www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall More Proof of Global Warming?

I would not have commented about Stuart's posting if he had noted the Obama's approach to global warming was no different than that of Bush in that both groups were trying to repress the views they were opposed to. I personally do not have a dog in the fight, but I like full disclosure.

Jean Francois,
You seem to have missed the point of my post and several others.

We have elected representatives voting on financially life changing legislation without having even read the legislation they are voting on! This is patently stupid government, plain and simple!

"Additionally, the fact that the Obama administration may be censoring opponents of global warning is no different from what the Bush administration did to those who argued in favor global warming."

Ah, yes. Dr. James Hansen of NASA, the world's most outspoken suppressed (and consistently wrong) scientist? Have you bothered to read anything any of Hansen's peers have said about him and his research? About the manner in which he cooked his data, cherry-picked his evidence and committed elementary methodological errors? Peer review of his work reveals a man who walks the thin line of scientific fraud--and sometimes steps well over it (remember the hockey stick chart?).

"I would not have commented about Stuart's posting if he had noted the Obama's approach to global warming was no different than that of Bush in that both groups were trying to repress the views they were opposed to. I personally do not have a dog in the fight, but I like full disclosure."

Can you name, and provide details of, one instance in which the Bush Administration actually suppressed a scientific report due to its political implications rather than to faulty science?

More on Hansen: Late in 2008, it was discovered that Hansen had manipulated temperature data in his reports to turn an obvious cooling trend into a major warming trend. Unfortunately, people checked his numbers. In other fields, even in government, this kind of malfeasance gets scientists fired. Yet Hansen remains at NASA. Martyrdom should always be this painful. See: American Thinker [americanthinker.com]

January 06, 2009
Global Warm-mongering: More Silk from a Pig's Ear
Gregory Young

It seems that NASA's James Hansen, head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), is at it again. He just can't let the data speak for itself. In yet another egregious display of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) arrogance, he changed the temperature data from 1910-2008 to reflect what is clearly a cooling trend to reflect a warming trend. (Y-axis = Annual Mean Temperatures in centigrade; X-axis = Year)

[Linked Image]

These are the USHCN (United States Historical Climatology Network) "raw" and "homogenized" data plots from the GISTEMP (GISS Surface Temperature) website synthesized into one chart with polynomial fit trend lines. As seen in this comparison chart, the Blue Lines represent raw data -- clearly indicating a cooling trend. Whereas the Red Lines are the adjusted trends after subjected to Hansen's own curiously compensating algorithm. Junk in = Junk out.

Indeed this past year (2008) is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released this month by the Met Office's Hadley Centre in Great Britain. The global average for 2008 should come in close to 14.3C, which is 0.14C below the average temperature for 2001-07.

Nevertheless, global warming partisans at the Met and elsewhere have taken to assuring everyone that cool temperatures are "absolutely not" evidence that global warming is on the wane. Yet those warning and cautionary adamancies are always absent when it comes to linking heat waves to global warming. "Curiouser and curiouser," said Lewis Carroll.

However, One major glitch in the reporting of temperatures has been quietly forgotten by the Met and others of AGW persuasion as documented here.... When the Soviet Union fell in 1990 the number of reporting weather stations around the world declined from a high of 15,000 in 1970 to 5,000 in 2000, no appropriate compensatory weighting mechanism was thereafter applied. Such an absence critically skews everything thereafter to the warmer side of things, since it takes some of the coldest places on the planet (like Siberia) out of the equation. With that absence, it's likely getting colder than we now know. How convenient!

Said Geophysicist Dr. David Deming, associate professor of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma who has published numerous peer-reviewed research articles:

"Environmental extremists and global warming alarmists are in denial and running for cover.... To the extent global warming was ever valid, it is now officially over. It is time to file this theory in the dustbin of history, next to Aristotelean physics, Neptunism, the geocentric universe, phlogiston, and a plethora of other incorrect scientific theories, all of which had vocal and dogmatic supporters who cited incontrovertible evidence. Weather and climate change are natural processes beyond human control. To argue otherwise is to deny the factual evidence."

Amen and Amen!

Dr. Gregory Young is a neuroscientist and physicist, a doctoral graduate of the University of Oxford, Oxford, England. He currently chairs a privately funded think-tank engaged in experimental biophysical research.

Excellent point! I whole heartily agree. That fact that Pres asked for and Congress is trying hard to ram Cap and Trade Bill without much debate at all! This should bother Americans!

But, as Administrator said, the debate at present is centered on economic and fiscal effects, not on the fundamental science of climate change. The debate needs to go back to first principles:

1. Is there an ongoing climatic shift, and if so, what is it?
2. If there is a climate shift, to what extent does human activity drive or even contribute to it?
3. If human activity is a major factor in climate shift, what is the most effective use of resources to mitigate its effects?
4. If human activity is not a major factor, then what should we be doing?

I thank Jean Francois for posting the article. I would invite him to consider the nature of the articles that he is posting and linking to. None put forth scientific evidence of global warming. Like the most recent article he posted in this thread, they all assume a coming global warming catastrophe and demand action. The few that offer anything scientific (like past retardation of the ice caps) offer absolutely no link to being caused by man (and, indeed, could be very well cyclical in nature as they were earlier in history).

JF starts with belief in global warming and skips the fact that there is no evidence to support his claims (in fact, the earth is cooling and the earth temperature was the same at the end of 2007 as it was in the 1930s). He puts ‘group think’ (consensus of our politicians) before science. Remember “Chicken Little”? Chicken Little got hit by a falling acorn and falsely concluded that that the sky was falling and that the end of the world was imminent. She convinced all her friends and even the king that the end was near (consensus) and there was incredible hysteria (in some versions of the story crazy foxes like Al Gore come and make off with all their money!). The ‘group think’ is so powerful that no one bothers to understand that it was just a single acorn that fell and Chicken Little ignored the basics of scientific principle. In the case of claimed global warming we don’t even have a real acorn. The ‘acorn’ is the computer model that somehow turns a cooling trend into doom and gloom global warming (and it does not matter that the scientists have shown the computer models to be faulty and useless).

In the long run I am positive. The global warming zealots have overplayed their hands and scientists are now speaking out, with many indicating that they are sick of the political pressure to keep silent. Although yesterday’s House vote for a national energy tax (Cap & Trade) won, it is doubtful the bill will survive the Senate (so those of us who care about both people and the environment need to contact our senators to ask them to reject that very bad legislation). [It speaks volumes that literally no representative bothered to read the bill and they had to keep it secret before voting despite their promise to make it public.]

Stuart provides four very good questions. Somehow I expect that if JF responds he will skip all of them and just post another story or quote or link that skips the science and joins Chicken Little! Clearly the hysteria is what is important to the global warming crowd – forget science.

Good stewardship based upon good science is the way forward. Forget 'group think' and rotten acorns.

Stuart, i was only pointing out that both sides play the same game. I was not commenting on content!

Let us all pray, and call, write, morse code, anything, to our senators and let them know that this is bad government in action! The Obama campaign promised more openness, and yet all we have seen since January are repeats of major legislation being voted on without critical review.
Ask your own Senator if they know what the House bill contains. Their answer will be quite telling.

Global warming may be true, it may or may not be human cause, or even cause by cow farts. That said, is killiing our own economy with suicidal legislation the answer to "saving the planet"?

Say Cap & Trade goes into effect, what happens? More jobs in USA? Not at all guaranteed. Since production costs will rise, even for those helpful things as windmills, solar panels, alternate fuels, most of the actual production will go offshore. What money will we use to buy this more expensive infrastructure with unemployment hovering above 10% and a mega costly healthcare bill looming on the horizon, adding more out of pocket expense via more taxes?

"Remember “Chicken Little”?"

Great movie. My kids loved it.

Dear Steve,

I would agree with your statement. Next time tell the Republicans to read the legislation before they vote on it. It's the least they could given that the Democrats almost learned each line by heart.

I.F.

"It's the least they could given that the Democrats almost learned each line by heart."

That's why Rep. Jim Boehner, the House Minority Leader, stood to read 100 pages of amendments added to the bill, at the last moment by the Majority, which would otherwise have been voted upon without any reading whatsoever. It must also be why only eight Republicans voted for the bill, while some 44 Democrats voted against it.

Did you ever have to watch that movie in junior high called "How a Bill Becomes a Law"? Maybe you should check it out of the library.

Apparently, the Democrats never watched that film, either:


David Freddoso of the Examiner [washingtonexaminer.com]

Science has proven that global climate change is a catastrophy waiting to happen, and the matter has been righfully given a top priority by the US government - at least those members who collectively have won a majority of seats and can now vote in tandem with the rest of the civilized world, and even parts which are less civilized.

Here are a few solutions to reduce greenhouse gases. None are easy to implement and will take a generation or two, but 'it's a plan'.

SOLUTIONS:
1. Cut the number of coal and natural-gas power plants to 20 by 2020 from more than 6,000 today.

2. Cover a quarter of home and commercial roofs in the U.S. with solar photovoltaic panels.

3. Create a new “Green Vet Initiative” to place veterans in green jobs.

4. Make every new car by 2012 be a flex-fuel vehicle, which means it can run on either gasoline or biofuel.

5. Stop using natural gas for power generating and use it to move trucks and other vehicles instead.

6. Reduce use of oil for cars by 44% and stop using coal and oil entirely by 2030, spending $3.86 trillion on the effort.

7. Replace a quarter of oil use with domestic biofuels.

8. Generate 10% of our electricity from renewables by 2012, and 25% by 2025.

9. Create a $1 billion award from the government for an advanced vehicle technology that gains market success.

10. Create “feebates,” or consumer and manufacturer incentives for efficient vehicles, and cash incentives (or vouchers) for retiring old vehicles.

11. Install 80 gigawatts of offshore wind power.

12. Reduce payroll taxes sharply and make up the difference with CO2 taxes.

13. Create an “electranet,” allowing individuals to sell electricity produced on their properties back to the grid and to use smart meters and other tools to manage their electricity usage.

14. Use energy-monitoring products that show consumers each of their appliances’ electricity consumption.

15. Create a “Connie Mae,” or Carbon Neutral Mortgage Association, to market new financial instruments for efficiency improvements in homes.

16. Have 90% of new-car sales in 2030 be plug-ins.

17. Have 20% to 30% of electricity needs generated by wind.

18. Increase current transmission lines by 10%.

19. Establish a Grid Modernization Commission to facilitate adoption of a national smart grid.

20. Generate 15% of electricity needs from geothermal power by 2030.

21. Have solar thermal as 13% of electricity generation and solar photovoltaics as 3%.

22. Weatherize one million homes a year.

23. Enter into public-private partnerships to develop five first-of-a-kind commercial scale coal-fired plants with carbon capture and sequestration.

24. Use well-established and profitable efficiency techniques to save half the projected 2025 use of natural gas.

There are a few ideas I usurped from a good source.

Rather than whinning, think of ways how your local community can profit from the new ecofriendly economy. The world is going Green Friendly.

By the way, what's the Vatican's position on 'Green' issues. I know they have a polcy on such issues but I would have no idea where to find it.

I.F.

"Science has proven that global climate change is a catastrophy waiting to happen"

"Science"? Is that a person, an office, or a process? In any case, having presented you with a range of qualified dissenting opinions, you seem only willing to ignore them.

"and the matter has been righfully given a top priority by the US government - at least those members who collectively have won a majority of seats and can now vote in tandem with the rest of the civilized world, and even parts which are less civilized."

So, this isn't a matter of being right, this is about being liked by decadent European countries which, by the way, not only have never met any of their own emissions reduction targets, but are now walking away from the very idea en masse. Also, if the civilized world includes such places as Russia, China, India, Japan, Southeast Asia and Latin America, they were never on board, either.

Regarding your solutions, as I said, environmentalism is a religion for people who can't do math and don't understand engineering.