Is Global Warming a Leftist Urban Legend?

[Saturn]

Right-wingers here can whine and complain all they want about Kyoto and about the Global Warming "hoax".

There you go again. You link evolution with global warming as if to question one is to question the other. That's not scientific at all.

The IPCC report itself used terms such as "very likely" and moved probability from "60-90%" to "above 90%" (in the short span of about five years since its last report). Nobody would use such terms when discussing evolution as opposed to intelligent design.

Quite wrong. There is a large movement of "Christian" scientists who have written hundreds of papers on what a "hoax" evolution is. There is a similarly large movement of oil-funded scientists who have written hundreds of papers on what a "hoax" global warming is. The IPCC report uses the term "very likely" because that's what scientists use whenever they are virtually certain of something (that has not been established over 100+ years) and because governments such as that of Bush and Saudi Arabia had to sign the report.

Nothing is certain until it occurs. Evolution is "certain" because it has already occurred. It is "very likely" that there will be some sort of pandemic over the next 100 years, but just because we are not 100% certain doesn't mean that we should not be ready to face it. Most vaccines are only 85-95% effective but you've had dozens of them and you never refused one because it may not turn out to be effective. Nobody can foresee the future with a 100% accuracy but in such cases you use your best judgment and prepare for the most likely scenarios. In the case of global warming, the likely scenarios aren't very pretty at all and your best judgment should tell you that you have to take action to minimize the damage. Just like in a hot dry summer when you are "very likely" to have more forest fires than normal, your best judgment should tell you to put more money in the budget to put out forest fires. Your conservative judgment however seems to be telling you to wait until half the province has gone up in flames because those forest fires were only "very likely".

[JerrySeinfeld]

One of the most common errors of the enviro-alarmists (other than being so damned alarmist about everything) is the exclusion of HUMAN ADAPTATION in their dire predictions.

Humans have adapted to changes in their climate and environment for thousands of years, yet Al Gore and David Suzuki would have us believe that if the sea levels start rising, all the people who live near the sea will be suddenly under water.

Save for the fact that even the most dire prediction of a 2 foot rise in sea level would probably result in Vancouverites simply building a higherer seawall.

Of course, the 2 foot scenario wouldn't happen in one day - as Al gore's famous pictures of South Florida shows the water sweeping over the everglades and Miami in a matter of seconds. No. If it does happen, it will take decades or a century or longer. Even the republicans of Palm Beach aren't ideological enough to let the Atlantic eat away at their oceanfront villas without building a 5 foot retaining wall.

Sensible solutions to simple problems, friends.

And don't even get me started on the benefits of climate change. Everyone seems to think ther eowuld be so many calamities resultnig from climate change, with no benefits. There could easily be as many or MORE benefits from changing temperatures. Remember: it's called climate CHANGE, not climate DETERIORATION (although I wouldn't put it past the enviroloonies to rename the phenomenon to get more attention and research dollars).

[Drea]

Of course humans adapt.

Trouble is, humans are not the only animals residing on the earth.

Those "other" animals don't have houses and air conditioning -- they need decades or centuries to adapt to climate change.

But no worries -- humans will be fine -- humans, rats and cockroaches will all adapt just fine.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Those "other" animals don't have houses and air conditioning -- they need decades or centuries to adapt to climate change.

And they have done so for decaders and centuries.

You think the world has remained at a constant temperature for the past 1,000,000 years?

[daniel]

Adaptation? "creeping normalcy"? disinclination to change?

That kind of thinking is already discribed here.

http://www.cameronsmith.ca/content/view/386/2/

As I was reading an international survey of experts concerning their views about global warming, I couldn't help thinking about Jared Diamond's book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

Societies that failed, says Diamond, were irreversibly committed to their current way of life, and it doomed them to disasters from which they never recovered. Those that succeeded examined their core values and replaced the ones that no longer served them well.

What I found remarkable about the survey was that in a dry, matter-of-fact way, it implied that we are following the path of failed states.

...

[shoggoth]

One of the most common errors of the enviro-alarmists (other than being so damned alarmist about everything) is the exclusion of HUMAN ADAPTATION in their dire predictions.

Humans have adapted to changes in their climate and environment for thousands of years, yet Al Gore and David Suzuki would have us believe that if the sea levels start rising, all the people who live near the sea will be suddenly under water.

I put this argument about thousands of years of human adaptation to someone myself a while back, and their response was: Did they have to move cities back then though?

Humans are not randomly distributed around the earth and we are generally homed in on habital regions and away from less hospitable ones. Cities are in places wiht good water access generally for example. Any change is more likely to result in a worse situation than a better one, because we already are in a better than avergage position. How worse is debatable though.

[Catchme]

Over simplfying and saying "just build walls" is rather lacking in informed thinking. There won't be able to be built; the amount of "walls" that need to be built, or the height and strength needed.

Suggesting that humans wil adapt, as they have in the past is ludicrous, as ocean rising 2 ft will wipeout many small sland nations. Just what are they supposed to do, drown? Not only that, the expected rise is in th neighbour of plus 3ft, not 2 ft.

Finally, in a very nice bit of work Velicogna and Wahr use data from the "Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment" (GRACE) satellites to show that the Antarctic ice sheet has been losing mass at a rate of 150 +/- 80 km3 each year since 2002. That's equivalent to about 0.4 mm of sea level rise each year. This is about twice other recent estimates

Double what was predicted prior

The above link has many pther links attached to that are very imformative and worht looking at.

What will happen when the oceans and seas rise because of Global Warming:

As an example, for the United States, a 1 meter rise in sea level would cause beaches to retreat

(erode plus inundate) 50 to 100 meters from New England to Maryland, 200 meters along the

Carolina coast, 100 to 1000 meters along the Florida coast, and 200 to 400 meters along the California

coast.34 8 .

Effects of Sea Level Rise on Small I sland Nations

Small island nations, many of which are only a few meters above sea level, may be facing

annihilation due to the inevitability of significant sea level rise as shown in Figure 1. Thus they deserve special attention in any report on sea level rise impacts.

Among the most vulnerable of these islands are the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tonga, the Line Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Cook Islands (in thePacific ocean); Antigua and Nevis

(in the Caribbean Sea); the Maldives (in the Indian ocean).

Here is the snip above from the comprehensive report in pdf, of how the water level rising in the ocean will impact upon countries.

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/docume...hWaterBlues.pdf

What will happen to the United kingdom, and the Netherlands alone is another catastrophe. Link to impacts upon the Netherlands:

netherlands

Our world is heating up. It makes no difference whether it is because of greenhouse gas accumulation or because of the planetary path of the earth. The consequences of global warming are already being experienced.

The oceans are warming up. Increased surface temperatures are spawning more cyclones of greater intensity. Increasing temperatures in the depths of the ocean are threatening to release vast quantities of methane gas. The melting of mountain glaciers worldwide is impacting supplies of fresh water. The excessive quantities of the glacial melt-off are threatening to shut down the Atlantic Ocean currents which bring warmth to much of Europe and the British Isles. And in the very long run the complete melting of all the ice sheets in the world will raise the sea level by 200 feet or more. Of immediate concern is the melting of the ice covering the Arctic Ocean. This could happen within the next 100 years and conceivably within the next 15 years. Its melting will signal the beginning of a new ice age which will have devastating consequences for life in the Northern Hemisphere.

http://uufbr.org/ThreatofGlobalWarming.htm

The following is a link that leads to information on all the areas of impact and where, how, what will happen and is happening and the effects of global warming are much much more than sea levels rising:

http://www.heatisonline.org/Oceans.cfm

[White Doors]

Of immediate concern is the melting of the ice covering the Arctic Ocean. This could happen within the next 100 years and conceivably within the next 15 years.

well there goes the credibility of your link poser.

The ice is already in the Ocean. It melting would have ZERO effect on water levels as it is already in the water. Any moron knows this. In fact, it may reduce sea levels as ice is less dense than water.

[Black Dog]

-nevermind-

Misread.

[shoggoth]

*edited* nevermind then

[White Doors]

-nevermind-

Misread.

[Who's Doing What?]

Of immediate concern is the melting of the ice covering the Arctic Ocean. This could happen within the next 100 years and conceivably within the next 15 years.

well there goes the credibility of your link poser.

The ice is already in the Ocean. It melting would have ZERO effect on water levels as it is already in the water. Any moron knows this. In fact, it may reduce sea levels as ice is less dense than water.

Yes, and as any moron knows the ice covering the ocean is not the only ice to be found in the arctic.

[scribblet]

This from the allmighty Red Star - I need another glass of wine now...

I've always said over population is the main problem.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/178409

Real debate about global warming won't be easy. Consider that one of the most significant contributions Canada could make to the problem would be to cut back sharply on immigration.

The effect of our present immigration policy is that each decade we turn some 2.5 million people who now are mostly low-energy users into high-energy users, and so into high greenhouse gas emitters.

Should we change this? Could we do it politically? Most important, why has this key potential element of any serious policy to reduce global warming never been debated publicly?

[White Doors]

Of immediate concern is the melting of the ice covering the Arctic Ocean. This could happen within the next 100 years and conceivably within the next 15 years.

well there goes the credibility of your link poser.

The ice is already in the Ocean. It melting would have ZERO effect on water levels as it is already in the water. Any moron knows this. In fact, it may reduce sea levels as ice is less dense than water.

Yes, and as any moron knows the ice covering the ocean is not the only ice to be found in the arctic.

Yes and any moron can see that is NOT what that quote is referrign to. Thanks for coming out though.

[JerrySeinfeld]

I love this quote from Steyn - as usual he naisl it:

You could take every dime spent by every government and NGO and eco-group to investigate "climate change" and spend it on Internet porn instead, and it wouldn't make the slightest difference to what the climate will be in 2050. However, it would make a dramatic difference to the lifestyle of the "climate change" jet set. Which is why, even before latest new IPCC doomsday scenario was released, the Associated Press was running stories like: "New Climate Report Too Rosy, Experts Say." The AP's "science writer" warns that even this "dire report" is the "sugarcoated version." It's insufficiently hysterical, in every sense.

[stevoh]

"well there goes the credibility of your link poser.

The ice is already in the Ocean. It melting would have ZERO effect on water levels as it is already in the water. Any moron knows this. In fact, it may reduce sea levels as ice is less dense than water.

Yes, and as any moron knows the ice covering the ocean is not the only ice to be found in the arctic.

Yes and any moron can see that is NOT what that quote is referrign to. Thanks for coming out though."

Well, besides the friendly tone of communication exchange here, I also noticed something else. Yes, if ice is resting on water, and it melts, there is no net increase in the volume of water. The volume the ice displaces is replaced by the melted water.

Sea level won't reduce however, as, even though ice is less dense than water, it also protrudes from the water, making up for the difference.

However, and this is why global warming and sea ice melting matter, WARMER WATER TAKES UP MORE SPACE THAN COLD (non frozen) water. The warmer the water, the more space it takes. Water is most dense at 4.0 degrees centigrade. As it heats up, it becomes less dense (expands). So, sea levels will rise when ice melts due to the water expanding as it gets warmer.

[White Doors]

If you assumed that the water was going to be any warmer than 4 degrees in the high arctic, which is quite the assumption.

[stevoh]

If you assumed that the water was going to be any warmer than 4 degrees in the high arctic, which is quite the assumption.

So, you accept that the ice might melt, but then don't accept that the water will get warmer? THAT is quite the assumption. Global warming isn't we get hotter then stop. Global warming is, as we add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, we continue getting warmer. Thats why we want to reduce carbon emmissions.

Of course, and I think this was mentioned before, land based ice such as that in the north pole or on greenland WILL impact ocean levels because the ice is not resting on water.

[White Doors]

The water being warmer than 4 degrees in the high arctic is not being forecasted by anyone.

That is an inane assumption.

No one knows how this is going to pan out. Your assumption that we will presumably swimming and laying about the beach off of baffin island is laughable.

[stevoh]

"The water being warmer than 4 degrees in the high arctic is not being forecasted by anyone.

That is an inane assumption."

So all that land based ice melting won't have an effect? And global warming will suddenly just stop if we do nothing? That seems more innane to me.

"No one knows how this is going to pan out. Your assumption that we will presumably swimming and laying about the beach off of baffin island is laughable."

I have not made that assumption. This is getting boring. Got some real global warming elements to debate?

[JerrySeinfeld]

"The water being warmer than 4 degrees in the high arctic is not being forecasted by anyone.

That is an inane assumption."

So all that land based ice melting won't have an effect? And global warming will suddenly just stop if we do nothing? That seems more innane to me.

"No one knows how this is going to pan out. Your assumption that we will presumably swimming and laying about the beach off of baffin island is laughable."

I have not made that assumption. This is getting boring. Got some real global warming elements to debate?

On the IPCC: has anyone ever seen or attended international conferences like these? There was a major urban planning one in Vancouver last summer.

Holy shit. Talk about groupthink!

I had the pleasure of engaging a few of the delegates from various countries around the world over some beers. My goodness. It was like talking to zombies. The amount of rhetoric and lack of questioning that was around me was unbelievable.

I do remember specifically putting forth some common sense, "uneducated" (read: non-indoctrinated) ideas as in "why don't they...." or "have you ever considered..." and most of my "outside suggestions" were met with astonished looks and silence.

In my experience, people who spend their lives studying and solving the world's problems at the expense of taxpayers are far removed from reality and overly consumed with the self-imposed "importance" of their task.

I woudn't trust these types at all. It is healthy to question them - despite what you may be sold by them.

[stevoh]

"I woudn't trust these types at all. It is healthy to question them - despite what you may be sold by them."

I don't understand groupthink at all either, a lot of foolish decisions get made when no-one questions. Definitely, think for yourself and make up your own mind.

[PolyNewbie]

Global warming isn't real. This is just BS to distract you from what is really happening, an excuse to tax you more and possibly an excuse to make you give up your vehicle and home in the suburbs.

Global warming is about as real as the official version of 911.

[Avro]

There is an element of proselytizing in global warming believers. Even the term "global warming" has undergone the Leftist baptism to be renamed as "climate change".

Anyone who disputes the evidence is now called a "denier" - not like Peter - but rather like those who deny the Holocaust. Is this a reasonable way to conduct a scientific debate?

The National Post published a series of articles on the so-called "deniers" and the articles are worth a look. They're not behind a firewall.

Dr. Lindzen is one of the original deniers -- among the first to criticize the scientific bureaucracy, and scientists themselves, for claims about global warming that he views as unfounded and alarmist. While he does not welcome the role he's acquired, he also does not shrink from it. Dr. Lindzen takes his protests about the abuse of science to the public, to the press, and to government.

...

His detractors can't dismiss him as a crank from the fringe, however, much as they might wish. Dr. Lindzen is a critic from within, one of the most distinguished climate scientists in the world: a past professor at the University of Chicago and Harvard, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a lead author in a landmark report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the very organization that established global warming as an issue of paramount importance.

Link

Or how about Mann's famous hockey stick?

"Our committee believes that the assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade in a millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year in a millennium cannot be supported," Wegman stated, adding that "The paucity of data in the more remote past makes the hottest-in-a-millennium claims essentially unverifiable." When Wegman corrected Mann's statistical mistakes, the hockey stick disappeared.

Link

I found most devastating this article:

Climate modelling is the basis of forecasts of climate change. Yet this modelling, Tennekes believes, has little utility, and "there is no chance at all that the physical sciences can produce a universally accepted scientific basis for policy measures concerning climate change." Moreover, he states: "There exists no sound theoretical framework for climate predictability studies."

Not surprisingly, Tennekes abhors the dogma that he feels characterizes the climate-change establishment, and the untoward role of climate science in public-policy making. "We only understand 10% of the climate issue. That is not enough to wreck the world economy with Kyoto-like measures."

Link

The principle of global warming is perfectly sound. What is lacking is a clear understanding of how much human activities influence the atmosphere.

----

Rajendra Pachauri is the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC, working under a UN mandate, made the recent report in Paris that has attracted so much attention.

In 2005, Pachauri passed the Godwin point and compared Bjørn Lomborg to Adolf Hitler because Lomborg asks questions about global warming. Is this a way to conduct serious debate? I would expect such on this forum - but not from someone of such stature.

Pachauri's tactic is to insist that the United States and other highly developed nations make drastic reductions in their emissions of greenhouse gases before less developed nations (like his homeland of India) are forced to. That makes him hostile to market solutions in which U.S. companies upgrade inefficient plants overseas as an alternative to reducing carbon dioxide output in less-dirty plants in the United States.

Slate

Pachauri has an interesting background. He sits on the board of State-owned Indian Oil Corporation. He is not a climatologist but rather a resource economist and furthermore, the Left accused him of being the choice of Bush and ExxonMobil for the position of IPCC chairman.

And who is Bjørn Lomborg?

In The Skeptical Environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg challenges widely held beliefs that the global environment is progressively getting worse. Using statistical information from internationally recognized research institutes, Lomborg systematically examines a range of major environmental issues and documents that the global environment has actually improved. He supports his argument with over 2900 footnotes, allowing discerning readers to check his sources.

Link

For the third time, at least, the National Post has painted a respected international academic as a climate change "denier," regardless that the scientist is no such thing.

In the most recent instance part of a 10-part series called "The Deniers" - writer Lawrence Solomon (left) justifiably lauds the work of that "Nigel Weiss, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge, past President of the Royal Astronomical Society, and a scientist as honoured as they come."

But Solomon then steps way over the line of accurate journalism. He says that Weiss believes "The science is anything but settled ... except for one virtual certainty: The world is about to enter a cooling period."

Weiss was so offended by this mischaracterization that he issued a news release, saying "Professor Nigel Weiss, an expert in solar magnetic fields, has rebutted claims that a fall in solar activity could somehow compensate for the man-made causes of global warming."

“Although solar activity has an effect on the climate, these changes are small compared to those associated with global warming,” Weiss said in the news release. “Any global cooling associated with a fall in solar activity would not significantly affect the global warming caused by greenhouse gases."

The Post has not yet seen fit to acknowledge Dr. Weiss' position with a correction.

Which is not so surprising when you look back in the series. The first story in "The Deniers" series featured Dr. Edward Wegman, a professor at the Center for Computational Statistics at George Mason University. Dr. Wegman had testified before a Senate committee last year, criticizing the use of statistics in the now-famous graph known as the "Mann hockey stick." But Wegman told the committee that he and his fellow statisticians "were not asked to assess the reality of global warming and indeed this is not an area of our expertise. We do not assume any position with respect to global warming except to note in our report that the instrumented record of global average temperature has risen since 1850 according to the MBH 99 chart by about 1.2º centigrade." He's no denier.

The Post's second story featured Dr. Richard S.Tol, and claimed that Tol believes climate change, if it is occurring, will be beneficial. Per this earlier post, however, Tol also acknowledges the human causation of climate change and supports action to stop it. Again, no denier.

There are other questionable stories in this series. For example, Solomon quotes the research of Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center, as proof that cosmic rays are affecting the earth's temperature. But while Solomon implies that the sun is therefore the principal cause of climate change, Svensmark says clearly in this paper that that his work "does not imply that other factors can not affect clouds or climate."

The most committed denier in this series appears to be no scientist, but rather the writer, Lawrence Solomon.

[jbg]

Call me a denier if you wish. I believe that we're coming out of an Ice Age. Warming tends to characterize the transition from Ice Ages to Interglacial Periods.