www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Global Warming is a Scam

Greenland used to be Green

How did a glacier-covered island get the name Greenland? In Norse legends written in the 12th century and later, it is told that Eric the Red explored the southeast and southwest coasts of Greenland in a.d. 983-986 and gave the country its name because people would be more likely to go there if it had an attractive name. Greenland was warmer in the tenth century than it is now. There were many islands teeming with birds off its western coast; the sea was excellent for fishing; and the coast of Greenland itself had many fjords where anchorage was good. At the head of the fjords there were enormous meadows full of grass, willows, junipers, birch, and wild berries. Thus Greenland actually deserved its name. Another attraction of Greenland was that Iceland and northwestern Europe, including England, had a grievous year of famine in 976, and people were hungry for food as well as land.

Written by Laura Niver, AEI

Scientific evidence has demonstrated that Europe is about 10 degrees cooler now then it was a thousand years ago. Greenland is closer to 12 or 15 degrees cooler. In the 1980s Al Gore complained about global cooling. All that pollution was going to freeze us to death. He was wrong then and he is wrong now.

Iceland was becoming crowded. There is a Saga written about the discovery and founding of Greenland.

Why is it that Conservatives overwhelmingly reject Global Warming, while Liberals seem to overwhelmingly believe in it ?

Good question. I wish I had the answer. Here is my educated guess.

About a generation ago, pretty much everyone in America shared the same Judeo-Christian background. They might not have practiced or believed in their religion, but they understood the world in terms of it.

As far as the environment goes, the Judeo-Christian view is the following:
-- God created the world and pronounced it good;
-- mankind's job is to act as good stewards of the earth.

By the 1980s, however, a significant portion of the American people no longer saw the world in terms of Judaism or Christianity. They saw it in purely secular terms. And we all discovered this during the debate over the spotted owl .

As a result, what used to be called ecology and conservation became polarized into "environmentalism" -- pro and con. Each side ridiculed and sometimes demonized the other side as buffoons, and they stopped listening to each other. Ecology overall and global warming in specific became the latest battles in an ongoing civil war in America's culture.

Which is pathetic, because ecology is a science. I think the scientific evidence points to man-made global warming. But, I respect the folks who reach another conclusion: that there might be global warming by a number of different causes. What I disrespect are the extremist views: either "the sky is falling" or the idea that nothing untoward is occurring.

Happily, places like this forum exist to allow people from different perspectives to actually listen to each other.

-- John

John,

I respect science. There can be more than one valid interpretation of data. Two contradictory interpretations, carefully put forward and well justified, can both be untrue. But if they are contradictory, they both can't be right. I am speaking generally and about the major issue an argument tackles.

Often the case is that both sides are true up to a point and then infer beyond what can be known by science as currently developed.

I could not say that global climate is unaffected by human action if I claim that it is completely unreasonable to say the opposite. I would be making a very similar argument which would be rooted in opinion rather than science. So it then becomes an "is so!" and "is not!" argument from childhood.

What I have a problem with is the rhetoric and politics that emerge in the public debate and especially with certain policy initiatives enacted by local, federal, and international bodies.

Terry

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/11/everything_is_caused_by_global.html

A game of sorts has started on the Defenders of the Catholic Faith forum to demenstrate a causal link between any random activity and global warming. A fellow offered that his ethernet card (whatever that is) went down. So he challenged people to provide a connection between that and global warming withing six steps. Check it out http://forums.catholic-convert.com/viewtopic.php?t=81712

CDL

CDL:

This is a special computer card that allows people to enter a special system. My children had to have special cards like this installed in their computers so they could access their respective university internal servers, databases, and whatever else they needed to do within the university.

BOB

Unless you guys are still dialing up to the internet, you have an ethernet card (or one embedded within your mainboard) in your computers now. If you have DSL or a Cable Modem, that 8-pin telephone looking plug on the back of your computer is your "ethernet jack."

The general public has had enough of higher taxes and pretty much is against having their taxes raised. Global warming has offered those who favor higher taxes a reason to begin generating tax revenue out of the public all in the name of saving the planet. Before this can start in earnest however, the case has to be built. Who generally speaking is in favor of higher taxes, conservatives or liberals? That will answer your question.

Those who are even more radical see this as an opportunity to attack capitalism. Really read the Kyoto protocol and what the US would have to do to adhere to it if you don't believe me.

Make no mistake, the environment should be taken care of, but global warming is not a real issue and is really a scam. I'd still like to know how the previous ice ages ended and the planet warmed without evil industrialists and capitalists existing at those times?

Monomakh

I will take all this environmentalims rant seriously when they insist that China complies with the SAME regulations that U.S. companies have to comply with. It won't happen. Environmentalims is a U.S. silliness because it is the place where everyone wants to suck money out of.

Follow the money. It makes environmentalism and global warming easier to understand.

Ed

Excellent point. And that is another reason why environmentalism makes so much sense to me. Petroleum is limited and non-renewable. Bio-fuels are made from plants that grow every year. The smart money, in my opinion, is focusing on bio-fuels and other forms of renewable energy. That is especially true in the development of enzymes that could convert all kinds of plant meterials (like wood chips, lawn cuttings, etc.) easily into biofuels; so, we wouldn't be reliant solely on crops for biofuels.

All of this would have the happy results of (1) relying less on other countries (like the Middle East) for our energy, (2) restoring agriculture to a truly profitable enterprise again, (3) sensibly using plant materials --like wood chips and lawn cuttings-- that are currently just waste, and (4) of course, helping the environment . . .

-- John

And sun spots might have an effect on global warming . . and their absence might actually cool the earth. This article in today's edition of the Independent has much food for thought:

http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3223603.ece

-- John

John,

Whenever new insights or deeper insights into physical phenomena come along we search around for answers. Entreprenuers find ways of making money no matter what happens. Algore makes all entrepreneurs look dishonest, like huksters. But without entrepreneurs we would not advance economically.

Algore aside if sunspots are the way our Lord ends life on earth, so be it. I don't believe so. Should we be good stewards of the gifts God gives us? Should we be more conserving of oil? Would a simpler life style, one that respects Christ and His Church, be the way we should live? Certainly. I've been a conservationist all of my life and I trace it back to my faith in Christ and my respect for a simpler lifestyle. Yet, until we convert the world to Christ and His Church and until we find a way to live without so much oil, I don't think fast major changes are going to take place and I don't believe the end of the world is upon us in either case.

No matter what, Algore is a false prophet and he certainly is not the high priest of any religion I would wish to follow.

CDL

Preach it Br. John!!

Finally, a presidential candidate I can get behind! (Or are you going to wait till the next election cycle??)

I have been saying for a decade now that if we were SERIOUS about getting the hell out of the Mid East and NOT sending money over there in boat-loads (tanker boats that is) we would have:

* invested a few billion in bio-fuel production
* covered 100 sq miles of the US desert with photovoltaic cells**
* offered serious incentives for the auto industry to design, and the consumer to buy far more fuel efficent vehicles

As it stands right now, we have the technology to create biofuels from algae that lives in salt water - something we can get on THREE coasts in the US.

also see:
http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2005/11/69528

and:
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=45445
""Every year, each square kilometer of desert receives solar energy equivalent to 1.5 million barrels of oil."

**Solar panels are not nearly as efficent in solar conversion as they could be, yet I have much faith in industrial efforts in the US to improve them if they actually had the incentive of large contracts to produce cheaper more efficient units.

We seem to be able to buy almost anything we want. Why can't we get the technology developed in South America--Brazil?--where they'd been working on an alternative to oil since the early 1970s oil crisis and recently became free of foreign oil? Is it because the oil industry is too tightly attached to our political system?

BOB