Frodo and others. I've done my own study and research, studying the arguments from both sides, and have reached the consclusion that this global warming theory isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Of course, if you disagee with those who believe global warming is a danger, it's not enough for them to just say "We have a difference of opinion" and let it go. They have to label you as "sheeple" or as succombing to "right-wing ideology" or whatever else they need to do to get you to fit into the little boxes they need in order to make sense of the world and to build themselves up. I realize it can be slightly complicated for some to fathom that people can actually study the same evidences and reach completely opposing conclusions, but in the real world it happens.

[NashVegas]

27. Skeptics - A Reminder

The scientific community needs proofs and a consensus on those proofs. The majority of the community accept the climate change theories, but the skeptics are loud. But there's a little more at work.

So let's take a trip down memory lane:

Women had been complaining about menstual cramps & PMS for centuries. Only in the last 20 years did the scientific community decide it wasn't all in our wee little heads.

What made the difference? Industry. Along with the confirmation came a host of products for PMS relief, including prescription drugs.

When industry can make more money through products to relieve the effects of pollution than they can by being polluters, you'll see the skeptics shut up.

[snippy]

31. Oddly enough the debate over global warming likely will be settled by

large corporations. Specifically large reinsurance companies. They are on the verge of requiring action to decrease global warming emissions as a condition for issuing property casualty reinsurance and, more importantly, director liability reinsurance. If the reinsurers do require such action, all of the politicians and paid science whores who currently are being paid to deny global warming will be paid to reverse their positions. Those who genuinely believe that there is no global warming will be ignored by industry and consequently by politicians. And that will be the end of the debate.

[TreasonousBastard]

52. Well...

I'd have to say that included in the definition of "conservative" is resistance to change.

It may be as simple as that. They just don't see any reason to have their little worlds upset.

[KFC]

59. Currently in a warming trend. To be followed by a cooling trend.

What amazes me is that people seem to think that the climate ("mean temperature") remains constant over time.

[IrateCitizen]

70. Their motives are what they always are...

Defending the status quo and looking after "business interests" first and foremost.

The issue here, quite honestly, is a lot bigger than "global warming". The issue here is the way in which we treat the very environment upon which we depend for our survival -- the very environment of which we are a part, whether we can realize it or not. "Global warming" is just a small piece of the puzzle.

As for those who pooh-pooh the idea that the overall climate of the earth might be significantly changing, due to a large part from human causes, I only have one question to ask.

What are you so damned afraid of?

Seriously, what is the worst thing that can happen? A significant financial investment is made into new technologies and strategies that enable us to greatly diminish our global footprint and live a bit more in harmony with nature? Or that the massive programs of subsidy to support high-polluting fossil fuel industries might be freed? Or what about the fact that renewable energy sources actually create AND maintain significantly more jobs than the existing framework? Or what about cutting down on pollution of our air and water?

Please tell me how any of these are BAD things to be avoided at all costs, whether human-induced global climate change turns out to be real or not? :shrug:

[Frodo]

71. What are they afraid of?

http://iccfglobal.org/Moscow%20Paper%20102303.PDF

Here's one.


Also, many proponents actively advocate reducing the number of humans on the planet by at least half. i don't suspect they mean to KILL three or four BILLION people, but I can't see a "nice" way to accomplish it.

Plenty to be afraid of if there isn't anything we can do anyway.

[IrateCitizen]

73. Interesting source, to say the least

First, I noted how often GDP was used as the ultimate baseline to economic well-being -- something that raised my eyebrows right away.

Why? Because GDP is a grossly inaccurate measurement of economic sustainability. All it measures is annual goods and services exchanged within a year. By measure of the GDP, a year in which your house burned down and was rebuilt, you crashed your car and bought a new one, and you shattered your leg and suffered through three surgeries and extensive physical therapy would be seen as a banner year, according to GDP measurement. If you can tell me that if you experienced all of these things and it WAS a good year, then I've got a little bridge in New York City to sell you....

Secondly, I went to the website of the author of the paper you cited. Strangely enough, it has board members who are steeped in the financial sector -- UBS Warburg and Goldman Sachs, for starters. Most notably one of the board members was a Mr. George Schultz.

Sorry, but I don't consider the paper you cited to be worth the bandwidth it uses up. It seems, rather, to be filled of much of the same kind of "scare tactics" cited by those who are consumed with the idea of neverending economic growth ahead of the concept of an actually sustainable economy. It also appears to exhibit the assumption of the absolute necessity of a carbon-based economy without even considering the alternatives of renewable energy sources combined with increases in efficiency.

Also, many proponents actively advocate reducing the number of humans on the planet by at least half. i don't suspect they mean to KILL three or four BILLION people, but I can't see a "nice" way to accomplish it.

While there are certainly those who do advocate such drastic solutions (and I do not agree with them), the idea of population control does not embrace this as a whole. Rather, it is the very idea of controlling population growth through measures like education and full access to contraceptive measures. I doubt that this explains in any way why Western Europe and Scandinavia are actually experiencing NEGATIVE population growth.

Additionally, with our planet's resources currently stretched PAST their limits (we currently use up the equivalent of 1-1/3 planets), it would seem that reducing our footprint would be an absolute necessity. Continued "economic growth" to the point that all nations reached the US "standard of living" would result in us using the resources of FIVE earths. How on earth can we possible expect to survive if we continue along this path?

Plenty to be afraid of if there isn't anything we can do anyway.

If there's nothing we can do anyway, then why in the hell should you care what happens one way or the other????

[Frodo]

74. Amazing isn't it?

A paper trying to asses the impact of a policy shift on global economies might actually be written by economists??

Shocking!

I guess we should let the people advocating the change tell us what it will cost? Free you say? Wonderful! Let's do it.

And I assure you, the "scare tactics" are not on THIS side of the fence.


Long term GDP (combined with assesments of inflation) is THE measure of economic health. No, a year where all those terrible things go wrong is bad FOR YOU, but great for all the people paid to fix all those problems. Unemployment counts, BUT is included in GDP since unemployed people don't produce much.

Your paragraph on "using 1.333 planets resources" makes no logical sense at all. I don't mean we aren't using resources... I mean the sentence is not constructed to actually state a fact. WHAT is that figure based on? Did we mine Mars a thousand years ago and now know we're stripping Earth 35% faster?

If there's nothing we can do anyway, then why in the hell should you care what happens one way or the other????

Why? Well, I suppose for the same reason I want to see how much snow we're going to get tomorrow. I can at least rpepare for it. More importantly... I guess I don't NEED to CARE..... as long as you aren't asking/forcing me to pay for it and/or change my lifestyle to suit your current theory of how to fix it. But you ARE aren't you?

[IrateCitizen]

75. Nice strawman -- or is that plural?

A paper trying to asses the impact of a policy shift on global economies might actually be written by economists??

Whoever said anything about economists? I didn't. I said that several of the people cited on the BOD were from the FINANCIAL sector. The financial sector has its own vested interests -- many of which do not coincide with the majority of the rest of the world's population.

And I assure you, the "scare tactics" are not on THIS side of the fence.

Sure they are. They're on this side of the fence, as well.

Long term GDP (combined with assesments of inflation) is THE measure of economic health. No, a year where all those terrible things go wrong is bad FOR YOU, but great for all the people paid to fix all those problems. Unemployment counts, BUT is included in GDP since unemployed people don't produce much.

That depends on how you measure "health". I don't measure it in strictly economic terms. By your definition, the USA should be the healthiest nation on the planet. Yet, it ranks near the bottom among industrialized nations in basic health and social indicators. GDP is indicative of the classic mistake exhibited by many economists (and thankfully being shunned by an increasing number) that economic growth is the end-all, be-all of human existence. An excellent example of a more accurate measure is the Genuine Progress Indicator (http://www.rprogress.org/projects/gpi/).

Your paragraph on "using 1.333 planets resources" makes no logical sense at all. I don't mean we aren't using resources... I mean the sentence is not constructed to actually state a fact. WHAT is that figure based on? Did we mine Mars a thousand years ago and now know we're stripping Earth 35% faster?

Perhaps I should have made my transition into addressing your comments on population control in a clearer manner. What I am referring to is the supplies of fresh drinking water, clean air and arable soil -- which are currently being used up approximately 33% faster than the earth is able to replenish them. These aren't the resources needed for the production of luxury goods and useless junk required for the neverending inflation of the GDP -- they're the ones needed for our very survival.

For a couple of sources on this, I'd suggest reading either The Sacred Balance by David Suzuki or Affluenza by DeGraff, et.al.

Why? Well, I suppose for the same reason I want to see how much snow we're going to get tomorrow. I can at least rpepare for it. More importantly... I guess I don't NEED to CARE..... as long as you aren't asking/forcing me to pay for it and/or change my lifestyle to suit your current theory of how to fix it. But you ARE aren't you?

I'm asking/forcing you to pay for it and/or change your lifestyle no less than I see you as forcing me to pay for it and change my lifestyle by doing nothing in the face of an oncoming problem. But then again, I'm a modern socialist who views the first priorities of the government and economy as ensuring the sustained well-being of the citizenry rather than the pursuit of endless profits. Based on what I have inferred from your perspective (and correct me if I'm misreading you here), this is something that we will probably never agree upon.

[Viking12]

76. hmmmmm

Funny how some will trash climate models and uncritically accept economic models. A brief viewing of Frodo's link provides no direct explanation nor any citations for the study's database, economic assumptions, and/or methodolgy; garbage in garbage out. That alone should raise eyebrows.

If Frodo were to apply his own flawed logic consistently across cases, he wouldn't trust economic models because just a few years ago they were projecting huge budget surpluses.

[Frodo]

77. Nice post - But

Economics is a heck of a lot simpler (and far fewer variables) than climatology.

Perhaps "simpler" isn't the right word. Maybe "faster" is. Changes in economic variable work (sometimes) in days. Not centuries.

We have FAR more data to work with.