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DOUBTERS, RISE!
“There wouldn’t be many people left,” writes the Sydney Morning Herald’s Ross Gittins, “who still doubt the reality of global warming.”
Add your name in comments to the list of doubters. Remember, dissent is the greatest form of patriotism. Unless your dissent is against John Kerry.
UPDATE. Cuckoo asks: “Can this really be the same Ross Gittins who, back in 2002, wrote an excellent piece slamming the bias of reporters covering the Johannesburg ‘Earth’ summit? What happened in the meantime?”
UPDATE II. Investors Business Daily:
If you live in any state but California, this might be a good time to prepare for the arrival of new businesses. The Golden State’s politicians think they’re going to lead the world again.
All they think they need to do from Sacramento is command the planet’s climate to cease that infernal warming we’ve heard so much about. What they’ll end up doing is command people to live in much more primitive ways.
New Californian property owner Al Gore seems to be getting by.
The article is a gold mine!
“There wouldn’t be many people left who still doubt the reality of global warming.” Sure wouldn’t, if every human being had been born with the brain of a tree sloth.
“The economic risks are heightened for Australia because we’re such a big exporter of fossil fuels, particularly natural gas and coal, as well as that “congealed energy” known as aluminium. Were we to get tough with our energy-dependent export industries before other countries, we could simply drive them offshore.” And watch our GDP go down with all hands, too.
“Yet another complication is that the economic pain of achieving lower emissions could be greatly reduced if somebody somewhere could come up with a few technological breakthroughs.” Try Paco’s Patented Perpetual Motion Machine, regularly priced at $29.95, but just for you, Ross, available for the low, low price of $19.95. I’ll even throw in a box of crayons so you can design your own technological breakthroughs!
And remember, mallet-headed obtuseness is the highest form of global warmism.
Haven’t these people moved on yet? There are entirely new catastrophes to worry about!
If we get better evidence of the magnetic pole flipping, I can’t wait for the enviro-catastrophists to come up with reasons why it’s mankind’s fault. “If everyone would just turn off their cell-phones, this wouldn’t be happening!”
Posted by Billy Hollis on 2006 08 22 at 01:32 PM • permalinkI doubt ther is anthropogenicly induced global warming. To cease doubt, I must be shown the following:
a) The Earth is actually warming
b) The warming is produced by CO2
c) Human CO2 production is a significant component.
d) Global warming is a bad thing.Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 08 22 at 01:38 PM • permalinkDissent is patriotic.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Discuss.
Posted by P. Froward on 2006 08 22 at 01:44 PM • permalinkWimpy: d) is not a reason for doubting it. It’s a reason for not caring, which is a different question.
Me, I don’t particularly doubt a), but I doubt some variant of b)/c), i.e. that it’s anthropogenic, or going to Kill Us All Unless We Repent Our Evil Ways And Live As Savages.
What with Greenland’s glaciers having been shown to have been shrinking since the 1880s, and medieval and earlier documented mass-climate-changes, etc.
I doubt that there is any man made global warming. Cyclic, yes. Serious, possible.
I now await the arrival of the Environmental Goon Squad to drag me off to Mother Gaia™‘s All Natural Gulag in the Yukon.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 08 22 at 01:50 PM • permalink#5 Unfortunately because geological hazards and caused by white rich westerners, who gives a toss.
It annoys the hell out of me that the geologists had been asking for an Indian Ocean tsunami warning system for some years. The cost of one IPCC gab fest would have paid for it years ago. It wouldn’t have saved too many in Aceh, but it sure as hell would have helped elsewhere. Alas, Bob Brown and his mates weren’t organising any demos about it.
Sigivald,
Yes you are right. I hoped no one would notice :^)
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 08 22 at 02:00 PM • permalinkHey, science - I just checked my watch, it says half past “2006.” So where the hell are all the jet packs and midwestern palm groves you assholes have been promising for 35 effin’ years?
God knows I’ve done my part, with a daily regimen of SUV burnouts at the QuickTrip parking lot, setting the office A/C thermostat at 53 degrees, and going on aerosol can-emptying sprees at Wal Mart. So does ol’ Iowahawk finally get to sunbathe in his Speedo at Christmas Eve? Noooooo Iowahawk, you have to shovel a couple of tons of “global warming” out of the driveway just to to get to the liquor store.
I swear if I hear one more damn happytalk scientist promising another global warming Shangri La, I am going to run him over with my George Jetson hover car, which is another damn thing I’m still waiting for.
Wimpy Canadian:
There is evidence the earth is warming. On b and c—while I believe there is some human element to the warming, most of it is natural. I am not a climate scientist, but a lawyer with a history degree, and the warming seems to be an after effect of the end of the Little Ice Age.
My concern is that in all the doomsaying, people will eventually mentally tune out ANY discussion of evirnomental threats. That would be a bad thing if it tunes out a real threat.
I’m still holding out for the ice age that Newsweek promised us back in 1975…
Posted by Ed Driscoll on 2006 08 22 at 02:58 PM • permalinkfor #7 - wimpy canadian (are there any other kind?)
Science, as opposed to magic, is not built up purely on evidence (which the magicians often seem to produce), but on hypotheses (and predictions) that can be tested. Truthfully, the main reason for doubting global warming is not that there’s no evidence, but that they have NEVER yet made a testable prediction. Everything so far has been mumbo-jumbo, like this ...
In its 2001 assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that, “an increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system.” (http://www.climatehotmap.org/)
That’s a fine theory, of exactly the same force and merit as this one ...
“the world is static, the fixed center of the Universe. The sun, planets and stars all revolve around it (although not necessarily in circular paths), in a plane level with the flat Earth.” (http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm)Note that neither theory makes a single prediction that can be tested. Until the GW magicians do this, we’ll see them as circus clowns, rather than scientists, no matter how many letters they have after their names.
Posted by rampisadmukerjee on 2006 08 22 at 03:22 PM • permalinkBut would it be a smart thing to do? Well, it would get us started on a process of adjustment that could be a lot more painful if we waited until it was forced on us.
<snip>
The biggest doubt is whether the states could agree among themselves to actually do it. The scheme would be much better run by the Federal Government.
In other words… forced on us.
sigvald, “Unless We Repent Our Evil Ways And Live As Savages” is not really correct. If all those BigWoodenAlGore supporter and Global Warmists would just Repent Their Evil Ways And Live As Savages the rest of us could run our Hummers on $1/gal gasoline as long as we want.
I, for one, suggest that they show their support for BigWoodenAl and his CastroConvertible Truth and begin to live as savages.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 08 22 at 03:27 PM • permalink#2, your first point is valid enough though there are a bunch of people who think global warming is a reality, but that it just plain doesn’t matter and that human activity hasn’t made much of a contribution anyway. Combining them with the enviro nutters might make a majority, or it might not…
The second one you’re just agreeing with Gittins’ point.
And the third he does offer an example of capturing and storing emissions as the type of invention that would help. Of course since global warming doesn’t matter at all you could just not do anything and she’ll be right, mate.
But I’m biased as I like Gittins’ writing, sure he’s a little to the left of Marx, but he writes more about sociology than economics anyway…
#9 then my official position is that I don’t care.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 08 22 at 04:14 PM • permalinkAnd regarding this stunningly obtuse statement first highlighted by paco:
“Yet another complication is that the economic pain of achieving lower emissions could be greatly reduced if somebody somewhere could come up with a few technological breakthroughs.”
Time once again to dig out this nugget from The Onion when it wasn’t stale and repetitive yet: Somebody Should Do Something About All the Problems
Dissent is patriotic.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Discuss.
Very well.
“Dissent is patriotic.” No, it isn’t.
Hey, look at me! I just dissented, so I must be a patriot. For good measure, I’m going to spend the rest of the day disagreeing with everyone I meet. I’ll mindlessly contradict every statement anyone makes, even if that means I have to claim that the sky is green, Michael Moore is slim and clean-shaven, and the world is threatened by global cooling. When they point out that I’m an annoying prick, I’ll reply, “Yes, but I’m also a patriot!”
The previous paragraph was brought to you by “reductio ad absurdum”. Look it up.
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Therefore all patriots are scoundrels, right? If that’s where you were going, you’ve just proven that you have no idea how to construct a valid syllogism. Try this one on for size:
Major premise: All Nazis wear shoes.
Minor premise: You are wearing shoes.
Conclusion: You are a Nazi.Both of these bogus arguments are examples of the “fallacy of the undistributed middle”. Look it up.
For bonus points:
1. Define “scoundrel” in objective terms.
2. Explain how you can tell the difference between someone who is genuinely patriotic and someone who is just using patriotism as a “refuge”.
3. Explain how you can distinguish “the last refuge” from the next-to-last refuge or the third refuge in a series of seven.
4. Is mindlessly repeating glib slogans a valid substitute for logical reasoning? Discuss.#24 Sam:
Am agreeing with Ross’s point (on exporters of fossil fuels)? Or is Ross oblivious to the ramifications of his statement? I think the latter.
A particular boon for us would be a relatively cheap way of capturing and storing emissions from the burning of coal.
Is this what you mean when you say, “he does offer an example of capturing and storing emissions as the type of invention that would help.”? Unless this type of invention is in the works, or is at least theoretically possible, then he’s just spinning out a fantasy of no more practical utility than my “perpetual motion machine” (still priced at only $19.95!).And in retrospect, I find that I disagree with my own first comment. It’s perfectly valid, based on the evidence (or some of it, anyway), to agree that global warming has occurred; it is not valid to assume that material human contributions to the phenomenon have been proved, and it’s certainly idiotic to assume that we are facing imminent catastrophe as a result of our actions (or inaction, for that matter).
I’m not familiar with Gittins’ writings on other subjects, this being my first encounter with his “thought”; if you say he’s got something interesting to say on sociology, I’ll take your word for it, but I confess that it is difficult to see how this could be so if his foray into climatology is any indication of his capacity for sustained logic.
#33 There are such technologies, FutureGen is the US project to use it in coal power plants. Basically the coal is treated to get rid of the sulphur which then allows the carbon dioxide to be extracted from the exhaust. The downside is the by products are much nastier than CO2 - but more easily dealt with.
You then bury the CO2, pump it to the bottom of the ocean, or whatever….
The storage side of the equation is the hard bit.
Seven overrated wonders
Seven underwhelming seas
Six excruciating continents
Antarctica? Oh, pleaseThat’s from the Broadway show (by way of Toronto) The Drowsy Chaperone.
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 08 22 at 05:39 PM • permalinkCan this really be the same Ross Gittins who, back in 2002, wrote an excellent piece slamming the bias of reporters covering the Johannesburg ‘Earth’ summit? What happened in the meantime?
I too doubt global warming. My father and grandfather have recorded rainfall as part of their farming practices for decades. Surprise, surprise, some years the rainfall is high some years it is low. I’ve heard stories of cold wet summers and hot dry winters.
There is a reason Australia is known as the country of “drought and flooding rains” and it isn’t because of global warming.
Global warming is occurring on Mars. If it’s occurring on Earth too, it seems unreasonable not to suppose that it’s for similar reasons, ie changing sun activity, tilt of planet on axis, etc.
The Little Ice Age ended only 150 years ago. During it (17th-18th c) Europe had a series of winters so frigid that birds froze to death on their branches and the potato came into its own as the only food that could make it through the frosts—hence Irish jokes.
Interestingly, “Witchcraft accusations reached a height in England and France in the severe weather years of 1587 and 1588. Almost invariably, a frenzy of prosecutions coincided with the coldest and most difficult years of the Little Ice Age, when people demanded the eradication of the witches they held responsible for their misfortunes.” SUVs, fossil fuels, capitalism, anyone?
The earth’s climate has never been the same two decades running. I’d rather spend winters sunning by the pool than freezing to death.
Posted by arrowhead ripper on 2006 08 22 at 07:10 PM • permalinkI fear that when the history of our times is written, John Howard will be judged to have worried far too much about terrorism and far too little about global warming.
Funny, I fear that when the history of our times is written, John Howard, George Bush, Tony Blair and all those who follow will be judged to have done too little about terrorism. I have no fear, however, of the probability that history will lump the Global Warmists with the rest of the nutters who have been predicting the end times since I’ve been alive. And I don’t know about Australia, but in the US all kinds of people are developing, designing, experimenting with all kinds of new technology in all kinds of energy related fields. And all without the federal government making them do so.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 08 22 at 07:17 PM • permalinkI guess you can count me as a doubter, since I was one of the signers of the Oregon Petition (http://www.oism.org/pproject, 1999-2001).
Posted by Bruce Lagasse on 2006 08 22 at 07:20 PM • permalinkI fear that when the history of our times is written, John Howard will be judged to have worried far too much about terrorism and far too little about global warming.
Wow - a fear of how history will be written. Now we have another thing to worry about dammit!
Mind you, if this John Howard Didn’t Do Enough About Global Warming chapter causes them to shorten the And Then They Raped and Killed All the Aborigines chapter, it could be seen as an improvement.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 08 22 at 07:22 PM • permalinkI’ve said this before, but
a) wouldn’t you EXPECT the earth to be warming up when you’re coming out of an ice age;
b) how come the balance of carbon dioxide producing animals and CO2 absorbing plants was exactly right for millenia, until the evil humans and their industrial revolution;
c) the hockey stick has been debunked and this was reported in the mainstream media. The global warming theory is therefore ‘falsified’;
d) how come a professor of climatology at MIT (among others) thinks it’s rubbish, yet journalists think there is “consensus”.
e) this topic usually brings out the trolls. where are all the trolls?Posted by daddy dave on 2006 08 22 at 07:29 PM • permalinkoh yeah, I forgot to add that journalistic gem I saw recently - there is a “growing consensus”. just a few stubborn unbelievers to go…
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 08 22 at 07:32 PM • permalinkSure, global warming might be happening but how long will it last.
I read recently, it might have been courtesy of Mr Bolt, that some scientists are predicting severe cooling, around 2035 if I remember correctly, because of a change in the sun’s activity. In that case we might need as much warming as we can get.Posted by eagle bomber on 2006 08 22 at 07:34 PM • permalinkIt’s more than 5 years since I concluded a piece I wrote for Samizdata with,
Kyoto isn’t a real solution, but then it doesn’t matter, because (anthropogenic) global warming isn’t a real problem.
The hundreds of articles and studies I have read since then, merely convinced me my assesment was correct.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it.
That’s a quote from the Newsweek article (in 1975) about the cooling of the Earth linked above. Doesn’t it sound almost indistinguishable from the current “there’s a consensus” argument about global warming? Mr. Gittins words quoted by Tim are just one formulation of that basic idea. However it’s worded, the basic premise is that the argument is settled and “everyone” is convinced. And anyone who isn’t is deluded. Yet, none of the predictions that were so obvious in 1975 have come true. The world food supply didn’t go into the dumper in less than 10 years because of the evils of the cooling climate.
Here’s another quote:
Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve.
How insane is that? The very thing they are wailing about today (a melting ice cap) is the very thing they were proposing to do back then. People really ought to read this article before leaping onto the radical “we’ve got to cut our emissions by 90% or we’re all going to die” bandwagon.
And our old friend, Mr. Grim, makes an obligatory appearance at the end. Not as a milestone this time, but as a reality.
The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality
for #20 rampisadmukerjee
You made your discussion points based on
This
hypotheses (and predictions)
This
but that they have NEVER yet made a testable prediction. Everything so far has been mumbo-jumbo
Links….
And this
Note that neither theory makes a single prediction that can be tested
BUT this
wimpy canadian (are there any other kind?)
Unless you meant the above as a joke, which you should have indicated that it was, if NOT, it was a cheap shot.
#9 “Kill Us All Unless We Repent Our Evil Ways And Live As Savages.”
Close Sigivald. However I would end it “and Live As Socialist Slaves”, in keeping with the prescribed remedies.
#16 Iowahawk, they do have (well I don’t have one) those Jetson phones where you can see the person you’re talking to. So at least they came through with that one! Oh and conveyor belts for people. Saw one of those in the airport.
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 08 22 at 07:57 PM • permalinkWell done. Turning off the bolderizer is the 2nd highest form of patriotism.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 08 22 at 08:05 PM • permalinkGLOBAL WARMING - THE CLIMATE KILLER
Hi. I’m Troy McClure. You maye remember me from other disaster awareness films such as “Y2K - the Downfall of Internet Porn” and “Acid Rain, the real reason environmentalists can’t get a date”
I’m here today to talk to you about global warming. Before man started driving cars and making uesful products in factories, the world was a wonderful place to live.
Temperatures were warm enough in Canada to go swimming once a year and Eskimos didn’t need a refrigerator to store chunks of freshly clubbed baby seal ...
My letter to the SMH:
How many times must we be told that there isn’t much doubt left about global warming, when the doomsayers have yet to make an accurate prediction, or devise a testable scientific model that can.
Here in the States, we’ve been treated to spectacle of a former Vice President, Al “Jeremiad” Gore, warning us that catastrophic storms are a-comin’, only to find ourselves with one of the quietest hurricane seasons on record to date, and hurricane-spawning ocean waters inexplicably (by the alarmists) cooler than predicted. This comes on top of a quieter than normal tornado season in the heartland.
Global warming fanatics need to learn a little humility. The actions of mankind aren’t a patch on far vaster forces, like the changing temperature of the sun. It may be flattering to think you are potent enough to destroy the earth, a sentiment that doubtless drove most of the nuclear-doomsday protesters in the 80’s, but it is, simply, hubris.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 08 22 at 08:17 PM • permalinkI thought that last sentence read ‘It may be fattening to think you are potent enough to destroy the earth,’ mcenroe, and had this sudden vision of Al Gore the size of Michael Moore.
Bloody awful sight it was, too.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 08 22 at 08:44 PM • permalinkMind, it’s been hot enough to boil a monkeys bum here in the Sunshine State the last few days, and drier than a dead dingos donger, so maybe there’s something to it. Or maybe not- how can you make assumptions on goe-climactic change based on local phenomena and a very short time-span of records, giving a pitiful sample by earth history standards (unless of course the Umma was created by Allah a few centuries ago, and the reason it’s heating up is because he’s getting set to cook all we infidels, dhimmis and jizya-debtors).
I don’t think there’s enough empirical evidence to prove it one way or the other, and most of the dingbats promoting a global grill were shivering in their penthouses fretting over an ice insurgency a few decades back, many flogging completely contradictory successive tomes on the subject in the same timespan.
Who cares if it’s heating up anyway? Just means you turn up the aircon, get in the pool earlier in the year and leave the ragtop up on the Caddy or the Beemer during the day for more of the year.
One real benefit of the whole Chicken Little scenario unfolding at the moment is that we finally have a chance to get a few reactors up and running in Australia, so we can use some of our huge reserves of uranium- as a sideline we can knock up some nice little radioactive warheads to plonk on some ordnance just to keep the increasingly rambunctious rabble to our north on it’s collective toes.
Personally I think the whole thing is bollocks- it warms up, it cools down- one of the real advantages of advancing past the neolithic is that we don’t have to give a fuck, unless we’re some idiot hippy living in a teepee made out of car windscreens west of Bilinudgel, channeling Bob Brown and smoking our own body hair- then we’re in real trouble, and deservedly so- evolution at work.
#48, just for you.
When will all you rosy-eyeglassed idiots accept that there is a general consensus that golbal warming is happening. Its a sceintifc fact, as demonsrtated at links of my choice supoporting my world veiw, and you are all stupid for not realizing that Al Gore is a god! You’ll be lauhgign out yuor sweat glans when golbal warming fineally comes. Ha ha!
[/troll]
I’m going to continue doubting and if proved wrong, go for the death bed repentance to Mother G.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 08 22 at 09:29 PM • permalinkSince I learnt to read, I have been told regularly that the world was coming to an end via:
1. Nuclear holocaust (with or without ensuing nuclear winter)
3. Pollution
4. Overpopulation
5. Vanishing rain forests
6. Ice ages
7. Aids
8. Mad Cow Disease
9. Holes in the ozone layer
10. SARS
11. Avian flu
12. Global warmingI have probably forgotten a few others. All of these “dangers” were publicised by supposed experts in the relevant scientific disciplines.
Frankly, I have got to the point where I no longer even read anyone pushing some impending apocalypse, no matter how well-informed he seems to be (and yes, I know that messrs Gore and Gittins fail that particular test spectacularly).
I am a graduate Marine Zoologist (non-practicing - ya gotta make money you know).
I remember studying climate variations 40 odd years ago. There were variations and they were normal. Heating and cooling trends were cyclical and went back thousands (millions) of years.
There is no “GLOBAL WARMING”, the globe is getting a bit warmer, and then it’ll get a bit cooler - repeat.
As a test, ask the next swampy you meet how long the hole has been in the ozone layer over the pole. Google it and you won’t find the answer easily…all you’ll find is greens screaming !HOLE!.
Science can only say there is a hole…coulda been there for a million years.
Thanks RebeccaH,
It’s just like old times!Posted by daddy dave on 2006 08 22 at 09:44 PM • permalinkI just wanted to thank Paco for his patented Italics and Bold Closing Machine. I’ve never screwed up like that before and I just wanted everyone to know I feel the appropriate shame that goes with committing such a gauche faux pas. Mea culpa.
Over at Margo’s, I hear that’s cause for a trip to the woodshed - or worse.
Hey, I did it!
I believe in global warming and cooling. This phenomenon manifests itself in the most peculiar way. When they experience global warming in the northern hemisphere, we experience global cooling in the southern hemisphere. These occurences seem to happen about every six months or so.
I wonder if anyone can explain to me how this happens?
#80 Bonmot:
I wonder if anyone can explain to me how this happens?
I’m not very good at this sighentifiky stuff but I’ll try to explain.
The dominant elements of our culture, here in the north, come from a tradition of cold and icy attitudes.
So, because we are rather greedy and like to have everything for ourselves, and like to do stuff that makes us different, we spend a month or so gathering all the cold up for ourselves to have and enjoy.
But, we are also a people known for our forgetfulness and lack of focus on tasks. So, after awhile, we forget to keep the cold caged up proper. Someone will neglect the pumps and the cold gets away.
Now, cold, being the sneaky critter it is, tends to sink to the low spots in order to hide. And, warm, being the exploitative thing it is, will sneak in and take up residence in cold’s old digs, for the free food and cable
TV, if nothing else.Open doors being what they are and attracting what they do, more and more cold gets out and more and more warm sneaks in.
Then, all the sudden, we realize we’re paying a hella lot more for air conditioning. And since paying for air conditioning cuts into our partying budgets, we get pissed and go kick out the warm and get our cold back.
I hope that helped.
Grimmy, thank you, thank you.
It is like the scales lifted from my eyes and I can see now. In future when I have a technical question I know just the person who can help. A thousand thank you’s.
(PS does the amount of beer in your garage beer fridge affect the CO2 levels… but that is a question for another day)I for one believe the fable of global warming.
Posted by Mr Hackenbacker on 2006 08 22 at 11:04 PM • permalinkGlobal warming/climate change was a mild example of mass hysteria recorded during the late 20th century, which died as abruptly as it had first appeared.
By the early 21st century the theory was as cold as the predictions of another ice age, which it had supplanted, and its few remaining devotees looked and sounded as ridiculous as those who had persisted with long hair and flares as mark of contemporary relevance in the 1990s.If a tree falls in the forest and no-one is around, does it contribute to global warming?
Posted by manbag's bagman on 2006 08 22 at 11:14 PM • permalinkI am frankly more worried about that freakin’ huge black hole at the galactic centre than I am about global whatever.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 08 22 at 11:16 PM • permalinkThings should return to normal when Yellowstone breaks wind again.
Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2006 08 22 at 11:53 PM • permalinkRoss Gittins says
Scientific evidence indicates we can combat climate change if the world can achieve substantial reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases (mainly from burning fossil fuels) by the middle of the century.
That’s forty four years to solve the problem. Yet a couple of months ago, Al Gore told us we only have 10 years.
The goalposts keep shifting.Posted by daddy dave on 2006 08 23 at 12:32 AM • permalinkSkepticus, the Giant Rocks from Space are real enough, just infrequent.
Posted by Harry Eagar on 2006 08 23 at 12:40 AM • permalink#54 for El Cid
Joke, it was a joke. Next time, I will remember to make by jokes in BOLD ITALICS, so that you at least can try to get it.
Now take your tablets like a good boykie (or girlie, don’t want to upset you more) and go play with yourself in the corner.
Posted by rampisadmukerjee on 2006 08 23 at 01:24 AM • permalinkthere I was, balming (thank’s for the word, RebeccaH [=joke]) El Cid for the bold italics, when all the time it was kcom what did it. Now I feel like just el Gittins, balming all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.
Anyways, Cid, most of the best jokes are cheap shots, like this one.
My wife spent $200 on a facial mudpack, and she really looked terrific. But then the mud fell off.
Posted by rampisadmukerjee on 2006 08 23 at 01:39 AM • permalinkI’d also like to add my name to the list of doubters. While I acknowledge that anthropogenic radiative forcing exists, I strongly doubt the magnitude of this forcing as espoused by ‘Al Gore worshiper global warming alarmist’ crowd.
I also do not believe that there is evidence that a marginally higher equilibrium temperature will have any major negative economic or environmental impact. Further, if arctic melting opens the Northwest Passage, this will revolutionise global shipping in the same way that the opening of the Panama canal did.
Economic gains though an order of magnitude increase in the efficiency of transcontinental shipping will more than offset the cost of absorbing a few hundred thousand pacific islander refugees every year from slowly rising seas over the next century.
Posted by Chris Mann on 2006 08 23 at 03:01 AM • permalinkYou must be new around here, rampi.
Go easy on ‘im, El Campeador.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 08 23 at 04:26 AM • permalinkMe! Me!
I do not subscribe to the pseudo-religion of global coolingwarmenating.
After all, sea levels have risen 120m in the last 100,000 years, so how much of that, exactly, is due to the SUV’s of Chimpster W. Neoconazi and the Hallburton Chorus?
And why is the ‘answer’ to the global cooling BS of the 1970s the same as for the ‘global warmenating’ BS of the 1990s? And now it is THE SAME answer for ‘climate change’ when that is really meaning ‘everything’??
The climate changes all by itself and does not need answers, oh leftards.
MarkL
Canberra“There wouldn’t be many people left,” writes the Sydney Morning Herald’s Ross Gittins, “who still doubt the reality of global warming.”
Why is it that those who wank on about reality have the least idea what it is? I’m talking about the whole reality-based community and its Australian equivalent. And then they call their opponents the faith-based community as if belief in global warming did not require the most desperate faith imaginable.Just out of interest, here is a map of the last three months minimum temperature anomaly for Australia.
Where is global warming when you need it?
#73. Squawk, I too remember all those in your list.
Just after the “atom” bombs ended WWII, a widely-held theory for the climate changes of the day was that such changes were all caused by the atom bombs.
From memory, this belief preceeded your #1, “Nuclear holocaust” and was applied directly to climate change of any kind.93 rampisadmukerjee
Joke, it was a joke. ( everybody has to be something, you chose your calling, sweetcakes. you’re a joke) Next time, I will remember to make by jokes in BOLD ITALICS, so that you at least can try to get it.
Now take your tablets like a good boykie (or girlie, don’t want to upset you more) and go play with yourself in the corner.
Oh I will go easy on ‘em MentalFloss…but it’s such a cute little fucker, ain’t it?
Since we are being barraged by so much propagandistic, alarmist crap over what appears to be an entirely natural, cyclical phenomenon that has been going on since long, long, long before human beings started driving cars and using electricity I think a good term for what is going on might be gloebbels warming.
Bloody scientists! Always rabbiting on about what they think they know when they know almost nothing - especially about complex natural systems. As far as I know very few of them study logic. Many of them wouldn’t know causation from association if it came up and smacked them in the head.
There are the drugs that get tested and tested and pronounced safe and then, 20 years later, after what turns out to have been a huge experiment on an unwitting population, the drug turns out to be quite dangerous after all. I’m thinking calcium channel blockers but there are others.
If we don’t know how we work (and in lots and lots and lots of ways we don’t even though we’re right here and can not only be seen, touched and measured but can be asked about what we’re experiencing and we will usually be able to say) how can we possibly imagine that we know how the weather works in the long term? How can we possibly imagine that a computer model working on a few years’ data here, and a few human brains thinking about the numbers the model spews out there, can produce reliable predictions about what’s going to happen next year let alone in the next few decades? It’s hubris to the nth degree.
So, Ross Gittins, as far as I’m concerned you can take your consensus and put it somewhere well out of sight.
94 rampisadmukerjee
Anyways, Cid, most of the best jokes are cheap shots, like this one.
My wife spent $200 on a facial mudpack, and she really looked terrific. But then the mud fell off.
Ahhh yes, a humerus’ist*. Well ha.
*For your edification, I spelled the bone.
With your humor, maybe I should have said…A commode’ian*.
*For your edification, I spelled the crapper.
Cid
Sorry - don’t get it!
Let’s call for a UN cease-fire - you know, the real thing!
Posted by rampisadmukerjee on 2006 08 23 at 06:51 AM • permalinksundog,
I’m pretty sure the good Prof Froward was trying to make the same point as you, just in twenty words or less…
I rather doubt it. Froward’s point was that “Dissent is patriotic” and “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” are not compatible. My point was that both slogans are meaningless and stupid.
I’m a proud heretic being persecuted by the church of global warmenation.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 08 23 at 08:45 AM • permalink2. Paco
“Yet another complication is that the economic pain of achieving lower emissions could be greatly reduced if somebody somewhere could come up with a few technological breakthroughs.”Ask and you shall recieve.
http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/freeenergy.html
68.RebeccaH
too late the above article does that anyway (money men you know…, ((slips RebeccaH a sly wink and touches the side of his nose)).Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 08 23 at 08:50 AM • permalinkIs anyone here aware how much they sound like left wingers trying to pretend that terrorism is either our fault or not a serious problem? You want to believe that human generated Global warming is not a serious problem so you look for reasons to doubt that we have a problem. The trouble is the laws of nature are indifferent to politics. People here seem to be denying Global warming as a statement of their political position. But whether or not we are affecting the climate is a scientific question not a political one.
I do not like some of the things we might have to do to reduce the harm done by Global warming. And I certainly do not like the sanctimonious asceticism of a lot of greenies. But I believe that we are causing Global warming and that it will be a serious problem.
Can people tell me what would be required to convince them that we are affecting the climate to a degree that will harm us? What degree of certainty do you require before acting? Are you claiming that we have not greatly increased the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? Are you claiming that the surface of the World is not warming? Do you concede that greenhouse gases have increased and that the World is warming but do not believe the first is causing the second? Are you holding out for a simple proof? Can we get the proof that you want before a lot of harm is put in train? Do you doubt that Global warming would on balance be harmful?
Posted by Lloyd Flack on 2006 08 23 at 10:59 AM • permalink“Global warming” is a steaming pile of self-obsessed me-first Leftoid sky-is-falling Baby-boomer hubris.
Posted by -keith in mtn. view on 2006 08 23 at 11:27 AM • permalinkLloyd, why are we sceptics required to prove there isn’t global warming? Why shouldn’t you who want to destroy industrial civilization be required to prove, on the basis of real science and not your feelings, that it 1)exists, 2)is caused by human activity and 3) is harmful? Burden of proof is on you and your fellow religionists.
Lloyd didn’t even bother to read the comments, did he? There are plenty of people who express skepticism over the science, in my case largely because climate change is neither anything new nor is it apparently limited to Earth.
If Mars, Jupiter, and Pluto all show signs of warming as well, what makes us think our actions have had any bearing on the Earth’s climate? Or have we spewed out so much CO2 that it’s made its way to Jupiter and cranked up the greenhouse effect there, too?
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 08 23 at 12:11 PM • permalinkYou want to believe that human generated Global warming is not a serious problem so you look for reasons to doubt that we have a problem.
It has nothing to do with wanting to believe anything (that’s a disorder of the left, not the right) and reasons to doubt abound. Latino is right; it’s incumbent on the global warmists to prove their case, not on we skeptics to disprove it. The fact that the warmists want to declare the debate closed speaks volumes.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 08 23 at 12:19 PM • permalinkArnold Schwarzenegger already has approved of the general objective. Offering modest modifications in a bill by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, he’s agreed that the state must enforce the emissions standards of 1990 by 2020.
And this is but one reason why Ahnuld won’t be getting my vote this time out. And but one reason why we’re leaving the Golden State.
Welcome Al and Tipper! California’s liberal elite, hypocritical to its core, has much in common with Washington’s liberal elite, so you should feel right at home.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 08 23 at 02:25 PM • permalink#53 If we cut our emissions by 90% many will certainly die.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2006 08 23 at 03:03 PM • permalinkBeen busy, no time to read previous 125 comments.
I’m an engineer specializing in hydroelectric projects.
For over 40 years, I have been studying climatological records from many countries on 5 continents.
My conclusions:
last 35 years have been a bit warmer (easy to explain by looking at sea temps).
Urban Heat Islands (UHI) dramatically distort the data.
No particular evidence that anything unusual is going on.
On the whole, a bit of warming is good. Hard to see a downside at the moment.
#121 Kyda, believing what you want to believe is not a disease confined to the left. It just takes different forms on the right. Haven’t you ever had someone who agreed with you for completely the wrong reasons? Someone who you hoped would not open their mouth because if they did they would provide the other side with straw men for the slaughter.
I believe that we have sufficient information and analysis to be certain beyond reasonable doubt that we are significantly increasing the surface temperature of the World. We now have to plan our actions. In Science every theory is subject to challenge. But some of them are so well tested that we have to act on the assumption that they are true. It will require strong new evidence to force me to change my opinion on anthropogenic Global warming.
#119 Latino, I’m not trying to destroy industrial civilization. I’m trying to minimize some inevitable damage. I think there will be some environmental damage that we will not be able to avoid except at excessive cost to ourselves and hence that we will just have to accept. There will be some that we will be able to avoid at little cost. And there will be some difficult trade offs to be made. There will be cases where we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. But if we don’t face up to these problems then the agenda will end up being set by people like the greens. I would prefer that people who value our civilization made the choices including the trade offs. But to do this we have to accept the fact that we have some difficult choices coming up.
My opinions are based on the science not my feelings. The arguments are too long for a comment in someone else’s blog. They’re in posts in my blog here and here. While environmentalism can be a quasi-religion for some people attempting to dismiss opinions that you disagree with as religion is a bit of a cop out.
#120 Rob, global warming on Mars? It isn’t happening. There have been some local changes. The climate on Mars is much more volatile than that of Earth. Less thermal inertia because there aren’t any oceans. There has been some shrinkage of part of the Martian South Polar ice cap over a period of three years. Hardly evidence of a long term trend.
Why should any climate change on Mars have the same cause as climate change on Earth? The only possible common cause would be Solar variation. This hasn’t been happening. Satellites would have picked up any changes in Solar output that would be driving climate change on Earth and Mars. And Pluto? Two readings fourteen years apart? On a planet in that orbit?
As far as I can tell most of the harm of climate change comes from the speed of the change. Centuries of change are anticipated in decades. Economies have developed in certain climates. If the temperature and rainfall patterns change then some agricultural regions will not be able to efficiently continue producing what they have produced in the past. And some cities will be caught short of water by changes in rainfall.
Posted by Lloyd Flack on 2006 08 24 at 04:20 AM • permalinkSorry, the links to my posts didn’t work. My fault. Here they are.
Posted by Lloyd Flack on 2006 08 24 at 04:54 AM • permalinkLloyd says:
“As far as I can tell most of the harm of climate change comes from the speed of the change. Centuries of change are anticipated in decades.”
There even less evidence of rapid climate change than of the rest of the human-caused global warming hoax. It is propaganda designed to alarm the public, because the prospect of an increase of one degree on average over a century isn’t exciting or scary enough, especially with 7th century fundamentalist knuckleheads trying to kill or enslave the rest of the world.Latino, I agree that Islamism is a more urgent problem than Global warming. They are trying to kill or oppress us now or in the next few decades. Most of the harm from Global warming will fall on future generations. So for now battling Islamism should have a higher priority than dealing with Global warming. Anyhow reducing our oil requirements is a step towards tackling both problems.
I see Global warming as being the more serious long term problem. We have all the resources required to defeat the Islamists. We just require the will and persistence and judgment. Global warming is a more difficult problem. It will require greater resources and we will only partly succeed. The changes will persist for centuries.
Talking about a hoax looks like a desire to see your opponents as acting in bad faith. This was the point I was trying to make about the behavior of many global warming deniers. Yes, it has been adopted as a weapon by obnoxious greenies. That doesn’t make it false. Most people who have looked closely at the scientific evidence have agreed that the problem is real.
The prove that we are affecting the climate we have to show three things. The first is that we have increased the concentration of greenhouse gases. The second is that temperatures are increasing. The third is to show that the increase in greenhouse gases is the main cause of the temperature increases. I think all three have been shown.
CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% from pre-industrial levels. About three quarters of this has been due to fossil fuel burning and the rest is due to land use changes (clearing etc.). We know this from analysis of air trapped in glaciers.
We have thousands of measurements of temperature at thousands of locations world wide. If you put the data together you find an increasing trend at the surface, in the troposphere and in the oceans. We also find a general retreat of mountain glaciers across the world. In addition stratospheric temperatures are decreasing.
The pattern of temperature changes from greenhouse gas forcing would be different from that for solar forcing. We have the greenhouse gas pattern. The stratosphere is cooling while everything beneath warms. Nights warm more than days. Winters warm more than summers. The Poles warm more than the Tropics.
Looking at this evidence I have to say that anthropogenic Global warming is real.
Posted by Lloyd Flack on 2006 08 24 at 08:25 PM • permalink
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Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised if the world’s getting a bit warmer. Mars, Jupiter, and Pluto have also been getting a touch warmer lately, too, and we know the Earth’s been much, much warmer before—as well as been much, much cooler before.
What I don’t believe is that the actions of humanity have much to do with it, or that the same exact actions we were told to take to stave off The Coming Ice Age will make a bit of difference.
And I can’t help but notice that those actions always involve giving control of our lives over to the same group of people.