Editorial: The Great Global Warming Hoax?

[Oleg Bach]

Given the lack of complete understanding how can the global warming fanatics make certain statements about the cause of earth's warming, or its duration, or predictions regarding its future affects on the earth?

And, in fact, the article in question did mention oceanic research - which seems to suggest little warming has actually occurred.

From my perspective, the evidence that man is a major contributor to global warming, or that we can affect it seems sadly lacking.

"Gobal warming fanatics" - so kind of you - I will tell you this Argus as for your creed and contempt of humanity - those that are parasitic on the environment and profit though the filthing up of the planet - deny global warming - those that are super rich and lunitics - deny that they have over eaten from the trough....and those that live minimal materialistic lives who love nature WILL NOT DENY GLOBAL WARMING....It's about money and power...and destruction of our resourses....If you did a servey on global warming believers and non-believers - I guarentee you that those that deny the fact are rich and irresponsible humans and those the recognize that it is a FACT ..that - the environ is under strain are poorer....that is the deviding line - the HAVES deny they crap on the floor...and the HAVE NOTS - Do not deny that there is poop all over the global house!

[peter_puck]

Birth rates decline in rich societies. Denying people access to cheap energy will make societies poorer which will make the overpopulation problem worse. Allowing third world countries to develop is the best way to get them to limit their population.

Hate to break it to you, but cheap energy is gone. I doubt the politicians could really deny the world cheap energy, but I KNOW the markets will. It is simple math, you have a limited supply and rapidly growing demand. There is no way we can continue to consume like pigs and the third world develop at the same time.

While many of the "green measures" cost more with todays energy prices, they will be cheap by tommorrows.

We should not be building houses with 100 year lifespans that are energy pigs.

[Riverwind]

Hate to break it to you, but cheap energy is gone. I doubt the politicians could really deny the world cheap energy, but I KNOW the markets will.

You are missing the point. Government regulation of CO2 due to the AGW hysteria will inflates energy prices over whatever they would be otherwise.

[WIP]

Birth rates decline in rich societies. Denying people access to cheap energy will make societies poorer which will make the overpopulation problem worse. Allowing third world countries to develop is the best way to get them to limit their population.

I'll focus on this point since the others are going nowhere. If it was matter of wealth and cheap energy, Saudi Arabia would have the lowest birth rates in the world! Certainly living conditions in the developed world play a part in reducing family size - I can say from personal experience that there's no financial incentive to have children unless you're on welfare. But in the third world, the main factors are infant mortality and birth control. Once infant mortality rates begin to drop with access to medicine and clean drinking water, women start wanting to have fewer children. But if they're in Catholic and Muslim countries that put up the roadblocks to birth control and abortion, they have no choice over how many children to have and the birth rates continue to climb.

[WIP]

You are missing the point. Government regulation of CO2 due to the AGW hysteria will inflates energy prices over whatever they would be otherwise.

And as long as there is cheap gas and oil, there won't be any significant attempts to develope alternative energy sources!

[WIP]

This is the response I promised you.

Sadly, it isn't much. I will have to look at my public library to see if there is copy of this book, but from the description at amazon, I am not overly hopeful as to the books relevance to fact.

The Permian extinction, as I have already stated, was the most devastating event we have seen on this planet, in regards to loss of species. That said, pinning it all on CO2 levels is beyond simplistic and certainly misleading.

The world itself was a very different place at that time - from global temperatures, to oceanic circulations, to the arrangments of continents. I think Ward is grabbing for straws here, and jumping on the bandwagon of media spin at the same time. This kind of hypothesis is just plain dangerous, for it allows us to explain a complicated event (climate change) with overly simplistic explanations.

It's not just CO2, the Earth is complex system, never in a steady state, subject to the whims of our sun, and the other orbital forcing parameters (wobble, tilt, perihelion). The circulation of our oceans and their interaction with the atmosphere and biosphere add yet another dimension to this puzzle we call life on Earth. Blaming CO2 emmissions for all it's ills is silly at best, and dangerous at most, because it allows us to glaze over other, more pressing issues, such as soil erosion, water contamination, food contamination usw.

Anyways, that's my rant for now.

I might add more later, but must cook dinner for the family (I am so darn domestic).

Ward wasn't jumping on anybody's bandwagon when he started thinking that the P/T Extinction had an earthbound cause and was not caused by an asteroid or comet. When he started his investigation of late Permian rock layers and found evidence of sulphite-producing bacteria, he was looking for signs of an iridium layer that would serve as a telltale sign of a major impact. Since he was working for Luis and Walter Alvarez, who proposed the theory that the K/T Extinction was caused by an asteroid, he had to go against his bosses at the time, since they wanted him to look for evidence of an impact, not an extinction caused by climate change.

[Riverwind]

If it was matter of wealth and cheap energy, Saudi Arabia would have the lowest birth rates in the world!

Despite it oil wealth the per capita income of Saudi Arabia is less that 1/2 that of the US and most of that income goes to the Royal Family. If you look at the stats - even within Canada - you will find that wealthy people have fewer children because the opportunity cost of having children is much higher for people who make more money. Furthermore, more wealth means more education which means the traditional forms of social control lose power. IOW - if you have a problem with the influence of the traditional churches then economic development is the best way to deal with that as well.

The bottom line is policies to control CO2 will result in more poverty and more suffering and it will be the people who are already poor today that will do most of the suffering because those of us in rich countries will be able the buy our carbon indulgences from the Church of Al Gore. This suffering means that no moral person can naively demand that the precautionary principle be applied to CO2. Whether you like it or not we must take into account the uncertainties in the science and that will mean that we do a lot less than many alarmists would like. That is the most prudent course of action until we have data that conclusively demonstrates that CO2 is the threat that the climate modellers claim.

Edited March 30, 2008 by Riverwind

[Argus]

"Gobal warming fanatics" - so kind of you - I will tell you this Argus as for your creed and contempt of humanity - those that are parasitic on the environment and profit though the filthing up of the planet - deny global warming - those that are super rich and lunitics - deny that they have over eaten from the trough....and those that live minimal materialistic lives who love nature WILL NOT DENY GLOBAL WARMING....It's about money and power...and destruction of our resourses....If you did a servey on global warming believers and non-believers - I guarentee you that those that deny the fact are rich and irresponsible humans and those the recognize that it is a FACT ..that - the environ is under strain are poorer....that is the deviding line - the HAVES deny they crap on the floor...and the HAVE NOTS - Do not deny that there is poop all over the global house!

What a nonsensical, barely literate, froth at the mouth diatribe.

As I suggested earlier - educated and intelligent people have their doubts about this man-made global warming phenomenon, but poorly educated - unstable - and not very bright people have embraced it wholeheartedly.

[peter_puck]

As I suggested earlier - educated and intelligent people have their doubts about this man-made global warming phenomenon, but poorly educated - unstable - and not very bright people have embraced it wholeheartedly.

Do you have any evidence to back this statement up ?

Most of the anti-AGW posts and blogs I have read demonstrate an amazing lack of critical thinking skills (this forum seems to be an exception). The proponents of AGW are governments, scientists and scientific organizations. Most of the opponents seem to be conservative talk show hosts and their callers. Does it make me "not very bright" to believe scientists rather than talk show hoasts

[peter_puck]

You are missing the point. Government regulation of CO2 due to the AGW hysteria will inflates energy prices over whatever they would be otherwise.

Again, they would inflate the prices in THE SHORT TERM. Oil is a finite resourse. The more we consume, the higher the price will be. I am not afraid of some silly tax, I am afraid of supply and demand. For all its downside, the oil shock of the 70's probably lowered what we pay for gas today.

[sunsettommy]

I'll focus on this point since the others are going nowhere. If it was matter of wealth and cheap energy, Saudi Arabia would have the lowest birth rates in the world! Certainly living conditions in the developed world play a part in reducing family size - I can say from personal experience that there's no financial incentive to have children unless you're on welfare. But in the third world, the main factors are infant mortality and birth control. Once infant mortality rates begin to drop with access to medicine and clean drinking water, women start wanting to have fewer children. But if they're in Catholic and Muslim countries that put up the roadblocks to birth control and abortion, they have no choice over how many children to have and the birth rates continue to climb.

I go to all that trouble replying your links.Then when it was apparent that I showed how little they added to the discussion that was based on solid scientific ground.The extinction events are still speculative.

You DUCKED!

LOL

The birth rates the world over are in decline.It is now estimated that around the year 2060.There will no longer be any more population growth at all.Many nations are in negative population growth now.Such as Japan,Italy,Spain and yes even the native American birth rate is below replacement rate.

I would think it would be better use of those $$$ if they were spent on better medicine.sanitation,birth control and more.Than to chase the CO2 nonsense.Where the desired results will be negligible.

The waste of TRILLIONS on the effort of reducing CO2 emissions is stupid!

[sunsettommy]

Again, they would inflate the prices in THE SHORT TERM. Oil is a finite resourse. The more we consume, the higher the price will be. I am not afraid of some silly tax, I am afraid of supply and demand. For all its downside, the oil shock of the 70's probably lowered what we pay for gas today.

We have yet to consume half of KNOWN reserves we ever discovered.200 billion more barrels just recently reported in America available for drilling.

The AGW hysteria is disrupting the marketing of oil.If the governments and environmentalists would stop meddling.There would a greater speed of developing and using alternative fuels.But now the brain dead politicians are slowing it all down because of Carbon tax and other proposals.Creating uncertainty in the energy market.

It would be really nice if the idiots (politicians and environmentalists) would stop fighting the use of Nuclear plants construction with known ZERO CO2 emissions.The high level waste is a problem only because politics are in the way.Environmentalists are the problem since Nuclear plants do not produce CO2 emissions.They oppose it anyway.Because they are drooling stupid.

[Riverwind]

Again, they would inflate the prices in THE SHORT TERM. Oil is a finite resourse. The more we consume, the higher the price will be. I am not afraid of some silly tax, I am afraid of supply and demand. For all its downside, the oil shock of the 70's probably lowered what we pay for gas today.

The majority of the world's electricity comes from coal - a relatively cheap and plentify substance. Regulating CO2 will make ELECTRICITY much more expensive for everyone. In fact, they are already experiencing power shortages in South Africa because environmentalists pressured the government to drop its plans for coal fired plants in favour of a hydro electric development in a neighboring country that was never built.

[sunsettommy]

The majority of the world's electricity comes from coal - a relatively cheap and plentify substance. Regulating CO2 will make ELECTRICITY much more expensive for everyone. In fact, they are already experiencing power shortages in South Africa because environmentalists pressured the government to drop its plans for coal fired plants in favour of a hydro electric development in a neighboring country that was never built.

A good time to post this.

Dark Hour - a Sign of the Times

http://carbon-sense.com/2008/03/28/dark-ho...-times/#more-64

Note how governments are listening to the wrong people.

[jbg]

The proponents of AGW are governments, scientists and scientific organizations. Most of the opponents seem to be conservative talk show hosts and their callers. Does it make me "not very bright" to believe scientists rather than talk show hoasts

Oh really?

The AGW crew has shown a singular unwillingess to debate, which shows that AGW has become more of a religion than a science. Bjorn Lomborg is a former AGW scientist who was convinced otherwise. He is hardly a "conservative talk show host".

The article below (link)details Al Gore’s artifice and cowardice in ducking an interview with people who actually know something about the environment and global warming. It seems that he prefers Sunday morning potshots on MSM interviews, where a panel or reporters, half asleep, lob softballs. He realizes that a debate with someone knowledgeable would be fatal to his book and movie sales if not to his political career.

Maybe Dion should step up to the plate that Gore left behind.

Excerpts below (link):

Will Al Gore Melt?

By FLEMMING ROSE and BJORN LOMBORG

January 18, 2007; Page A16

Al Gore is traveling around the world telling us how we must fundamentally change our civilization due to the threat of global warming. Today he is in Denmark to disseminate this message. But if we are to embark on the costliest political project ever, maybe we should make sure it rests on solid ground. It should be based on the best facts, not just the convenient ones. This was the background for the biggest Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, to set up an investigative interview with Mr. Gore. And for this, the paper thought it would be obvious to team up with Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist," who has provided one of the clearest counterpoints to Mr. Gore's tune.

The interview had been scheduled for months. Mr. Gore's agent yesterday thought Gore-meets-Lomborg would be great. Yet an hour later, he came back to tell us that Bjorn Lomborg should be excluded from the interview because he's been very critical of Mr. Gore's message about global warming and has questioned Mr. Gore's evenhandedness. According to the agent, Mr. Gore only wanted to have questions about his book and documentary, and only asked by a reporter. These conditions were immediately accepted by Jyllands-Posten. Yet an hour later we received an email from the agent saying that the interview was now cancelled. What happened?

*snip*

Al Gore is on a mission. If he has his way, we could end up choosing a future, based on dubious claims, that could cost us, according to a U.N. estimate, $553 trillion over this century. Getting answers to hard questions is not an unreasonable expectation before we take his project seriously. It is crucial that we make the right decisions posed by the challenge of global warming. These are best achieved through open debate, and we invite him to take the time to answer our questions: We are ready to interview you any time, Mr. Gore -- and anywhere.

[peter_puck]

The majority of the world's electricity comes from coal - a relatively cheap and plentify substance. Regulating CO2 will make ELECTRICITY much more expensive for everyone. In fact, they are already experiencing power shortages in South Africa because environmentalists pressured the government to drop its plans for coal fired plants in favour of a hydro electric development in a neighboring country that was never built.

I don't think we are going to have the same problem with electricity as we are with oil. In the long run, however, it is a better idea to generate electricity with nuclear power. Coal's polution downside goes far beyond C02 (atleast with the generating plants we have now). If you taxed the coal going into a coal plant, it would encourage more nuclear.

Besides, coal could become a problem for our grandchildren if the rest of the worlds fuel consumption catches up to the US. (especially if oil prices get to the point where they start making gasoline out of coal).

Not that I am in favor of a broad based carbon tax. There are much more surgical ways to do things.

[peter_puck]

Oh really?

The AGW crew has shown a singular unwillingess to debate, which shows that AGW has become more of a religion than a science. Bjorn Lomborg is a former AGW scientist who was convinced otherwise. He is hardly a "conservative talk show host".

I am not saying that there are not legitimate scientists who hold anti-AGW views. They are just a rather small minority. I am sure that this has been posted before, but all accross the globe where any scientific organization has looked at the AGW question, they have supported the AGW view. Name me one country that holds an anti-AGW view, name me one national scientific society, name me one major scientific organization.

Futhermore, if you look at most of the legitimate scientists who hold anti-AGW, they do not use words like "hoax" and "conspiracy" to describe the other side.

The article below (link)details Al Gore’s artifice and cowardice in ducking an interview with people who actually know something about the environment and global warming. It seems that he prefers Sunday morning potshots on MSM interviews, where a panel or reporters, half asleep, lob softballs. He realizes that a debate with someone knowledgeable would be fatal to his book and movie sales if not to his political career.

Al Gore is a TV pitch man. AGW is a scientific question. It should not be a debated between a TV pitchman and a scientists on television. It should be a debated between scientists in peer-reviewed research. THAT is where the anti-AGW people chicken out.

I don't really care about how many "facts" you have, I want to know why the scientific community seems to ignore them. And please, don't tell me about some giant liberal conspiracy. Bush and Haper have switched sides, would you call them liberal ?

While there are legitimate anti-AGW scientists, all I seem to hear is defense lawyer reasoning and strawmen.

[jbg]

I am not saying that there are not legitimate scientists who hold anti-AGW views. They are just a rather small minority. I am sure that this has been posted before, but all accross the globe where any scientific organization has looked at the AGW question, they have supported the AGW view. Name me one country that holds an anti-AGW view, name me one national scientific society, name me one major scientific organization.

Country---->The Excited States of America, Canada

Al Gore is a TV pitch man. AGW is a scientific question. It should not be a debated between a TV pitchman and a scientists on television. It should be a debated between scientists in peer-reviewed research. THAT is where the anti-AGW people chicken out.

No, most "peer-reviewed" journals are subject to government or university funding. Loss of funding concentrates the mind greatly.

I don't really care about how many "facts" you have, I want to know why the scientific community seems to ignore them. And please, don't tell me about some giant liberal conspiracy. Bush and Haper have switched sides, would you call them liberal ?While there are legitimate anti-AGW scientists, all I seem to hear is defense lawyer reasoning and strawmen.

See above. If there is no problem there is nothing for scientists, government bureaucrats or the UN to "solve".

[Riverwind]

Al Gore is a TV pitch man. AGW is a scientific question. It should not be a debated between a TV pitchman and a scientists on television. It should be a debated between scientists in peer-reviewed research. THAT is where the anti-AGW people chicken out.

The peer-review process is deeply flawed. Bad papers that support the consensus receive minimal review yet good papers that go against the concensus are analyzed for every little flaw. In some cases, an error found in anti-AGW paper also exists in pro-AGW papers yet the alarmists turn a blind eye or resort to rediculous contortions to justify the actions of the alarmist.

Even worse. the journal editors have unethically passed the papers onto to AGW alarmists so they could prepare a rebuttle before the paper is actually published. This bypassed the usual process of submitting letters to a journal which prevented the original author from formally responding to the rebuttle in the journal.

Every scientist knows this goes on which means most scientists choose the easy way out and pay lip service the consensus because their need to get papers published is greater than their need to do what is scientifically right.

In other words, the fact that the majority of scientists may support AGW does not prove its correctness since the peer review system is set up in a way that encourages confirmity. What matters is if the science of the sceptics has merit.

Here are a few examples of compelling science that demonstrates that the alarmist predictions are likely wrong:

1) Data collected by the MSU satellite shows that the mid-troposheric is not warming as fast as the models predict.

2) The models make non-physical assumptions that overestimate the effect of CO2. When these assumptions are corrected the models would find that there is an upper limit to the amount of warming which can be induced by CO2

3) Data collected by Argo floats show that the oceans are not warming as predicted by the models.

4) Data collected from the NASA Aqua satellite since 2002 demonstrates that clouds provide negative feedback in response to warming - this contradicts the models which predict positive feedback.

Each of these studies re-enforce each other because they suggest that the models have serious flaws and likley overestimate the effect of CO2 based warming. Unfortunately, telling a government official that they don't need to spend money on a problem is professional suicide. This is why this message is being ignored by many in the scientific community even though it has considerable merit.

Edited March 31, 2008 by Riverwind

[jbg]

Each of these studies re-enforce each other because they suggest that the models have serious flaws and likley overestimate the effect of CO2 based warming. Unfortunately, telling a government official that they don't need to spend money on a problem is professional suicide. This is why this message is being ignored by many in the scientific community even though it has considerable merit.

Reminds me of the number of economic papers that predicted ruinous oil price increases if the US decontrolled prices. We all know that prices haven't recovered their real, inflation-adjusted 1980 levels until the last few months, and didn't even recover nominal, non-inflation-adjusted 1980 values until a month during 1990-1 and after April 2003.

[WIP]

I go to all that trouble replying your links.Then when it was apparent that I showed how little they added to the discussion that was based on solid scientific ground.The extinction events are still speculative.

You DUCKED!

LOL

The birth rates the world over are in decline.It is now estimated that around the year 2060.There will no longer be any more population growth at all.Many nations are in negative population growth now.Such as Japan,Italy,Spain and yes even the native American birth rate is below replacement rate.

I would think it would be better use of those $$$ if they were spent on better medicine.sanitation,birth control and more.Than to chase the CO2 nonsense.Where the desired results will be negligible.

The waste of TRILLIONS on the effort of reducing CO2 emissions is stupid!

That wasn't your post that I was responding to, I hadn't gotten around to it yet. I got held up by a recent published study about the Permian Extinction that cast doubt on a key prediction that hydrogen sulfide gas emitted by cyanobacteria in the stagnant oceans destroyed the ozone layer. Although David Beerling's computer simulations, published in National Geographic, maintains that both CO2 and methane levels were exceptionally high, and hydrogen sulfide levels in the oceans may have been high enough to poison the oceans. So it still would appear that the Great Dying was caused by the results of volcanic activity. Other scientists mentioned in the article say that something else must have caused the ozone levels to collapse, since unshielded ultraviolet light is considered to be the best explanation of mutated plant pollens found in rock samples from this period. So the general conditions may be agreed upon, but there is not enough information to establish the chain of events that occurred during the extinction.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...tinction_2.html

So, the exact chain of events may still be up in the air, but the P/T Extinction still looks like the work of volcanic activity from the breakup of the Pangea supercontinent or the Siberian Traps. A thin layer of iridium found in 251 million year old rocks may be the residue of a large asteroid/comet impact, but most geologists rule it out as being large enough to have had a major impact on the earth's climate. http://www.geocities.com/goarana669/permianextinction.html

[sunsettommy]

Ok WIP.

I will state this.The EDITORIAL conclusions I posted does not appear to bother anyone.

Therefore this forum like a few other forums I posted the EDITORIAL in.Does not stay on the topic and argues peripheral issues.Ignoring the main ones that were written about in the EDITORIAL.The ones that really count.

[Argus]

As I suggested earlier - educated and intelligent people have their doubts about this man-made global warming phenomenon, but poorly educated - unstable - and not very bright people have embraced it wholeheartedly.

Do you have any evidence to back this statement up ?

Most of the anti-AGW posts and blogs I have read demonstrate an amazing lack of critical thinking skills (this forum seems to be an exception). The proponents of AGW are governments, scientists and scientific organizations. Most of the opponents seem to be conservative talk show hosts and their callers. Does it make me "not very bright" to believe scientists rather than talk show hoasts

Governments, with very, very few exceptions, do whatever they think is popular, not what they think is right. Unfortunately, what should have been a scientific and economic question has become so politicised, and the public is so poorly informed about it, that it's very easy to take advantage of that ignorance for political or economic gain.

The politics of it has infected the scientific community, as well. Though the fact is that it has never been healthy for one's career to go against the current in academia. They don't make you drink poison any more, but you will be frozen out of jobs, studies, funding, etc. I think most have simply decided to keep their doubts to themselves and let the "movement" do what it wants until the atmosphere (no pun intended) is more conducive to scientific debate. However, those who have spoken up - have quite simply made a lot of sense to me, and I have not seen them contradicted. Ie, the famous "Hockey stick" study has been thoroughly denounced and I have yet to see anyone say "No, no, it really was a legitimate model." And the hockey stick was the basis for the whole fear campaign. So if someone can explain why it was hotter in the middle ages than it is now, and why that wasn't our fault but this is - then sure, I'll listen.

[eyeball]

Anti-AGW people seem every bit as hysterical in their fear that even a precautionary approach will wreck our economy. It seems the foundational basis for inaction is that human saps have been made the victims of a global conspiracy to convince people that global warming is anthropogenic. Is there any hard impirical evidence for this claim? All I've ever been presented with is anecdotal evidence that is heavily weighted with politics. I would think that several peer reviewed scientific forensic accounting studies of funding and grants awarded to scientists on the basis of their politics should be easy to come up with especially since its been going on everywhere for decades. So where are they?

People aren't as loony as confused and cynical because they don't know who or what to believe anymore. To be perfectly honest I can't imagine anything more threatening than ignorance...unless it was willful ignorance. Then I'd say we're probably doomed no matter what we do.

[jbg]

Anti-AGW people seem every bit as hysterical in their fear that even a precautionary approach will wreck our economy.

I wouldn't call it hysteria. The real price of automobiles has already been driven up unconsciouably (sp) be all the safety gadgets, pollution gadgets, et. al. that are mandated. Many items that are necessities are priced out of reach by a single-focused drive for often irrational objectives. Don't the common people count?